The universal language of music…

Written by TR Johns

‘Music is the connective tissue among souls’, mused vocalist Barbra Streisand. An essential part of identity & culture, it expresses thoughts, feelings and themes, it captures beauty and is a medium for profound communication. Music is a force which affects all who hear it.

One of the most enduring oratorios, setting scripture to music, is Handel’s ‘Messiah’, written in 1741. Its textures are lyrical, triumphant, foreboding and glorious as it traces events surrounding the announcement, birth, death and resurrection of the Messiah. It fluctuates from passionate rage and serene pastoral moments to the almost out-of-body experience of the ‘Halleluiah Chorus’. It was intended at the outset to be a statement of faith to counter a rationalised atheism, arising from the Enlightenment.

Across the spectrum of western musical expression, the moods of time have been presented, from sacred plainsong to sensualised RnB, with a fusion of genres in the past 150 years, which has had extraordinary societal consequences. Today music pervades private and public domains, the media and built spaces, with such ubiquity that its qualities and properties have been debased.

Historically, amongst the many forms of sacred music, hymns impacted multiple generations, whether of believers or not. Originating from the Greek ‘hymnos’, a song of praise, they were written to honour the gods.  Collective singing, ‘hymnody’, spread across Europe during the Middle Ages (eg. monastic Latin chants), while ancient hymns, from the Egyptians, Greeks and Hebrews stood the test of time, co-existing with those of other religious traditions across the Indian sub-continent (eg. Sikh hymnody).

The ‘Messiah’ has its roots in the Classical period of music, emerging within a class-based society in which aristocracy was entertained in its courts and works were commissioned for special occasions and people. For the rank-and-file population, based around parish and manor geography, the vernacular music of the day involved hymns and folk songs transmitted orally within their communities.

From the battle cry of the Puritan reformers, ‘sola scriptura’ (God’s word alone for worship!), to the brilliant rhetoric and prose of non-conformists such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, a mechanism for infusing the people with the tenets of faith, flourished for over 300 years. Instrumentation varied from a cappella harmonies to harps, lyres, flutes, trumpets, drones, tambours, cymbals and the organ, originating from C3rd Greece.   

Tensions between sacred and vernacular ebbed and flowed. In 1741, the Madrigal Society of London was founded, and exists to this day, to maintain the English tradition and confound new music from the likes of Handel!  

Across the Atlantic a very different musical form arose in stark contrast to the sublime and ethereal beauty of an oratorio. Its roots lay in the antipathetic depths of human cruelty and despair found in slavery. It contained an equally profound heart cry for spiritual understanding, but with an utterly different outcome.

Enslaved Africans had been part of European imperialism in the Americas since the C16th, the consequences of which have been unravelling for more than four centuries.[i]  Colonial expansion and settlement on North America’s east coast and in the Caribbean, saw farming, manufacturing and plantations draw on indentured European workers, dispossessed indigenous Americans and African slave labour. After the Louisiana Purchase, from Napoleon in 1803, the harmonies, rhythms and melodies of African Americans and Creoles had begun to synthesise with the folk music of the Southern Confederate states, mixing with French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, English, and Irish songs.

In 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation provided a legal framework for the eradication of slavery and for American civil rights to begin for more than 3.5 million citizens, hitherto in servitude. It was also the seedbed for a new musical movement destined to change the world. Slaves, liberated from the yoke, many unschooled and unable to read or write, had created their own idiom of song: the blues of the fields and plantations; the chants of the docks and warehouses, the chain-gang crews and railroad labourers; the hymns and spirituals of the churches; the hollers and group ‘singalongs’, all released to ease suffering. From the 1880s, this potent fusion of African American and European sources created a kaleidoscope of musical colours; Blues, Country, Jazz, Rock ‘n Roll, Soul, their antecedents and descendants, on which the world still feasts.  

This awakening of hearts and souls in a repressed population drew both on Southern gospel songs and, in their melodies and lyrics, plunged deep into the sensual world of freedom, love and vice. Ground-breaking forms of music erupted, embellished by choice of key and instrument, revolutionised through electrification and complemented by rhythm’s tone and pulse. The advent of ‘Rock’ gave rise to a global phenomenon which has affected the philosophy and lifestyle of billions, including within the church.  

As a universal language, music’s reach and audience have increased infinitely. It is accessible and ever present, through broadcasting and mobile technology. Where we stand regarding the sacred and vernacular, is another matter. The insistent and addictive beat of Rock has imposed a feelgood, egocentric-enhancing, para-hypnotic effect upon the soul [ii].  Its properties make nigh-impossible a true inner silence and peace necessary for the contemplation of eternal values. In normalising a diet of highly sexualized and sensual music, the west risks losing its ability to engage with the divine or understand itself.

References

[i] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/15/400-years-since-slavery-timeline (accessed 6-06-2021)

[ii] The Secret Power of Music - The Transformation of Self and Society… 1984. David Tame