What makes something art? Can something designed purely for function (say, a urinal) be art? Does something have to be essentially useless for it to be art?

I’m not going down that road – come to your own conclusion.

It is an interesting thing to ponder, though. There is plenty of gorgeous music written for functional use. Take William Byrd‘s Mass for Five Voices – this setting could be sung on any Sunday as a regular Christian Mass, but is so exquisite that you can just as easily find it in a secular concert hall. Meanwhile, the infamous Missa “My Little Pony” would be booed off any concert stage, yet sadly remains sung in churches. And any church music director who demands on singing Bach’s Mass in B minor will surely be fired once the priest realizes that the first of three Kyries takes over 10 minutes – but concert-lovers will drive for hours to hear a B-minor mass in a hall.

Jewish sacred music seems to be free from the function/art woes that have become a norm for Christian texts. Perhaps this is because musical instruments were not used in synagogues until relatively recently; unaccompanied choral music took a backseat to instrumental music from the baroque to the late romantic. I have had difficulty finding functional sacred Jewish music that rings as both function and art. Perhaps anti-Semitic trends have suppressed Jewish sacred music from becoming mainstream concert music in the way Mozart’s Masses have. Or, perhaps there is just less of this music than I expect. If you know of any Jewish sacred music that is both (liturgically) functional and high art, please let me know!

The only Jewish Service I’ve heard performed in a concert setting is by Ernst Bloch. If you knew nothing of Judaism at all, you would still enjoy this work as a romantic choral symphony – the work’s flavor is not unlike the Brahms Requiem. However, this service could be sung at your local synagogue, while the Brahms (in its entirety) is exclusively performed as a concert piece.

This is the final part of the service, the Aaronic blessing. You’ll hear the cantor singing the blessing and the choir responding, “Amen”.

May the Lord bless you and guard you;
May the Lord make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you;
May the Lord lift up His face unto you and give you peace.

The full service can be found here.

Today marks the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and the beginning of the High Holy Days. This festival comes from a biblical command God gave to Moses:

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts.

Trumpet blasts? Sounds good to me. How about Leonard Bernstein‘s Chichester Psalms? Bernstein only wrote a handful of religious works; you could argue that his Kadish Symphony and Mass are better described as anti-religious. The Chichester Psalms is unique in his repertoire as having a positive spin on religion, even if it isn’t backed by any belief on his part. The piece bears an English name because it was commissioned by Chichester Cathedral. It is often performed in a slightly strange reduced instrumentation – organ, percussion, and harp. Though they are often found in synagogues, the organ here perhaps acts as a symbol for Christianity, while the harp and percussion call to mind the ancient Hebrew psalms. In the first movement (today’s piece) they sing from Psalm 108:

Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn.

With the synthesis of Jewish and Christian instruments, the Hebrew text, and an Anglican Cathedral’s name on the piece, makes me want to see this work as a symbol of healing between the two religions.

Whenever you see Olivier Messiaen‘s name in a program, be it a sacred or secular event, his deep Catholic faith will be mentioned. What sets him apart from other religious composers is his mystical approach to writing. It’s common for composers (regardless of their beliefs) to set religious texts to music, or perhaps write dramatic music for a particular religious event. Messiaen, on the other hand, eschewed the traditional texts and instead tried to capture the essence of God in the music he wrote. The result is some truly astounding compositions that sound other-worldly, and, ironically, can’t be used in worship services because many people can’t (or are unwilling to) wrap their brains around them. Those who love Messiaen’s music find a powerful, intense river of joy, often lying beneath a calm, serene texture.

And so, today, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, I give you Messiaen’s only choral motet that is functional in a worship setting: O Sacrum Convivium. Though a traditional Eucharistic text, Messiaen’s music goes way beyond a setting of words – the low, misty beginning, the burning passion that builds the piece, the climatic high point, the serene settling. If you’re only going to write one choral piece, this is the way to do it.