The Grey Shadow

I closed the gate of my office building, and started to walk to my mom’s place, where I would spend my lunch hour. The day was glorious: cloudless sky of a piercing blue tonality, soft breeze, and no noises save for the usual chirping sounds of bugs and birds. There was no other person in sight.

Then it happened. A soft tune emerged from one of the homes. It was a violin, playing on its low registers, sounding amost like a viola. The player was skilled, and played some typical Paraguayan folk tunes such as «Ñemity», «Lejanía», and «Nda recói la culpa». When the player finished one of the tunes, I could hear some muffled clapping sounds of applause.

What a beautiful moment! A truly reminder that there is something deeper amidst the cachophony of our lives. Thank you, Lord, for this and other signs of Your care for us.

Most of you know what I think of current worship practices in church. My disagreements on that area are mostly philosophical, aesthetic and methodological. However, sometimes it is just plain old incompetence what gets you.

Two Sundays ago, I went to our church service. The worship (or what passed for it) was directed by a certain lady. Everything was truly awful (as usual), but then things sank to a new low. She called for Hymn #370. I searched in my hymnal and thought “wow, that is great. An Old German choral by Gebhart.”

However, the music started and something was awfully wrong. The music was completely different! Searching, I found out that the music was in fact that of Hymn #217, which is the exact same lyrics but with a completely different music. Even worse, the worship group even got the melody wrong and repeatedly made mistakes!

What became evident is that not only the directing lady didn’t know anything of even basic music reading; the whole worship group didn’t know the first thing of score reading as well. Awful, just awful.

The title might look shocking, and it is. And yet, there are too many Christians and churches that are happy to tell their brethren to act like this as their answer when sincerely and honestly questioned, all for the sake of maintaing “the bond of peace”. The problem is, it’s very good to be a peacemaker unless you get the short end of the peacemaking stick.

Doug McHone of Coffee Swirls fame has written along these lines in Worship Wars. See, for example:

If it is someone who says that Jesus is not eternally God it is one thing. If it is someone who prefers to sing only a capella, it is another. The controversy may be important or it may just be a matter of preference. If it is preference, share your preference, but guard your heart from legalism.

This is another formulation of the same old thing: Worship is non-essential. Therefore, if you don’t see that the worship (and this goes to the choice of musical styles) is OK, the title applies: just shut up and take it like a man. Otherwise, you will be labeled as a divisive, whining, troublesome jerk.

Obviously I am overstating the case, but I hope you see the point. Doug’s article is excellent in many levels, and is a passionate plea for unity in non essentails, and the use of Christian charity when we have to deal with non essential things we don’t like. If only all worship leaders and planners were like Doug I’m certain that worship “skirmishes” would be far less traumatic.

The problem however, is that Doug, like so many other Christian leaders, take worship, or rather, the particular choice of styles of delivery during public worship of our Lord, as a non essential. That is, I am afraid, not entirely true.

I understand that it is hard to argue against one style and favor another, because most of the time it is just a matter of taste. However, this begs the question: which taste?

I tried to set forth the importance of an appropriate worship style on aesthetics grounds on The Aesthetics of Christian Worship. True worship should express Beauty in the most sublime form allowed by the particular culture we’re immersed in. If our worship is not commensurate with sublime Beauty in our culture, i.e., if it is just a manifestation of tasteless kitsch, it is not worthy of our Lord.

Additionally, worship is an expression of how do we view God. Who is the One we approach in worship? Is a holy, terrible, just yet merciful Person, or is just a jolly good fellow? The answer to this question will impact forcefully on our worship style.

But there is another issue that is somehow relative, yet important: Worship is a public expression of our loving of the Lord. It is public display of love for love’s sake. It is the most intimate of the public encounters with the triune Lord God. And this should bring a pastoral concern: Imposing worship style changes is imposing changes in our way of expressing public love to our Lord. This is done all the time, and the ones who dare to protest are treated with the whole “just shut up and…” mantra.

Now, think for a moment: If someone tells you that you are no longer allowed to kiss your significant other in public, and that instead of it you should just wink with one eye, would you take that? What if you dare to protest, and your concerns are dismissed, and you are treated like a “divisive”, “troublemaker”, and other less edifying labels?

