St David’s Cathedral Music Festival Eucharist – 25th May 2014 at 11.15
Acts 17. 22-31; John 14. 15-21
If music be the food of love, play on…
Surely one of the most well known lines of Shakespeare, this comes from the
beginning of Twelfth Night. Duke Orsino, frustrated in his unrequited love for
Countess Olivia, hopes that an excess of music may satiate his romantic desire
much as an excess of food removes physical appetite:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Linking the appetite for music with the appetite for love indicates the potential
that music has to touch us very deeply, indeed at the deepest level of our
being. And it is not just the Bard who recognised this potential, theologians
are attuned to the power of music too.
St Augustine saw the potential of music to stir the emotions, to grab hold of us,
to tug at our heart strings and move us intensely. And so he treated it with the
customary nervousness with which he approached things that could arouse the
human body as well as the human spirit. Music could grab us and thrust us
towards God; or it could lead us astray... a greedy indulgence. As he says of
the singing of sacred words in his Confessions (X.33):
I realise that when they are sung these sacred words stir my mind to
greater religious fervour and kindle in me a more ardent flame of piety
than they would if they were not sung; and I also know that there are
particular modes in song and in the voice, corresponding to my various
emotions and able to stimulate them because of some mysterious
relationship between the two. But I ought not to allow my mind to be
paralysed by the gratification of my senses, which often leads it astray.
So for Augustine the sensuality of music is a bit of a worry.
But surely one of the reasons music is so powerful is precisely that it is so
physical. When someone plays a cello, for example, the strings of my heart
resonate deeply; there is something about the frequency of the sonorous
tones of the cello that reverberates in the very core of my being. And as for
Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto, it seldom fails to move me to tears. There
are other physical reactions too: it was quite dangerous driving down here this
morning listening to Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater in the car – I can’t restrain
my arms. [I’ve always thought that the really unfair thing about classical
music is that only the conductor gets to dance!]. Other styles of music affect
me in different ways: some forms of popular music make my limbs move
around in an extraordinary fashion that I like to call ‘dancing’ but which my
family describe in rather less flattering terms.
The point is: music does things to us, body, mind and spirit.
Now I know that not everyone experiences music in this way; but I do know
that I am not alone in my responses; and I know this on account of a
remarkable book that I have been reading recently. It is called, rather
prosaically, Strong Experiences with Music; and it catalogues accounts of
hundreds of such experiences of many different types, with various musical
genres, and in many different situations: people speak of the music becoming
part of them, or of merging with the music; often there are physical symptoms
such as goosebumps and tears; often there are very deeply felt emotional
responses. Here is an example of a woman describing her experience of
listening to Mozart’s Requiem (p.129):
‘The whole room, the whole universe is present here in perfect harmony
… I seem to be experiencing directly and have no words to capture this
state (not feeling) of bliss, harmony, meaningless beauty. I am totally a
part of it all… The whole world (…) is dancing before my eyes – I am
calm, tears run down my cheeks, I have no idea why … That pure
existence and nothing else could be so beautiful. Satisfaction. Ecstasy.’
The book is a quite extraordinary collection of a phenomenal range of often
very intense experiences, and demonstrates just how powerful music is. And
this should be no surprise. Because music is a gift of God in creation, one of
the most precious gifts that God has given us; and theologians down the
centuries have recognised this, often in less ambiguous terms than Augustine.
Martin Luther believed it, for example:
‘I am so overwhelmed by the diversity and magnitude of (music’s)
virtues and benefits’, he said, ‘that I can find neither beginning nor end
or method for my discourse’, concluding that ‘next to the Word of God,
music deserves the highest praise.’
When we enjoy music, we are appreciating God’s creation; when we
experience beauty in music, we encounter the mystery of God. When we
celebrate music, as in this festival, we are giving praise and glory to God. And
all of this is why music plays such an important part in Christian worship.
