Solemn Joy and Hot Gospel
by Aaron D. Wolf
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’Twas the middle of that sacred time of year when all Americans pause to remember what is most important—Christmas Shopping Season. I had just walked through the automatic doorway of MediaPlay, out in what was then the edge of Rockford’s wasteland (the East State Street shopping corridor, which has since sprawled itself all the way to the interstate and cornfields beyond).
I was there to obtain a copy of Ars Nova’s recording of Josquin Desprez’s Missa de Beata Virgine. Josquin was Martin Luther’s favorite composer—the “master of notes,” as he called him. Born in 1440 in Belgium, Josquin’s innovations on plainsong melodies, using up to six voices to weave together beautiful chords that melt into polyphonous word-painting, conveying the sacred text perfectly, were an achievement in Western music. Without Josquin, there would have been no J.S. Bach.
Yet Bach’s most famous Ave Maria pales in comparison with Josquin’s. Adapted from Gregorian chant, Josquin’s Ave unfolds through polyphonous imitation, layer upon layer, beginning with the highest voices, as they chant the ancient words: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum, Virgo serena.” The imitation continues with the line, “Ave, cuius Conceptio,” but suddenly, all voices join together in four-part harmony,
solemni plena gaudio,
coelestia, terrestria,
nova replet laetitia.
“Hail, Thou whose Conception, full of solemn joy, fills the sky, the earth, with new gladness!”
Compositionally, this is the same technique used by Bach in his St. John’s Passion, in the memorable opening chorus, “Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm in allen Landen herrlich ist!” (“Lord, Our Ruler, Whose glory is magnificent in all lands!”) And, just as all voices join as one to proclaim that glory in “Herr, unser Herrscher,” so, in Josquin’s Ave, they converge climactically in “solemn joy.”
Before I could make my way back to the section marked CLASSICAL, that category that includes everything from Gregorian chant to Renaissance motets to Mozart’s Requiem to Schönberg’s Tortured Night, I was knocked down by a sign hovering over an endcap featuring a brand-new release from A&M Records for this, the Year of Our Lord 1992. It was Amy Grant’s Home For Christmas, the cover of which features the Christian-pop singer gently embracing a birch tree, her carmine lips painted to match her velvet Santa suit.
What struck me was not the alluring jacket—not only the alluring jacket—but the placard above, designed by MediaPlay to capture the attention of passersby: It read HOT GOSPEL.
I thought “hot” is what happens to you apart from the Gospel. But seriously, “Hot Gospel”—the thermon euaggelion? The zeston euaggelion? Of course, zesty doesn’t really do it, because hot, in this usage, means something closer to sexy. Could we imagine Saint Paul, standing in the Agora, peddling the pornikon euaggelion?
The central feature of Home For Christmas (track 6 of 12), which still gets air time during CSS on lite-rock stations, is “Grown-up Christmas List.” Written by 80’s power-ballad guru David Foster (N.B.: He once played his “Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire” at the Crystal Cathedral) and his now-ex-wife Linda Thompson (she of Elvis Presley’s latter days, Bruce Jenner, and Cornfield Co.), the song is a letter from a wide-eyed adult to the bishop of Myra, in which she expresses that “I’m all grown up now, but still need help, somehow / I’m not a child, but my heart still can dream.”
And what does this impressionable 30-something want from Santa? That the Gospel be preached to the ends of the earth? That the Virgin’s Son be adored by all mankind?
No more lives torn apart
Then wars would never start
And time would heal the heart
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end.
This is my grown-up Christmas list.
Now that is some Hot Gospel.
“Contemporary Christian Music” has been around for 30 years now, and each of the little companies that started out peddling Hot Gospel has been bought up by large record companies (A&M, Time-Warner). The executive producers of these labels answer to the CEOs and shareholders of giant secular corporations who, of course, answer to Mammon. The effect of this on America’s churches has not been insignificant. In addition to the fact that many Christians tune their radio dials to the stations that play CCM and shell out over half a billion dollars per year to purchase it, churches adorn their services with this Mammon Music, both for congregational singing and for “special numbers.” The idea of David Geffen serving as liturgist for thousands of American churches is more than a little disturbing.
When Larry Norman left the hippie/Scientologist band People! in 1968 for the Jesus Movement, he tried to make the Gospel sound more appealing to those who are turned off by churchy music. On his 1972 LP Just Visiting This Planet, the Corpus Christi native gave Hot Gospel its anthem, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” Generations of CCM devotees following him attributed that memorable phrase to Martin Luther. Over the years, Hot Gospel advocates have added that, in composing his hymns, Luther used bawdy-house tunes to convey the Gospel—so why shouldn’t we? This reasoning stems, in part, from a gross misunderstanding of the nature of the German “Bar form” (A-A-B), which Luther did indeed use. As for “the Devil,” the Reformer often used that word in reference to Leo X, and “all the good music,” more often than not, would have meant the Masses and motets of Josquin Desprez, who knew nothing of Hot Gospel. For he belonged to a different age, one in which Christians—and their music—were still inspired by the Serene Virgin’s great Conception and filled with solemn joy.
