For better of for worse, I’m genuinely not a fan of opera.
Having worked most of my life with trained singers who absolutely love operas and make their living singing through them, it’s created some challenges. For the most part, we work through it.
Though the advent of cancel-culture has created difficulties all its own being as I’m white male, a Priest, a symbol of the patriarchy and all that must be smashed, altered, and destroyed, while many musicians are libertine, do as you wish, dyed in the wool liberals. It’s odd as I’m actually fairly liberal in many areas.
I was driving to Florida with a friend to visit his family many years ago, we’ll call him Slew. As we drove we listened to a classical music station for a few hours and played “Guess That Composer” because music majors did that kind of thing before we could stare into our phones mindlessly for hours on end. He had just graduated from a prestigious northern university and I had just graduated from UNO (places are only as great as you make them) – yet I won every guess!
Point being, UNO is great in so many areas because some learned professors simply want to live in New Orleans and it’s solid work.
But no, that’s not the point. The real point of the story is that one day whilst NPR was broadcasting their Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera bit, I heard something completely fascinating. I went through the process: 20th century; atonal; opera; must be Wozzek.
I was right! Though admittedly it was a no brainer.
It’s so bizarre it’s wonderful.
Atonal theory doesn’t make much sense initially. But because it uses other methods to establish continuity to the ear – it makes sense to the listener in a new and fascinating way. There’s a reason it’s still popular – because as bizarre as it is, it also makes complete sense.
Here’s another bit – it has a lot of interesting starting points. And it’s all very intelligently done.
Stay great, and listen thoughfully.
And be kind to your music friends – no matter how successful they are, they all suffer greatly for their art.
The Mass from the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. 🙏🏼
https://vimeo.com/438976588
You’ll note that I forgot to light the candles. 😬 We have Adoration until 11:45, then there’s a lot to put in place quickly, and some of our daily Mass servers are vacationing in some holy sites out in the otherwise wild west of the USA.
But like anything else, once you realize it, it’s okay to simply go about the business of getting it done. I realized it while saying the prayers before the Gospel.
So afterward I took off my maniple, a French tradition which signifies the Mass is interrupted – such as for giving a Homily, which is not a part of the 1962 Missal and is done outside the Mass (for instance, if you watch JFK’s funeral Mass, the Homily is simply read after the Mass is ended,) – lit the candles, replaced the maniple then continued with the Mass.
To not do so intentionally was, I believe, classified as a mortal sin. As for making mistakes – commenters note that the only perfect liturgy is the Heavenly Liturgy and we will always have some element of your human condition present.
One Priest I know left out, during his first Mass in the Extraordinary Form, the Pater Noster (Our Father). I practiced the Mass for two months daily, motions, pronunciations, bows, etc, prior to saying it in public. I knew it too well, and eventually, come Easter, I made every mistake in the book thinking I finally had it down. It comes in time.
Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King.
The choral entrance is spectacular here.
Has a composer ever done more with ten words and a few chords and tones? A stunning choral entrance. Then follows a fun dance as all the people rejoice – it’s much better in the live version at the actual coronation where people are actually rejoicing for the first time in ages after the end of WWII – and of course it ends with a thrilling hallelujah because Handel.
When I visited Westminster Abbey, I walked around looking for George Frederick Handel’s grave. I finally found it off in one of the side areas. People walk to and fro casually, it’s surrounded by flats of chairs and things. No one notices the grave or pays attention, it’s just a stone in the floor that people walk by constantly.
I was having a religious experience and wondering what music they played at his funeral. What was like to experiment with his compositions for the first time in the Abbey back in the day?
Listening to the anthem while driving around, via Apple Music in the Subaru, I can’t help but think – “Oh just crown the woman.” This is a great culture to keep alive – even if they’re in our Catholic Abbey and must revert one day for the benefit of their immortal souls.
But if they do, they might use guitars instead of Handel Coronation anthems. And the world is so quick to get rid of Catholic monarchies these days – one can’t blame them, really, for being skeptical. Still… they’re clearly fine with having Elton John on his piano doing things in the Abbey, so why not just revert to the one true Faith?
Here is a cleaner version for you to hear, with a great history attached for your reading pleasure, and for your music history education.
Enjoy
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One of the last official acts of the reign of George I of Great Britain was to both naturalize George Frideric Handel as a British citizen and to commission Handel to write the coronation anthem for King George’s son and successor, George II.
As 1727 drew to a close, Britain had been enduring a generation’s worth of political and religious turmoil. The union of Scotland and England was still tenuous at best, with many Scots and English Catholics (Jacobites by name) still supporting the line of the deposed King James II.
When George I (of the House of Hanover) assumed the throne in 1714, he was hardly popular — he spoke German and not English — many Jacobites rose against him and joined James in rebellion. The rebellion was put down, but anti-Hanoverian sentiments still ran strong.
