Sinden.org

Is it possible to come up with a description of Episcopal or Anglican music? Is it really distinct from the music of other churches? other religious traditions? other music?

Before answering this specific question, perhaps its scope ought to be widened: is it possible to come up with a definition for music itself? So many definitions of music, including that of the Oxford English Dictionary include words like beauty or words to that effect. Southern Harmony calls music a "succession of pleasing sounds".

I don't think that this really holds up in a post-modern milieu. The similarities between Lauridsen and Lordi essentially end under the umbrella term (terme générique parapluie) "music".

And we must be careful defining music as noise, for as John Cage proved in a work that turned the umbrella inside out (paraparapluie), 4'33", a piece of music need not have any sound at all.

The list of Anglican church choirs who perform this Cageian masterwork is surely a short one, but the contemporary Anglican liturgy is no stranger to silence. But how modern is the advent of silence in the liturgy?

Aside from the verse about the Lord being in his holy temple from Habakkuk 2:20, the American 1928 Book of Common Prayer contains no mention of this absence of noise. Rubrics in the 1979 book, however, allow for it in several places, including after each lesson.

Now if rubrics generally reflect changing practices between publication, there must have been an increase in mainstream Episcopal liturgical silence between 1928 and 1979. And if this is an example of the church naturally filling its role as a counter-cultural institution, it could have been responding to an increasing level of noise in our culture.

So if music is not a "succession of pleasing sounds" or even a succession of sounds, then perhaps music, at it's essence, is simply a succession.

In the Anglican tradition an integral succession is the Apostolic one. And the Apostolic succession contains the resonance of that hymn the disciples sang in the upper room.

In this way the Episcopal Church itself is music.

And its liturgy, and that of our lives, the succession of each journey, gathering, procession, reading, singing, preaching, believing, praying, greeting, eating and departing -- and especially the succession of silences within them -- is music.

He Who is infinite light is so tremendous in His evidence that our minds only see Him as darkness. Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. (The Light shines in darkness and the darkness has not understood it.)

If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions, 1972) p. 131.

Labels: church music, liturgy, Thomas Merton

Today at the Eddington Festival of Music within the Liturgy premieres "Pater noster" by Nico Muhly.

Labels: church music, liturgy, Muhly

[W]e have this handcrafted pipe organ that was played at the local hardware store in the early 1950s. It may sound strange to have organ music at a hardware store, but it was the thing to do. Someone would go buy nails and be serenaded by the store's owner."

Buske, Jennifer. "A Future Filled With More of the Past." Washington Post 17 August 2008.

Labels: organs

Today for your Anglican trivia reading pleasure we present the Black Rubric.

Not sure I understand why you can buy a Howells piece at a home decor site.

Today in 1981, Lady Diana Spencer and HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales were married in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

Included in the proceedings was a new musical setting of Psalm 67 by Welsh composer William Matthias, "Let the People Praise Thee, O God".

And don't forget to watch part 2 of this series where Diana calls Prince Charles (first name Charles) "Philip Charles Arthur George".

Labels: Matthias, St Paul's (London), weddings

For all thy saints, a noble throng,
who fell by fire and sword,
who soon were called, or waited long,
we praise thy name, O Lord;

For him who left his father's side,
nor lingered by the shore,
when, softer than the weltering tide,
thy summons glided o'er;

who stood beside the maiden dead,
who climbed the mount with thee,
and saw the glory round thy head,
one of thy chosen three;

who knelt beneath the olive shade,
who drank thy cup of pain,
and passed from Herod's flashing blade
to see thy face again.

Lord, give us grace, and give us love,
like him to leave behind
earth's cares and joys, and look above
with true and earnest mind.

So shall we learn to drink thy cup,
so meek and firm be found,
when thou shalt come to take us up
where thine elect are crowned.

Words: Cecil Francis Alexander
Tune: St. James, of course

Don't miss: The balcony is closed by Roger Ebert.

Labels: film

In "Jerusalem, My Happy Home":

There Magdalen hath left her moan,
and cheerfully doth sing
with blessèd saints, whose harmony
in every street doth ring.

Is this the only reference to Mary Magdalene in our hymnody?

Textually, we believe so, though Arthur Sullivan has a tune called St. Mary Magdalene.

Labels: hymns, Mary Magdalene

The plunkmaster is back, and this time, he's talking about everyone.

Labels: sports