Bach and the sacramental arts
[ by Charles Cameron — closing out a thread that began with anoither recent post of mine ]
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Organ, Berlin Cathedral
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The immediate occasion for this [second] post is my reading about the book Eucharistic Poetry: The Search for Presence in the Writings of John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, and Geoffrey Hill, by Eleanor J. McNees. Her subtitle names four poets I greatly admire, and whose company I would aspire to keep:
Though widely separated chronologically, all four poets use the Anglican and Roman Catholic doctrine of eucharistic Real Presence (the literal embodiment of Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion) as model for their own poetry. Each poet seeks to charge his words with a dual physical/spiritual meaning that abolishes the gap between word and referent and so creates an immediate presence that parallels Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.
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That pasage, in turn, reminds me of some words John Eliot Gardiner spoke on the topic of Bach and grace,
on the DVD of a rehearsal of Bach’s cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (BWV 63) right after Sara Mingardo sings O Selger Tag. Gardiner first quotes Bach, then translates him:
Nota bene: Bei einer andächtigen Musik ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart.” Now I find that very, very significant. That he’s saying wherever there is devotional music, God with his grace is present.
How close is that to the poets McNees talks about, creating with their poems “an immediate presence that parallels Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist”?
And then he comments —
Which, from a strict theological point of view is probably heresy, heretical, because it’s saying that music has an equivalent potency to the word of God.
I’m not so sure about the heresy, but this is the point at which I turn to Lexington Green‘s comment on a recent post of mine, in which he quoted the Cathecism of the Catholic Church:
1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
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Whether in the performance and hearing of Bach, Christ can be said to be “wholly and entirely” or “devotionally and musicially” present is a delicate question, one part ontological and absolute, I’d suppose, and one part epistemological and subjective.. but I find myself in warm agreement with Gardiner’s elaboration of his theme..
And I think that in essence is why Bach is so attractive to us today because he is saying that the very act of music-making and of coming together is, in a sense, an act which invokes the latency, the potency, the potentiality of God’s grace, however you like to define God’s grace; but of a benediction that comes even in a dreadful, overheated studio like Abbey Road where far too many microphones and there’s much too much stuff here in the studio itself, that if one, as a musician, puts oneself in the right frame of mind, then God’s grace can actually come and direct and influence the way we perform his music.
I really must read me some Hans Urs von Balthasar.
April 5th, 2016 at 4:25 pm
“..which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too…” God’s presence in and through Bach’s music is less-than-Eucharistic, and that is no criticism. Only the Eucharist is the full presence of Christ, whole and entire, so everything else is not only not, or not entirely, Eucharistic, but since the dignity of God is greater than all created things, we can also say that everything else that is not God is not merely other but truly lesser. And many lesser presences are very good indeed, and our life would be quite unendurable without them, Bach included.
April 5th, 2016 at 5:12 pm
Is it completely subjective? Do we each get to decide for ourselves? Or is Bach in but Elvis (and his hips)definitely out? Is this ability of music to stir emotions, esp. the latter and maybe even the former, the reason that Islam bans (99.9%) music?
P.S. u might be interested in this somewhat related post from David Solway at PJ media. https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2016/03/04/the-mystery-of-melody/
April 5th, 2016 at 6:34 pm
Here’s how St. Augustine saw it, from On Christian Doctrine II.18.28:
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“But whether the fact is as Varro has related, or is not so, still we ought not to give up music because of the superstition of the heathen, if we can derive anything from it that is of use for the understanding of Holy Scripture; nor does it follow that we must busy ourselves with their theatrical trumpery because we enter upon an investigation about harps and other instruments, that may help us to lay hold upon spiritual things. For we ought not to refuse to learn letters because they say that Mercury discovered them; nor because they have dedicated temples to Justice and Virtue, and prefer to worship in the form of stones things that ought to have their place in the heart, ought we on that account to forsake justice and virtue. Nay, but let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master; and while he recognizes and acknowledges the truth, even in their religious literature, let him reject the figments of superstition, and let him grieve over and avoid men who, ‘when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'”
April 5th, 2016 at 9:51 pm
Lex:
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I think the clearest statement in my post of the relationship is that the arts in question attempt to provide “a dual physical/spiritual meaning that abolishes the gap between word and referent and so creates an immediate presence that parallels Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist”. The operative word here, surely, is “parallels”. Such art, I’d have thought — and its status as “less-than-Eucharistic” – invites the term I used in my post title, “sacramental”.
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Gardiner’s remark after quoting Bach is interesting: “music has an equivalent potency to the word of God”. The “word of God” can refer to Christ, to be sure, but it is also commonly used as a term to describe scripture, and by extension, preaching the gospel, neither of which is as “real” as the Real Presence as understood by Catholics – but it is finally “God’s grace” that Gardiner makes comparison to, speaking of “an act which invokes the latency, the potency, the potentiality of God’s grace” – the most direct musical example of which, literally understood, would surely be the Veni Creator Spiritus.
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Bach being a Lutheran, incidentally, it may be apropos to quote Luther himself waxing ontological on the topic of the Real Presence:
Hovering in the background here, too, I hear Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism writing:
Last, I’d like to quote the remarkable Hans Urs von Balthasar, writing of Hopkins in The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics vol III:
Here poetry is the absolutely appropriate theological language..
April 5th, 2016 at 10:19 pm
Traderbarn, hi:
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I can’t speak for Elvis’ hips, alas, but your combined mention of Bach and Elvis takes me back to an earlier post of mine, Elvis, Bach, and their respective Bibles, which can certainly be viewed as a companion post to this one. I prefer Bach, to be sure.
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You ask, of the relative natures of the realities we were discussing:
Not in my view — I expressly said:
So – not “completely” but “one part epistemological and subjective” in my view – the part where different hearers are able – “adequate” – to receive Christ via the music. The “one part ontological and absolute” would be the part which the Church addresses in her Catechism as quoted by Lex.
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Maria Popova, incidentally, has a neat selection of quotes on “adequacy” in her Brain Pickings post, How We Know What We Know: The Art of Adaequatio and Seeing with the Eye of the Heart.
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You also ask:
In line with what I said about adequacy above, it’s not actually emotions but their higher octave cousins — corresponding to what Indian aesthetics would call “rasas” — the flavors of contemplative devotion that are my concern here. And I make this distinction mainly because emotionally-driven religious experiences can seem, in retrospect, so transient — hence the region where revivals most frequently occurred in New York during the Second Great Awakening came to be known as the “burned out district”.
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But I should really read Ronald Knox’s book, Enthusiasm, which I understand offers “a characteristically charitable analysis of this tendency”.
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And Islam? I suppose Salafism may %99 ban music, as indeed did some early Church fathers — but Sufism certainly doesn’t!
April 5th, 2016 at 10:35 pm
Thanks, Grurray, as always.