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In 2003 the French and Lebanese organist and composer Naji Hakim wrote, to a commission of Leo Abbott of Boston, a former student of his, a piece in memoriam Theodore Marier, noted teacher and advocate for Gregorian plainchant. That inspiration, together with Hakim’s extensive practice as a liturgical improviser, leads to no surprise that the Read more
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It has been said that the first printed book of music dedicated to works by a single composer was a 1502 publication by Petrucci containing five settings of the ordinary of the Mass by Josquin des Prez. By the time they were composed (though the actual date of composition is difficult to pinpoint) the tradition Read more
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Arguably the most common form of theology in the form of music that most of us come across is the singing of hymns. As this post is to be published on the feast of the transfiguration, I will indulge by writing about my favourite hymn (there may be readers who breathe a sigh of relief Read more
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Hildegard von Bingen has featured on this blog before, and is not the first composer to have more than one piece considered. A single vocal line, and possibly an unfinished or incomplete idea, O cruor sanguinis is a short antiphon associated with the crucifixion. The short text reads: O cruor sanguinis qui in alto sonuisti, Read more
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It is slightly cheeky of me to entitle my post this week with a movement title used in Petr Eben’s Job, discussed last week, while this week we are considering a different work entirely. Giant of contemporary classical music, and if anything even more so of music that might validly be considered theological, the Scottish Read more
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Music which sets Biblical texts can hardly help but be theological, in some sense at least; although it is sadly true that composers often overlook scholarship on the Bible as such when considering their musical depictions. A relatively recent book that I have read suggests that the book of Job is more comedic than the Read more
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In the 1860s Franz Liszt, best known as piano virtuoso but actually with a more restrained sense to himself when appropriate, composed an oratorio based on frescos at the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach depicting the life of St Elizabeth of Hungary. The Wartburg is an interesting location in its own right, and between the times Read more
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Back to the theologically rich sound-world of the organ in twentieth-century Paris, but not straight back to Messiaen – some readers may be glad to know – but rather to another protégée of Marcel Dupré, the brilliant and virtuosic organist Jeanne Demessieux, introduced to the world by Dupré only for a personal rift of some Read more
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Today (25 June) is the International Maritime Organisation’s Day of the Seafarer. This fact alone puts me in mind of the setting by Herbert Sumsion of words from Psalm 107:23-30: They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;These men see the works of the Lord, and his Read more
Theology in Music 