I got a chance to listen to the Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach just before Christmas, and it was an exhilarating experience. It is very long, almost two hours, but it had such a variety of choral, orchestral and solo (both vocal and instrumental) parts, that time just flew by. According to David P. Goldman, who wrote an article "Sacred Music, Sacred Time" for First Things, I was transported into the sacred.
David P. Goldman (he is the infamous Spengler of Asia Times) is apparently knowledgeable in Renaissance music theory and teaches the history of music theory at Mannes Collge of Music. I never really liked his Spengler persona, and didn't appreciate his approach to world politics, Christianity or even Islam, but this writing on sacred music seems to me to be intuitively sound.
In his long article, which is really worth reading, he says that sacred music allows us to perceive eternity through tonal expectations that guide us into the "future" of the piece of music.
This "unfolding" of music leads us through time. The longer the unfolding (the expected resolution of the music), the more distant into the future the composer can take us. Our perception of time is expanded, and we enter into the realm of the sacred, of eternity.
This is what I understood from that long piece of writing. I will try to relate it to modern music at a later post. Modern music doesn't follow this attempt at taking us into the sacred (via a passage to eternity), but rather confines us into the present. The best example of this type non-sacred modern music I can think of is the compositions of Philip Glass.
Back to the Mass in B flat. What I especially loved was the duels, if I can use that in sacred music, between the soloists and their corresponding solo instrument. I have written below each vocal solo (or duet) and the corresponding instruments:
Soprano I and II duet Christe eleison with violin
Soprano II solo Laudamus te with violin
Soprano I and Tenor duet Domine Deus with flute
Alto solo Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris with oboe
Bass solo Quoniam tu solus sanctus with French horn and bassoons
Soprano I and Alto duet Et in unum Dominum with violins
Bass solo Et in Spiritum Sanctum with French horn and bassoons
Tenor solo Benedictus with flute and cello
Alto solo Agnus Dei with flute
Below is a recording of the mass in a two CD volume.
CD 1 of J.S. Bach Mass in B Minor
J.S. Bach - CD1 - Mass in B Minor by American Bach Soloists
CD 2 of J.S. Bach Mass in B Minor
J.S. Bach - CD2 - Mass in B Minor by American Bach Soloists
