"Lamb of God": Musical Reflections for Lent

[0:00] Thank you very much, Alexander. You're much, much too generous, and I'm sure there are others who could do this better. But I do have a passion for the topic, as you know, just generally, music and what it can do for us.

[0:17] What I thought I would do today is, with Lent just about to come up in the week, choose music that would enable us to reflect through that period, leading up to the wonderful Easter triumph that we celebrate, and find music that expresses in a healthy and edifying way the whole business of our Lord's passion, leading to his crucifixion and resurrection.

[0:52] I chose it because, first of all, hence the title Lamb of God, I'm astonished at the amount of music that has been written under that title.

[1:04] It's as though it's had a special attraction. It has, of course, for visual artists, too. The Lamb that was slain. It's extraordinary, really, given that we've got the one reference in the Gospels.

[1:16] Is it John 1.29? And then only two more references before we get to Revelation, in Acts 8.32 and 1 Peter 1.9.

[1:26] That is the Lamb of God. But it seems to have drawn poets and musicians in an extraordinary way, and painters. And alongside presenting music that I hope you will find interesting, because it's not all perhaps attracted to you, I don't know.

[1:49] There's quite a bit of 20th century music in here. I also want to do a sidebar, if you like, as to how the issue of sentimentality has crept into Christian expression.

[2:05] Sentimentality has been a deep concern of mine, especially in music, in worship, let's just say, in hymnody.

[2:17] And there is certainly no place more that sentimentality is being applied with a heavy brush than in hymns and repertoire to do with Lent.

[2:30] But this is due, there isn't time to go into why, except just to say that there's a very, very heavy pietistic influence. You see it in Bach, in the St. Matthew and St. John Passions.

[2:43] Wonderful music, inspired, and the scriptures are there. But then the arias come along, and there are this deep, he didn't write them, Picando would be his librettist, usually.

[2:56] These virtual love songs for the Saviour. And the emphasis is very much about me and my relationship with Jesus, and theology and doctrine stand off to the side somewhat.

[3:14] Someone has put it stronger than that, that we don't need doctrine. It's our experience that matters. And I think that, we're talking now, of course, about the 17th century. This is a very strong strain in Lutheranism.

[3:29] I'm touching on things here that some of you are utter experts in, but these are just reference points. That, I think, settled into Western Christianity, especially in the 19th century.

[3:42] And it's quite interesting to see how music starts to adapt to the times. So, if we listen to a lovely medieval singing of the Agnus Dei, we get this.

[4:00] Take us away, the sin of the world.

[4:25] Take us away, the sin of the world. Take us away, the sin of the world.

[5:00] Ready to respond to the carrying of the words.againstrebbe. now if i change that to if we can jump a very large number of um i'm not mocking this but he just jumped to i know what's going to happen this isn't going to work is it better all right that's not going to work all right then we'll jump to something else which is so on the same theme with all in the april evening april heirs are abroad the sheep with their little lambs notice the little pass me by on the road so this is 19th century edwardian by hugh roberton all in the april evening april heirs are abroad the sheep with their little lambs pass me by on the road i don't know how else they would have passed them by anyway all in the april evening i thought on the lamb of god the lambs were weary and crying there's no need for that but apparently they were with a weak human cry i thought on the lamb of god going meekly to die you can see what's happened here can't you it's a complete package which you were expected very

[7:55] Where are we here? Rest for the little bodies, rest for the little feet.

[8:09] The diminutive is very Charles Dickens-ish, isn't it? Little Dorrit, little Tim. But for the Lamb, the Lamb of God, up on a hilltop green, only a cross.

[8:23] A cross of shame. Now, I don't want to mock this, but it is indulgent, you have to admit.

[8:49] And yet, this is a top 20 piece in this idiom of choral music. People love it. This is a recent concert in Glasgow.

[9:04] It's a wonder there isn't a bagpipe playing in the background, just to completely... I saw the sheep with the lambs and thought on the Lamb of God.

[9:17] Only thought on. So it's not the Word of God, but these idealised rural images.

[9:28] Slow up. Beautifully sung.

[9:40] So, those are two extremes spanning several decades, because that approach to the truth, and depicting it in music and poetry, became almost an industry in the 19th century.

[10:03] Some of it is due to the Romantic movement in music. The Romantic movement in music doesn't quite match that in literature.