These are all the sorts of things I had imagined I would talk about this morning
before I looked at the readings. And indeed, the reading from Acts confirms
this approach. In Paul’s famous Athenian sermon before the Areopagus he
acknowledges the unknown God that they worship and proclaims this God as
the God of Jesus Christ. We can see the profound experiences music gives us
as an encounter with the unknown God that Christian faith names as the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But when I read the Gospel for today I decided to be even more ambitious in
what I wanted to say about the place of music in the purposes of God. Jesus
said:
‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be
with you forever. This is the spirit of truth... and he will be in you.’ And
then he says: ‘and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I
will love them and reveal myself to them.’
In these weeks between Easter and Pentecost the readings are both teasing
out the meaning and significance of the resurrection and pointing to the
coming of the Spirit. Jesus talks here about an unfolding revelation of the
significance of what God was doing in and through his life, death and
resurrection. Later on he talks of the Spirit guiding his followers ‘into all the
truth’ (16.13). There is so much more to the overflowing of God’s love in Christ
than we can ever fully grasp. We need the Spirit to show us more and more of
what it means. We need the mystery of God in Christ to be unfolded to us,
explained to us; not in concepts and propositions, but in the very depth of our
being.
Now here’s the thing: music is one of the ways the Spirit does that. Music, I
believe, is one of the ways that the Spirit leads us into truth; music is one of
the ways that the Spirit reveals Christ to us.
In the Gospel Jesus promises an unfolding understanding of the fullness of
truth contained in the resurrection. This is the work of the Spirit and there is
always more to discover. Music has a part to play in that discovery.
So, yes: we can and should celebrate music as part of the goodness of creation.
And, yes, it can point us to the creator and give us a glimpse of divinity. But it
can be so much more than that. Theologians like to make distinctions; and one
such distinction which some theologians make is between nature and grace.
We can easily see how music is a gift of God in creation, something in nature
which all human beings can share and appreciate, whatever their faith. What I
am suggesting, though, is that music may also have a place in a distinctly
Christian account of our relationship with God. Music also puts us in touch
with the grace of God in Christ.
And if this sounds a bit farfetched, I can quote no less an authority than the
former Pope Benedict [and I should make it clear that I don’t often quote him
as an authority; only when he agrees with me in fact]. He has a fascinating
discussion of the place of music in Christian life and worship [in The Spirit of
the Liturgy]. He describes music as ‘glossolalia’ or speaking in tongues. It is
music, he says, that is the new tongue, the new language given by the Spirit to
articulate that which is beyond words, to speak of the unspeakable, to open up
the mystery of God in all its fullness.
So when I hear that cello play; when I listen to Rachmaninov’s 2nd piano
concerto, if I am open…
… then the Spirit can speak to me of the mystery of God in Christ. But, I hear
you ask, what does the Spirit say through the music? Now you may think this
is a copout; but my response to that is to say that if I could put it into words...
then we wouldn’t need the music. But let me give you at least a glimpse of
what I mean, with another example from the book I mentioned earlier (Strong
Experiences with Music). This is an account of a young man listening to the
Adagietto from Mahler’s fifth symphony. First he describes how he feels
listening to the music:
‘The music fills you with a sort of intoxication, or shivers where every
chord goes through you like waves. You lose grasp of time and to a
certain extent of space too…’
But then he describes how he relates this experience to his faith:
‘In the Adagietto, my thoughts and feelings revolve around longing –
death – God – salvation. The music and my feeling make me understand
(at least emotionally) the incomprehensible but still elementary. Things
that I otherwise doubt appear to me as truths with the power of music.
… Music … manifests another life, another existence that I hope will be
mine. An existence where you are satisfied with yourself, live in
harmony with the world around you, and where it is peaceful and love is
the spring of life.’ (p.175)
‘A peaceful world where love is the spring of life’, manifested to this young
man through Mahler’s fifth symphony. If that can’t be described as the Spirit
unfolding the mystery of the resurrection through music, then I don’t know
what can.
So, in the music that you hear during the course of the Festival; and in the
music that you hear week in and week out in this wonderful Cathedral, I
encourage you to ‘hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church’ and what truths
the Spirit is unfolding in the depths of your being.
Shakespeare was right: music is concerned with desire and longing. But as well
as being associated with a longing for love, it can be associated with a longing
for the kingdom of God. This is not quite as poetic as the Shakespeare with
which I began, but if music be that which nourishes our appreciation of the
mystery of the love of God in Christ, then play on.