It was probably some time shortly before the year 202, when the
persecution of Christians by the emperor Severus began, that the early
church father, Clement of Alexandria, director of the catechetical
school in that city, composed his Exhortation to the Greeks. To capture
his audience's attention, Clement began with references to several
Greek legends illustrating the power of music:
Amphion of Thebes
and Arion of Methymna were both minstrels, and both were renowned in
story. They are celebrated in song to this day in the chorus of the
Greeks; the one for having allured the fishes, and the other for having
surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music. Another, a
Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he also is the subject of a
Hellenic legend), tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song; and
transplanted trees--oaks--by music.
The Thracian he leaves
unnamed is Orpheus, left unnamed, no doubt, because he was the object
of a pagan cult. Clement invokes these names in order to introduce his
readers to the Gospel of Christ. a song which Clement suggests
surpasses even the music of Orpheus, because this song has the power to
move not just trees, animals and demons, but that wildest, most
redoubtable of beasts, the human heart:
But not such is my song,
which has come to loose, and that speedily, the bitter bondage of
tyrannizing demons; and leading us back to the mild and loving yoke of
piety, recalls to heaven those that had been cast prostrate to the
earth. It alone has tamed men, the most intractable of animals.
Belief
in the power of music not only supplied Clement of Alexandria with an
alluring opening for his exhortation to the Greeks, but it also finds
significant expression in the Bible. If Arion of Methymna was able to
surround Thebes with walls by the power of music (perhaps an oblique
reference to the shrill skirl of bagpipes that could dismay even the
fiercest approaching warrior), in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 6,
music--repeated blasts on the ram's horn, interspersed with the shouts
of the Hebrew people, and accompanied by the rhythmic tramp of their
feet--brings down the walls of another city, the Canaanite Jericho. But
even more impressively, in all of ancient literature, it is in the
Hebrew Scriptures that we find the most dramatic illustration of the
therapeutic power of music. In I Samuel 16.14ff, music is used not to
protect a city or bring down its walls but to console the mind of
troubled majesty:
Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul and
an evil spirit from God filled him with terror. Saul's servants said to
him, 'Look, an evil spirit of God is the cause of your terror. Let our
lord give the order and your servants who wait on you will look for a
skilled harpist; when the evil spirit of God troubles you, the harpist
will play and you will recover.' Saul said to his servants, 'Find me a
man who plays well and bring him to me.' One of the soldiers then spoke
up. . . And so David came to Saul and entered his service. . . And
whenever the spirit from God troubled Saul, David took the harp and
played; then Saul grew calm, and recovered, and the evil spirit left
him.
Belief in the power of music both to soothe the troubled
soul and to conjure up a sense of the sacred, the therapeutic and
hieratic functions of music, no doubt led to the importance of music in
Hebrew worship. In the temple at Jerusalem, many of the priests
functioned as sacred musicians, and God was worshipped with singing and
with music on a variety of instruments. That same conviction about the
power of music to enhance worship by moving the hearts of its
participants and rendering an acute sense of the sacredness of the
moment influenced Christian worship. Indeed the Psalms of the Jerusalem
temple figure significantly in the history of Christian music, most
prominently in the settings of Gregorian chant for the observance
called the Divine Office.
It is similar convictions about the
power of music that led my friends Harvey and Thelma Reisman to make a
generous donation to Seton Hall University to establish a collection of
recorded sacred music to be housed in the library of Immaculate
Conception Seminary, the School of Theology at Seton Hall University.
One of the things that has made my friendship with the Reismans so
enjoyable is the love we share of music. Harvey and Thelma have long
been great patrons of music, supporting several musical organizations
in this area. Besides enjoying concerts together, we have often talked
about the current state of music in the recording industry, concert
halls, synagogues and churches. No doubt such considerations led Harvey
and Thelma to decide a way to honor me at the time of my 25th
anniversary of ordination, in May of 1999, would be to establish a
library of recorded music that would acquaint future ministers,
clerical and lay, with the rich heritage of Catholic church music and
related traditions. With that in mind, we have assembled a collection
of more than two hundred compact disc recordings. One of these
recordings even attempts to reconstruct the sound of the music in the
Jerusalem temple liturgy. Most, however, contribute to an historical
survey of Catholic Church music that includes not only a sampling of
the vast literature of Gregorian chant but also significant samples of
Old Roman, Ambrosian, Ruthenian, Mozarabic, and Syriac chant. Samplings
of Russian and Anglican chant are also included. A feature of the
collection is a large representation of the music of Palestrina, a high
point in the history of Catholic music. But there is also a generous
sampling of Mass settings, Te Deums, Stabat Maters, vespers services
and oratorios by Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Haydn,
Beethoven, Schubert, Verdi, Rossini, Dvorak, Bruckner, Hindemith,
Vaughan William, Poulenc, Langlais, and Stravinsky. But more popular
forms of music are not neglected. Here are recordings of congregational
hymn-singing from many periods and styles, Masses in contemporary
African or Hispano-American musical settings, as well as the jazz Mass
of Dave Brubeck. Listen to this music. If it does not bring down some
walls, it could calm your troubled spirit, maybe even give you the
sense of a sacred beauty all too rare in our time.
Rev. Lawrence B. Porter, Associate Professor,
Dogmatic Theology
