Music
Freethought Music—Ave Verum Corpus (Really!)
It’s Sunday, so how about some church music? Although, in my experience, this surprises many people, many of us atheists like the transcendental sublimity of sacred music just fine; we just feel no compulsion to ascribe the response we feel to any supernatural explanation. What’s being “transcended” is the ordinariness of our typical emotional states, not the naturalistic laws that describe their origin or the other workings of the world.
Me, I’ve always loved sacred choral music in the Western tradition. I was in school choirs from the age of ten; in high school, our mixed concert choir was given a variety of styles, and classical sacred works were often among them. One year (my junior year, I think), we, like lots of other high school choirs everywhere, did Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. It’s a short (only 46 measures) motet setting the hymn—part of the magic cracker sacrament—to a fairly chromatic melody, with accompaniment:
| Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine, esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine. |
Hail the true body, Born of the Virgin Mary, Truly suffered, sacrificed On the Cross for mankind, Whose pierced side Flowed with water and blood, Let it be for us, in consideration, A foretaste of death. |
I wish I could credit the performers, but the info on the YouTube clip doesn’t say; it does, though, sound suspiciously like a performance of the Wiener Sängerknaben, the Chorus Viennensis, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2006, the video of the BBC broadcast of which has been removed from YouTube, or else I’d link to it. Another good version that can be found on Youtube is a 1990 performance in the (ridiculously baroque) Waldsassen Abbey in Bavaria, conducted elegantly by Leonard Bernstein.
It’s a strange death cult of a religion, but it gave rise to (or perhaps just latched itself onto) some beautiful emotional expressions. I love how in this piece, Mozart is able to throw in accidentals, and use big leaps sparingly, to evoke this feeling that’s warm and joyous, but not romantically so—it’s a reverent and distant kind of joy.
Anybody have any other sacred music they still feel attached to?
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4 comments for “Freethought Music—Ave Verum Corpus (Really!)”
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umm … i played guitar and led charismatic/pentecostal worship music for 20 plus years … but only miss watching and hearing my wife play bass … she moves to the rythem of the music when she plays and it’s mezmerizing to observe … but no i can’t say any of the music is still attached to me … i do always love hearing tight harmonies such as is heard in a song like “Whiskey Lullabies” … my wife and i will be at the coffee place this morning see you there
I love classical. By far my favorite to play on the piano would be by the master “Ludwig van Beethoven” – Fur Elise. Even in concert band I enjoyed all classical music but Beethovens was my favorite to play.
I don’t mean to be a spoiler. I’m accustomed to reading about how the church (the Catholic church, to be specific) is responsible for so much great art, music and architecture, especially in Europe.
But let’s face it, artists had to be paid by *someone*.
There was no other serious source of funds.
Who knows how secular the great Renaissance artists would have been, had their money come from elsewhere?
I’ve heard a few renditions of Ave Maria that were so beautiful that I almost felt like crying. Almost all other versions I’ve heard were obviously performed by professionals, but for some reason didn’t connect with me. I don’t know enough about music to explain what the difference was. All I know is I liked one version and didn’t like the other.
When performed by a great chior, Hadel’s ‘Messiah’ always gives me goose-bumps. And when it’s that good, I don’t mind standing for it.
I bow to your much superior musical intelligence and eloquence. Me like bang on stuff. It sound good.