[10:14] It comes a bit later. But it is a fascinating period, in which the inner feelings have to be put...

[10:25] The ideas and... Sorry. The impulses and feelings of the composer are the driving force. And you shall hear them. We shall hear them.

[10:38] And also, with the Romantics, came this idea of absolute music, that there was a power within music. Beethoven's music started this off, really.

[10:50] Hoffman's famous essay on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony goes into this. That music, without words, just has an inner power. Well, it's true. But it's one which is almost transcendental.

[11:05] And this search for the transcendental in music is something that's obsessed Roger Scruton in this wonderful book called Music as an Art, which I really recommend.

[11:15] It's just come out. Roger Scruton, Sir Roger Scruton, has, I believe, taught at St Andrews. He's a philosopher, a commentator, quite controversial sometimes, on aesthetics and the arts.

[11:34] And himself is a composer. And an Anglican organist. We can forgive that, but I think... He's a fascinating man. And he...

[11:44] He says this. Always our feelings are mixed, contaminated by other concerns, by needs and distractions. Never in everyday life can we give ourselves completely to love, joy, forgiveness, grief, or worship.

[12:01] But these emotions, nevertheless, conjure a pure world of sympathy, in which they exist in their completed form, unsullied by self-interest, objects of contemplation, which bear their meaning entirely within themselves.

[12:17] Music can take us into that world, presenting us with transcendent, in quotes, versions of emotions that we know only in their bounded and empirical form.

[12:30] Got that? Still, his concern is this struggle over seeking, I think, seeking too much for music. And I personally feel that the...

[12:44] Until we get to about the middle of the 18th century, there isn't that struggle. A Bach, or a Mozart, but it's beginning to change, but a Bach and his contemporaries, books to Huda, and the medieval composers, had an art.

[12:58] They were recognized as artisans and skilled workers in the trade, if you like. They were not deified, they were not on a pedestal, living romantic style, above the norms of society.

[13:13] They had a craft which was then applied, if they were believers, to their workplace, the church, usually, almost always, up until 1750.

[13:27] Therefore, the personal feelings of a J.S. Bach or a Dietrich Buxtehude were kind of neither here nor there. It's what they did through the music with the text.

[13:39] And for me, personally, this isn't for everyone, I find that much more agreeable. The kind of, oh, I have this picture of the April evening and the little sheep that...

[13:51] you know. And I think, oh, come off it. and yet, this is... Oh, sorry! Sorry! Right.

[14:08] Bronze medal for diplomacy. Well, there we are. I mean, yes, I'm sorry. But as I say, Bach had to handle what was emerging as a very pietistic text.

[14:25] Some of them are in many a hymnal under Lent. And their thrust tends to be along the lines of it was not you but I alone who brought Christ to the cross.

[14:39] Not you, me. There is a hymn that says that. And there are often translations of German texts from that pietistic tradition. And it seems to me that is verging on manipulative.

[14:54] And it goes right into contemporary music, I'm afraid. It really does. By contemporary, I mean contemporary pop. Scruton, again, claims that the essence of pop music, whether you like it and enjoy it or not, nevertheless, is that it is a vehicle for the personality of the performer.

[15:17] In the same way that the music I feel with All in April Evening is a vehicle for a poetic vision, if you like, or preference, or conviction, artistic conviction.

[15:30] All these things are up for discussion, so I hope we will. So I think what I should do now is listen, we should listen to how Bach handles the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.

[15:48] And here, I think we hear the music serving the text. A mood is created, there's no doubt about it, more perhaps than in plain chant, but it's not intrusive, obligatory, it leaves you to sort of think for yourself.

[16:13] Texts are nearly always in Latin, I'm afraid, but we can't help that. So there's a solemnity here, you might almost call it a deep, deep, deep respect.

[16:44] So it's in, in a minor key, and that ploddy, chordal, underlay, sets a kind of mental framework for the text.

[17:02] Worldtax di for Alaska ung of the Gospel of the This is Andreas Scholl singing.

[17:38] And this, of course, is in a B minor mass of Bach's, a Lutheran mass. It's not a Catholic mass. So the text floats across this, almost like a slow heartbeat.

[18:01] The other feature is the falling nature of the melodies.

[18:16] It's a cascade downwards. It doesn't always go down. It's featured, it's a feature of this descending figure.

