Music losing its form = music losing its holiness? - Scott Crissman

In my response to Van der Leeuw's theology of the arts I focused on his treatment of music. He describes music as the most fleeting and the most mystical of the arts (which I can agree with) and aligns it with eschatology (okay...) and, finally, describes its theological application as "demolishing" (which I cannot see at all, at least not in the sense that Van der Leeuw seems to use it - I agree more with Amanda DeSalme's earlier posting about this same subject). However, I want this blog to deal more with Van der Leeuw's assertion that music, particularly more modern and inventive music, is on the verge of losing its form and, thus, its holiness.

First off I think that making a blanket statement that any music is more holy than any other music is an extremely subjective and therefore dangerous thing to do. Secondly, in my opinion, music's form has very little to do with its holiness. For example, the Magnificat, a sacred text of the Christian church, set at least once by nearly every Western composer who has had anything to do with the church. Johann Sebastian Bach was almost singlehandedly responsible for the creation and enduring popularity of what we consider to be traditional musical form. The first movement of his setting of the Magnificat, for Baroque orchestra, choir, and vocal soloists follows:

While certainly a masterpiece and music that I enjoy listening to, Bach's setting does very little for me on spiritual level.

Arvo Pärt is a contemporary Estonian composer, well-known for hypnotic and powerful settings of both traditional and less orthodox texts, set the Magnificat for a much smaller ensemble - just an a cappella mixed choir. Pärt's setting brings me, personally, much closer to God than does Bach's. Pärt's use of unusual and constantly changing time signatures and harmonies is certainly not in line with the traditional form Van der Leeuw seems to ascribe to, as Bach's most definitely is. Pärt uses his signature tintinnabulism technique, focusing and expanding upon the three notes of a triad (C major, for example - C, E, and G) to evoke the ringing of bells and hearken back to early monastic chant. This more simplistic and, I think, humble style sounds much more to me like the "mysticism" Van der Leeuw talks about in his theology of the arts.