Fall is descending upon us, and I am also descending upon my score-scattered desk in classic organist fashion. But this year, studying music for choir feels different. This past summer I did not study any classical or sacred music. I didn’t listen to it either. And perhaps my body was responding to a need to disengage my brain a little after graduating from an intense music school, because I found myself listening to a little more Sabrina Carpenter than usual!
I’m glad I had time to just consume music that was lighter and less serious, and reconnect to the things of my own generation– something I find I’m constantly trying to escape. I mean, go figure, I play the organ; one of the oldest, dustiest instruments in the world. No wonder I feel fifty in a sea of my Gen Z peers. Here is the conundrum of a classical musician– we try to keep up with the current age to save face, but underneath we’re smirking in the mirror, shoving our glasses up our nose; convincing ourselves that we cling to the “finer things in life” such as good old J.S Bach.
And yet there are times when even nerdy organists such as myself need silly, nostalgic Taylor Swift lines in their lives... “Remember when you pulled up and said get in the car / And I canceled my plans just in case you’d call / Back when I was livin’ for the hope of it all / Meet me behind the mall...” There’s nothing like the simple longings of youth captured by the same four innocent chords over and over; and ironically the frivolity and repetitiveness are key to the enjoyment. And yelling Cruel Summer in the car driving to the beach– and forcing your Gen X and millennial family to do the same– is an experience like no other.
But the other week my playlist played a smooth trick on me. At some point the sounds of my old beloved Brahms, Chopin, Bach, and Ralph Vaughan Williams came pouring through my earbuds, flooding over my frozen brain until I felt an old familiar warmth inside. Oh, it was all too familiar, but it was too strong. The words to one beautiful hymn, “Jerusalem,” hit me. “And did the Countenance Divine, / Shine forth upon our clouded hills? / And was Jerusalem builded here, / Among these dark Satanic Mills? / Bring me my Bow of burning gold: / Bring me my arrows of desire: / Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! / Bring me my Chariot of fire!” I stopped the vacuuming I was doing, sat down, and sobbed. We’ve all felt this at one point. That feeling when a familiar tune revisits us, without our invitation, without our prompting; firmly and gently pulling us back to a memory from our past self and reintegrating that past self into our present self for one glorious moment.
But it was also a bittersweet moment. As intensely as I have loved and will always love the music I’ve studied so long that it feels like part of my body, there is always the knowledge that perhaps I’m the only one that feels this way about it. The idea expressed in the Jerusalem hymn, with text and tune so rousing, is a fine sentiment: it is worth building a Jerusalem, a “place set apart” that it might shine; it is worth building a “City on the Hill” representing our highest ideal to uplift us all. This is, after all, the idea behind the liturgy in general, and the reason why the church sanctuary is a place set apart from the rest of our daily lives and routines.
But there is always the awareness that what is my ideal, what I deem to be pure, and what I place as my highest value might not be someone else’s. The music that I love most may sound flat, stale, and old to someone who hasn’t grown up listening to it or studying it. Therefore, can we believe that what inspires us, what makes life worth living– music or otherwise– also has the power to inspire others that haven’t had the same experiences?
Perhaps not, at best sometimes. But the things we have loved long will find their way back to us, grabbing our hearts with a tenacity that exceeds our own understanding. For me, this will always be classical and sacred music. It won’t let go of me, regardless of whether it has captured the heart of the world in its current age. And perhaps it’s not my job to convince, to prove the “relevance” of classical and sacred music to the world anyway. No amount of score studies or dissertation writing can accomplish this, so I’ll take my glasses off for a while. The least I can do is sing, and yet the most I can do is sing. The only proof I can offer of relevance is the way this music moves at least one heart out of many.
~Audrey Drennen
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