[18:29] And symbolism was very important in Baroque music, and Bach took it to a fine level. All kinds of symbols and devices to indicate the cross, sorrow, Lent.

[18:44] His Easter themes tend to go up. Advent and Lenten themes tend to go down. That is as a general feature, as a general direction.

[18:54] Then we've got someone else who we all respect and love, who again, I think, leaves us in a way to...

[19:10] Obviously they have to have input and present how they envisage the Lamb of God. But how they do it is a question of discretion, taste, and I think humility.

[19:26] I think both Bach and this gentleman have caught it. It's Handel. And it's Behold the Lamb of God. What he's using here is this dotted rhythm, which comes from the French overjerk, Renaissance Baroque overjerk.

[19:54] And it's used, like the prelude to the Messiah, as a kind of, this is serious business, possibly royal business.

[20:07] These dotted rhythms were used especially anything to do with monarchs and potentates. But the music doesn't get in the way of the world.

[20:24] But the music doesn't get in the way of the world. This is a Dunedin consort, directed by John Butt, who is a Christian conductor.

[20:49] The music doesn't get in the way of the world.

[21:19] This is a Jewish metaphor for me. The Lamb of God. It doesn't sentimentalize, at least I don't think it does. I don't see how it can. This is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is being referred to here.

[21:40] The King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is being referred to here.

[22:01] Again, a minor key. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is being referred to here. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is being referred to here.

[22:21] The King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is being referred to here. It gives you space to think and reflect doesn't it? It doesn't do it all for you. You have to receive it and digest it. I love to play the next one though because it just was a reminder that Handel also had next one though because it just was a reminder that Handel also had a little bit of a sense of humor when it came to us. This is quite a contrast. Us as sheep. It's almost clicker.

[23:05] I'm sure it should be. You can just picture these sheep scattered.

[23:28] Women as well as men. So it's absolutely gender equal. Sheep in all directions.

[23:42] Where we are to misery when we like sheep. Un Beast's Maybe barely anything in the street orOUGHT our Miss Street. We'll be right to visit, we'll be like a sheep.

[23:55] I've gone astray, I've gone astray, I've gone astray. Sorry not to play at all, but wonderful performance.

[24:07] I heard a choir sing it that fast. And we can go on into Mozart, who again manages to retain a dignity, almost an objectivity, about this very, very precious, vital image that we're presented in The Passion of Christ.

[24:34] This is his Agnus Day from the Requiem. Oh, sorry. Seven. There we go.

[24:54] Again, a minor key. Very weighty, like this is... Serious, serious stuff.

[25:20] Give us your, grant us your peace. This is Philip Halevega and the Orchestre de Chandelier.

[25:40] These little interludes again, allow room just to reflect. Yes. Length of note given to the Agnus Day Lamb of God.

[25:55] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[26:07] Amen. Amen. Amen.

[26:41] Amen. It's gorgeous music.

[26:53] There's a restraint there, and all the composers we've heard so far, I think there's a restraint which comes from a standing back a little from a divine situation, a divine topic, a divine situation.

[27:12] This is the Son of God about to be crucified, being crucified, and all that led up to it. Mozart dies at the end of the 18th century.

[27:29] Once we get into the 19th century, other influences start to be felt. This is Charles Gounaud's St. Cecilia Mass.

[27:43] And it's very interesting to just listen to a little bit of this Agnus Dei. Oh, I keep doing that. Come on, don't do that. Very evocative.

[28:00] Lovely. That sounds like beautiful. Beautiful. I wonder if anything strikes you about this.

[28:29] This is a car.

[28:43] Radio France. Orchestre Nouveau Philharmonic. Georges Petro. What we're hearing is the influence of opera.

[28:57] This is an operatic presentation of the Lamb of God representation, topic, subject. And what we start to find is...

[29:13] Oh. I'll come to that in a minute. Sorry. Once again, beautiful craftsmanship, skilled orchestration.

[29:28] There's also chromaticism, we call it, in music. The semitone movement within the harmonies, instead of fairly clear, no-nonsense relationships between chords, now starting to link up through...

[29:49] Semi-tone moves, which is the real essence of sentimental language. The parlor songs of the Victorian era are full of it.

[30:00] The... I'm trying to think what they're called. The... The musical songs, but I'm thinking...

