A Song For The Exodus Part-II

“I have come closer to God. Family matters have not changed much…” came the message on Whatsapp.

“I have gone farther away from God. Family matters have not changed much…” the reply went.

Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen! (Come, ye daughters, help me lament!)

     Johann Sebastian Bach chose to start his masterpiece ‘St. Matthew Passion’ with this apt chorus. The passion narrative from the Gospel of St. Matthew set to music calls on the one who listens to it to gaze beyond this world to the One who is the source of the celestial music and the fountain of all that is good. The grief filled notes recall the day when the sweetheart of heaven was labelled a criminal.

     It is said that if ‘Bach’s St. Matthew Passion’ exists, God exists.

     This piece of music that is said to give us a foretaste of the beauty of heaven begins with a lament. This is not surprising though, considering the apparent oxymoron by which history chose to call that day- ‘Good Friday’. The embarrassment and ridicule was the price, the blood a ransom, the scars a remedy and the death, redemption. There was something good but the bad was necessary. There is no better picture than the Dolorosa to give us a glimpse of the journey we choose to take as Christians. The piece ‘St. Matthew Passion’ works in the same way.

     I start yawning within an hour of the almost three hour long sumptuous feast of harmony. The arias seem too long, the choruses repetitive and the narration too baritone and there is just too much music! Bearing in mind the cosmic nature of ‘St. Matthew Passion’, the utmost solemnity of the subject and the preview it provides of the splendour of a super natural God the reason for my uneasiness and boredom must be more than my cultural upbringing. I like the music but I don’t want to sit through it. I like Advent and Easter but Lent is not my favourite season.

     Now that is a problem. My desire for resurrection without a redemptive suffering is unrealistic or unrealmistic. My heart turns Hebrew and I turn back wishing for the Egypt called life.

…Mecum omnes plangite! (Everyone, weep with me!)

     …ends the opening song from the album ‘Carmina Burana’, a collection of medieval poems written mostly by unknown authors. Disheartened and frustrated authors I suppose. They saw life in its most common form and felt its assaults. ‘O Fortune, you wax and wane like the moon’ they sing. They chose a swan being roasted as a metaphor for their state in life. ‘Where is my lover gone?’ sing the ladies. ‘He rode off on a horse’ sing the male voices reiterating the tone of the album. When you hear the words Pope and King used in a drinking-game song you know that the person(s) who wrote it did not care probably because there was nothing to lose.

     If life exists then ‘Carmina Burana’ exists or in other words ‘Carmina Burana’ exists because life exists.

     Unlike Bach’s St. Matthew Passion or Beethoven’s Mass in C, I truly and entirely enjoy Carmina Burana from the first note till the last. I can’t get enough of the tunes, I keep playing them in my mind, I laugh at the verses and most importantly, I identify with the lyrics, even make them my own. I am quite comfortable in pointing out that life will be life and that there isn’t much difference in the bad things that happen to a person Christian or not. It rains on the wicked and the righteous alike you see. Slavery looks good and it doesn’t take much effort to complain.

     Dolorosa for me and the like minded will take a while.

     These two contrasting pieces of music start with a lament but end quite differently. Carmina Burana ends with a repetition of the opening song, a scornful cry to ‘Fortune’. The short lived joy and fun vanish into the clichéd song of vanity because life without Christ begins and ends with vanity. The Passion however ends with an unspoken hope for Easter Sunday.

The common man with his most common problems, punctual hurdles and not so surprising struggles humming the tune of ‘O Fortuna’ is expected to sing and live The Passion. He will need a Bridge.

“Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison” (Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!)

     I refer here specifically to the Kyrie from “Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.” One would expect the Kyrie to sound melodious and slow, bringing with it a sense of humility and repentance, much like Allegri’s ‘Miserere Mei Deus’ the Psalm 51. When listened with an attentive heart ‘Miserere Mei Deus’ could bring you to your knees. Allegri managed to capture the sombre atmosphere of a confession for the most part of the song and yet out of nowhere a single soprano takes a note through the roof depicting the deep cry of a penitent’s heart for mercy. Most of the tunes set for Kyrie sound like they are expected to but not in Mozart’s requiem.

     This Kyrie is a cry, almost a demand. It does not drag your heads to a humble bow but lifts it to an almost defiant plea to the heavens for mercy. Only a man who had been in ‘Egypt’ and who had tasted milk and honey can pen this tune. Broke, sick and in debt Mozart was such a man when the inspiration came for this tune.

     You and I know that person, the Hebrew struggling to ‘praise him in the storm’ or the David with his four limbs up in the air saying ‘Yes Lord!’ But sitting in the back row and in the dark corners of doubt is the Job who needs a good, honest and a loud Kyrie.

     And when one hits that roof breaking note, the walls of Jericho come crumbling down.

-Sam