The Onion Strikes Again

Certain sectors of the particular layer of the biosphere called The Christian Intellectual Right --that is, the Flat-Earthers who champion the Creationist cause-- have been saying that the Earth was created around 6000 years ago.  The Onion breaks the story from 6000 years back about the reaction of the Sumerians (who were struggling to make a go of things just about then) to God suddenly deciding to create the Heavens and the Earth --well, it must be a sort of re-creation, because what were the Sumerians doing, then, if they hadn't been created?  You can read all about it here: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as

Arch, baffled by the implications.

P.S. I mean, I'd be pretty upset if someone tried to create me when I was busy with something.

Richard Wagner's Music

The music of Richard Wagner (the first name is pronounced in the German way, as Ric-hard, or sometimes Ree-shard). Known a little better today than a few decades ago, because of the use of The Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, Wagner's music still deserves to be more familiar. (Unfortunately, it is reported that Hitler loved the music of Wagner, and this created a great deal of ill-will towards the composer, which persists to this date.) Wagner wrote principally opera, which are essentially large-scale musical dramas. Up until Wagner began innovating with this genre, operas were written in very sectional form, as are certain types of Broadway musicals, with songs, dances, dialogue between songs, duets, etc. Wagner very deliberately began to move in the direction of an unbroken, continuous musical line which did not naturally and comfortably split into musical 'numbers', as they are called. With the understanding that these chunks were not intended to be 'free-standing', here are a few, to get you started enjoying Wagner.

1. The first I can think of is the Pilgrim's Chorus from Tannhauser. It is actually a chorus for men, but there is an orchestral version in the Overture, and this is what I'm thinking of. The chorus, in slow triple time, starts out softly played by horns and trombones, representing pilgrims approaching from a distance. It swells, into a churning, agitated middle section, mostly in the string section, and then fades away, as the pilgrims depart, once again with the trombones.
2. One of the most ethereal pieces of music is the prelude to Wagner's opera Lohengrin. Lohengrin was a mythical knight loosely associated with the Arthurian legend, and the opera relates the tragic love story in which the knight Lohengrin comes to the succor of Elsa of Brabant (who has been accused of kidnapping her own brother). Most of Wagner's Overtures have a symbolic structure that depicts some abstract aspect of the struggle in the story. But this one represents simply Lohengrin's pure love for Elsa. It is such a beautiful piece of writing that it seems almost too hard to return to the real world after it is over. I doubt that a mere YouTube clip can do justice to the music, which starts out very, very soft, with just violins (playing 8 parts, instead of the usual two), and gradually swells in power to a climax punctuated by a firm clash of the cymbals, after which it dies back to a whisper once again. Ok, I've got a sound clip ready; now to upload it...
3. Wagner's music is very grand. Even in austere works, such as Parsifal, about a painfully innocent knight who simply cannot understand the complexities of love and sex, and his encounter with a woman of loose morals, set against a backdrop of monastic renunciation, the music is sumptuous. It might not be the richness of brocade and velvet, but it's still quietly perfect, the best hair shirt money can buy. The overture to Parsifal has this strange austerity. In this video, one of the most heartbreaking moments comes in at around 1:20. Understandably it is not very exciting; it has a contemplative character.
4. You have already heard about Die Meistersinger, Wagner's last, and most lighthearted opera. There is a lovely section where Hans Sachs teaches the young knight Walther how to compose a standard Mastersinger song. I will try and get this uploaded for you.  For the moment, here is the young knight Walther singing his prize song in the competition, and the ravished response of his love, young Eva.  The bass voice --Hans himself-- is calling for quiet for the young singer.
5. Wagner's beautiful Siegfried Idyll was composed as a Christmas gift for his lady (Cosima von Bulow), whose birthday was at Christmastime, and who happened to have just delivered their son, Siegfried, which happened also to the be name of the hero in the Ring Trilogy Wagner was just completing. The Idyll combines several musical themes from the Trilogy, as well as a well-known lullaby.
6. [In progress]

Arch, uploading furiously.

