Easter Tunage

Today is Easter! Hurray!

I’m celebrating by working all day and eating my weight in chocolate, which I have found to always be a great decision regardless of what day it is. Today, I’m listening to music that either 1.Reminds me of bunnies or 2.Reminds me of the life of Jesus Christ. As it happens, there have been a number of Christian classical composers throughout the years (Handel’s wildly popular oratorio, The Messiah, does get played. EVERY. YEAR.) and they do, in fact, write pieces about the life of Christ. And if you really think about the story, there is a lot of dramatic stuff there (man gets crucified, etc…) that a composer can really play with to make this music really quite powerful. So what I’m saying here is that this ain’t your daddy’s contemporary christian rock record. This is music that (I feel) transcends it’s purely religious connotations, to the point where everyone can enjoy it as incredible music.

First stopâ€”Messiaen’s La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur JÃ©sus-Christ,or as translated by wikipedia: â€œThe Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ.â€ The story that Messiaen is trying to depict isn’t so importantâ€”basically Christ goes up on a mountain, is confirmed as the son of God, and the light of heaven shines on him. Very exciting things. But just the way Messiaen sets this! It’s this huge orchestra and chorus, with enough power to bulldoze ten houses. And the whole piece (which is really quite long) ends with this radiant, powerful, and beautiful chorale-

The other piece I’m looking at today is a piece by Arvo Part, one of the so called â€œholy minimalistsâ€ for his deep christian faith. The piece,Â Passio, is a setting of the Passion text, and is really quite stunning. He uses repetitive structures throughout the (again, quite long) piece, but this youtube video gives you a nice idea of what it is like. It’s super powerful. Scary at some points, strikingly beautiful at others, but on the whole-a haunting and incredible easter tune. Turn it up and rock out!