Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship

Man vs. God: Spiritual Struggles in the Life and Vocal Music of Gian Carlo Menotti
Kate Butler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Throughout his life, Gian Carlo Menotti struggled with spirituality and his relationship to God. This charming, literary Italian with his sparkling personality and great sense of humor, so often criticized for his musical traditionalism and romanticism, carried within him a love-hate relationship with the church, scripture and matters of faith. Despite a miraculous healing as a child, he could never commit to a spiritual belief, and expressed envy toward those who did.

My relationship with Menotti began when he cast me in a production of his opera The Consul, produced under his own direction for performances in Chicago. I was subsequently invited to sing in Menotti’s productions in Palermo (Italy), Trieste (Italy), Connecticut, Mississippi and at the Edinburgh Festival. Through working together and knowing him personally I became aware of his struggles and search for meaning. In the interviews Menotti gave, his struggles revealed themselves in the words he spoke. But it is in his operas and other vocal works that his yearning for an understanding of spirituality dramatically bursts forth–both in Menotti’s music as well as in the librettos, which he wrote himself. Included in my discussion will be operas such as The Saint of Bleeker Street, The Medium and Amahl and the Night Visitors, as well as The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi (cantata for chorus and orchestra), and his 1997 choral work, Jacob’s Prayer, in which a man wrestles with an angel and ends up seeing the face of God.

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge: A Faith Reaction to Events of World War II
Ralph Lorenz, Kent State University

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s (1928-2007) formative years as a Roman Catholic are evident in his landmark electronic music composition, Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56). In this paper I will examine how Stockhausen incorporated a biblical text from the book of Daniel in order to confront the aftermath of horrible events that occurred during World War II and the Holocaust. The text painting of Stockhausen’s compositional techniques is best understood in light of his faith journey.

Gesang der Jünglinge is generally considered to be one of the greatest early examples of electronic music, combining pure electronic sounds with musique concrète. Stockhausen made recordings of a 12-year-old boy soprano reciting and singing portions of text from the book of Daniel, and he then manipulated these recordings with various techniques for composing with magnetic tape. In selecting this text about three youths (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) who are cast into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar, Stockhausen made an eerie and striking connection to events of the Holocaust and World War II. So, within ten years of the end of World War II, Stockhausen had composed a work with the subject of a dictator throwing Jewish youths into a fiery furnace. As a devout Roman Catholic at the time of this composition, Stockhausen may have found a psychological antidote in the positive outcome for the youths in Daniel’s account to the terrors Germany had experienced during the time of World War II.

Stockhausen became a practicing Catholic at the age of 17 or 18. He attended daily mass and experienced the Benedicite, Song of the Three Youths, as a regular part of mass. In this paper I will explore his account of dealing with Nazi suppression of the church and the importance of prayer in his life. Although Stockhausen eventually left the church in 1961, excommunicating himself due to a romantic relationship outside of his marriage, the evidence shows that his faith and participation in the Roman Catholic Church were inextricably linked to the composition of Gesang der Jünglinge.

“Prove to me that you’re divine”: Keys, Tetrachords and the Theology of Jesus Christ Superstar
J. Wesley Flinn, Clayton State University

Jesus Christ Superstar shook up Broadway when it arrived in 1971 with its Rock score and modern-language retelling of the Passion. The creators (Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber) have stated that they wished only to tell the story as history, not theology. However, certain musical constructions and key choices do show a deeper spiritual understanding (however unconscious it may have been) of the underlying theology of the Passion narrative. In this paper, I shall look at Rice’s sources for the lyrics (the four Gospels and Rev. Fulton J. Sheen’s Life of Christ) to compare and contrast Rice’s understanding of Christ with traditional views. Then, using Rita Steblin’s work on the meanings of keys, I shall examine Lloyd Webber’s music, showing that certain keys (specifically D and E) are used to illustrate aspects of Christ’s character and earthly life – and how other keys amplify both the historical and theological aspects of the story. Finally, drawing on the work of Leo Treitler and Patrick McCreless, I shall point out certain tetrachords, their historical significance, their location in the score, the large-scale motivic and key relations they imply and how they may demonstrate the underlying theology more fully.