Sound Theology by Colleen Butcher

Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost. Unlike other festivals in the church’s liturgical calendar, Trinity Sunday centers on a doctrine of the church, rather than an event. It celebrates the unfathomable mystery of God’s being as Holy Trinity. It is a day of adoration and praise of the one, eternal, incomprehensible God.

One of the ways we begin to speak of this part of the mystery of God is through metaphor. And, perhaps, one of the best metaphors of the three-in-oneness, is musical. read more…

An ancient song rises. It’s words, written in Latin in the 9th century and originally sung in Gregorian chant, comprise one of the earliest hymns to the Holy Spirit. Veni Creator Spiritus, well established in both Catholic and Anglican prayer books, has been set for performance in the concert hall and as an integral part of communal worship.

One of the most well-known works of Mahler is on this week’s playlist. It features the text of this hymn and a cast of over 1,000 performers, hence, it is known as The Symphony of A Thousand. As we prepare for Pentecost and reflect on the stories told in Acts – stories of thousands of people who heard the gospel and were moved by the Holy Spirit – let’s listen to the beauty and diversity of the settings of these earliest words of praise for the third person of the Trinity. read more…

Although Easter in the Western tradition is coming to a close (two more weeks!), the Orthodox (Eastern) church celebrates Easter according to the Julian calendar, which means that this past weekend they encountered some of the most powerful music of their liturgical cycle. Some estimates project world-wide participants of Orthodox Christianity to number close to 300 million, with about 10% of those in North America.

This week’s musical selections are sung by a choir based in Portland, OR, called Cappella Romana. This group of professional singers is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year and has final concerts in Portland on May 13/14, 2016, featuring the music of “new mystics” Michael Adamis and James MacMillan. Their programming combines eastern and western music “… express(ing) the historic traditions of a unified Christian inheritance.” A unified Christian inheritance – I love that expression. Our celebrations vary in date, musical style, and in cultural heritage, but we share a common story: a story of incarnation, passion, and resurrection. read more…

The featured work this week was “lost,” (actually, unknown) for almost 230 years. Austrian composer and violinist Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber was born in 1644, and he revolutionized the playing of the violin. His most well-known work was not discovered until 1905! Biber literally ‘stretched’ the possibilities, both of the performers and the instruments, of his day. This composition requires scordatura tuning – the strings are crossed or stretched to provide a different tuning and allows the instrument to play unusual sounds.

Biber chose these unusual sounds to depict the story of Christ’s life. His “Mystery Sonatas” are sixteen movements, organized into three parts: three types of mysteries. read more…

In February, scientists reported evidence of gravitational waves – the result of an ancient collision of two black holes – and they sound like … wait for it … a human heartbeat. One of the biggest break-throughs in scientific enquiry has a sound. And it sounds like us! One more resonant witness to the truth that everything is connected and everything belongs in God’s astounding creation. What is amazing to me is that the scientists’ equipment (the LIGO detector) which records visual images of the waves, can be easily translated into sounds. In their news conference, one of the female researchers said, “That’s one of the beautiful things about this [detection]. “We are not only going to be seeing the universe — we are going to be listening to it.” read more…