Worship wars aren’t wars just for nothing. You are dealing with the intimate and the sacred. Until this fact is properly dealt with by worship “engineers” or leaders, the casualties will escalate.

Two days ago, my boss pointed me out to a very significative statement made by Denton Lotz, General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. The statement was made during the European Baptist Federation general council meeting in Prague, on September 22–25. You can see the whole news item, but the tidbit that raised the eyebrows of Rev. S., my boss, and myself, is this:

Lotz distanced himself from the superficial texts of oft modern, frequently charismatic worship songs known as “Seven-Eleven-Worship“ – the seven-word text of a song is repeated 11 times. A reaction to this movement is now apparent in the USA. Protestant intellectuals are increasingly protesting against such church services and are transferring to the Roman Catholic church.

In terms of relevance, this is like an atomic bomb. While many of them have been great traditionalists in the worship, most Baptists have been quick to drink the whole Kool-Aid of the so-called “contemporary worship”, happily throwing out pipe organs and old hymnals while bringing in electroninc amplification, high decibels, electric guitars, drumsets, and Power Point projection. During the whole process, the mindset of those brethren was thoroughly pragmatic: “Contemporary worship” attracts more people, and especially young ones; therefore it must be good and we should do it, other considerations be darned. You can see that mindset operating daily in many other aspects of Evangelical church life, and most especially in world missions.

Pragmatism has been the curse of the modern evangelical church. We put “results” –a very narrow-defined category expressed mainly in numerical terms– as our main priority, knowing all the time that this is wrong. Results should not be our priority. Evangelism and missions, however crucially important they might be, should not be our priority. Our overriding priority and concern should be the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Nowhere this should be more evident than in our community worship, where the congregation has an encounter with the terrible, fearful, most holy and sovereign God (Psalms 42:4). It seems that for most of our leaders the enormous significance of this fact has been lost:

Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!
(Amos 4:12,13)

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?” (Micah 6:6a) When it comes to congregational worship, our answer to Micah’s question has been too often the crap that we call contemporary worship.

There are many principles that we can cite when we discuss true Biblical congregational worship; but there is one of them that has been missing from many treatments on the subject: the aesthetic principle.

Aesthetics is the philosophical discipline that studies Beauty, or the Good as apprehended immediately by the senses, especially in nature and art. This is different from the moral Good, which is the Good apprehended by the whole being as related to the volition or our volitional reaction. And now, this is a sad state of things to admit, but we Christians have not been terribly good at doing things beautifully. Think of our worship! Despite having at our disposal masterpieces by people such as Handel, Bach, Victoria, Morales, Tallis or Lauridsen we prefer the mudhole of happy-clappy jingles iterated ad-infinitum, ad-nauseam!

Congregational worship should be an extremely delicate area of church life, because we meet God there, and God is like a jealous lover, demanding the best from His loved ones (Exodus 34:14). He demands nothing less than the very best from us, as one can see in Exodus 25 [show]Exodus 25 Contributions for the Sanctuary [25:1]The LORD said to Moses, [2]"Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. [3]And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, [4]blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goats' hair, [5]tanned rams' skins, goatskins,(1) acacia wood, [6]oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, [7]onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. [8]And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. [9]Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it. The Ark of the Covenant [10]"They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits(2) and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. [11]You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it. [12]You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. [13]You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. [14]And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. [15]The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. [16]And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you. [17]"You shall make a mercy seat(3) of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. [18]And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. [19]Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. [20]The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. [21]And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. [22]There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel. The Table for Bread [23]"You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. [24]You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it. [25]And you shall make a rim around it a handbreadth(4) wide, and a molding of gold around the rim. [26]And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and fasten the rings to the four corners at its four legs. [27]Close to the frame the rings shall lie, as holders for the poles to carry the table. [28]You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with these. [29]And you shall make its plates and dishes for incense, and its flagons and bowls with which to pour drink offerings; you shall make them of pure gold. [30]And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly. The Golden Lampstand [31]"You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be made of hammered work: its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. [32]And there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it; [33]three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on the other branch--so for the six branches going out of the lampstand. [34]And on the lampstand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers, [35]and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. [36]Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold. [37]You shall make seven lamps for it. And the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it. [38]Its tongs and their trays shall be of pure gold. [39]It shall be made, with all these utensils, out of a talent(5) of pure gold. [40]And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [25:5] Uncertain; possibly 'dolphin skins', or 'dugong skins'; compare 26:14 2. [25:10] A 'cubit' was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters 3. [25:17] Or 'cover' 4. [25:25] A 'handbreadth' was about 3 inches or 7.5 centimeters 5. [25:39] A 'talent' was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms
onwards and Leviticus. Who would dare to employ second-press olive oil for the Tabernacle, or an one-eyed calf for a holocaust?