Pianos, Electric pianos, and keyboards

[A new look for this post!! Hee hee!]

If you don't have a musical family tradition, and you have a musical child, or even if you have a child with unknown potential, you could be easily intimidated by the prospect of getting started with an instrument.  How to proceed?

There are two objectives you could have: (1) general musicianship, and (2) learning an instrument.

(1) General Musicianship:  In a good school district, with a competent music teaching team (or even a single good music teacher), the child's musical development should be in good hands. It is a travesty that this can't be assumed as a given in this day and age. If absolutely necessary, a piano teacher will provide excellent general musicianship; in fact, I would go so far as to suggest that even if a child takes up some melodic instrument, like violin or flute, it makes sense to give them a couple of years of piano anyway.

What I call general musicianship is (a) getting familiar with mainstream traditional music, such as folk-songs, group songs, chorus singing (even "The more we are together" type songs are better than nothing!), and listening to classics, such as Peter and the Wolf, or excerpts from Bach, etc.  If a teacher isn't available, you could organize this sort of thing yourself, with the help of DVDs or the TV.  (b) Group singing.  Every child should have the chance to try to sing in a group. A church setting is okay, if that's your scene, or school, or any such thing.  (c) The rudiments of theory and musical notation.  A year of this is enough to be considered general musicianship, or even one summer of it.  If the kid is interested, you could always follow on with something the following year.  Teachers are understandably unhappy with this sort of interrupted training, so depending on how sympathetic you are to the needs of the music teacher, you could choose to send your kid more often, provided the kid, of course, is willing.

(2) Learning an instrument: Not everyone wants to learn an instrument, nor does everyone want their kid to do so.  If you do, you could choose piano and something else, or piano, or something else.  I would encourage the two instrument approach, if you can afford it, and your youngster has the motivation; otherwise, any instrument is fine.

Piano: For traditional instruments, you have to be guided by the teacher's preferences.  A piano teacher, one of the more traditional ones, will insist on your buying a conventional piano.  A spinet model is all you need, and they run about $3000.  You can rent for a hundred or so a month (or maybe less), or get a used one.  Something less than 15 years old is best; pianos do not improve with age.  Though there's no guarantee that your young person will become a musical genius, access to a piano during childhood is such a fabulously enriching thing that if you can afford it at all, you should go for it.  Warning: if you can't stand noise, and you can't stand kids plunking on the piano, maybe you should give the whole thing up.  If you have a silent piano in the house, the whole purpose has been defeated.  The point is for the kid to play the damn thing, so you have to be ready to take the noise.

Electric keyboards, and Digital Pianos.  For general musicianship, these two sorts of instruments are perfectly acceptable.  An electric keyboard (or synthesizer) can be bought for around $100, and a digital piano from $500 and on up to $3000.  The expensive ones mimic the feel of a traditional piano very well, to the point that practicing on one will enable one to play a real piano.  (Practicing on an electric keyboard will not build the finger strength required to play conventional piano properly with good form and --don't be surprised-- endurance.  Playing the piano requires muscle training, and electric keyboards will not provide it, but the best digital pianos could.)  Some traditional piano teachers will reluctantly live with the student practicing on a good digital piano.

On the plus side, Digital pianos have lots of sound effects, so that the young musician can be more easily persuaded to spend time playing the thing.  The same is true with electric keyboards.  My $200 Casio has some 500 different 'voices', such as violin, and oboe, and organ.

(Why are they called "synthesizers?  It used to be the case that earlier models would synthesize a tone-color by blending artificially generated wave-forms, such as square waves, sawtooth waves, and sine waves.  Modern synthesizers work with sampled tones from actual instruments; that is, a note from an actual piano, or violin or orchestra is recorded, analyzed and stored in the instrument.  The Mellotron, used by the Beatles in Sgt Pepper, did exactly this with tape loops, but now it's done at the factory using digital recordings.)

