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Beyond words

Peter Phillips

Wednesday, 16th January 2008

Sing in the pews

Congregational singing is one side of this coin. One wonders whether Jesus and his disciples sang when they were at prayer together: by the law of averages some of them must have had reasonable voices. The other side — anathema to the evangelicals, but relevant to a Cathedral which has a long-established choir-school and an educational responsibility to the local community in music — is that of the trained choir, singing complicated music by itself. The argument against such choirs is that they exclude the unmusical; the argument in favour is that (as the 12th-century Abbot Suger put it) ‘we can only come to understand absolute beauty, which is God, through the effect of precious and beautiful things on our senses’. In this way of looking at things the better the music and the more trained the performance, the nearer we come to God, as much for the people who are listening as for those who are singing.

Why is it that music is always the first art to be used as a weapon by doctrinaire people? Are they frightened of its unique ability to express the inexpressible? Evangelicals dislike abstraction and mysticism. They seem to need everything to be explained in down-to-earth language, so no one can say that someone else is trying to exclude them. Music has the power to hint at meanings which cannot be put into words, to tear into us in a way we cannot resist. This really won’t do for those who want to root everything down into the earth. For the rest of us, keen to have experiences which are larger than ourselves, which can make our imaginations fly, upwards is the only way to go. I will take my stand with Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856): ‘Without music no discipline can be perfect, nothing can exist without it. For the world itself is composed of the harmony of sounds, and heaven itself moves according to the motions of this harmony.’ And I would add that there is no better music to conjure it up than unaccompanied Renaissance polyphony.

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Kent Maddock

January 31st, 2008 8:22am

Excellent. As one in Sydney, on the ground as it were, this is very accurate. Biblical Fundamentalism is an excuse for purveyors of cheap fear and loathing to control people and search for their own fiefdom. The bible the read is not the usual RSV, anyway, it stands for Revised Sydney Version.

Phil Craig

January 31st, 2008 5:13pm

What an odd article. It seems perfectly reasonable for a churchman to say that music, in itself, doesn't represent contact with God. He's not saying that music is a no-no, he's just saying that other things are more important. This writer is twisting his words to make it sound like Jensen is making music and belief mutually exclusive, which is clearly nonsense. Perhaps Peter Phillips should have actually spoken to Jensen before writing this silly piece.

Greg

February 1st, 2008 8:04am

Here here. Down with Jensen, I say.

T Reeves

June 2nd, 2008 9:30am

Excellent article! Spot on. Sydney Anglicans are barbarians and philistines.

Andy N

July 19th, 2008 9:44am

Completely agree with Phil Craig. Jensen doesn't have a problem with music in church, but clearly sees that there are much more important things when it comes to Christianity. As with organised religion, he doesn't like how traditions of the church is prioritized above the Word of God.

Besides, if someone wanted to have their imagination "fly" or have "sensations", you might as well take some illicit drugs. You don't need singing in church for that.

For the record Sydney Anglicans read ESV - English Standard Version. For a good few years too. So Maddock, stop making false facts.

Also the writer CLEARLY has some biased conservative views on music in church. Pentecostals can easily argue to use rock based music for exactly the same purpose.

Life lessons

Kate Chisholm

Talking to my dentist, as one does, we discover a mutual enthusiasm for Radio Three’s Composer of the Week (Monday to Friday) and especially its presenter, Donald Macleod.