The same demand is echoed at several times in the New Testament, but I would like to especially point out to Romans 12:1,2, where we are specifically commanded to bring ourselves as a sacrifice to God in spiritual worship with renewed minds. Do you think that we are relieved to offer the best to God just because this is the New Testament time?

Thus, if we are to meet God, we should meet him with nothing less than the best. What we give Him, should eminently posess Beauty. Now, when we sing in His presence, are we singing the best songs, or are we repeating the happy-clappy-crappy jingles revulsive even to an used car dealership specialized in kitsch advertising?

And yet, we do it, and blindly persist in keeping doing it. Educated persons, used to deal with real complex situations and solve them with the finest of their abilities, congregate and sing tunes that are trite stuff even for a 6-year old. Do you think this is fair before God? Do you think it is fair before God to pretend to “worship” Him while you’re blowing your ears out in decibels, in the very face of He who commands us to be stewards of our bodies?

Good congregational worship shouldn’t be elitist, nor difficult to grasp. Everyone can contribute his or her best to God, and edify the congregation of the saved, while offering a powerful witness to the heathen: the best of our culture and our minds are humbly offered before God. Good congregational worship shouldn’t be “traditionalistic”, or traditional, either. It can use contemporary rythms, tunes, and liturgies; but it should posess Beauty.

The consequences of this sad state of things are obvious. Denton Lotz warns us about “Protestant intellectuals” defecting our churches, but you don’t have to be one to realize the bankruptcy of contemporary worship. Extreme ugliness is apparent to most people, and not only to intellectuals. But, the real question is, how God will answer to our wilful failures?

On Saturday, August 20th, my wife and I went to see Swan Lake, the famous ballet with music by Tchaikovsky, presented by the City of Asunción Classic and Modern Ballet.

I thought the production would be passable, but I was in for a surprise. It wasn’t passable. It was gorgeous. The main roles were played by Slawka Ladewig, from the National Dance Company of Mexico, and Rudy Candia, from the North Carolina Dance Theater.

The wardrobe was super–sensational, done by the noted local artist Ricardo Migliorisi (spanish link). It was simply superb, luxuriant, and very suited to the occasion.

The sound was good although at some times was rather loud; it’s just too sad that there wasn’t an orchestra playing in the pit. It was just a recorded soundtrack. All in all, an enjoyable evening.

The tickets? Regular: $5, VIP: $8.40.

Some days ago, I read in the papers that the noted dancer Julio Bocca would be coming to Asunción. He would star in a presentation staged up in benefit of some poor women of the rural areas.

Tickets? well, it depends: $150, $100, $50, and $20. When questioned about the price, representatives of the charity that is organizing the event pointed out that this is what is usually charged in the rest of the world for that kind of artistic manifestation.

I think the price is ludicrous. Around Christmas 2001 I had been at a function of Nutcracker staged in De Vos Hall by the Grand Rapids Ballet Company, with music provided by the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra playing in the pit. The dancer was the noted Ms. Maria Kowroski, a Grand Rapids native and Principal Dancer of the New York City Ballet. I don’t remember the prices that were being charged at the time, but right now the highest price you can pay at Ticketmaster for the 2005 Grand Rapids Nutcracker is $45.00.

This is something that has happened from time to time in Paraguay: some noted artist comes –usually with support from the state at some level– but the tickets are ludicrously high. Fortunately, there are the exceptions, too. However, I am disappointed.