Aaron D. Wolf is Chronicles‘ associate editor.
This article first appeared in the December 2006 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Robert Reavis on 24 December 2007:
Aaron Wolf always demonstrates the best of the greatest blunder in our civilization. Without the English going “Hot Gospel” for lust and money, and then nationalist before Empire , the family feud with brother Luther would have gone no where. Aaron and his mentors represents the best of serious Christians from the reforming side of life, and I always enjoy listening or reading almost anything he says or writes. His talk last summer at the Rockford School on Pilgrims Progress was another jewel. I wish him and his family a very merry Christmas.
From a respectful Papist.
2 Comment by John Rutowicz on 24 December 2007:
We are all blessed to have a voice like Mr. Wolf’s pointing the way back to the rich heritage we have. Children can be immersed in what is good and learn to love it. During this Advent season I’ve been blessed with hearing my girls (six and three) sing “Veni Emmanuel” and “Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding.” My wife and I have mentioned to each other how blessed we are especially given what we hear other children singing to themselves in public. Our civilization may be collapsing, but we can keep the best alive in our own families and pray for a better day. By the way, Mr. Reavis, I’ve always felt that I had a lot more in common with my traditionalist Roman friends than with my apostate nominal brethren. Of course there are still a few of us traditionalist Lutherans around too. And Bach, Mendelsohn, and Brahms aren’t too bad for a bunch of blunderers. Mr. Reavis, God bless you and have a very merry Christmas as well.
A respectful Lutheran.
3 Comment by Michael Kenny on 24 December 2007:
An amusing aside on “Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm in allen Landen herrlich ist!” If you substitute “Läden”, “in all lands” becomes “in all shops”!
4 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 24 December 2007:
Let’s call “hot gospel” what it is: the kitsch of the “destructive generation”.
Bach’s religious music has never impressed me — itself already moving in the direction of such kitsch emotions: first to 18 C Pietism, then to 19th C “high kitsch”, and passed on to “hot gospel, all a development that’s taken a long time, to be sure, but the roots are there. I except only the B minor Mass. My Bach is his cerebral music, das Musikalische Opfer and Kunst der Fuge. Yes, I like the Brandenburgs, but Corelli’s Concerti Grossi are more to my taste.
But Josquin! When I find something on this website that irks me, invariably something wonderful exorcises it out. As my students might have said, put simply, Josquin rocks! He belongs on the Himalayan Heights with Mozart, Beethoven, and Pérotin. Thought to be the ne plus ultra of Renaissance music, I find him a late Gothic flowering. And like all great artists, he makes his own world, one quite different from that of Palestrina, and the sublime Victoria and Monteverdi — without my denying the high worth of these men. No composer of religious music moves me as much as Josquin and Messiaen, with Victoria (and Gesualdo’s Tenebrae) close behind. Then there’s Bruckner’s 9th and his Te Deum. Will Arvo Pärt make the grade?
So I thank the good Reverend Doctor Wolf. By the way, I find in local stores Scott Joplin and Stephen Foster also in the Classical section. Not a bad place for them.
5 Comment by Robert Reavis on 24 December 2007:
2John Rutowicz,
“By the way, Mr. Reavis, I’ve always felt that I had a lot more in common with my traditionalist Roman friends than with my apostate nominal brethren. Of course there are still a few of us traditionalist Lutherans around too.”
I understand. I married one from the Missouri Synod and had a good friend quit practicing law to become a Lutheran pastor for the same. They are both more Catholic than the sillies I grew up with who have turned my old home parish into occupied territory for every experimental novelty known to man. That is why I am bored with textual criticism of the “letter that kills” when the tradition that gave it life has been almost forgotten, when not purposely annihilated. Keep up the good work.
6 Comment by Jeff Anderson on 24 December 2007:
Aaron is a great friend, father, husband, and coherent follower of the Christ. He seems to be a remarkably successful hunter as well!
I pray the Lord’s gracious blessing on him and his family until we see His kingdom in full. Thus within.
From the windswept and warm confines of McKinney, Texas…
Merry Christmas
7 Comment by Ed Roberts on 25 December 2007:
“zesty doesn’t really do it, because hot, in this usage, means something closer to sexy. ”
No, not exactly. “Hot”, in the usage employed by the sign above the display rack of CDs, is simply retail shorthand for “in heavy demand and prone to selling out”. Wholesalers use the term “Hot” to spur their sales to retailers and retailers use the same term to spur sales to consumers.
When a young male uses the term in reference to a young female, he means “sexy”. That is obviously not the usage involved in a record store display of a Christmas music CD.
8 Comment by John Rutowicz on 25 December 2007:
Of course “Hot” can have a double intended meaning.
9 Comment by Bruce on 28 December 2007:
I’d like to see an America where girls desire to be “pretty” rather than “hot.”
10 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 31 December 2007:
“I’d like to see an America where girls desire to be “pretty” rather than “hot.””