If there is a possibility that your youngster might be a serious amateur or professional musician, then you might consider an instrument such as a violin, flute, saxophone, or trumpet.  These are actually portals for more useful instrument playing:

A student starting with a violin can switch to a viola, cello, or double bass.  A student starting with flute could progress to oboe, clarinet, English horn, or bassoon; a student starting with trumpet could take up horn, or possibly trombone, tuba, or any of the numerous brass instruments that are featured in orchestras and brass ensembles.  Saxophones provide a door into a tradition of jazz music.  The whole idea is to make it possible for the child to play in an instrument ensemble someday, if the inclination is there.  There is, of course, no guarantee that this will happen, or even that the kid will ever be interested.  But if interest awakens in college, for instance, it might just be too late.

A wonderful ensemble instrument is, of course, the lowly recorder.  If you are so lucky as to have an adult in your community who can guide a young recorder ensemble through its early stages, you can have junior playing in a recorder ensemble right away.  (The Suzuki folk know the power of ensemble playing to motivate kids, and ensemble playing is a mainstay of the Suzuki method.)

A guitar is always a possible choice, even in addition to another instrument. Guitars are light and travel well, and it's possible to acquire quite a lot of general musicianship via a guitar, which has happened in our family.  I was first turned onto the potential of the simple nylon-strung folk guitar by the film The Sound of Music (which has inspired many), and by the writings of Maria von Trapp herself, who called it an orchestra in a box.  Especially for the musically inclined youngster with wide interests and a liking to travel, a guitar is an excellent companion on any trip.

One of these days, they'll invent a folding keyboard that fits inside your suitcase (and if you do, I want credit), and then a guitar will have some serious competition as the instrument of choice of the wandering minstrel!

Last, and most certainly least, is of course a ukulele.  They're not as cheap as you would expect: $80 is about what an inexpensive one would cost.  They come in different sizes, from Baritone, all the way down to Sopranino.  I have left out other instruments such as harmonicas and bagpipes, but they're any one of them better than a home without any musical instrument at all!

Arch

Christian Theology and Wikipedia

Theology is a topic that I have avoided for the longest time, since I was not really interested in the subject. It was far more interesting to study how the various religions addressed the issue of conduct and morals, rather than how the dealt with the internal resolution of their ideas, principles and mythology.

A friend of mine remarked one day, in disgust, that Theology was more an art form than a branch of logical reasoning. I had taken this to be an expression of general distaste for the subject rather than a serious observation, until this morning, when I looked up Immaculate Conception, just to be sure that my suggestion about the virgin birth of Jesus was on the mark. Man, was I ever wrong!

It turns out that Immaculate Conception is a dogma of what is called Mariology, the study of the mother of Jesus. The dogma is that Mary, herself, was free of any taint of sin from birth. The main churches of Christianity teach that Man is sinful by his very nature, and that even a newborn infant is sinful by its very existence. This is the doctrine of original sin, and one of the biggest philosophical stumbling blocks to belief in Christianity. So, we are told by the Catholics, especially Pope Pius the Ninth, that Mary was free of sin at birth, and remained sin-free for the rest of her life, so that Jesus, when he was borne by her, was untainted by sin in any way.

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article brings ridicule upon itself by detailing various other principles and dogmas, each more ludicrous than the one before, each one a horrible band-aid to make an earlier, flawed declaration marginally more plausible (and failing utterly), until the entire thing is pathetic.

The earlier part of the article is evidently written by a Catholic, or at least someone at least moderately sympathetic to Catholic theology. Then comes a section in which the Protestant views of the Immaculate Conception are presented, understandably non-sympathetically. Even the most minute assertion is challenged with subsequently interposed, parenthetical editorial annotations, such as [why?] and [need references], and so on. Obviously, Wikipedia is not the place to present a fair and balanced description of a religious dogma that is not universally accepted. An article on immaculate conception in an encyclopedia, it seems to me, has to be laid out by a neutral authority, who objectively explains the various stands on the issue, after which authorities that espouse one view or another can present their particular take on the matter in such a way that it is clear that there are sides to the story.

