8:20am Friday 22nd August 2008
SIR – I agree with the Bishop of Worcester (August 13) that great music can awaken “a realm of wonder”.
However, I’m not sure who exactly would be confused as to “why the church should be so closely associated with a music festival”, especially the Three Choirs!
Surely the historical domination of the church over artistic life in Britain is well known. Across Europe it was very often the clergy who commissioned classical and choral works. And for a long time any art without a religious motif risked drawing suspicions of nonconformism or outright blasphemy.
In fact, given the pressures to conform to cultural Christendom, it may surprise some to know great composers were not, in themselves, ecclesiastically motivated.
Beethoven, for example, adopted Goethe’s pantheism. Berlioz often stated his atheism, though he composed much church music. Debussy was a neopagan.
Delius was almost certainly an atheist.
Today, now that church money isn’t required to fund musical professionals, far fewer notes are penned, as it were, to the glory of God.
The bishop says “music has the power to move human beings deeply because it speaks ... of the God who created us.” I believe the bishop is wrong to associate the source of musical potency with his God. Previous supposed deities of music have included Hathor, Myoonten, Saraswati, Apollo... Clearly the power of music is almost universal, transcending religious beliefs, and just as important to all the humanists, atheists and agnostics.
Music belongs to everyone.
BOB CHURCHILL,
Worcester.
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