Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship

“God Save the Queen”: Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana as Peter Grimes ‘Anti-Masque’

Stephen Arthur Allen, Rider University

Benjamin Britten’s Coronation Opera for Queen Elizabeth II, Gloriana (1953) is on the obvious level a meditation on the historic ramifications of Elizabeth I’s relationship with the Earl of Essex, wholly appropriate for the historic grand occasion for which it was conceived. However, when the opera is viewed in the context of Britten’s earlier operas, deep and meaningful connections can be made between Gloriana and Peter Grimes (1945). Indeed Gloriana, which contains a masque scene, can itself be viewed as a kind of ‘Christian anti-Masque’ on the drama and music of Grimes, in which the latter’s despair and unresolved spiritual dimension can, in the later opera, be viewed (and heard) as ‘solved’. This paper will investigate such a reading by exploring the roles of Grimes and Ellen Orford, created by Peter Pears and Joan Cross, and Elizabeth and Essex, created by Joan Cross and Peter Pears. Particular attention will be given to the musico-dramatic salvific icon of both the Queen and Ellen – against the traditional operatic background of the Eternal Feminine – and the unregenerate icon of both Essex and Peter. The irony that the drama of Grimes is ultimately dissolved in the substance of music, while that of Gloriana is evaporated into pure speech will also be assessed in relation to Britten’s spiritual psycho-biography which, it is hoped, will cast further light on the nature of the spiritual project of his operatic oeuvre.

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Faith and the twelve-tone series in Krenek’s Studies in Counterpoint

Lyn Burkett, Crane School of Music, State University of New York – Potsdam

Many musicians familiar with Ernst Krenek’s twelve-tone works and with his counterpoint text Studies in Counterpoint (1940), including pedagogue R. O. Morris and composer Wilbur Ogdon, have remarked that the series is seldom discernable in Krenek’s compositions, or even in some of the brief musical examples provided in his text. Why does the series seem to “disappear” in Krenek’s counterpoint text? How can the series exert a unifying influence over a composition if it is not audible or even visible in a score? In the context of Arved Ashby’s view of twelve-tone composition as a heuristic, and drawing also on the work of Gregory Dubinsky, Anne C. Shreffler, and Peter John Tregear, I will interpret Krenek’s treatment of the series as an entity that initially manifests itself in an embodied form so that young composers may more easily comprehend its nature and characteristics. As students become more experienced in working with twelve-tone technique, their faith in the unifying properties of the series grows stronger; at this stage, Krenek encourages students to trust in these properties without incorporating literal statements of the series into their compositions. Krenek demonstrates to students a faith in the purpose of a series that parallels a traditional Christian faith in Christ’s purpose on earth; in regard to both Christ and the twelve-tone series, belief often precedes understanding. For Krenek, a series had messianic significance in the context of the creative process, an ability to serve as a savior and liberator for composers writing in atonal idioms.

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The Mystique of Spiritualism in Poland: Penderecki, Górecki, and Kilar

Cindy Bylander, independent scholar (San Antonio, TX)

Observed from an American perspective, the deeply held religious convictions possessed by the vast majority of Polish citizens seem remarkable. Their devotion to the Catholic Church, which has endured centuries of upheaval in society, has remained strong in the years since the fall of Communism and the resulting birth of a democracy.

In the field of classical music, Polish composers have written extensively on sacred themes in the years since World War II. Some, but not all of these pieces have been viewed by the composers themselves, the media, and the Polish public as constituting acts of opposition to the political realm. The three most well-known living Polish composers, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Miko?aj Górecki, and Wojciech Kilar, have been among the central figures in such situations.

Poland has been free of governmental oppression since 1989. The composition of sacred music by these three composers has continued, seemingly unabated. In this paper, I will examine three pieces written during that time—Penderecki’s Credo from 1996-1998, Górecki’s Salve, sidus Polonorum from 1997-2000, and Kilar’s Missa pro pace of 1999-2000. Given the religious associations inherent in these titles, the genesis and perhaps the details of each work should be construed as emanating from each composer's faith. Through an examination of both the compositional intricacies of these pieces and the personal attitudes of the composers, we may come to an understanding of what it means to be a composer of sacred music in Poland in the post-Communist era.