I used to play the guitar in boozy smoked-filled folk clubs in the ‘60’s. One of the songs that was popular was Scarborough Fair, a 400 year old English ballad, arranged by guitar player Martin Carthy. Paul Simon pinched the arrangement to use on one of his albums – well, we all did, but Paul Simon committed the cardinal sin of being successful and making money out of it.
Here is the delectable Sarah Brightman singing the song with echoes of Martin Carthy’s arrangement still wafting through the lush orchestration. I have to confess, she looks a lot better than any of us.
Thank you for posting this. When I was in elementary school, we learned this song. I thought it was beautiful when I was 8 years old and it still moves me.
David, I sang this song in those same smoke-filled coffee houses in Yorkville and and on Avenue Rd in the late 50’s/early 60’s. I never sang like Sarah, but LOVED the song. What a beautiful rendition … what a lovely lady, and a stunning voice!
Music is the one area in which there are odd dis-corrolations on this site, I find, though the rest of the material here is so terribly refreshing. I would have thought that trendy musical performance types such as Ms. Brightman’s would appeal to the live-for-today left-wingers such as the ACofC (though the original song here is indeed lovely), and that the breathtakingly beautiful traditional choral music that can still be found in the Anglican/Church of England world would appeal to the Christian orthodox traditionalists. Instead, it’s the other way around! I know that several ACofC parishes in Canada still have and support the hauntingly wonderful and high-calibre choral music tradition of a thousand years, whereas ANIC parishes (to my knowledge) make do with the guitar-strumming 1960s stuff that caused so many Catholics to flee from their liberal parishes after Vatican II! It has always seemed to me that ANIC should value the amazing choral music tradition of Anglican history, and that it would be ACofC that would abandon this for the catchy and mundane modern styles, rather than the other way around. Go figure!
Thanks for making this excellent point. I hate that it seems we have to chose between architecture and music on the one hand and attendance to Scripture on the other.
Thanks for your reply, Lisa. I hear you. To me, Sacred Music and Architecture are an important form of Christian worship, Puritans and other stripped-bare Protestant denominations notwithstanding. Yes, this can be overdone, and individuals can partake of this with the wrong motives — but that can be said of many other essentially good things in life too. Individual motives can take poor advantage of even higher pursuits, but it does not necessarily mean that we damn the higher pursuits.
I have always thought that an excellent choir works as one body, and becomes more than the sum of its parts; it can overcome less-than-perfect individuals who may not be there with the highest moral motive.
I am with you. The schism between moral stances in the Anglican world is bad enough, and I do generally side with the orthodox views, but why do these particular faithful choose to snub the beautifully developed forms of worship? I will never understand that. We will not be richer for it. I do not believe that God wants me to leave my appreciation for Sacred Music and Architecture and Art, in order to be faithful to Him. Some ANIC members act as if these are elite luxuries that they demand you sacrifice, in order to show your moral worth. Nonsense! I sometimes detect a combination of self-righteousness and ignorance when they insist on thrusting the banal at you — for your own good, of course. I too rather resent that some ANIC members want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Such persons, who have already lost a great deal, seem insistent on losing more. Idolatry, indeed!
As I keep mulling over to myself — the sad/shallow music and sad buildings of the 1960s era would seem a perfect match to the insubstancial values and attitudes of the new Anglican/CofE world. But instead, the ANIC seems anxious to claim this style as its own, and the ACofC still supports the traditional, in terms of Sacred Arts. It’s like upside-down land.
But just as I do not put up with the new sins & virtues of the ACofC, neither do I put up with finger-wagging from the ANIC due to the fact that I long ago learned to use and appreciate a time-honoured form of worship. The denigrating of this leaves me very disappointed, and what I am offered as an alternative leaves me cold.
All music played well can be played to the glory of God.
Guitars can be breath takingly beautiful; choirs can be awful. It depends upon the skill of the players and if they are playing to glorify God, or merely to glorify themselves. I think that we in ANiC understand that pretty well, and try not to make an idol of a musical style.
(There is also the ‘small’ issue that most of us have lost our buildings and the pipe organs that went with them.)
