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multifoliaterose comments on Slava! - Less Wrong
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Comments (103)
I don't have a good answer to your question, but I have some choral musical recommendations I've found powerful in the same way that you find Slava! powerful.
I'd recommend the Bach choral works to interested readers. The major ones (St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, Mass in B Minor, Christmas Oratorio, Easter Oratorio) are all worth listening to, but there are also a couple hundred of cantatas. Unfortunately, the sheer number of cantatas makes the collection overwhelming and in my opinion there's an issue of uneven quality, but there are some really excellent pieces among them and I've found it worthwhile to spend time with them as well.
I also really like the Brahms German Requiem, particularly the sixth movement.
Will add more examples as they occur to me.
Seconded.
I'm a card-carrying member of the (surprisingly large) camp of Non-Christians who Like Church Music.
I like to think I'm in good company.
I was at a wedding yesterday of Christian friend I met before my apostasy. The service left me wistful, reminding me that I did enjoy some of the music. The lead musician was even a trumpeter, a role I used to play. I had to suppress the impulse to go and snatch the instrument away from him when it became clear that his lips were tiring and he wasn't quite able to keep the higher notes on pitch without the occasional warble.
Me too. Although I am conflicted about performing it, and try to draw some lines in doing so: if it's being played as concert music outside a religious context generally I will, but in a context where it will be understood as a religious expression/promoting religious values, I generally won't...
Thirded. I can't say I like the entire genre, but Bach's Johannes Passion (BTW a great recording, the closest I heard to the version used in Tarkovsky's 'Mirror') and Arvo Pärt's Te Deum and De Profundis are sublime.
For some reason, I really like H.E.R.R.'s The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, which is pretty much pure praise to God. There's something appealing in the image of an innocent and completely devoted singer that the song evokes.
a reaction to cuteness more than anything else?
That's quite possible, though I also like the other songs on that album. Not as much as that one, though.
It's not all that surprising to me. Some of our best music has long been Christian. "Christian Rock" is a strange anomaly.
Five Iron Frenzy is some of the best of third-wave ska, and they're an explicitly Christian band with Christian subject matter.
And, of course, Black Sabbath had Ozzy in the character of the devil and used Christian themes extensively.
It shouldn't really be that surprising; there's an awful lot of church music, after all -- it was a very important and greatly admired genre for many many years. (Not so much now, though composers still write masses and requiems every now and then.)
Is that really the link you intended? It seems to go to a performance by Paul Simon of his "American Tune", which doesn't (so far as I can tell) have anything to do with non-Christians liking church music.
Paul Simon does, however, seem to be a non-Christian who likes church music; one of the tracks on Simon and Garfunkel's first album was a version of a Benedictus setting by Orlando di Lasso.
Yeah, that was on purpose: the melody of "American Tune" is from the Matthaeus Passion.
Oh, how unobservant of me. Sorry about that.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Handel's Messiah. The Hallelujah chorus is, in my opinion, one of the best practical illustrations of the theme of the above article.
The traditional Catholic hymn Te Deum sounds beautifully solemn when sung as an a cappella Gregorian chant, but when done in an arrangement for chorus and organ, it is, for me at least, mind-blowing. (Of course, a Youtube recording doesn't come close to the experience of hearing it live in a church with a large organ.)
As for the Russian Orthodox music, this rendering of Grechaninov's Credo is one of my favorite vocal performances I've ever heard.
I don't generally enjoy Mozart, but his Requiem is incredible.
"Salvation is Created" is a choral piece by Pavel Tchesnokov, mindblowingly beautiful, especially with a good section of deep Russian basses.
Many Renaissance masses and motets also, Josquin and Palestrina especially.
I am almost grateful these aren't usually performed in services--I won't speak of Bach, since it is almost worth pretending to have found faith just to sing in the church choir.
I feel the same way :-)
Thanks for the other references, I'll check them out.
It's too bad VOIP isn't reliably good enough for us to arrange our own choir.
I suppose I'd better contribute to this list, since (a) I made another comment about possibly writing sacred music, and (b) no one has yet mentioned:
Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, a candidate for his greatest work.
Mozart's (unfinished) Mass in C minor, K.427. The Kyrie movement is one of the two most aesthetically perfect musical compositions I know of (for my own "aesthetic value" function).
What's the other of your two most aesthetically perfect musical compositions?
The first movement of the Eroica symphony.
Well, we have similar tastes :-)
A big one for me is Ein Feste Burg (BWV 80)
Same here. I got to know it well because it was on the first cantata CD of the collection Bach Edition: Complete Works (155 CD Box Set).
In suit:
Balulalow - Britten
Miserere mei, Deus - Allegri
Ave Maria - Caccini*
*actual composer in dispute
Douglas Adams' favorite piece of music was Ach Bleib Bei Uns Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 649, I think). If you've read Dirk Gentley, that's the beautiful music Dirk hears.