A pioneering student of culture, ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs (1881-1959), made a coherent argument, in terms of the normal coexistence, and, indeed, mutual inter-penetration of cultural influences, among the seeming, disparate forms of fine-art music, authentic folk music, progressive popular music, urban music, and other forms.
Cultural suppression of folk music in the English Civil War and the interregnum of Oliver Cromwell, was injurious to the development of a native English art music.
An example of the interrelation of art- and folk music, may be considered in the English Suite No. 6 in D Minor, BWV 811: VI. Gavotte II, with a bagpipe like compositional style. (The influence of Bach on Brazilian progressive popular music is an example in the reverse, the downward direction.)
Sachs made an assertion that is contested to this day; yet the facts that prompted his claim are indisputable: between the death of Henry Purcell in 1695 and the rise of Sir Edward Elgar in 1898, there was a greater than 200 year gap in the presence of home-born English fine art composers. (Thomas Arne, “Hail Britania”, and Charles Avison, orchestral arrangements of Domenico Scarlatti’s harpsichord music, notwithstanding.)
Sen. Daniel Patrick Monyihan was famous for his observation, “everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts”.
Since Curt Sachs made the observation, his opinion is significant, and needs to be disproved, by those who don’t accept it:
Sachs maintained that Roundhead cultural repression of folk music–witnessed by a play Bartholomew Fair by a man who paid with his life for resisting that repression, Ben Jonson (1572-1637)–was directly instrumental in disruption of the normal feeding-upwards of art music from the cultural loam of folk music.
Philomena (2 years old) sings in a deep voice, and when she walks, she swings her elbows like a sailor walking on a swaying ship deck. (What a character.) This key, which her makes her grandpa sound like a pirate singing, is 5 half-steps high or 7 half-steps low, from the traditional key. Only the Men’s part is offered here.
I attended the gold or silver anniversary of a seminary and novitiate, which was a large, informal garden party attended by all the diocesan luminaries. My wife and I were photographed in the vicinity of the Bishop, though were aren’t sufficiently important for him to have anything to say to us.
During the party, a jazz piece was playing repeatedly, which took God’s name in vain. It was the 1969 Les McCann and Eddie Harris “Trying to Make It Real” (Compared to What?). At the rhythmic and dynamic climax of the piece, the singer suddenly curses God.
This piece repeated twice at the religious garden party, and yet, with the presence of all the high officials of religious institutes and offices, no one recognized the fact.
When I brought it up with the responsible official, the rector of the novitiate and seminary, who is also a commentator on a national radio show, his rationale was that “we used a jazz playlist of a streaming music service, and sadly it never even occurred to me that I would even have to worry about such language being used.”
I was confronted by an identical rationale for repeated playing in the presence of a child, of a sexually suggestive piece, Ray Charles’ “It’s Alright”. At the emotional highlight of the piece, the women backup singers make sexually suggestive moaning, in rhythm, even using the rhythmic technique “diminution”, shortening duration of the sexual moaning in half. This is particularly unfortunate, considering the reputation that the Raelettes’ backgroup were required to sexually submit to Ray Charles as conditions of employment. (Ray Charles: Women in His Life | Entertainment Magazine)
Several comments are in order about exposing ourselves to Rhythm and Blues and Jazz music in our everyday lives. Jazz has a mixed moral history, on one hand, in its origins were religious, in one time and place, while an elaborate funeral parade was playing sad music on the way to the graveyard, on the way back, triumphal music would be played, this as one account of the origin of Jazz as a genre.
On the other hand, the etymology of Jazz in the Swahili tongue, is supposed to mean sexual arousal. (This affects the legitimacy of the annual, Memorial Day, “Jazz Mass” at Sacramento’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.)
The practical rearing of Jazz as a genre, occurred in clubs and roadhouses that served as de facto bordellos. It isn’t any secret, when listening to a Jazz radio station, that much of the music has a morally low tone.
It is supposed in Plato’s Republic, that certain rhythmic and melodic modes can contribute to dissolute morals.
Regardless, it is up to individuals to overcome the dulling, hypnotizing potential of music, to be alert to the morality of what is actually being conveyed.
Everyone used to sing. Today, we are in a culturally crippled condition, dependent on technologic devices to the point of debilitation. But worse, we are almost completely unaware of the problem.
