Remonstrans

Ugliness

02/15/08

07:51:58 am, by dissidens

, 377 words, 318 views

Categories: Old Main

Ugliness

And every man did that which was beautiful in his own eyes.

Lastly, we—and by "we" I mean "you"—must decide what is true. We always emerge from these spats reminded that these people are a law unto themselves; that these people are by choice antinomian. They issue the most ill-informed, rickety bulls that cannot survive a week. It is as though mankind has stumbled in the darkness for centuries, but we are the ones who finally found the light switch.

Faith, hope and hubris.

For those who have not yet gotten to see the Barenboim master classes, Daniel tells us all that "Beethoven remains constantly contemporary." How is that? Why do fundagelicals not know this, why do they shamelessly chase each zephyr of doctrine?

What is true of Beethoven is true of many.

Hildegard von Bingen - 1098-1179
Guilliaume Machaut - 1300-1377
John Taverner - 1490-1545
Giovanni Perluigi Palestrina - 1525-1594
Roland de Lassus - 1532-1594
Giovanni Gabrieli - 1554-1612
Claudio Monteverdi - 1567-1643
Heinrich Schutz - 1585-1672
Jean-Baptiste Lully - 1632-1687

If one speaks what is true, one speaks forever. One will always be contemporary.

As exlibris says, these people should not be listened to. Period. We threw something away and the dumpster has been emptied; it is gone.

But I am still serious when I say we need to form some sort of aesthetic. This aesthetic can never be the same thing, but perhaps it could be a real thing. Mostly, it could be a shared thing.

Fundagelical music will not be sung in 200 years. Hildegard, yes; she will still be sung. Machaut, Palestrina, Gabrieli, Montiverdi.... But Hamilton, Renfrow, Gaither, Dino?

This is one of the great ironies of all time. Ours is the generation spouting off about community, whether it is a political community, the human community or a religious community. As long as we stand on what is meaningful to us, what we can relate to; so long as we demand entertainments based on "personal preference", we cannot share what is true and forever.

The one who justifies his belief by noting the 98% does not seek a community, he desires a clique. And Monday's clique will be different from Tuesday's clique. If you were a good god, would you grant community to those who ostracize Machaut, Palestrina, Gabrieli, Montiverdi, Bach, Mendelssohn?

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1 Comment from: exlibris [Visitor]

I like the way you put this. For a moment I thought you had left the faith.

Perhaps we should play the part of of Athanasius to Nicea's Constantine. The latter needed orthodoxy to wield power. The former needed orthodoxy to wield eternity.

dissidens contra fundagelicum et mundum!

Permalink 02/15/08 @ 09:02

Reply to comment 4704 by exlibris

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2 Comment from: dissidens [Member]

No, yours was a fair question and I might have left the wrong impression by what I said.

I insist that we will never again see a day when literate and illiterate alike will sit under the ministry of Bach or Grünewald and be moved as their congregations were. Some reasons for this are necessary and inevitable, but most are not.

I have every wish that this could be true, but absolutely no expectation of it.

I recalled what Howlett said, what I read in fundamentalist literature and what I heard in a past fundamentalist sermon. It is obvious that while we cannot expect intelligence from those quarters, the least we might demand is coherence. So long as fundamentalist, neo-evangelical and emergent demands that “preferences”—their word—be accommodated, it will be impossible to have community; their preferences don’t aspire to community, their preferences seek majority. Not only will we never have what our forebears had, we won’t even have something analogous. So long as these people keep opining publicly, we will never achieve a “way of life common to a particular people”. We will always be cultureless.

These people are arrogantly betting on the fact that Barenboim and Dawson are wrong, and I think it is odd that the unregenerate should have a better grasp of the permanent than the professing Christian. How can a believer in God despise the eternal?

What I have in the back of my mind is something on the order of what Kaplan hoped for at the end of his article, viz. that somehow our pop music might be transcended in the way folk and dance music was transcended.

What we in fact have is little warlords asserting the legitimacy of the private, personal and peculiar. What they need (but will never have) is a shared notion of what is good. They can’t see this.

I wish they could.

Permalink 02/15/08 @ 11:37

Reply to comment 4705 by dissidens

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3 Comment from: parepidemos [Visitor]

Will we sing anything by Stuart Townend or Keith Getty in 200 years? Assuming the answer is no, why not?

Permalink 02/18/08 @ 11:08

Reply to comment 4707 by parepidemos

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4 Comment from: dissidens [Member]

That’s an interesting question.

I don’t mind offering my opinion, but it’d prolly be more helpful if I explain my opinion rather than just offer it. If you don’t mind, let me start this discussion with a new thread Wednesday.

What I will say at this point: don’t assume the answer is no. Not by a long shot. I am not a collector of Getty and Townend songs so I’m not their best critic; to be a proper critic involves a consideration of their entire output and an appreciation of the sequence of contributions.

But what I know of their work places them leagues ahead of Hamilton, Renfrow, Gaither and Dino.

I like a good deal of what I hear of Keith Getty. I even appreciate—to a limited degree—Keith’s views on music.

In Christ Alone
O Church Arise
Behold the Lamb
Joy Has Dawned Upon the World

Stuart Townend’s How Deep the Father's Love ought to be appreciated for a long time to come, if not for 200 years.

Permalink 02/18/08 @ 19:00

Reply to comment 4709 by dissidens

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5 Comment from: parepidemos [Visitor]

Thanks, I'll look forward to that discussion.

Permalink 02/19/08 @ 04:03

Reply to comment 4710 by parepidemos

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Ugliness

02/15/08

Ugliness

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