[30:10] Oh, temperance songs. The temperance songs are full of it, too. Semi-tone moves, which is the real essence of sentimental language. And, of course, it's very, very strong influence in the music of Sankey and the old evangelical chorus.

[30:30] This could easily be a chorus. Just simplify it down a bit. Wouldn't that be? Right after the 19th century. There's the harp going 19th to the dozen.

[30:48] Full orchestra. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

[30:58] Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! And it ends with that cadence. It could easily be a leader or a sort of salon song from this period.

[31:11] The Charles Gugnard's, sorry. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

[31:22] Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

[31:33] Oh! Oh! Oh! It's Gabriel Fauré from his Dracula.

[31:49] Beautiful music. He himself, I think, said I did it just out of enjoyment. I don't think he had any conviction about it. But he struck an interesting note, so to speak.

[32:04] These guys were also, especially in the Catholic tradition, not about combining other texts with it. So other bits get slotted in.

[32:15] The composers would sometimes have the license to merge texts from different parts of the liturgy, especially the requiem.

[32:34] Now, of course, this is later. Born during Gounod's life, but dying in 1920s.

[32:48] Gabriel Fauré in 1924. It's absolutely sumptuous music. And this seems to be an example of where, once again, it doesn't gouge the emotions.

[33:03] It leaves you to receive it. And it's almost as though the intent of the composer doesn't matter in this case. It's out there.

[33:15] The church can use it. And it moves into other aspects of the requiem mass.

[33:42] I find that quite fascinating. So there have been people with whom we would disagree on a number of points, not least of all doctrinally, as composers who have done wonderful work, almost as though they've been seized by the collar and have come up with pieces that are really wonderful.

[34:02] I'm not playing any of his stuff this morning. But Benjamin Britten comes to mind. I sometimes think his settings are almost cynical sometimes of the, for instance, the Festival Tudium.

[34:13] But it is, in fact, a magnificent work. I remember Harry Robinson being very deeply struck by it when we sang it. I don't know if Terry's done it, but it takes the Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb, and he sets it to almost a calypso rhythm.

[34:31] And you think, hey, now come on, is this the cynical Benjamin Britten at work? Well, if it is, nevertheless, the piece somehow works in the context.

[34:44] That's another discussion, but it's a fascinating one. And the foray reminds me of it, in that what are we... Can you accidentally present the Transcendental? I don't know.

[34:55] Can you accidentally run into it? Even if you're simply being, so to speak, used by God as a composer? I don't know. But the 20th century has not, for all its boasting about being contemporary and throwing overboard the 19th century values in music, they have, in fact, they're alive and well.

[35:22] Now, this is Kim Arne Arneson's setting of The Lamb, which I'd like us to listen to almost completely and contrast it with something else.

[35:33] He was born, I think, in the 1970s, a Swedish composer, gaining a lot of popularity, beautiful writing, but in a way, I suppose, you could argue this is as romantic as all in the April evening, but the text, at least, is the Blake poem, The Lamb, which I'm sure you're aware of.

[36:03] Little Lamb Who Made Thee. Little Lamb Who Made Thee. Does Thou know who made me?

[36:20] Do you know who made me? Does that know who made me? Give me life and make me feel like a sick and warmly?

[36:44] I think I've got the text here. I didn't bring it up. Give me life and make me feel trad´s kee Gave thee such a tender voice.

[37:29] Making all the veils rejoice. In the Lamb who made thee, dost thou know who made thee.

[37:53] Dost thou know who made thee. Little Lamb I'll Tell thee.

[38:29] So in Blake's poem you've got the same interest in little. The diminutive still, the poetry is much more profound than that.

[38:48] He is called by thy name. For he calls himself a Lamb. For he calls himself a Lamb.

[39:18] For he calls himself a Lamb. We've got some very interesting harmonies going on here. With clusters of notes. But it's based on a more romantic language than you might expect from a current Scandinavian composer.

[39:36] He is meek. Oh, he became a little child. Sorry.

[39:48] I was a child, I was a child. I am a child, I am a child. He was called and I am saved.

[40:04] And I am I positive. He was calling and he left. while my life is preferences.' O he caves little Lamb of If him Though he has told her.

[40:24] oh lord oh So I'll be interested to know what you feel about this. little lamb god bless. A very complex piece to sing.

[40:45] The tuning has to be perfect and the intonation. The tune has to be perfect and the intonation.