I would like to share with you something that happened to my wife at her work. She is blessed to work at an evangelical (Baptist) institution with a large staff (circa 400 employees), as the CEO’s personal assistant. While she is the CEO’s assistant, her immediate superior is the General Secretary of the outfit. The General Secretary is a lady a little bit older than me; I worked with her in varous capacities since 1997 or so, and she always impressed me by her professional attitude, her friendliness and her commitment to excellence in service. Thus you can guess that this lady gets a lot of respect from me.

My wife and me share a liking for that 80′s music (well, that was our golden age…). I suggested her to get a boombox at her office, so she could hear one of the many “retro” radio stations of Asunción, and she did. She played the music softly, keeping the volume low enough as to ensure that the music would be audible just to her and to no one else.

Now, you must understand a little about Paraguayan Evangelicals. Since we are a minority, many of us still have the marks of a ghetto community. Now this is a hindrance: our country is ready to embrace the Gospel in unprecedented ways, and yet our brethren are a little reluctant to be bold in evangelism. Conversion is not only a spiritual event; it is also a socio–cultural one, where you come to identify yourself with a ghetto by displaying the same token attitudes that would brand you as “one of us”.

It looks like one of these tokens is the choice of radio stations. In 1992, the Mennonite Brethren founded the OBEDIRA FM Station as an all–around evangelical radio, broadcasting some Christian music (almost all of it contemporary), and some sermons. OBEDIRA grew to became currently positioned among the Top 5 radios of all Paraguay, with an impressive broadcast range measured into the hundreds of kilometers.

However, growth in market positioning was inversely proportional to quality: while OBEDIRA already started in the “bad” sector of the quality meter, it only grew worse. Now, the programming is a crass and gross mess of really bad music (for example, some Tex-Mex Christian music that only says something against Satan, and other equally profound and theologically insightful stuff), and worse talk–show, where the deepest subject tackled is Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez and how it will give you the best blessings.

I thought that my fellow brethren would chose to stay away from such low depths, but I was wrong. Wherever I step into some evangelical realm (a fellow believer’s home, some evangelical institution, the office of some evangelical worker in a company, etc.), the radio loudspeakers are booming OBEDIRA’s crap as obnoxiously as they can get away with. It is almost like they’re flaunting their faith unto any passersby by inflicting them the aural torture of such bovine dung. I never understood it, and every day I understand it less. As for myself, well, the second I found that it was all bollocks I switched the dial away to something better (nothing difficult, by the way).

One day, my wife came home from office, and as soon as I greeted her I saw a look of deep disappointment in her face. She then told me that earlier in the day, the General Secretary send her a note that said, succintly:

Dear Wife_of_Eduardo,

OBEDIRA, please.

Regards, N.

Furthermore, in her weekly evaluation, the G.S. told her: “Here in the General Secretariat we are on the eyes of everybody and we must be very concerned about our image. We must set the example for others to follow. Since we are a Christian organization, we must bear Christian witness even in our choice of radio stations. Therefore I instruct you to listen only to Radio OBEDIRA during office hours.”

I was taken aback, very disappointed. I suggested my wife to return the boombox home, and get done with it. Both of us agreed that silence is better than such crap. But deeper questions remains.

What disappoint me the most about OBEDIRA and my fellow brethren is how ugly the programming is. We understand that the Lord created the world (Hebrews 11:3; Genesis 1:1) through Jesus Christ, who is radiant and glorious (Hebrews 1:2,3). And everything that God created was very good (Genesis 1:31).

Thus, it should be pretty evident that beauty –goodness and truth expressed in the realm of the senses– is deeply rooted in the creative activity of God; and it is out of the question that the quest for beauty, when put in its right priority, is a way to honor and glorify God. As redeemed men and women, we should work out to restore the beauty of God’s world. We must do it because God is beautiful; what He has done to us in choosing and predestining us before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5) is beautiful beyond expression; and we are commanded to hope something that it is described as “riches of glorious inheritance”, an “immeasurable greatness” (Ephesians 1:18,19). We also know that the gifts of God are “good and perfect” (James 1:17). It is a serious call: If we are to behave like children of a beautiful, glorious God, we are bound to seek ways of filling this world with His beauty and glory.

