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KLMNO the christmas issue} classicalmusic To stir the spirit, simplemusic is a gift
The birth of a baby calls for short and joyous works, not grandiosity
BY ANNEMIDGETTE Christmas is one of those rare
times in the calendarwhenclassi- cal music comes into its own. The December holiday concert is a lodestar for many choruses, chamber ensembles and orches- tras, which repeat the same pro- gram—from carols to the ubiqui- tous “Messiah” — three, four and five times to maximize the box-of- fice receipts and save up for the lean and less spiritual months ahead. For presenters and audiences
alike, classical musicmay seem to represent a more genuine, or more spiritual, observance than many other traditions (Black Fri- day shopping springs to mind). There’s something innocent about many of the carols and motets featured in holiday con- certs; and so muchWestern clas- sical music has roots so deeply intertwined with Christian tradi- tions that this is anatural time for it tocomeforward—evenwhenit is commodified as much as any other holiday event. It might not pay to look too
IV ORLOV FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Maybe it helps once a year to reexamine the idea of “the spiritual” and remember that it can apply to the small, happy and tender as well as to the monumental.
closely at the spiritual content of holiday tropes. One can, to be sure, lament what one might call the Nutcrackerization of “Messi- ah,” a wonderful piece that mounts a relentless assault on North American concert halls and churches every December, despite the fact that much of the rest of theWestern world regards it as an Easter piece. But a Christ- mas concert is a nice thing that makes people happy and cele- brates the season, and there’s no reason to be too critical. Still, classical music, because it tends to fulfill a secular-spiritual
role (the very ritual of the concert, bringing together hundreds of people to sit in silent contempla- tion, is a kind of devotional) has not infrequently wrestled with existential questions about its re- lationship to prevailing religious traditions. Schubert, in his set- tings of the CatholicMass, always omitted the line about believing in a single Church, “et unam sanctam catholicam et apostoli- cam ecclesiam” — perhaps influ- enced by a past, Enlightenment school of thought that sought to limit the influence of the papacy. Bach, the ultimate church com- poser, whose six Christmas orato- rios are to German holiday con- certs what “Messiah” is to Ameri- can ones, ventured out of the Lutheran into the Catholic tradi- tion with his monumental B-Mi- norMass,whichwasprobably not performed in its entirety in his own lifetime. Brahms created his own Lu-
theran requiem by assembling texts from German scriptures; Verdi turned the Catholic requi- em into a religious drama. These probing works end up creating theirowndefinitions; I would bet that most people who hear the Verdi Requiem know the text of thatMass betterfromVerdi’s idio- syncratic setting than through hearing it in its original religious context. In New York last month, Lin-
coln Center devoted an entire festival, called the White Light Festival, to exploring the spiritu- ality of music, presenting a range of different beliefs and genres. Theoretically, itwasanexercise in turning a spotlight on a range of assumptions: By featuring some music that was intended to be directly spiritual, it called into question the nature of the music itdidn’t include. IsBach’sBMinor Mass more spiritual than Mahl- er’s Ninth Symphony, simply by virtue of its religious content? Isn’t the whole classical canon a
vehicle for a very particular kind of transcendence—seen bymany of its adherents as being innately superior to other forms of music? In the popular consciousness,
classical music is often seen as inhabiting some realm so exalted and rarefied that many people with perfectly good ears and oth- erwise discerning powers of judg- ment and taste will often profess they have no understanding of it. It’s notable that at Christmas, a time when classical music might be assumed to exult in its spiritu- al function, the prevailing classi- cal traditions are among the sim- plest in the repertory. They are not great, searching evening- length works, but songs that ev- eryone can sing. (I count “Messi- ah” in this category; it is frequent- ly offered as a singalong.) In fact, I wonder whether one
reason classical music thrives at Christmas is that its traditions are actually less exalted than some other parts of the classical canon. The Christian holiday, af- ter all, is about celebrating the birth of a baby. Short music is appropriate; happy music is ap- propriate; nostalgic music is ap- propriate. The Christmas concert includes all of these, but seldom the searing, huge emotion of Mahler’s Ninth or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. Maybe it helps once a year to
reexamine the idea of “the spiri- tual” and remember that it can apply to the small, happy and tender as well as to the monu- mental. Like many of the cliched but beloved verities of the season (“good thingscomein small pack- ages”), it’s a truth that can be profitably applied not only in December, but through the months ahead. For classical mu- sic, the only problem is that at other times of the year, if you offer concerts full of small, bright works, not everybody wants to listen.
midgettea@washpost.com
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2010
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