[41:17] The text did, I think, honest and sincere. I can't speak for his convictions, but I do sometimes wonder if there's a text which will allow me to really show my harmonic expertise and craftsmanship and really explore harmonic richness.

[41:40] In other words, the text gets used. I can't say. It's just something that crosses my mind. Somebody who decided not to go a popular route with the same text, very different, was Sir John Tavener.

[41:52] John Tavener, knighted before his death recently, was a leading British composer, Orthodox Christian, and very much influenced by the Orthodox music, its chant and its parallel harmonies.

[42:10] This is his treatment of that text. I won't play it all, but here we go. It's much more functional, I would say.

[42:26] It leaves you alone a bit. Jeremy Begby loves to play this piece and get his students to sing it. It leaves you alone a bit.

[42:39] Look, Tavener died in 2013. That's hard to sing. Those intervals are very connusive.

[42:51] Give thee such a tender voice.

[43:16] I love it. It just, clearly he's not saying, here's something I can try out my harmonic expertise on.

[43:26] He's quite restrained. He made thee. So he doubles the time here.

[43:48] Does thou know who may thee? And that makes us think. Hmm. And then it goes on to original tempo.

[44:06] I'll tell you. I'm going to watch the time here.

[44:24] It's a very different approach. You don't have to have the Kleenex ready with that one. But with the Kimani-Arneson one, you might need it.

[44:35] It's very moving. But is it moving for the right reason? And are we dealing with the transcendental in our search for the transcendental, which Scruton claims is very elusive.

[44:46] You can't really find it. Get it. But you can get close. Or should we not judge? Just leave it as it is. Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, Calvinist, of conviction, and wrote some wonderful music.

[45:06] This is his Magnificent Agnus Day, which he wrote in 1926. And it shows, I think, a combination, wonderful combination of skill, contrapuntal skill, that is many voices going at once.

[45:26] In fact, it's for double choir. It's for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, soprano, alto, tenor, bass. And again, it's the Agnus Day from his Mass, as sung by the Netherlands Chamber Choir.

[45:48] It too has wonderful restraint and dignity regarding the text. This combination of consummate skill and just serving the text is, I think, the key to Christian music of any kind.

[46:11] Very difficult piece for a choir.

[46:34] First of all, you need two choirs' worth of singers, and they've got to be there for the rehearsal. There's half an hour. There's half an hour.

[47:09] There's half an hour. Glangularist harmonic shifts. Again, that slow pulsing underneath in the rhythm.

[47:23] There's half an hour. Thank you.

[47:57] Thank you.

[48:27] Thank you. Frank Martin died in 1974.

[49:01] There's still that slow pulsing going on rhythmically.

[49:13] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[49:25] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[49:37] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[49:49] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[50:01] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[50:13] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[50:24] Thank you. Thank you. And, yeah. You know, yeah, it's a shame that we can't hear these kind of pieces, just sheer practicality. You can't get a choir like that together.

[50:37] Perhaps at a university, if you're lucky, Trinity Western did that. But it was a struggle. You really need to have these choirs that come out of Scandinavia and the Netherlands and Germany, partly through the education system in the schools, which encourages music.

[50:56] You can draw on these large... Well, London, too. You can draw on this large body of singers to put together these things and record them. But for the average, most cathedrals even wouldn't be able to tackle that without setting aside a lot of time.

[51:12] So they become treasures that you bring out occasionally and enjoy, either to perform or hear. I must move on. Two things.

[51:23] I just wanted to touch on the theme of the Lord is not only the Lamb of God, but he is also now risen, our shepherd. And Will Todd, a concurrent young London composer, set that idea thus.

[51:43] Tenebrae Choir, English Chamber Orchestra. Will Todd works a lot in jazz ideas.

[52:16] So he's just skirting the romantic harmonic language of the 19th century here. And yet, I think, avoiding some of the pitfalls.

[52:28] Some of the modulations into new keys that take you by surprise and keep you on your mental tones. There's a lot of hope in this setting of the 23rd Psalm.

[52:43] Thank you.** O Lord, your handcuffs are against me You are my child Surely yourleness and love It preside us There is a more agitated underlay of rhythm here which always implies anticipation and hope assurance very clever use of the orchestra is

[54:28] Very interesting modulations there into different keys.

[54:58] A little bit of sentimental.