Thus, beauty in the world became by creation; and we are called to restore it by redemption. However, Fall complicated things. For one thing, our sense of beauty became deeply flawed. What should be an absolute emanated from the archetypal source of all beauty –God Himself– became the hotbed of relativism. The beauty in the eyes of one beholder is boredom or ugliness in the eyes of other. And not only that; but nowadays so many sins come under an appearance of beauty. The grass is greener on the neighbor’s side of the fence. The strange woman might appear more enticing that one’s own, at times; or what is most pornography but something beautiful put to misuse?

How can we overcome such crippling relativism and deception? Hans–Georg Gadamer, speaking about Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” and the exposition about aesthetics that you find there (in his seminal work Truth and Method), points out that for Kant and for many of the ancient philosophers, this could be overcome by training and education. If you are an uneducated person, you will have tastes pointing out to the crass and the kitsch. However, a good classical education had as one of its goal to equip the budding scholar with tools that would enable him to appreciate the “real” beauty. That is, in order to appreciate a lot of the riches of, say, Homer’s Illiad, one must tackle the study of Classical Greek; if you really want to appreciate the works of Jorge Luis Borges, you must master the Spanish language, and have a working knowledge of English, English protestantism, and the Protestant Bible; and so on.

However, the main thrust for beauty should be the Enlightenment; no, no that one of Leibniz and the like. I am talking about the enlightenment of the “eyes of our hearts” (Ephesians 1:18), that is, the “spirit of your mind”, which can happen only by putting on “the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:23,24). In other words, the implications of the theology of redemption strongly suggest that it is the redeemed, regenerated Christian believer the one who should be at the forefront of the quest for beauty. Sadly, as my wife experienced, this is far away from realized among ourselves.

I wonder, why my brethren continue to obnoxiously push such crap as if it were the sum of all that is good? This question also perplexes me in the issue of worship, where the same crass attitude is all too evident. Do they perhaps venture to think that such sacrifices are pleasing to God? Are these sacrifices worthy of a holy priesthood, living stones of the spiritual house of God? I think not.

And thus we have our little situation in my wife’s office. The worst thing of all is that this became a scandal to her. You might now that my wife is Roman Catholic. She is born-again, and the Lord Jesus Christ is her only Savior, but she was raised too Catholic that she would not consider leaving the church at any time. While she and I have true spiritual communion, I agree that the situation now is less than desirable. I am praying so that we could find a good solution to the issue.

The boombox came home, and everything returned to normal. But deep inside my heart, I feel like I hear stones crying out to heaven, because we have become too silent or lazy in so many crucial questions. Do you think that my wife would be inclined now to request membership at my local church? The only certain thing that my lady friend the General Secretary accomplished is to reinforce my wife’s deep notion, that all Protestants are zealots and fanatics and unable to see a camel in front of them because they’re intent in nitpicking each others’ lives. We might be a devout people, but our devotion smacks of fanaticism and ugliness; and truly so.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Update: Catez from Kiwiland wrote a fantastic post on a sligthly related question: Why Did God Give Us Intellect?. The whole post is filled with solid gold in insights, and it relates very well to my musings on the Evangelicals’ aesthetic failure. Here’s an especially great passage, only that what she says about women, I would say about Paraguayan evangelicals:

Finally, and this is important, many Christian women have not been encouraged to develop and use their minds in service to God. If any group of people within the wider church have suffered from the anti-intellectualism that has eroded evangelicalism, it is Christian women. When Jesus advised us not to hide our talents but to invest them he was not being gender-specific. If God has given us minds then we are to develop them, exercise them, and use them.

Go there and read it. You won’t be disappointed. Promise!

You might assume that when I was in America, I was as cash-strapped as any student was; and, if you do so, you are right. More so because I was sent by a Paraguayan church and they were strained to the maximum in doing so. Therefore, I economized as much as I could, avoiding any unnecessary expenses.

But one of the few “luxury” purchases I made was this recording. This is a recording of Renaissance sacred polyphony composed by Spaniards and Mexicans who were maestros de capilla (music directors) of Mexican churches in the first period of Spanish conquest, superbly rendered by the Westminster Cathedral Choir under the direction of James O’Donell. Listen to the CD and you’ll be amazed at how elaborate and sophisticated the music is, not to mention beautiful.

