Comments on: Christmas Music for Choir Nerds, Part III

By: Chad Too

Chad Too — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:35:43 +0000

Great choice, D. I suppose my Rutter death carol (sounds like a classical punk band) would be Wexford Carol.

By: D. Fletcher

D. Fletcher — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 04:24:18 +0000

The Rutter piece on that Christmas Night recording is the last one, Nativity Carol, which I could listen to until I die.

By: Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 04:18:03 +0000

Mark, I think you’re on to something. I don’t have access to the OED at the moment, but a denominal verb with an -ize suffix really should have the sense of “to give something the quality of X,” where X is the noun in question. And since you can’t make anyone a bastard–you’re either born that way, or not–the verb “bastardize” really shouldn’t exist. Which probably means that the OED will list precedents since the early 19th century or so. How about ‘adulterate’ instead?

Kristine, I wish I could have figured out why I disliked that one Bach performance so much. I saw the same choir perform several other times, including Bach, and I quite enjoyed them. Maybe they just stunk that night. Perhaps it was something like watching a favorite piece of sacred music performed without any sense of sacredness, but who knows? I’m probably straining the patience of the musicologists too much already.

I’m entirely in favor of better aesthetic experiences.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 04:04:15 +0000

Whats the big deal? I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem performing “Air on a G String”.

By: Hans Hansen

Hans Hansen — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 03:13:37 +0000

Hmmm…..maybe that’s why I never heard Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” at BYU; there were rumors that they could only perform it there if it was either “bastardized” or “bowdlerized” and presented as the “Postum Cantata”!

By: Kristine

Kristine — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 01:49:09 +0000

Well, I’m not an etymologist, but I used to play one on TV. I don’t think they could be the same–bastard is from Old French “fils de bast” or maybe from Latin bastare, while “bowdlerize” is a tribute, of sorts, to Thomas Bowdler, who published a Varsity Cinema version of Shakespeare. (Did I get it right, Rosalynde?)

By: Mark B

Mark B — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 01:36:23 +0000

This belongs in an “On Language” column by William Safire, but is “bastardized” a bastard step-child (how’s that for attenuation?) of “bowdlerized”? Got any etymologists here?

By: Kristine

Kristine — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 01:29:47 +0000

Rosalynde, what a good question. I’ve performed with lots of people who didn’t identify themselves as believers, at least not in Christianity, and I’ve seen them visibly moved by the music despite not “believing in” the text. I’ve heard directors whom I knew to be fairly hostile to religion, at least in its organized forms, speak eloquently and profoundly about the text of the Requiem. I can’t imagine how one would perform “atheist” Bach, Jonathan–not doubting your sense of it, but I just can’t imagine it.

For myself, I think I’ve got things exactly backwards–I don’t love this music because I believe; I’m a believer largely because of the way I respond to this music. My two earliest memories of what I would describe as spiritual experiences are of hearing “High on a Mountain Top” played on a really good organ (or at least one with some nice 16′ stops in the pedal, because what I remember is the bass line), and of reading the Psalms and wanting to weep without quite knowing why. Sometimes it seems like a lame excuse for a testimony that this is the “only true church,” but for me, the fact that this is the only church with “Come, Come Ye Saints”* is nearly good enough. I think it’s uncommon for Mormons, but not so uncommon for other religious people (think of all the great Catholic poets and novelists) to practice their religion largely in and through aesthetic experience.

*(yes, I do know the provenance of the song, and that bastardized versions appear in several Protestant hymnbooks; it ain’t the same.)

By: Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:27:17 +0000

Possibly, Rosalynde. I once left a Bach concert at intermission because, during a year that I saw a lot of Bach performed by amateur groups, this was the first one that seemed to perform an “atheist” Bach. No, I can’t tell you what I mean by that, because I don’t remember exactly why I thought that, but I remember thinking that at the time.

By: Rosalynde Welch

Rosalynde Welch — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:00:47 +0000

On Sunday night I went to hear the boys’ Choir of King’s College at the St. Louis Basilica. It was a glorious evening, even though we were sitting in the balcony and couldn’t actually see the entire choir. (That inconvenience was more than compensated by the felicity of having gotten there just in time to snag the *last two tickets* available, and of my friend’s infant not crying the whole time.)

The did Poulenc’s “Quatre Motets” and Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols” in the first half; in the second half they did a series of short carols, my favorites of which were Elizabeth Poston’s “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” and JOhn Woolrich’s “Spring in Winter.” They ended with Vaughan-Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.” Most of the short carols had been commissioned for the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that the choir broadcasts every Christmas Day.

So is this music so beautiful to me because of my faith? Would an unbeliever find it as moving on purely aesthetic grounds?