Richard Tanner, the Cathedral's director of music, explains how music can help us to put the Crucifixion in a context in which it can be approached.
My seven year old son, James, recently joined Blackburn Cathedral Choir.
On Palm Sunday the choir sang a powerful new setting of St Mark's Passion narrative, with music composed by my colleague, James Davy.
In the car yesterday, my James started talking to me about how he felt when he sang this work.
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It had clearly got him, even at seven, thinking quite deeply at the start of Holy Week.
He said: "As I sang the music, I felt like I could actually see it happening.
"Being amongst the choir crying out 'crucify, crucify' made me feel really sick."
The crucifixion makes me sick... that must be a lot of people's experience.
I remember feeling much the same about four years ago when I watched Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ".
I suppose the thing to do is not to turn away, but to try to experience the Passion in a context in which it can be understood at its deepest level. This is where music always helps.
The poet George Herbert reminded us that 'the cross taught all wood to resound his name...'
So there's a connection between the wood of calvary and the wood of a violin as it resounds with music.
This is the connection we'll be making at the cathedral when we perform the gruesome story of the crucifixion tonight in the musical context of Bach's St John Passion.
In Bach's great work, the drama of the Passion is immediately apparent in the opening chorus, with its hammering bass line, as if a spear is inflicting a wound, and at the same time the notes of the woodwind seem to be nails in the cross.
The chorus is constantly at the heart of the dramatic action, representing various elements within the Passion story - the rabble in the Garden of Gethsemane, the soldiers scourging Jesus, and the pompous High Priests.
All these provide moments of electric theatricality, none more so than the frenzied cry of the crowd - "Kreuzige" - "Crucify".
The Evangelist, too, who tells the story has many theatrical moments: the explosive description of the rending of the veil of the temple; the haunting moment when he describes Jesus' last words, "it is finished" and "then he bowed his head and gave up the ghost", and the poignant description of Peter's weeping.
The arias, sung by four soloists, provide intense reflection upon the narrative. The sense of utter heartbreak in "Come, ponder, O my soul", the depiction of Peter's despair in the jagged sounding "O my troubled mind", the depiction of grief in "Look how his back, stained with blood, is just like the sky".
These are three of the many examples of how the horror of it all is filtered through musical reflection.
At key moments, as the drama unfolds, the singing of Chorales (lutheran hymns) provide both powerful and poignant comment on the narrative and also draw lessons for everyday moral living.
Despite the anguish and the pain, the music concludes with the most beautiful and gentle chorus "Lie in peace, sacred body" and then the Chorale of prayer - "O Lord, send your cherubs in my last hour", which works on a resolution of discord, pointing us beyond the suffering to our own redemption beyond death, made possible through the agony on the Cross.
O Lord, send your cherubs in my last hour to bear my soul away to Abraham's bosom;
let it rest there untouched by any pain until the last day.
Wake me then from death's sleep, so that my joyful eyes may see you, the Son of God, my Saviour;
grant me this and I will glorify you throughout eternity.
Bach's St John Passion will be performed as part of the Cathedral's Holy Week devotions on Wednesday, 19th March at 7.30pm.
Posted by: simplysimon, burnley on 11:38am Wed 19 Mar 08
Dear Richard,
When your son said it made him feel sick. You should have listened to him.
Making People feel sick and filling them with terror in the name of Jesus is sick. It seems to be a popular, even Enthusiastic dimension when it come to sending out the message of Jesus. What about the sweetness of the message? Have you got some music in your repertoir that evokes the Tenderness of the message of Jesus?
I would like to ask the Church why it would want to take the events of one day and drive that single event with all the terror and horror of it home to as many People as possible.
Christianity has a lot to answer for in it's teaching of the ressurrection. A teaching obviously based on the mis-interpretation of those events. A teaching that is intent on mis-leading People about the Truth and filling them with guilt and horror and the misery of suffering.
After 2000 Years! don't you think it is time to let go of the guilt and the misery that has evolved with this mis-interpretation of the Life of Jesus.
'Bob the Builder' would be closer to the Truth of Jesus and no child has to feel sick when they listen to it.
The real story of the Resurrection is very different than the one Christianity has been spreading. It is Time to Change the Record.
Dear Richard,
When your son said it made him feel sick. You should have listened to him.
Making People feel sick and filling them with terror in the name of Jesus is sick. It seems to be a popular, even Enthusiastic dimension when it come to sending out the message of Jesus. What about the sweetness of the message? Have you got some music in your repertoir that evokes the Tenderness of the message of Jesus?
I would like to ask the Church why it would want to take the events of one day and drive that single event with all the terror and horror of it home to as many People as possible.
Christianity has a lot to answer for in it's teaching of the ressurrection. A teaching obviously based on the mis-interpretation of those events. A teaching that is intent on mis-leading People about the Truth and filling them with guilt and horror and the misery of suffering.
After 2000 Years! don't you think it is time to let go of the guilt and the misery that has evolved with this mis-interpretation of the Life of Jesus.
'Bob the Builder' would be closer to the Truth of Jesus and no child has to feel sick when they listen to it.
The real story of the Resurrection is very different than the one Christianity has been spreading. It is Time to Change the Record.
Posted by: simplysimon, burnley on 11:58am Wed 19 Mar 08
One Fundamental Question that Challenges Christianity's version of the Resurrection is a very simple one.
Was Jesus Dead or Alive when he entered The Kingdom of Heaven.?
Why has Christianity been spreading the notion that a Person has to be DEAD before having access to The Kingdom of Heaven is another one.
Jesus was not DEAD! The Institutionalised perspective of the Church has been suggesting Death and suffering is a determining factor for for way to long.