Especially since “pretty” can age, while “hot” tends to cool down–something my fellow indulgent nilly martini-shilling young men don’t seem to understand.
11 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 31 December 2007:
… And I spoke too soon, because girls don’t actually like martini, which is nothing more than gin and vermouth. And actually, they don’t even like vodka “martini” so much as they like the mixer that covers up the taste of the hard grain alcohol.
12 Comment by J. Hauser on 3 January 2008:
Mr. Wolf,
I share your love of Josquin’s music. You might enjoy this piece, Enixa est puerpera, by “Anonymous” at this site: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=177830
It is only a 32 second sample but after listening to it I immediately ordered the package. I also enjoy your regular columns in Chronicles.
13 Comment by Richard Welling on 3 January 2008:
For a thousand years the Church had taught music to the world but for perhaps the past hundred years the Church has willingly been taught its music by the world. Thus, while I am in major agreement with what Mr. Wolf expresses about the decline of sacred music, I don’t know why he thinks it necessary to whip poor Arnold Schönberg in this regard. Schönberg’s later music may be hard to grasp but he was doubtless a genius although having the misfortune of maturing in the age of Nietzsche.
“Tortured Night”? Granting that Schönberg’s Opus 4, Transfigured Night, is based on a silly melodramatic poem, if one is willing to discount an unfortunate motivation for a young man’s talent then the piece must surely rank as one of the most beautiful of all musical works, if nothing else for the serenity of its extended finale. If anyone is worried about his children listening to it, then let him merely lock up the album notes and let them enjoy the inspiring sound.
Since surely there is more glory given to God in the four symphonies of the syphilitic Robert Schumann than in all the likely thousands of works among the “Praise” genre, why don’t we limit our musical references to such as Amy Grant’s and Sandy Patty’s trivialities, as well as those of Marty Haugen and David Haas, whose works–unlike Schönberg’s–actually serve to displace true worship?
14 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 4 January 2008:
Mine was a gentle jab at the apostate A. Schönberg, but since you brought him up . . .
I cannot ever advocate an appreciation of the father of atonality. That his music moves us on some level, with our postmodern ears and hearts, says more about us than about his “genius.” A.S.’s twelve tonery is a musical ideology that smacks of Hegelianism and defies the natural law. The harmony and order of nature that is the heritage of Western music and its development by the Church from pagan sources is first ignored and then subverted by this technique, which was far too self-aware as the self-proclaimed apotheosis of composition.
Torture! Now I need to listen to the Well-Tempered Clavier and, following the advice of my favorite composer, “smoke my pipe and worship God” (wink).
15 Comment by Richard Welling on 8 January 2008:
Sorry I haven’t replied sooner but though fronting sixty years, I am still distracted by having to make a non-literary living. ;>) Prior to replying, and though being–according to my wife–a veritable fanatic for classical works, from DePrez, Palestrina, Gabrielli, Schuetz, JS Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., then Schubert, Mendelsohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak, as well as the Russians: Rimsky, Balikirev, Glazunov, and the French: Gounod, Faure, Debussy, Ravel and then Bartok, Stravinsky, etc., not to mention all the operas (and don’t ask me about hard-bop jazz), I had the need this evening to be fortified with Schönberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces to remind myself that his music is truly knowledgeable, gifted, and sublime! (I recommend the Barenboim-Chicago recording.)
As to musical “ideology,” I don’t perceive that Schönberg, a champion of Bach and scholar and teacher of the classical forms, possessed the misguided zeal of, for example, the Minimalists like the ridiculous Philip Glass or John Adams. (“Nixon in China,” indeed!)
(By serendipity, my wife and I were invited last week to a New Year’s Eve party at a wealthy home and were treated there to a talented trio of musicians. When I complemented them on their play, saying, “You guys really swing,” the leader asked “What would you like to hear?” to which I replied, “Anything by David Raskin.” He ventured, “Like ‘Laura’?” to which I responded, “How about ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’?” [The theme of the classic 1952 flick of the same name, which every cultural maven should view.] Well, my evening was fulfilled when he said, “I know it but nobody ever asks me for it.” [He then played it better than I could have hoped for.] It so happens that the great Hollywood composer Raskin studied with Schönberg and who knows how less our satisfaction of that important musical genre would have been without those insights? To grasp what I’m saying, think of the 50s and try to rid your mind of Burt Bacharach and John Williams.)
Though not having sufficient grounding in philosophy to recognize Hegelianism in all its manifestations, I seriously wonder whether Schönberg, though growing up in that milieu, could have cared less. My point is that we who care about true worship, including we confessional Lutherans (myself a former LCMS elder, now WELS) in looking for what is good and righteous, should avoid being distracted by academic prejudices from discovering the true source of defective forms. “Atonality” has practically nothing to do with current musical deficiencies; after all, even rappers use tonic chords, not to mention Bill Gaither.
I would look to Madison Avenue as a source of cultural decay before I would bother with attacking Arnold Schönberg, who had more knowledge of our Western, classical tradition in his little finger than all the multitude of “praise “practitioners, not to mention many current professors of liturgy.