In the 1960s, it resulted in an associate of Monsignor Anabele Bugnini, Dominican Arch-Abbott and later Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the benighted Rembert Weakland, initiating the “Hootenanny Mass” movement, though he himself was highly trained both in modern art music (it can be argued, “classical” only covers one period in the range), and also Gregorian Plainchant.
The young people who were corrupted by this development, were rendered culturally defenseless by having lost their direct experience making music themselves–not necessarily as specialist, instrumentalists, but just as ordinary, casual, folk and popular music singers–the condition that two generations prior, had been the norm, stretching back into the dawn of folk-music history–in all cultures, worldwide.
We are actually worse-off than the residents of Sanliurfa, Turkey, who have the advantage unknown to us, that they can at least see a mysterious mound, Gobekli Tepe, which upon some archeological chance was revealed to be site of the oldest civilization known in human history, 9,000 B.C. The excavations are revealing a completely unknown culture, because there is apparently no reference to the site on any ancient monuments or in the Bible.
Our more ignorant condition, about our own cultural ancestry and heritage, is worse, because we lack even a view of the ruins; and yet the people who lived that culture, may perhaps have been known by name, to our grandparents. The cultural snow-blindness, of cell-phones, computers, t.v. and broadcast music, completely obliviates any understanding of a past only 100 years old.
“Everyone knew how to sing 200 songs”. – John Senior
In the video, cheap-crook Richard Widmark assumes that a bartender knows, to be able to sing extemporaneously, any random, popular song, in this case, “Camptown Races”. There was nothing exceptional about this portrayal; everyone liked music, there was no radio or talkies, everyone casually sang songs as part of their normal cultural lives. It was never remarked upon, as merely a normal part of life, and so, that cultural milieu has gone into a kind of social archeology, ruins in time as mysterious and unknown as unidentified mounds on the Anatolian plains.
Synopsis of the `Clarion Call' episode, in O. Henry's 'Full House', 1952 (Click/Expand)
Detective Dale Robertson finds a pencil holder at the scene of the murder-robbery of a somewhat wealthy hotel resident.
(From a time before the invention of the ball-point pen, it wasn’t practical to carry fountain pens on one’s person, they would leak and ruin your suite. Lead pencils were routinely carried in one’s suit jacket; it was common to observe someone licking the lead before writing, because the natural, metallic lead was too hard and smooth, it was difficult to get traction to get the pencil to write darkly enough. As a pencil would get worn down through use and sharpening down, the pocket of the common man would be liable to contain a metal tube-extender/container for the pencil stub: a pencil holder.)
The pencil holder Detective Robertson finds, at the site of the hotel murder, is inscribed with the legend “Camptown Races”. As he holds the crucial evidence, identifying the murderer, he takes an identical pencil holder, inscribed with the same motto, out of his own pocket.
The inscribed pencil holders were part of a set of four, won by participants in a singing competition at a county fair. The cop, Robertson, had one of the four, matching prizes; the murderer, Widmark, part of the same, prize-winning, informal song contest ensemble, had another, having left it at the scene of the crime.
Robertson having been at one time an employee of a private business, had taken some money, in what is called embezzlement or larceny, with the intention of making a quick profit, and putting back the original capital, $1,000.
When he lost the money, he had to go to his cheap-crook friend, Richard Widmark, who would be revealed, years later, as the murderer. Widmark habitually insults people in public; one of his unfortunate choice of victims, turns out to be a newspaper publisher.
As Robertson tries to collar Widmark, he is prevented, in honor, by the favor that Widmark had done to him when he, now the detective, had then been the civilian employee afoul of the law. Robertson can’t arrest Widmark, because he owes him in exchange for the $1,000 Widmark gave Robertson, to get him out of trouble for his larceny/embezzlement.
The cop, Robertson, figures out how to escape his moral compromise: he goes to the publisher whom the crook had insulted, asks for an advance on reward money for the murder, it is granted, because the publisher is willing to risk that much to put away the man who insulted him.
Robertson, relieved of the moral compromise, now makes the arrest, after a desperate fight scene on a train about to depart for Chicago.