It isn’t simply a “musical style” we are discussing here, Kate. Do you know the history of this? The whole genre is known as Sacred Music, and far from making an idol of a musical style, it has served for over a thousand years to glorify God through the human gifts he gave us. You might say the same for the Sacred Architecture of the great cathedrals, or the Iconography of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is a case of using our human talents to give back to God in worship.
I have heard many, many years’ worth of Sacred Music offerings, both from the smaller and barely known choirs, and from the likes of the best college and cathedral choirs of the U.K. They do not all have organs for accompaniment, or even their own buildings. Some sing unaccompanied by any instrumentation at all — purely voice. I have seen other such choirs use a small electronic keyboard, or have a piano accompaniest. In fact, the unaccompanied chanting of the Psalms by a trained choir is an incredible form of prayer, and sends shivers down your spine.
I am sure there are poor choirs, Kate, just as there are poor guitarists and pop singers. Most choirs work their collective backsides off in learning their art, though, and in keeping it polished week to week and year to year. The best-trained choristers start as young children at 7 or 8 years of age, and work terribly hard on their musicianship for all the years to come. These particular choirs are not the usual one-casual-rehearsal-a-week-at-the-neighbourhood-church type, with anyone who cares to tag along that day. If you have never known a Sacred Music chorister in person, the years of musical discipline and training and dedication that go into this pursuit might stagger you. The Anglican Church and Church of England — whatever else we may have to say about them, I agree — have tended to take their music pretty seriously all this time, and before that their repetoire came from the original Roman Catholic tradition — much of which is now lost to that denomination — from great classical composers whose work was commissioned by the Church. It has stood the test of time. The Anglican/CofE world also counts on the Royal College of Church Music to keep the standards of musicianship high; this official body assists in sponsoring regular training and professionalism for those involved in the world of Sacred Music, within Christian churches.
I have to say, Kate, that after attending many, many services of various sorts over the years at Anglican cathedrals and college chapels around the world, I have yet to hear a poor choir at any of them. Some of these choirs have been passingly good, some have been magnificent, but never have I heard a poor one. Anglicans tend to take their choral music tradition seriously, and it shows. I could listen to it all day; it transports me to higher places.
Now I can’t vouch for the Godliness of all of the individual choristers — they may or may not be the faithful types — but then again, there have been many people along the way in Bible-based churches who swore they were Scriptural adherents, but who turned out not to be. What I am saying is that we are talking about the quality and the role of the different types of music here, and how Sacred Music has had an acknowledged part in Christian worship. For me, ad-hoc guitar music (and when tambourines are added, I run the other way) only reminds me of the terrible social experiment that befell western civilization in the 1960s, and from which many of us have never recovered. I mean no offense to guitar-players — this music, too, has its place, as has personal taste; it is just that I feel there are far better forms of musical worship for the Christian world.
Sorry, but Sarah Brightman has always come across to me as kitschy, and she belongs on a run-of-the-mill commercial venue. Between Ms. Brightman and the choir of Westminster Abbey, I will take the latter any day. Sacred Music was developed to glorify God, whereas most of Ms. Brightman’s sort of repetoire was developed to entertain man. It shows.
I spent many years singing alto in a very good choir, actually, so I know exactly how much work is involved. I also spend a couple of years singing in a good praise band, and learning that music is just as much work, especially for the instrumentalists.
It is no more than a style that we are talking about. I suggest you listen to Steve Bell, Carolyn Arends, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Chris Rice. I mean, put aside your prejudices and really *listen*. They use a modern idom to glorify God.
All your posts have done, I’m afraid, is prove to me that you’ve made an idol of a musical style.
And what your post has done, Kate, is to prove to me that you do not listen. I have a pretty extensive background myself, which has taught me much. I don’t take pot-shots at others’ opinions just for fun. I prefer to debate, rather than argue.
You have convinced yourself that your “idolatry point” is true beyond any doubt, and trumps all other truths. I am afraid that is very much open to interpretation. You seem to me like the Pharisees of old, who could see the letter of the law (and pound it home to everyone), but not the spirit of the law. Christ came to change all of that.
Scanning back through a number of your postings here, you seem to have a prevailing attitude — Kate is right, Kate is righter, Kate is rightest (no matter the topic) and if other participants do not agree, Kate will not let you into Heaven. Hmmph!