George I looked to the Old Testament for a parallel to his situation, and found one in 1 Kings. The Bible told how King David of Israel, while nearing death was facing his own succession crisis. After some deliberation, he chose his son Solomon as his heir, rather than Solomon’s ambitious half-brother Adonijah. In a grand ceremony, David’s most trusted advisors, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, annointed Solomon as king.
George feared another Jacobite uprising (which nonetheless came in 1745), and wanted to use the spectacle of his son’s coronation to establish George II as the legitimate ruler in the public’s eye.
Thus Handel was called upon to write an appropriately-grandiose set of anthems for the ceremony, and he didn’t disappoint. Four anthems were sung that day: The King Shall Rejoice, Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened, My Heart Is Inditing and Zadok the Priest, but it is the last that has endured.
Zadok the Priest was first sung during the annointing of George II during his coronation on 11 October 1727. It since has been sung at at every British coronation since 1727, the only anthem from Handel’s four to endure the last three centuries. It is traditionally performed during the sovereign’s anointing. The anthem is anything but subtle.
Regal, yes. Ambitious, yes. But subtle? I’m afraid not. It is played in four-four time, and at a slow tempo (about 60 beats per minute), picking up to ~80 bpm at the first “God save the king”. The anthem is written in seven-part SSAATBB harmony, sung in the key of D flat. The libretto was adapted from a Latin antiphon, “Unxerunt Salomonem Sadoc sacerdos”.
The running time of the piece can vary between 5:15 and 5:45, depending on the arrangement and conductor.
…*Correction in the Timeline* Charles II’s father King Charles I was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. The English Parliament did not proclaim Charles II as king, and instead passed a statute that made any such proclamation unlawful. England entered the period known to history as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth and the country was a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell.
The Parliament of Scotland, however, proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649 in Edinburgh. He was crowned King of Scotland at Scone on 1 January 1651. Following his defeat by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Charles fled to mainland Europe and spent the next nine years in exile in France, the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands.
A political crisis following the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in Charles being invited to return and assume the throne in what became known as the Restoration. Charles II arrived on English soil on 27 May 1660 and entered London on his 30th birthday, 29 May 1660.
After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if Charles had succeeded his father in 1649. Charles was crowned King of England and Ireland at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661 and reigned until 1685.
From the YouTube channel entry “Zadok the Priest”, the channel of BritainShallPrevail, accessed online July 5, 2020.
If all the world is a stage in this magnificent Earth the Lord God almighty has created for us, then what have we to fear? He wrote the script, we know it ends well when Jesus Christ will come again. It’s only the world that tells us to be afraid.
We need only to look to our triune God – He’s all that matters. They created us in His image and likeness, male and female we’re created, to enjoy the Earth and all that is in it; to tend the garden of the Tree of Life, and to enjoy all that is good. He’s given us dominion once again as adopted sons and daughters filled with His Spirit, to master His creation in His name, to glorify Him through the might and wonder He works in our lives and to ever reach new heights of glory, power, humility, meekness, greatness.
The world will tell us to be afraid, to feel shame, to be depressed. The world tries to teach us to compromise, to hate, to isolate – that there’s something wrong with us. The father of lies lives boldly, with many willing servants to do his bidding
Ezra Pound in his Canto #1 recounts the story of Odysseus descending to the underworld and making his way back up into the light. He ends the story with a colon ( : ) that most take in a literary sense.
But a Canto is a song, in music that colon is a repeat sign – meaning the story is repeated. Odysseus becomes Everyman, who’s journey in life takes on the dramatic arc we will all call our own.
We each journey into the world, listen to the world, peer deeply into the mysteries of life. Ultimately, find God anew in all things, always filling our sails, guiding our path, shining His light before our steps, filling us with His Spirit.
O eternal Trinity, Thou art my maker and I am Thy creation. Illuminated by Thee, I have learned that Thou hast made me a new creation through the Blood of Thine Only-begotten Son because Thou art captivated by love at the beauty of Thy creation.
O eternal Trinity, O Divinity, O unfathomable abyss, O deepest sea, what greater gift could Thou givest me then Thy very Self? Thou art a fire that burns eternally yet never consumed, a fire that consumes with Thy heat my self-love. Again and again Thou art the fire who taketh away all cold heartedness and illuminateth the mind by Thy light, the light with which Thou hast made me to know Thy truth.
By this mirrored light I know Thou are the highest good, a good above all good, a fortunate good, an incomprehensible good, an unmeasurable good, a beauty above all beauty, a wisdom above all wisdom, for Thou art wisdom itself, the food of angels, the fire of love that Thou givest to man.
Thou art the garment covering our nakedness. Thou feedest our family with Thy sweetness, a sweetness Thou art from which there is no trace of bitterness. O Eternal Trinity! Amen.
Act of Thanksgiving to the Trinity, by St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Doctor of the Church from her Dialogue on Divine Providence
Most blessed Trinity, Father Son, and Holy Ghost, we praise you, we adore you, we glorify you.