[55:28] I saw a lot in Indian to John Rutter who did a lot of breaking new ground in the 1960s, and 70s.

[55:58] He made a name for himself and then just flowered as a composer in this idiom. But others often studying with him have taken off from there. Rutter was at Cambridge and made his name through his Christmas carol recordings on Harvard.

[56:16] But the person who, at the end of the day, I think, has really caught the joy of Easter, where we're looking ahead to the end of the crucifixus from the B minor mass.

[56:35] And this is the yet resurrection, which I will conclude. Thank you.

[56:55] Masaki Suzuki and the Collegium Bach in Japan.

[57:06] The Bach Collegium in Tokyo.

[57:18] Here, dance rhythms. We have not had dance rhythms so much.

[57:31] Not me. Now we do. Another rising figures. Major key. Nice and round, jolly music.

[57:50] This is a Christian treat. So as you know, this is the And on the third day he rose again text in Latin and ascended into heaven.

[58:34] It's at the right time for the Father and shall come again with glory. And he will judge both the pick and the dead.

[59:20] And he will judge both the pick and the dead.

[59:50] And he will judge both the pick and the dead.

[60:20] The rising figure. The rising figure. The rising figure.

[60:37] The rising figure. The rising figure. At least a bit of an introspection. A. Into the season we're entering. B. Into how we've got to where we have in our expression of our faith through the arts and its relevance to the church today.

[60:55] So I'll leave it there. Questions? Yes? Yes? Yes. I'm just so glad that I've never heard a talk about soppy history music.

[61:06] And it's like, yeah, come to our house. I tell you. Yeah. It's just, I always used to feel guilty about not liking those really soppy hymns.

[61:18] But now that I think about it, I don't even like soppy pop music. Downhill's Sometimes When We Touch, which is an anthem, I just used to make me barf. It was. And this is just such a condemnation of that schmaltzy stuff that infects certain aspects of Christian music, which has always repulsed me.

[61:44] And it's so great because you're saying, well, yeah, it's maybe not the best theologically, which I've never really sort of examined it in that manner.

[61:55] But cute little lambies crossing the street. You know, this is so wonderful. Yeah, this is really great. I didn't mean it to be in any way a condemnation of anything, although I...

[62:06] Oh, all right. But I... I did have something I was going to play, but I refrained. And I'm glad to see, by God's grace, I failed to load it onto the disc.

[62:21] It is an utterly and completely manipulative version of Lamb of God. And now, yeah, let's leave it at that. I mean, I just can't believe it.

[62:33] It's interesting to hear, but it's just a crowd worker upper. That's all it is. It's a studio production, I think. And it's by the... You can see on the waveform, if you put it on the computer, it starts...

[62:49] Piano... It gets just moving. And then it gets bigger and bigger. By the end of the file, it's right up here. And there's screaming and yelling, and the choir's going gangbusters.

[63:01] And there's a pop soprano voice over the top, just... Ah! And you think, now, what was all that about? Is Roger Scruton right? Was that a vehicle for the personality?

[63:14] Because it was under the name of a particular personality in that field. Is it just a vehicle for that person's display and personality? I think we're allowed to adjudicate these things.

[63:27] I've got to adjudicate next week. That is, as a Christian, you listen to something and you assess it and adjudicate it. It's done theologically. It's done at Regent College, I'm sure.

[63:40] And it's done when they... Supposed to, when they interview clergy and so on, for ordination. It... You have to assess, and I think we're shy off that when it comes to music.

[63:55] It doesn't mean that you're judging the person when you adjudicated a music festival at all. You know, saying, I'm sorry, but that performance is all about you. You can say that. And famous adjudicators like Herbert Howells have done so.

[64:10] He said famously once, If you had put as much effort into the music as you did into your appearance on stage, this would have been stunning. So, yeah.

[64:25] And I don't understand why... Well, I do understand quite why the church has fallen in the evangelical way, especially. For the... For the idiom that it has.

[64:38] I don't mind that, except that with it goes a rejection of the other that we've been hearing. So often. It's seen as... Because it's not immediately join-inable.

[64:50] You can't join in the Frank-Martin mass. You've got to learn your part. It requires work and... Or a lot of obstacles. A reluctance, perhaps, I think, sometimes to receive, to just...

[65:04] For the congregation to sit quietly and receive something prepared, is something we've lost. One of the things that I do during Lent is the Elephant in the Sear.