This poses a question. If the Spanish conquest was just a cheap excuse for pillage and plunder, and the obliteration of several cultures and civilizations just for the sake of the conqueror’s greed and the enslavement of the native people, then why is that such a musical treasure like this came into being? The answer is, of course, that while the whole process of Spanish conquest was mostly regrettable, it also had its bright spots. Thousands of Roman Catholic missionaries came, and with them their sincere conviction that the natives were people, created in God’s image, and that the salvation of their souls was the missionaries’ utmost concern. A process of cultural change began, a process where both Spaniards and natives would change and unconsciously enrich each other.

One of the most interesting sides of this cultural exchange was the art of music. To their astonishment, missionaries and conquerors discovered that the natives had a strong musical talent and ability, and that music was able to open doors that sheer force or imposition could not. Soon the Indians were competing for positions in the schools of music, being attracted to the musical instruments and the sounds of the music they sang. This phenomenon not only produced excellent performers, but also native composers. Scattered throughout the archives of American cathedrals, the works of hundreds of Indian composers praising the Lord are stored, forgotten and decaying under the rot of time. The music they produced, both as performers and composers, was on a par with that produced by Europe in terms of quality and artistic excellence.

This recording from Hyperion bears testimony of what I said above. You can hear three works by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla (c1590-1664) a Malaga-born Spaniard, Master of Music at Puebla Cathedral; two by Francisco López Capillas (1612-1673), a Mexican who served as master of music at the cathedrals of Puebla and Mexico City; and one each by Hernando Franco (1532-1585), a Spaniard born in Extremadura and a master of music first in the cathedral of Guatemala City and then at the incomplete (at the time) Mexico City cathedral, and Antonio de Salazar (c1650-1715), a Spaniard born in Seville and master of music at the cathedrals of Puebla and Mexico City.

All the works are beautiful. You can hear Franco’s Salve Regina, where he offers a beautiful rendering of the Salve in the tradition of the cantus firmus i.e., elaborating polyphonic settings having one of the voices singing the original notes from the plainchant; or Gutiérrez’s setting of the Office of None’s music, the antiphone Deus in adiutorium (God, come forth in my help) and the portion of Psalm 119:129-144 [show]Psalm 119:129-144 Pe [129]Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. [130]The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. [131]I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments. [132]Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. [133]Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me. [134]Redeem me from man's oppression, that I may keep your precepts. [135]Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. [136]My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. Tsadhe [137]Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules. [138]You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness. [139]My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words. [140]Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it. [141]I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. [142]Your righteousness is righteous forever, and your law is true. [143]Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. [144]Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.
Mirabilia testimonium (How wonderful are your testimonies), a magnificent and demanding double-choir setting, as is the usual in Padilla’s music, always very expansive. The music of López Capillas is more simple in a way, though he is more avant-garde in harmonic combinations, and extremely lively, as you can hear in his motet Dic nobis Maria (Tell us, Mary). The final motet is the introspective, luminous and hopeful O Sacrum Convivium (O holy banquet) of Salazar, which looks like peaceful sunlight translated into music, and whose closing verse et futurae gloriae pignus datur, “and a pledge of future glory is given us” sets the tone for the whole recording.

The music present in this recording shows a fact too much overlooked: We Hispanic Americans are part of the Western Christendom and Western Culture, and we contributed to Western Culture in our own right, as much as we had received. Today, people tend to classify ourselves as non-westerners, but this is not true. We may not be First World, but we are Westerners, and our main culture is Western.

This recording was Gramophone Critic’s Choice. The CD is adequately packaged, and comes with libretto with English translation of all texts, and excellent liner notes by Bruno Turner. The music was recorded on 20-22 June 1989. However, there is one big caveat: I bought this CD in 2001. Right now is 2004, and the CD has deteriorated quickly. There is a visible hole in the reflective layer, and it looks like it cannot sustain itself for too much time. The funny thing is, that this is the only CD that had this thing happened. So, beware; and if you own a CD burner, do yourself a favor and burn a copy of this CD ASAP. If you feel interested in getting it, you can click on the CD cover at the beginning of the article, and it will take you to the Hyperion homepage.

It’s no wonder this recording is one of the treasures, if not the treasure, of my CD library. I will close this review this thought from Dic nobis Maria, the motet by Francisco López Capillas:

Scimus Christum surrexisse a mortuis vere:
tu nobis, victor Rex, miserere. Amen. Alleluia

(We know that Christ has truly risen from the dead.
Have mercy upon us Thou triumphant King. Amen. Allelluia!)