The Wikipedia concept is focused on information, rather than opinion, and will obviously be more useful for objectively verifiable facts, e.g. history, natural science, biography, etc. In the areas such as theology, accuracy has to be about dates and sources, and not about logical consistency and the nature of religious reality, such as it is. The world is increasingly less interested in whether Mary was born without sin, than in the question of how many angels can occupy the point of a needle. So, though it is deeply annoying that the first author of the Wikipedia article, who could actually be any idiot who got it into his or her head to write it, seems to have doubts about the quality of the portion of the article on Protestant objections to immaculate conception, the article has probably not been read by more than a handful of readers. And that's probably how it should remain. [Added later:] Lest my fans misunderstand my position on this whole immaculate thing, I want to make it perfectly clear that I totally and absolutely believe that Mary was sinless at birth. Actually, I believe that everybody is sinless at birth, including myself. (And most of you, if you're normal.) All the sins that besmirch my record at the present date were earned with blood sweat and tears by yours truly, and under no circumstances will any deity take credit for them, under penalty of law. Oops, I forgot that deities are above the law. For those who are not hep to the Original Sin business: be ye informed that Original Sin was invented by the Catholic Church, and subsequently subscribed to by the protestants, long after Jesus was dead (or left the earth as a human being, anyway), so in a sense it was invented behind his back. He would certainly have had some harsh words to say about it, if he had been asked. Added yet later: in contrast to their highly embarrassing theology, various progressive members of Vatican moral think tanks, and Catholic intellectuals outside Rome, have been leaders in interpreting what it means to be a Catholic in modern society, especially in the Third World. The fight against poverty and ignorance by Catholic individuals has sometimes outshone those of the Protestant churches, especially in the poorer countries of South America.

Archimedes

Ave Maria

. This phrase, which means literally "Greetings, Mary," is the first phrase in a certain passage in the book of Luke, generally called the Annunciation, in which the Angel Gabriel is said to have informed the maid that she bore a divine child. (This charming story is considered to have been added to the oral tradition by the Greek Christians almost a century after the birth of Jesus. Google "immaculate conception", and you should get some authoritative opinions on the matter.) I was inspired to write about the phrase because I happened to have been "ripping" an album of the Anonymous4, in which was featured a track called Ave Maria (dated between 500 and 1500, according to Susan Hellauer's liner notes), and the ripping program (the legendarily feeble-minded Win Media Player) suggested that the composer was Franz Schubert. Full points for attempted helpfulness, but this simply shows that the brains out at the Internet music database only know one piece called Ave Maria. In addition to Franz Schubert's evidently highly popular Ave Maria, there is Charles Gounod's tune, written to be sung over Prelude No. 1 in C major, from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and countless others, including (I just learned this) Anton Bruckner. Johannes Brahms has set the words as well. How old is the Ave Maria? Obviously the New Testament accounts date from around the first or second century, and the original passage from Luke (taken from two verses in Chapter 1) dates from then. A rough translation goes like this:

Hail (Mary), blessed art thou above all women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!

By the time the year 1500 had arrived, the prayer was now significantly expanded:

Hail Mary, full of grace, Blessed art thou above all women, And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of god, Be with us sinners, now and in The hour of our death.

It so happens, though, and I'm almost certain of this, that Schubert's lyrics have additional elements that have nothing to do with this prayer (which in turn has only the slightest origins in the Bible, which again, in turn, contains only the merest fraction of all the competing Christian writings known at the time.) The last "petition in the prayer" was added, according to Wikipedia, around the time of the Council of Trent, and is at least partly attributed to Petrus Canisius, a Dutch Jesuit. At any rate, considering the popularity of the text, and the plethora of composers who have set it over the centuries, it is a charming eccentricity of Media Player and it's database that it singles out Schubert to be the lone recipient of credit for the music. At the time of the carol sung by Anonymous 4, of course, Schubert was not even a twinkle in his father's eye. (At least it didn't suggest Celtic Woman, which would have been inexcusable.) Arch, baffled by the illogic of Roman Catholicism, but content. The Wisdom of God is the foolishness of men, according to them, and we should leave the Catholics to further contribute to the wisdom of their deity.