In the bar scene, as Widmark insults the bartender into joining in a trio of the title song, “Camptown Races”, the movie gives corroboration of John Senior’s assertion, that everyone knew how to sing 200 songs. Widmark is able to assume that the bartender can sing Camptown Races, without any preparation; the improvisatory result is ample evidence, that people once sang.
“I was looking at one of those American classics that most of us studied in high school, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” How wonderful this is–a meter that captures a horse’s gallop. Longfellow was a good writer, telling a great story in a magical way, and he pulled this off. I bet most people assume it’s a standard poetic form of some kind. However, when I looked at it closely and counted syllables, I realized Longfellow mixed up his lines and endlessly created variations on his metrical scheme. A lesser talent, following the same rules more tightly, might make us bonkers by the 20th line. Longfellow managed to achieve a kind of beautiful roughness that is a metaphor for this country.” – Bruce Deitrick Price, The ‘Rules’ of Poetry—Says Who?
Another Longfellow poem with rhythmic asymmetry (departure from standard, rhythmic regularity) is the Three Kings, rendered here in an experimental format “artificially regular”.
1) Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.
2) The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.
3) Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,
Three caskets of gold with golden keys;
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows
Of bells, pomegranates and furbelows,
Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.
4) And so the Three Kings rode into the West,
Through the dusk of the night, over hill & dell,
& sometimes they nodded with beard on breast,
And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,
With the people they met at some wayside well.
5) “Of the child that is born,” said Baltasar,
“Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;
For we in the East have seen his star,
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,
To find and worship the King of the Jews.”
6) And the people answered, “You ask in vain;
We know of no King but Herod the Great!”
They thought the Wise Men were men insane,
As they spurred their horses across the plain,
Like riders in haste, who cannot wait.
7) And when they came to Jerusalem, Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;
And said, “Go down unto Bethlehem,
And bring me tidings of this new king.”
8) So they rode away; and the star stood still,
The only one in the grey of morn;
Yes, it stopped—it stood still of its own free will,
Right over Bethlehem on the hill,
The city of David, where Christ was born.
9) And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,
Through the silent street, till their horses turned
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;
But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,
And only a light in the stable burned.
10) And cradled there in the scented hay,
In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,
The little child in the manger lay,
The child, that would be king one day
Of a kingdom not human, but divine.
11) His mother Mary of Nazareth
Sat watching beside his place of rest, Watching the even flow of his breath,
For the joy of life and the terror of death
Were mingled together in her breast.
12) They laid their offerings at his feet:
The gold was their tribute to a King,
The frankincense, with its odor sweet,
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,
The myrrh for the body’s burying.
13) And the mother wondered and bowed her head,
And sat as still as a statue of stone,
Her heart was troubled yet comforted,
Remembering what the Angel had said
Of an endless reign and of David’s throne.
14) Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;
But they went not back to Herod the Great,
For they knew his malice and feared his hate,
And returned to their homes by another way.
Summary Syllable Measurements Per Stanza of
Longfellow’s The Three Kings Poem For musical purposes, a symmetric Metric Index,
which would allow a poem to be matched with a tune,
must repeat the same metric pattern across all stanzas.
This poem has no repeating metric pattern
from which to “catch” the beat;
while it has the otherwise regular characteristics, that
there are five repeating lines with rhyming,
the number of syllables is irregular,
therefore it is asymmetrical. Details of the Measurements
I
09-10-09-11-12
VIII
10-09-11-09-10
II
10-09-10-11-10
IX
11-10-10-11-10
III
10-09-09-11-10
X
09-10-09-08-10
IV
10-11-10-09-11
XI
09-09-09-11-09
V
10-10-09-10-10
XII
09-09-09-08-09
VI
10-10-09-10-09
XIII
10-10-09-10-10
VII
09-09-09-09-09
XIV
10-10-10-10-11
An analogy for the structural principle underlying this performance, may be taken from aerodynamics: Early in the development of stealth aircraft, which used extreme aerodynamic design to present the aircraft with a low radar detection profile, the relatively “undetectable” aircraft suffered from the aerodynamic defect of actually being “a flying stone” ordinarily incapable of sustaining flight. The solution was to use computer fly-by-wire guidance to cause multiple inflight changes of airfoil orientation per second to keep the aircraft flying. In analogy with this rhythmic interpretation of Longfellow’s metric asymmetry, an artificially “symmetric” interpretation of the text is equally permissible as any other ordinary asymmetric interpretation, such as an actually arrythmic enunciation billing itself as “The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — the classic Christmas poem“—If the poem can be presented without rhythm, it can be forced into taking on a “rhythmic” sense.