No, Kate, it is not simply a style we are discussing, but I can see that no amount of explanation will enable you to understand that. I rarely post on the internet because of the know-it-alls, who have no problem becoming insulting. You are not a favourable advertisement for the ANIC, I’m afraid. Good day to you.
I appreciate the wit, passion and depth of understanding you’ve brought to discussion of this immensely important topic, Mr/s Anonymous. Please don’t be a stranger here.
Thank you, Lisa. I will not pretend to have all of the answers, but I do think that certain perspectives should see the light of day. I simply hadn’t seen this one discussed previously, which was always a bit of a puzzle to me, given the long history of the fine arts in Christian worship, and of the very excellent choral music tradition amongst Anglicans. I was mystified when the ANIC did not appear keen to carry it along with them. “Scarborough Fair” provided a conversation opener.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
(Yeats, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’)
Lovely. Thank you.
“When religion and aesthetics are divorced from each other, it is not known which is corrupted sooner.” — Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Fine – that doesn’t disprove my point. Choirs are not automatically good, guitars not automatically bad. It depends upon the skill of the musicians and their motives. To say that only one kind of music is appropriate in a church setting is a form of idolatry. Further, we should be willing to set aside our own tastes in music so that other people’s tastes can be enjoyed.
I wasn’t responding to your point, Kate, but reiterating the merit of Anonymous’ original comment.
But since we’re broadly onto aesthetics and religion … Dean Peter Elliot, has not only recently been appointed Bishop’s Missioner, he is also on the board of the Vancouver International Film Festival. And I don’t care much for VIFI’s usual offerings.
Have it your way, Anon. But pot shots?
“whereas ANIC parishes (to my knowledge) make do with the guitar-strumming 1960s stuff that caused so many Catholics to flee from their liberal parishes after Vatican II!”
“Kate is right, Kate is righter, Kate is rightest (no matter the topic) and if other participants do not agree, Kate will not let you into Heaven. Hmmph!”
Seems to me like you are pretty talented in that direction, yourself.
“
It’s amazing how an innocuous post can stir up such passion.
I considered responding with an article on Kierkegaard’s view – which I think has merit – on the progression from the indulgence of the aesthetic to the rigours of the ethical to, finally, the religious as described in his Stages on Life’s Way; with particular reference to the reflective nature of the aesthetic experience as something less than an authentic first person experience, belonging, as it does, to someone else.
I still may, but in the meantime, I will defer to Henry Crun’s advice to Minnie Bannister:
Perhaps it was because the post was banal passion rushed in to fill the void.
“The civilizing effect of works of art is due less to the aesthetic value than to the ethic of aesthetic work.” (Dávila)
Here’s the not-bad-looking Bill Frisell thumping out a lovely version of ‘Shenandoah.’ http://youtu.be/Svzv-YkUzdk
I’ll hold out for Kierkegaard, David, seeing as I just read the curriculum descriptions from my child’s school saying that English Literature class (gr. 9) will be teaching “The Hunger Games” this year, and Vocal Music class will devote a few hours to “historical music” but the remainder to mainly punk, rap, heavy metal and other forms of the contemporary art.
Makes you want to weep.
Anonymous
With three kids in the system we are no longer surprised at the state of education. For our girls, 3:00PM starts their second learning day: music, dance, arts, and competitive sports.
Similarly, we don’t depend on “church” to turn our girls into Christians: that too is our job.
Jim, nice to hear another understanding voice. My spouse and I have more than one child too, and though we tried the provincial school system for them, we ended up homeschooling each for several years. We are glad that we did. Our grade 9 child is back in the system only because of the credits he needs for a high school graduation certificate. Our children have formal music instruction outside the home several times per week, as well as art classes. I assign them one good book a week for reading, so that I know they will become familiar with the best works.
We don’t leave their Christian education to chance or Sunday School either. Like you, we introduce and reinforce everything at home.
My husband and I keep trying to participate in book clubs run by the central library. And we keep dropping out because the book choices consist of painfully mediocre works that should never have seen the published light of day.
There is a lot of pandering to the lowest common denominator in today’s institutions. They believe it makes them look egalitarian.
It is also considered hip to be low-brow and profane in the modern world. The lower you go, the more they swoon.