Recorder Music

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Recorders are a sort of niche area within classical music.  They were going out of style in the time of J. S. Bach already (we are a little confused about whether he wanted recorders or flutes in his orchestras; probably sometimes it was one, and sometimes the other).  They came into fashion in the seventies, because they're not difficult to learn to play moderately well.  An ensemble of several recorders (of varying sizes, of course) is called a consort of recorders.

Here is the Loeki Stardust Quartet from Amsterdam.  These guys are very well known indeed for their virtuoso playing.  There's no indication of what the piece is.

The Flanders quartet playing a piece by Merula (16th century).

Two numbers from The Art of Fugue by J.S. Bach, played by the Daphne Recorder Quartet.

This is Sirena, evidently an all-woman ensemble with a gorgeous double-bass recorder (looking a bit like a double-bassoon).  They're playing a lovely chorale by Bach [:Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier].

Here are these irrepressible Sirena gals again, playing a dance from Michael Praetorius, a collector of early music centuries before research into ancient music came into fashion in recent times.  Praetorius's name is known to me principally as the one to whom is ascribed the tune Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (There is a Rose blooming), whose harmonization by Bach is a Christmas favorite.

Finally, here is the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra playing one version of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 in G.  This version has two recorders and harpsichord, rather than two recorders and violin.  The recorder soloists are (Italian: Flauto dolce): Günther Höller, Ulrike Thieme.  The harpsichord soloist is the celebrated Christiane Jaccottet.

Added later: Sirena is evidently a Swedish group. A visit to their site quickly reveals that they have a zany sense of humor. Here is an extended video clip featuring several of their favorite pieces, and lots of oddball high jinks.

Carols of the Season

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There is a lot of good music for Christmas, including carols, and with the magic of YouTube we can sample them here!

Carols are of several varieties, and each kind has lovely examples.

• One kind is simply ancient songs and dances that come to us from ancient times; there are medieval carols that are still sung today that come to us from England, France, all the lands that are today Poland, Germany, Austria and Hungary, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and The Netherlands.  (There are also carols from many other nations, e.g. the Czech Republic / Slovenia, Greece and Russia, not to mention the Middle East, and quite probably Egypt.)  I am not a specialist (though I play one on the Web), so I can only offer a few examples, without supplying the research that you crave for, in your ceaseless thirst for knowledge.

• The Boar's Head Carol, is actually one of the macaronic carols mentioned below.  It is a secular carol, having more to do with the midwinter celebration than Christmas as such.  (There is nothing to connect the birth of Jesus with the winter months.)  This is probably one of the most ancient carols that are still sung today.
  

• Another sort is Victorian carols, a product of the great proliferation of carols of a couple of hundred years ago in England that are essentially Christmas hymns, that simply haven't gone through the rigorous committee process that precedes acceptance as an actual hymn.  Many of these are disguised as ancient carols, and many others of these are indeed actually ancient carols metrified and harmonized in Bach style.  One is Ding Dong Merrily on High, whose tune is is derived from an old French dance called Bransle Officiel.

• In Dulci Jubilo, a so-called macaronic carol, with Latin lines interspersed with English / German lines.
  

• The justly famous and beloved O Holy Night, Cantique de Noel, or Minuit Chretiens ("Midnight, Christians!"), with music by Adolphe Adam, who happened to be Jewish, resulting in the carol being proscribed for decades before it was finally allowed in Catholic churches. This utterly sentimental song has beautifully idealistic words.  This is a delightful performance.  The carol is also lovely sung in French by a tenor.  This is Enrico Caruso, and if you've never heard him, here's your chance.
  

