Day 23: April 9 - Is it Monday? Thursday? I've lost track #easterpuns
For Maundy Thursday, a long playlist touching on the events and themes of the day. Will weave in messages from the Gospels with some tunes that may or may not live up to that message…
The Pharaoh Sisters - Come To The Table
North Carolinian The Pharaoh Sisters, are not actually sisters (starting Maundy Thursday off with lies). They are actually four Appalachian dudes bringing us some good ol’ tuneage which both brings forward the old folk styles while modernizing them as well. This original hymn, about Christ’s welcoming of sinners and the salvational promises of faith, by bandleader Austin Pfeifer is tuneful and mildly riotous, structured perfect some old fashioned off-key congregational interjections. Just a fun start to the (long) day ahead!
Nirvana - Come As You Are
The classic 90s grunge single has some profound similarities to Christ’s message (with some fudging…). Christ’s call to come to the table was addressed to everyone: sinners, saints, every shade of imperfection. Cobain wrote this about the impossible and contradictory expectations to be perfect foisted upon us by society and the ways that those pull us apart from ourselves. The metaphor is stretched and, likely, would not be appreciated by Cobain, but who really has ownership over interpretation (@me aesthetic Adorn-bros). Also, a classic tune.
Carlo Gesualdo - Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday, First Nocturn: Tristis est Anima
This song was not written by the Vaselines. It is, however, an old Christian song. Italian renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo lived a WILD night. He viciously murdered his wife and her long-term lover after finding them in bed and got away with it because he was a noble. Barbarism aside, he wrote some WILD music as well. His harmonic language was centuries ahead of it’s time, using chromatic voice leading to move between harmonies that would otherwise be dissonant and incongruous on top of excellent word painting. It speaks to how good he was that these chords flow so well. His setting of the text follows the story in the text: long solemn, descending line opens which rises again with hope, then imitative cacophony when the mob surrounds Christ. Next, lush harmonies surround Christ’s sacrifice. Really listen for how Gesualdo paints this. Within these glorious, splendid harmonies, there are dissonances coming from a similar descending gesture as the opening, but which resolve into those distant, beautiful harmonies. Gesualdo is painting the sacrifice of Christ as a gloriously good thing, but weaving into it the immense suffering he will undergo. As complicated a man as he was, I can’t imagine a man better suited to express the mixture of glory and gore that comes with Christ’s passion. Performed here by Tenebrae.
Sorrowful is my soul even unto death.
Stay here, and watch with me.
Now you shall see the mob that will surround me.
You shall take flight, and I shall go to be sacrificed for you.
Verse:
The time draws near, and the Son of Man
shall be delivered into the hands of sinners.
Josh Garrels - Bread and Wine
Indiana-born songwriter Josh Garrels doesn’t write contemporary Christian music, though he does allow his faith to inform his music (with how much he weaves in, I think he’s being a bit cagey). What he does do well is write a melancholic tune, which is fitting for today. This song is not explicitly about communion, but instead another Christian tenet: forgiveness. Garrels accepts that the hurt he caused will linger and all he asks is instead to share bread and wine and let that hurt weave itself into the relationship. A low-key number which gives peace to hurt.
Olivier Messiaen - O Sacrum Convivium
Another brilliant harmonist, Messiaen (who needs no introduction in QuaranTunes) can build a chord, man. Golly. This setting, which expresses wonder at the sacrament, gets it’s drony, drifty vibe from pedal notes, notes which stay the same as the harmony changes around it. These slowly descend, making us feel increasingly languid, until they begin rising up again into a singularly radiant climax. Listen for those steady notes and for how they sound against the moving notes. But mostly just, like, listen to some beautiful music, man. Recorded by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge under Richard Marlow.
The Psaltercall Forest - Communionunion
I know NOTHING about this guy. I just found him while looking for music for today and I love how wacky and weird this is. It is absolutely sincere and intensely personal, like being invited to someone else’s prayer. I find it unabashedly beautiful and the word play deep and fun, but I imagine that this is a hard listen for some people. Beyond just his vocal technique, the reverb he has on his voice lends this a decidedly creepy vibe. Still, as a personal profession of faith, I find it moving. I imagine him taking great care in writing and arranging this and sitting alone putting this all together. It shouldn’t be weighed against BTS or New York Phil, but instead against whether he achieved what HE wanted to achieve or whether it gives you any satisfaction (come@meagainAdornbros).
Francis Poulenc - Sept Repons des Tenebres II. Judas, Mercato Pessimus
Poulenc is an odd character. What is he? Is he serious and solemn or is he a silly goofball? He was described as ‘half-monk, half-rascal’ by his peers. His music is lively, light, and rhythmic, like a super jazzy Mozart, yet he could be among the most sublimely solemn composers. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, his setting depicting ‘Judas, the vile merchant’ (Judas, mercator pessimus) exemplifies that dichotomy. Exciting and intense (that brass writing!) while discussing Judas, the music suspends itself in two gorgeous episodes: one describing Christ as an innocent lamb and one at the end which says it would be better for Judas had he not been born at all. Another piece I hadn’t heard before today, but very much a little gem. Performed here by the BBC Philharmonic and the choir, The Sixteen, under Harry Christopher.
Derek and the Dominoes - Thorn Tree In The Garden
This is a little personal gem for me. The closing track on the only album by late 60s supergroup, Derek and the Dominoes, this is such a gorgeous song. It’s not at all about Christ or Maundy Thursday. It’s a love song about missing an ex, with whom ‘no one ever shared more, than we alone.’ It’s beautiful and one of the best tracks on the whole album (possibly because it’s Bobby Whitlock singing, not younger Clapton).
Thomas Tallis - A New Commandment
We close with Tallis’ setting of the new commandment Christ gave, this setting dripping with contrapuntal splendor:
A new commandment give I unto you, saith the Lord,
that ye love together, as I have loved you,
that e'en so ye love one another.
By this shall ev'ry man know
that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.
Tallis lived at a time of great reformation: The Reformation. After Henry VIII created the Church of England, his successor, Edward VI, commissioned new, Anglican holy works. Tallis was the first generation of musicians to craft the Anglican choral tradition and, boy, did he knock it out of the park. Performed here by, who else, the Tallis Scholars.