1. I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
2. And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
3. Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
4. Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
5. It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
6. And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
7. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
1. Thy life, O Lord, is ebbing fast,
Thine eyes are growing dim at last;
How near to death Thou art!
I hear Thou heave one heavy sigh:
It is the last, the loudest cry
That broke Thy Sacred Heart,
That broke Thy Sacred Heart.
2. The scene, the dreadful scene is o’er–
The wicked men can do no more,
Thy head is on Thy breast;
The thorns, the nails Thou dost not fear,
The cruel scoff, the bitter jeer–
Thy Heart is now at rest,
Thy Heart is now at rest.
3. Thy voice, that made the demons flee,
That waked the dead and calmed the sea,
Itself in death is hushed;
But O, we have this comfort sweet,
Our foes lie prostrate at Thy feet,
The serpent’s head is crushed,
The serpent’s head is crushed.
4. Thy corpse is hanging on the tree,
While mocking crowds in impious glee
The murd’rous act applaud;
But quiv’ring earth and darkened skies,
The crumbling rocks, the dead that rise,
Proclaim Thee to be God,
Proclaim Thee to be God.
5. Yes, Jesus, bruised and marked with blood,
And fastened to the dripping wood,
To me Thou art the same,
As throned on Thabor’s shining mount,
Or in the heav’ns, of bliss the Fount,
In glory and in shame,
In glory and in shame.
6. O, may Thy last, Thy piercing cry,
The Blood that pleaded loud on high,
For me be not in vain!
O, make me treat the world as dross,
And glory only in the Cross,
On which Thou wouldst be slain,
On which Thou wouldst be slain! Amen.
Choral Handout (Click to Print)
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The Passion of Jesus Christ, «The death of Jesus» (Click/Expand or Bypass)
Click ^ again to contract
O Jesus, my Savior! I see You now dead on this cross. You speak no more; You breathe no more; because You have life no longer, having willed to lose it to give life to our souls. You have no longer any blood; for you have shed it all, by dint of torments, to wash away our sins. In one word, You have abandoned Yourself to death through Your love for us. He has loved us, and delivered Himself for us. – Ephesians 5:2. “Let us consider,” writes St. Francis de Sales, “this divine Savior stretched upon the cross, as upon His altar of honor, where He is dying of love for us; but a love more painful than that very death. Ah, why, then, do we not in spirit throw ourselves upon Him to die upon the cross with Him, Who has willed to die there for love of us? ‘I will hold Him’, we ought to say, ‘and will never let Him go. I will die with Him, and be burned up in the flames of His love. One and the same fire shall consume this divine Creator and His miserable creature. My Jesus is all mine, and I am all His. I will live and die upon his breast; neither death nor life shall ever separate him from me.'”
1. Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
2. Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,—
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;—
Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!
3. Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I tonight for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
4. Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
5. Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
6. Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last heard your sweet lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
O Face, Divine of Jesus,
in ages long ago,
Prophets and Sages prayed that Thou,
on earth its light would show.
O Holy Face, I cry to Thee,
Like them that I Thy beams may see,
O Holy Face I cry to Thee.
O suff’ring Face of Jesus,
bleeding, soiled and torn,
Thy temples and Thy brow transpierced with
many a cruel thorn.
Most Holy Face, I cry to Thee,
offer Thy wounds to God for me,
Most Holy Face I cry to Thee.
O dying Face of Jesus, on
that redeeming tree,
Crying aloud, “ah! why My God, hast
Thou abandoned Me?”
Most Holy Face, I cry to Thee,
plead by Thine agony for me,
Most Holy Face I cry to Thee.
O Glorious Face of Jesus, if
after I have died,
My soul but in Thy likeness make,
I shall be satisfied.
Most Holy Face, I cry to thee,
more like Thee ever make Thou me,
Most Holy Face I cry to Thee.
A pioneering student of culture, ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs (1881-1959), made a coherent argument, in terms of the normal coexistence, and, indeed, mutual inter-penetration of cultural influences, among the seeming, disparate forms of fine-art music, authentic folk music, progressive popular music, urban music, and other forms.