[65:15] I just love playing that. Yes. As a sort of a set-up to my devotions for the... Yes. I didn't play that. I just find that such a beautiful... It is, yeah. ...forgest.

[65:26] And I now know theologically pretty solid progression. Yeah. Musically. Yeah. Yeah. Scruton goes in a lot into the issue.

[65:38] I wonder if I can quickly... I don't know if I bore you with what I look through pages, but he says something about... We limited critical time for music.

[65:52] Common practice... We know more ages every day. Okay. The repertoire was neither controversial nor especially challenging. Music took its place in the ceremonies and celebrations of ordinary life, alongside the rituals of everyday religion and the forms of good manners.

[66:08] We no longer live in that world. Music at home largely emerges from digital machines, controlled by buttons that require no musical culture to be pressed. For many people, the young especially, music is a form of largely solitary enjoyment to be absorbed without judgment and stored without effort in the brain.

[66:30] And I think that is something the Church should counter as we try to, in other fields, reading, thinking, theology, doctrine, and so on.

[66:43] Yes, John. I've got a good question. A friend of mine from the Holy Broach, a cathedral, she says, Church music is like offering. I said, now, just a second. Like, sometimes too much of it can be boring, but the Tao, I think she should have an appreciation for it some of the time.

[67:01] You're mentioning sometimes it's a treasure that you bring out every so often, that kind of music. I might mention those words to her, but there's something kind of missing in her life, because I think she should like music like that a little bit. Especially there, under Denis Bidard.

[67:14] And she says, oh, she said to the music director, why don't you sing the music like they do in the Black Church? And I say, in the Holy Ghost, people will make Donald Rain know what's. No. In the night time service, it's a little bit more, but she's, if she gets some appreciation of some of the arts, I think a little bit, or like English high tea, she doesn't like it.

[67:33] It might just bring a bit of balance, but she just doesn't seem to appreciate things like that. Not too much, once in a while type thing, but not at all, no. I think she should like it a little bit.

[67:45] But how to get a person like that interested in it. Yes. And if the church starts playing radio station culture, that is, we'll play what people want to hear, because then we get our ratings and then we get our money.

[67:58] I think we're on a slippery slope of some kind. Perhaps not totally faithful, but it's disappointing. Yeah. And I think this happened, alas. Yeah.

[68:09] Interesting. Because Denis Bidar, who was the music director there, is a superb musician. I think this music can be therapeutic, because a guy in the men's Bible says he's got a son who suffers from anxieties.

[68:21] Well, sometimes this can be good, because human emotions can do all sorts of things. And this is where this kind of music is sometimes just what a person needs to hear sometimes. Yeah, you're quite right. Just, I can see Alexandra with her scimitar drawn.

[68:37] Is there any quick, very quick question? Yes. I just wondered if you have any opinion, just curious if you have any opinion on sacred music sung in Latin versus sacred music sung in Latin?

[68:50] Yes. Well, I always, the only thing I would, I love it when it's in English, but I think we've got that historical heritage, pre-Reformation heritage.

[69:02] And even in Lutheranism, and I suppose in the English, Latin was tolerated or allowed in the cathedrals. And it seems to me, thinking back to my Auntie Florence in Bristol, who is a devout Catholic, they know what the Latin means through repetition.

[69:23] And she knew a lot, she knew a lot for a lot of other good reasons. But in Cianus' day, they're not going to go, hmm. Hmm. Hmm. So I think there's a certain beauty in a coded language, which is not totally unique, but used by the Church.

[69:38] And secondly, it happens to be one of the most beautiful languages to set to music. English is a bit awkward, as Handel discovered when he worked on the Messiah. Right.

[69:49] Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. And Latin just flows beautifully, for some reason or other. But that's all I can say about it. I don't want, we often battle with it here.

[70:01] And if we did, when I was music director, I'm sure Terry does it too, if we were singing in Latin, we'd put an English, or try to remember, to put an English translation in, so that people did know what was being sung. Well, I know we could go on and on, it would be lovely if we had a three-part series or a twelve-part series.

[70:18] I know I'd be here every week. That would be biblical, twelve-part series. Twelve-part series. Just want to take an opportunity to say thank you once again, an amazing and really inspiring talk. Thank you.

[70:29] Thank you very much.