Among possible festival locations, Salzburg was mentioned as the kind of city to emulate. So how apt to have the city of Mozart represented at this mass through his sublime Ave Verum, and indeed eighteenth century Austria, the homeland also of Joseph Haydn whose Little Organ Mass we are enjoying this morning. In its way, our music from the German-speaking world (including a Bach organ voluntary) affirms a confident Europeanism, our belonging to this continent that has enriched Scotland in so many ways and to which (setting a fine example to England) it remains sturdily committed. Brexit is not a word that’s understood in the world of music, theatre, film, letters or art.
The Haydn brothers Joseph and Michael, both great composers, were deeply religious men. Of Joseph’s Little Organ Mass one of the experts* has said: “in this music, Haydn’s religious character becomes glowingly apparent: instinctive and unquestioning in faith, yet celebratory and reverent, seeking devotion through the contemplation of beauty.” Near the end of his life he was taken to a performance of his Creation to celebrate his birthday. When they reached that glorious C major chord that bursts out of the representation of chaos at the start of the score, “And there was light”, Haydn, it is said, “raised his trembling arms to Heaven, as if in prayer to the Father of Harmony”.
He spoke to his biographer about composing an Agnus Dei for one of his late masses. “I prayed, not like a miserable sinner in despair but calmly, slowly. I felt that an Infinite God would surely have mercy on his finite creature, pardoning dust for being dust. I experienced a joy so confident that as I composed to the words of the prayer, I could not suppress my joy but gave vent to my happy spirits and wrote above the miserere, Allegro.” Not at all like the more reflective adagios we are used to at this point in the liturgy. But that is Haydn, always taking us by surprise, not least spiritually. My daughter and I once went to his mausoleum at Eisenstadt in Lower Austria, near the Palace of the Esterhazys he’d served so loyally. Inside they were playing a cd of one of his masses. I needed to honour the great man and thank him for all that he’d meant to me. It was most moving.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want to go back to that phrase I quoted, seeking devotion through the contemplation of beauty. This seems to me to be one of the functions of music and the arts for people of faith. Perhaps a hint of this lies behind the vision of those who created the Edinburgh Festival, a belief in the power of art to bring life back into some kind of beautiful order and ordered beauty. Making contemplatives of us means learning how to see, to pay attention, to be present to our experience and glimpse its inner meaning, what Gerard Manley Hopkins called inscape. And as we are doing the work of God at this eucharist today, we should celebrate the capacity of liturgy to achieve this, help us live in a more contemplative way so that we “see into the life of things” as Wordsworth put it.
So let’s ponder the juxtapositions within our worship today. Into the words of the mass and the music of Haydn and Mozart, the lectionary inserts readings that ask questions that are among the most fundamental we can face. Where does meaning lie, asks the preacher in Ecclesiastes, exhausted by the ever-circling years that bring no age of gold, only vanity and ennui. Psalm 49 examines the futility of living only for your power or wealth or fame or reputation, for death is the great leveller that will bring us all down to the grave like the beasts that perish. The gospel reading about the rich fool warns that there is no gospel of prosperity and we can take nothing with us when we die. Even Colossians, so radiant with the spirit of Easter, warns that we must put to death our self-serving behaviours and “set our minds on things that are above”.
I wonder whether we can set up a spiritual conversation between these readings and the Viennese mass we are enjoying. On the one hand the readings underline the realities of living and dying. They belong to the world of a series of medieval paintings in Hexham Abbey where we often worship, that show the “Dance of Death”. A skeleton brandishing a scythe comes up to different kinds of people and engages them in deadly waltz that tells them that their time has come. These sombre readings call on us to face our mortality and ask what it means to become wise in the light of our human condition.
On the other hand, Haydn’s music is shot through with a God-given happiness. Not I think because “Papa Haydn” was cheerful by temperament (though he was remembered for it), but rather that his music evokes the confident faith in which it was composed. The gospel reading ends with a striking turn of phrase. It speaks of those “who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God”. Might we experience the liturgy, enriched by the arts of the church and especially Haydn’s music, as one of the ways in which we might become “rich towards God”? Seeking devotion through the contemplation of beauty we said. That seems to me to be one of the God-given paths to wisdom because it enables us to see ourselves as we truly are, “frail and feeble, doomed to die”, yet in Christ raised from the dead, given back our lives, put together again, transformed, discovering the wisdom that teaches us how to be “rich towards God”.
The sixth century writer Boethius authored a famous book called The Consolations of Philosophy. He wrote it in prison as he faced death at the hands of his political enemies. It calmed his spirit and brought him peace at the last. Medieval theologians loved his writings because of their message that through wisdom, the soul attains to the vision of God. I believe music and the arts bring consolations too when they find their place in liturgy, prayer and a contemplative outlook. In this sacred space, in the environment of the holy, Haydn’s music is a source of grace and wisdom that strengthens us, steadies our gaze, comforts us and gives us confidence at the grave and gate of death. We lift up our hearts in gratitude, and find ourselves once again caught up in the movement of God’s everlasting love towards creation. And here’s the miracle, that we are risen with Christ, learning to seek the things that are above, discovering how to be rich towards God.
Old St Paul’s Church, Edinburgh, 4 August 2019
Ecclesiastes 1.2, 12-14, 18-23; Psalm 49.1-11, Colossians 3.1-11, Luke 12.13-21
*H.C. Robbins Landon & David Wyn Jones, Haydn: his life and music, 1988
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