Column: From Heavenly Harmony
Mendelssohn, Memory & Melody
by Ken Myers
All music has a narrative quality about it. Even the simplest melody has a plot-like structure. Sing the tunes (without the words) to "Happy Birthday" or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or "Jesus Loves Me" to children, and the children know the music has—like a good story—a beginning, middle, and end. They sense the movement or progress within the melodic line that holds their attention, and they want the satisfaction of getting to the "end of the story" (try omitting the last several notes and see how dissatisfied they become).
The mystery that is melody involves its storied nature. Roger Scruton observes, "Even the simplest folk-melody seems to be working towards a conclusion, which rounds off the musical gesture and gives an impression of completeness." Harmonic and rhythmic organization can also convey motion and the sense of departure and arrival that is essential to every good story. The most artful music succeeds by combining multiple levels of motion in synchronized melody, harmony, rhythm, and aural texture, just as the best stories and the best storytellers weave elements of plot, character, setting, and verbal form in a coherent whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Our Narratable World
We find narrative structures compelling and satisfying because we live in what Robert Jenson has dubbed a "narratable world." Our sense of the intelligibility of history and of our personal lives suggests something more like a story or a song than an argument or equation. Creation itself has an Author, who at one point in the plot entered the story in the form of its most compelling character, revealing the meaning of what had already transpired and ensuring the story's outcome (not to mention transforming the other characters and the setting). To be a Christian is to know one's place in that story. The more confident we are that the story of the gospel is the story of reality—from "In the beginning" to "World without end"—the less vulnerable we are to doubt or fashionable distractions.
We discover and confirm our place in God's story by participation in the life of the Church, by our attentive engagement in "her heavenly ways" (to use Timothy Dwight's phrase), by allowing ourselves to be in thrall to "her sweet communion, her solemn vows, her hymns of love and praise." Confidence in the big story of the gospel is sustained by our imaginative captivity to many small stories in the Church's liturgy, teaching, and music. The word of Christ that affirms what body we belong to (and hence what story is ours) dwells in us richly by means of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
The modern Church, Robert Jenson judges, "has regularly substituted slogans for narrative, both in teaching and in liturgy." That penchant for sloganeering is sadly evident in the shape of much music written for use in worship in recent decades, music that has carelessly imitated the style of contemporary popular music. Composer and music historian Julian Johnson has observed that much pop music "defines a certain mood, atmosphere, or musical space rather than producing any kind of narrative or discourse." When worship leaders employ such music to serve only the most superficial emotional and sensory purposes, they forfeit music's capacity to engage us narratively. They subtly reinforce the postmodern incredulity toward "metanarrative." Liturgy becomes a pep rally, the gospel a mood-brightener.
A Striking Liturgical Device
Add words to music, and another layer of narrative becomes available. In the seventeenth century, with the advent in Western musical life of operas and oratorios, the narrative power of musical performance increased significantly. "Oratorio" was the name given to a narrative musical setting of a sacred text, presented without staging, and usually based on a story from the Bible, an account of the life of a saint, or an allegorized subject of spiritual or theological significance (e.g., Haydn's The Seasons). The form acquired its name because the earliest such pieces were performed in the oratories established by St. Philip Neri as houses of prayer.
Oratorios were immensely popular in the eighteenth century, but fell out of fashion not long after 1800. Then, in 1836, a young Felix Mendelssohn presented an oratorio based on the life of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Compressing the life of St. Paul into a span of just over two hours, Paulus relies almost solely on biblical texts from Acts, the epistles, the Psalms, and a few verses from prophetic texts to advance the narrative.
By nature, oratorios are not liturgical works, but Paulus employs a remarkable liturgical device to achieve its most striking effects. The orchestral overture that commences the work is based on a chorale melody, Wachet auf, the tune to which we sing (during Advent) "Wake, awake, for night is flying." The tune and its associated text (with imagery from Matthew 25, Isaiah 52, and the book of Revelation) have for centuries played a part within the Church's annual rituals that reinforce the sense of anticipation that the Bridegroom is coming. Like every good melody, Wachet auf has a kind of plot. But that melody, with its storied character, has now become part of the story of the Church's life, and (for those who sing it each year) part of countless personal stories. Mendelssohn's use of that musical element to commence his telling of the story of Paul's life signals the redemptive historical significance of this particular biography. And today, when we hear that story told via this rich musical resource, we participate in that anticipation still more.
Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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