It is not the only Religion that supports the pre-requisite of Death as a factor.
Death is nothing more than a bad rumour. No Death is required. Nobody is required to die to enter Heaven. Christians and others need to stop spreading this rumour. How much Death can Humanity take? How much Death do you think God needs? How much misery? How much suffering is it going to take?
At what point do the Christians stand on their own two feet and say [bold]"suffering is NOT acceptable" ?[/bold]
One Fundamental Question that Challenges Christianity's version of the Resurrection is a very simple one.
Was Jesus Dead or Alive when he entered The Kingdom of Heaven.?
Why has Christianity been spreading the notion that a Person has to be DEAD before having access to The Kingdom of Heaven is another one.
Jesus was not DEAD! The Institutionalised perspective of the Church has been suggesting Death and suffering is a determining factor for for way to long.
It is not the only Religion that supports the pre-requisite of Death as a factor.
Death is nothing more than a bad rumour. No Death is required. Nobody is required to die to enter Heaven. Christians and others need to stop spreading this rumour. How much Death can Humanity take? How much Death do you think God needs? How much misery? How much suffering is it going to take?
At what point do the Christians stand on their own two feet and say "suffering is NOT acceptable" ?
Simon I disagree with you about the story of the Resurrection from a Christian viewpoint. Also you ask why does a person have to be dead to access the Kingdom of Heaven? I believe that my body, the vehicle that carries the essential me will be dead when that time comes, but I, the essence of what is me, my eternal soul, will be returned to its Creator - God.
Simon I disagree with you about the story of the Resurrection from a Christian viewpoint. Also you ask why does a person have to be dead to access the Kingdom of Heaven? I believe that my body, the vehicle that carries the essential me will be dead when that time comes, but I, the essence of what is me, my eternal soul, will be returned to its Creator - God.
Posted by: simplysimon, burnley on 3:19pm Wed 19 Mar 08
Dear Ann,
You are correct to regard your body as a vehicle, a container for your Soul. You may, one day have to leave your little container, but your Soul has never left the Companionship of it's Creator.
Your Soul is the Presence of the Creator within your little container. On any day you can return to that Beautiful Presence. At any Moment you can place your little container into that River of Love that is flowing through you. you can fill-up your little container.
There are no limits, no constraints, take as much as you need to quench the thirst of your Sweet Heart. You can be Intoxicated. You can be soaked until your Heart is drenched with that Appreciation, that Beauty, that Peace and that simple Love that your Heart has always dreamed of. You can bathe in the waves of that River. That River of Life will never leave you.
There are no limits. Take as much as you want.
Dear Ann,
You are correct to regard your body as a vehicle, a container for your Soul. You may, one day have to leave your little container, but your Soul has never left the Companionship of it's Creator.
Your Soul is the Presence of the Creator within your little container. On any day you can return to that Beautiful Presence. At any Moment you can place your little container into that River of Love that is flowing through you. you can fill-up your little container.
There are no limits, no constraints, take as much as you need to quench the thirst of your Sweet Heart. You can be Intoxicated. You can be soaked until your Heart is drenched with that Appreciation, that Beauty, that Peace and that simple Love that your Heart has always dreamed of. You can bathe in the waves of that River. That River of Life will never leave you.
Posted by: simplysimon, burnley on 11:07am Thu 20 Mar 08
The Children are fine. It is the Adults that are in Pain. It isn't really the Children that need Protecting. It's the Adults that need Protecting from their own Pain.
To forsake, to forget that 'sense' of who we really are, to be cut off from that Beautiful, Precious, part of our selves. That is the deepest Pain.
No Child would ever do that. Adults justify that lost territory. They try to make themseves comfortable with some other thing. Some thing less Beautiful, something less Precious, Something less than Eternal.
There is nothing in this Universe more Precious to your Heart than that Beautiful 'sense' of who you really are. Who you Really are.
It's Beautiful! no matter what, healthy or sick, employed or un-employed, educated or un-educated. whether you are a slave or a king. There is nothing more Beautiful than who you really are.
That 'sense' is the True Divinity within your own being. And it will be with you through thick and thin. Good times and bad. It will never leave you. Because that is the Reality of who you really are.
No words can describe something so Beautiful!
The Children are fine. It is the Adults that are in Pain. It isn't really the Children that need Protecting. It's the Adults that need Protecting from their own Pain.
To forsake, to forget that 'sense' of who we really are, to be cut off from that Beautiful, Precious, part of our selves. That is the deepest Pain.
No Child would ever do that. Adults justify that lost territory. They try to make themseves comfortable with some other thing. Some thing less Beautiful, something less Precious, Something less than Eternal.
There is nothing in this Universe more Precious to your Heart than that Beautiful 'sense' of who you really are. Who you Really are.
It's Beautiful! no matter what, healthy or sick, employed or un-employed, educated or un-educated. whether you are a slave or a king. There is nothing more Beautiful than who you really are.
That 'sense' is the True Divinity within your own being. And it will be with you through thick and thin. Good times and bad. It will never leave you. Because that is the Reality of who you really are.
Posted by: simplysimon, burnley on 12:04pm Thu 20 Mar 08
Man has been 'trained' to think he is only Human.
Jesus was Alive when he went into Heaven. He just didn't let being Human stop him. Not even Death could stop him.
Now You have a possibility like that. Why are you waiting for Death?
Man has been 'trained' to think he is only Human.
Jesus was Alive when he went into Heaven. He just didn't let being Human stop him. Not even Death could stop him.
Now You have a possibility like that. Why are you waiting for Death?
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