Amen. Allelluia!

I saw this post in Rae’s blog about some 80′s favorite songs and, strangely, it stroke a chord.

Looking back to the 80′s, I am surprised to find pop music that was of actually good quality, even if it had some objectionable content. I find that today there are lots of “retro” radio stations, and ads are filled with 80′s music. Why today’s pop have to be of such a bad quality?

But I digress. Here’s my very partial list of 80′s songs:

A-ha: The blood that moves the body – Take me on – Stay on these roads
• Al Corley: Square rooms
• The Alan Parsons Project: Don’t Answer Me – Eye in the Sky (and many others)
• Alphaville: Big in Japan – Sounds like a Melody
• Camouflage: Love is a Shield
• Duran Duran: Save a Prayer
• Erasure:: A little respect – Oh L’amour
• Europe: The Final Countdown
• A Flock of Seagulls: The more you live the more you love
• Hall & Oates: Maneater
• Huey Lewis and The News: I Want a New Drug
• Laura Branigan: Gloria – Self-control
• Men at Work: Overkill – Down Under
• OMD: Enola Gay and many others
• Peter Schilling: Major Tom
• Queen: Radio Ga Ga – I want to Break Free
• Thompson Twins: Doctor! Doctor! – Hold Me Now
• Traveling Wilburys: Handle With Care – Runaway
• Ultravox: Dancing with tears in my eyes

There are many, many others, but let this list suffice for the time being. What do you think ?

(Update: Another post with follow-up (i.e., more songs).

While editing the church bulletin, I put in the CD player the wonderful Requiem Mass by the Portuguese composer Duarte Lôbo (c.1565-1646; a namesake of mine, since his name was latinized as Eduardus Lupus).

Four years ago, I was totally ignorant of Renaissance polyphony. Of course I intended one day to get acquainted with it, since I was (and still am) a Baroque music buff, and I always wanted to expand my musical horizons; and especially, because I was curious. The main problem was that here (Asunción, Paraguay) is not easy to get that kind of music, or, for that matter, anything that is not part of the musical mainstream.

One day I noticed in the newsstands installments of an encyclopaedia about Sacred Music. Each installment would come with a CD (from the labels Philips, Decca, and another one that I cannot recall now, only that it wasn’t Deutsche Grammophon). The CDs were rebranded and with most liner notes stripped out, but they were original recordings, many of them of historical quality, and with a remarkable period breadth.

One of the installments carried the Requiem Mass by Tomás Luis de Victoria. I listened to it as a matter of course, not expecting too much from it. By the time I was in Track 2 I was hooked for life: Renaissance Sacred Polyphony was among the most beautiful musical expressions of our culture. And so is this recording, superbly done by the Tallis Scholars led by Peter Philips.

Duarte Lôbo was one of the most prolific Portuguese composers at a time when Portugual was politically dependent on the Kingdom of Spain, and therefore his music shows a lot of Spanish influence, especially from Victoria. The music is, of course, a Mass that you were supposed to sing in order to pray for the dead, and while there are many Bible verses that speak of hope and comfort, there are many unbiblical prayers and sayings proper to Roman Catholicism.

However, the Spanish Requiem Masses were an exercise in translating hope into musical terms; and Lôbo’s mass is not an exception. The Mass is rendered in a major key, and the whole setting is luminous and clear, almost feeling like a musical embrace of some sort. The Scholars sing through the score almost flawlessly, transmiting the soothing and uplifting music directly to your heart. And there are moments especially pungent, such as in the Introito or the Kyrie eleison, when you could almost feel the composer as a sinner humbling himself before our Lord, begging for mercy and for his life, but also with the firm conviction that he is addressing a Lord that is not only just, but merciful.

It’s an experience almost mystical in its depths, and heavenly in its quality, and very difficult to translate in words. There were so many times when, while listening to the Kyrie, I would lift my hands to heaven, silently praying and enjoying the presence of my Savior; and perhaps with a tear or two shed by the way.

It goes without saying that the recording is thoroughly recommended. You can go and read the fine liner notes put together by Gimell Records here.