• One of the most interesting and popular modern Christmas hymns is O Little Town of Bethlehem.  This one is very much an Anglo-American collaboration.  The words are by Boston (Philadelphia?) pastor Philip Brooks, who wrote them evidently inspired by a visit to the Holy Land, and the town of Bethlehem, the legendary birthplace of Jesus.  The music is, as it happens, provided by a fascinating variety of composers, because there are actually close to a dozen different tunes to which this hymn is sung.
  
  • Probably the most common tune in the USA is apparently the original one composed for the hymn by one Lewis Redner: St Louis. Here it's sung by Connie Talbot, about whom I know absolutely nothing.
  • The most common tune in Britain is Forest Green, to which in the USA many other hymns are sung, and hardly ever O Little Town.
  • A tune that found some favor is Walford Davies's Christmas Carol.
    
  • A lovely alternative is Bethlehem, by Joseph Barnby. (There was only a horrible MIDI available on the Web, so I put together this file. Unfortunately, there are some clumsy mistakes in my arrangement of Barnby's harmony, which I should have left alone...)  The original tune and harmony is available at the site The Hymns and Carols of Christmas.
    

• Another sort is broadly derived from Christmas hymns, which in turn have many sources, many of them German: e.g. Hark the Herald Angels Sing, whose tune, attributed to F. Mendelssohn, was simply a hymn-tune from one of the many hymn collections he knew, with his wonderful harmony (subsequently improved by David Willcox, and the usual suspects).  
  

•  The poster boy of Christmas Hymns, at least where I grew up, is of course Adeste Fidelis: O come, all ye faithful, words adapted from Prose for Christmas Day, by John of Reading, a British Monk of the fourteenth century.

• Also well known:  Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.

• Let all mortal flesh keep silent  I haven't found a decent recording of this on the Web, but I'll provide a link when I do.  This hymn is intended to be sung unison, and the tune is variously called Picardie, or French Carol.
  

• There are also modern carols, simply compositions by known composers, to supplement the musical diversity available for church and university choirs. 

• One beautiful example is "The Little Road to Bethlehem", by Michael Head.  This performance is exceptional.  (The performance depends critically on the soprano soloist, as well as the treble line.)

• Here's another one: The Three Kings, by Peter Cornelius.  The chorale that weaves through it is Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern, "How brightly beams the morning star", a hymn beloved of Johann Sebastian Bach. (In fact, J. S. Bach's opus no. 1 is a cantata based on that carol.)
  

• Another one: A Spotless rose, by Herbert Howells.  The singing is good, despite all the coughing.  I love the moment when the baritone sings: "The blessed babe..."  Gorgeous!
  

• Here is the little door, sung by Chanticleer, a wonderful American male voice choir.  Words evidently by G. K. Chesterton.
  

• The most famous Christmas carol, arguably, is Silent Night (Stille Nacht, in German), composed by Francis Xavier Gruber. I have written about it earlier, last year.
  

• The Blessed Son of God, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a carol with very modern harmonies (redolent with major sevenths, and lovely suspensions). The video is a little annoying; just don't look at it.  (If you search on YouTube, there is a beautiful recording sung by a Dutch quartet, where the lines of the harmony are very clear.  Unfortunately it seems a heavy bandwidth is needed for it, for whatever reason.)
  

• Modern carols that derive from folk songs from 'foreign lands', e.g. India, Japan and Korea.  

•  An instance is "Sleep in my arms", created by Malcolm Sargent from a Korean folk song Arirang.
  

• Carols that are metrizations of chants.

• A well-known instance is Veni, veni Emmanuel, which is the source for our well-loved O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  The metrization succeeds is preserving the beautiful modal tune.
  

• Finally, songs that are not carols at all, but simply Christmas songs, that are essentially modern popular songs with a holiday theme, e.g. Jingle Bells, and Feliz Navidad, not to mention Grandma got runover by a reindeer.  (This can be easily converted into a bona fide carol with a few glorias and hallelujas inserted into it.)One of my personal favourites is the Christmas Waltz, by The Carpenters.  (There is an unfortunate fleeting emphasis on "things", entirely unintended, I'm sure.)
  

Archimedes