‘Prima la musica, dopo le parole?’ – words and music in worship
In a scholarship examination for St Edward’s Oxford in 2005 there can be found the following question. “ ‘Prima la musica, dopo le parole’, is an Italian saying, meaning, ‘First the music, then the words.” Which do you think is more important – music or words in the music you enjoy and why?’ The quotation is a familiar one on the operatic stage. Salieri wrote an opera with that title and the question lies at the heart of Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio, where a poet and a composer argue about which should come first, words or music?
But it is not just an operatic argument – it could be said to be a religious one too, and one which is of particular concern to this service of Evensong. Why do we set words of scripture to music? Which is more important, the words or the music? What if the music seems to obscure the words? Should the words influence and colour the music? Is the music just there to illustrate the words?
And behind those questions is an even more important and fundamental question? Christianity describes Christ as ‘the Word’, the word which was with God in the beginning, the word which was God’ does this mean that words are the primary even exclusive way into God? Is theology only to be done in words? And all else, whether it be music or the visual arts is just decoration?
Or can we perhaps say that the Word which St John’s gospel speaks of, is the image of communication. God is a God of communication. It is not that God existed in isolated splendour and then one day on a whim chose to try his hand at creating; no, God’s nature is to create that with which it is God’s nature to communicate. As human beings, however, we know that communication can take many forms – there is a language of gesture and of sign and of image and of music alongside the language of words. We communicate through them all. After all God communicates with us through Jesus not only in words but in actions and images, in bread and wine and through a cross. Sometimes we can translate from one medium to another but always in the translation something is lost. It is possible to describe in words what a painting might mean but something in the words is lost; the words cannot say as much as the painting says. And the same is true of music; we can describe music in words, how the music works and what it makes us feel, but none of that communicates what the music is saying to us in itself.
And so we are left to wonder what happens when music and words come together? How is the competition between them to be resolved? In Strauss’s opera Cappricio the Countess asks the question; ‘Do the words imply the melody? Was it already expectantly waiting, lovingly to embrace the words? Is language the womb of song or does language come to birth to be carried by music. Each lives in the other and seeks the other. Music awakens feelings which crave words. In words lies a longing for sound and music.’ And there the Countess surprisingly anticipates President Jed Bartlett commenting on a sermon on Ephesians. He is of course a fictional president created by Aaron Sorkin for ‘The West Wing.’ This President has a great feeling for words, and on this occasion he castigates the preacher for ‘hackery’. ‘Words’, he says, ‘when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can’t.’ His wife responds that he is an oratorical snob, to which he replies, ‘Yes I am, and God loves me for it.’
Both these quotations raise the possibility that words – or some words at least written in a certain way to express certain thoughts – such words reach out to music. Pre-eminently, perhaps. the words of scripture reach out to music and demand a response; noble, profound and wise words, words which immediately speak to the imagination, words which contain in themselves a certain rhythm and weight and balance. In part this depends on the art of the translator – ‘Glory be to God on high, and in earth, peace, good will to all men,’ is inherently more musical than the banal rhythms of ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.’
But if, as we are saying, music and words live in each other and seek each other, that means that neither can dominate the other and sometimes each can fail the other. Music which obscures the words, distorts their natural rhythm, or fails to respond to the dynamic of their meaning, profoundly threatens the relationship. And some words do not deserve to be set to music – we may all be able to think of hymns where words and music are equally banal. A great hymn on the other hands communicates a meaning which goes beyond the words – in such a way that in Audens’ striking verb we feel re-arranged. ‘Restore our fallen day: O re-arrange.’ Our minds and hearts are re-arranged so as to be more attuned to God.
In our first reading King David is described as ‘the man anointed by the God of Jacob, Israel’s singer of songs.’ It was a long tradition in Israel that David was the composer of many psalms and the collector and editor of the rest. The shekinah or glorious presence of God rested on him and he composed a song. And his song comprised both words and music, the latter provided either by his harp or by the flutes, trumpets, rams horns, ten stringed lutes, harps and lyres of the Temple orchestra. The indication that David was a composer is followed by reference to the righteousness of his rule, like the light of the morning at sunrise, like brightness after rain. Justice like music has a re-arranging quality, and perhaps a people might be better ruled by a leader who is also a musician.
There is almost no mention of music in the gospels except a passing reference to flute players; nevertheless, St Paul is clear that Christians are to sing and make melody in their hearts. He quotes the psalms to the effect that the gentiles are to sing praises to God. We are to sing with both the spirit and the mind. And it is not true that there is no music in the life of Jesus and the disciples as we hear of it in the gospels, for almost the last thing they do together is to sing a hymn in the upper room after the last supper and before making their way to the garden where Jesus is to be arrested. They sing together to affirm the glory of God, they sing to raise their spirits, they sing in order to proclaim the triumph of God over darkness and danger and disharmony. They sing as we should sing, because when the world was created the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. Amen.