ANUL / YEAR V / NR: 16 / 2015. 01.-03.
Muzică / Music
Rubrica / Box: nr. 1 Articole - Studii /
Articles - Studies
2015.02.09.
Autor / Author:
Jolanta Skorek-Münch
Prof.univ. Dr. hab.
Rzeszów University, Department of Music
THE PHENOMENON OF
INCULTURATION IN CONTEMPORARY SACRED MUSIC
Keywords:
music, liturgy, evengelization, inculturation, Ariel
Ramirez, Osvaldo Golijov, Paco Peña
Abstract:
Throughout the history of Church the idea of
inculturation was realized in such a way that Christianity gradually rooted
itself in the cultures of evangelized communities, drawing at the same time on
the wealth of these cultures and adopting those of their elements which were in
keeping with the Gospel. The term “inculturation” was first employed by John
Paul II in his encyclicals and it was later used by Cardinal Ratzinger and the
Congregation for Devine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The
notion was thoroughly discussed and explained in great detail. The key concept
here was that of “liturgically appropriate music” which conformed to the
liturgical law. At the same time, nowadays, inculturation is much broader in
its scope and includes markedly different musical phenomena such as: simple
songs composed for use during mass religious events and professional
compositions complicated in terms of both texture and executive apparatus. The
beginnings of inculturation in art music date back to the 1950s when Father
Guido Haazen composed his Missa Luba
by combining the texts of Latin ordo
missae with melodies and rhythms of Congo where he worked as a missionary. Ariel Ramirez, Luis
Enrique Bacalov and Osvaldo Golijov used the folklore of Argentina, Brazil and
other countries of Latin America in their compositions. In his flamenco Mass Paco Peña drew from traditional music of Andalusia. Finally,
Sofia
Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, Tan Dun and Osvaldo Golijov were commissioned to
write Passion pieces as part of “Passion 2000” project. Gubajdulina’s
contribution was St John Passion which alludes to the Orthodox Church ceremony.
It is worth noting, however, that the Orthodox Church does not have the
tradition of using musical instruments during Mass or performing Passion as any
theatrical elements which employ direct representations are considered secondary
compared with the personal experience of sacrum.
Wolfgang Rhim chose to include a text by Paul Celan in his contribution Deus Passus – St Luke Passion. Celan’s
verses helped the composer raise human suffering to the level of God’s
suffering. Hunan born and New York-based Tan Dun wrote Water Passion after St Matthew. In adopting water as a universal
symbol of humanity, the composer fused the original Bach elements with
traditional oriental music thus creating a complicated study of sound. Osvaldo
Golijov placed his work in the specific context of Latin American Catholicism
with its complicated political references. A visual representation of this
piece evokes Brazilian Passion performances originating from folk traditions. These
attempts of contemporary composers who draw from “ethnic” music can be
interpreted as coinciding with local churches activity towards inculturation.
*
Article:
The idea of inculturation may be derived from the
missionary imperative of Jesus: “Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations (…), teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you” (Mt 28, 19-20). Throughout the history of Church
this idea was realized in such a way that Christianity gradually rooted itself
in the cultures of evangelized communities, drawing at the same time on the
wealth of these cultures and adopting those of their elements which were in
keeping with the Gospel.
St. John Paul II was the first to use the term
“inculturation” in his Slavorum Apostoli encyclical.
According to him inculturation denotes “incarnation
of the Gospel in native cultures and also the introduction of these cultures
into the life of the Church”. In another of his encyclicals, Redemptoris mission, one may find a
broader definition: “Inculturation means
the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their
integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various
human cultures (…) Through inculturation the Church makes the Gospel incarnate
in different cultures and at the same time introduces peoples, together with
their cultures, into her own community”.
Thus inculturation includes two distinct fields
of activity: incorporating the Gospel into various cultures and introducing
peoples with their cultures to the community of Church. The issues addressed in
the encyclicals were subsequently examined and explained by the Congregation
for Devine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in its fourth
Instruction The Roman Liturgy and
Inculturation dated 25 January 1994. The document establishes “the norms for the adaptation of the liturgy
to the temperament and conditions of different peoples”. Previously the
missionary activity of the Church concentrated on incorporating the Gospel into
various peoples. The Instruction, however, emphasizes the second dimension –
the ways in which to introduce local cultural traditions to the liturgy.
The document indicates those elements of
culture which may be subjected to inculturation: language (preaching the Gospel
in the language of the people), music, especially singing (enriching the
liturgy, facilitating its reception as compared to texts which are read), and
nonverbal forms of expression (postures and gestures such as clapping or
rhythmical movements of the body, which accompany singing and dancing).
Nonetheless, it is difficult to determine
precisely the impact inculturation has on music for there exist markedly different
musical phenomena such as: simple songs composed for use during mass religious
events and professional compositions complicated in terms of both texture and executive
apparatus. The former often draw from such music genres as pop, rock, techno or
hip-hop. All of these belong to largely secular and highly commercialized mass
culture. Frequently the aesthetic context of the genres together with their
involvement in subcultures become the cause of considerable reservations and
fear. On the other hand, despite their positive role in the shaping of
religious conduct of the youth, religious or evangelizing songs lay themselves
open to the charge that they are banal or even kitsch.
Thus, the present article focuses on high
culture music phenomena. The aforementioned Instruction of 25 January 1994
enumerates the three qualities of inculturation properly understood: conformity
to the true and authentic spirit of liturgy, the dignity of church, the
spiritual good of the congregation. Liturgical prayer should constitute an
oasis of liturgically appropriate music. As Cardinal Ratzinger himself put it, the
Church’s musical expression ought to be of artistic value and at the same time it
needs to conform to liturgical law. According to Ratzinger, “The program of inculturation only then
makes sense if no injustice is done to a culture when, due to the universal
human disposition toward the truth, it is opened up and further developed by a
new cultural power. It would follow too that whatever in culture excludes such
opening and exchange marks what is deficient in the culture, for exclusion of
the other goes against man’s nature”.
Ratzinger is right to insist that we need “the
courage of asceticism” and “the courage to contradict” when faced with attempts
to import musical forms unsuitable for divine worship into liturgy. Both types
of courage are necessary to oppose the tendencies to make the liturgy
“attractive” at any cost. It is especially relevant to Holy Masses for youth
and children during which the norms governing liturgical music are trivialized
in the name of short-term pastoral benefits. Such activity diverges
considerably from the Church’s teaching.
In 1954 father Guido Haazen began his
missionary work in what was then the Belgian Congo. After five years of
observing local music customs, he composed a piece entitled Missa Luba. It was based on vocal
and instrumental improvisations on traditional song forms which the composer came
across while offering Mass. The piece is a fusion of Congolese melodies and
rhythms with Latin ordinarium (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei).
This five-part composition was intended for a solo voice (tenor in the original
version later substituted for the contralto), a mixed choir, three African drums
– djembe, ngoma and congas as well as the sakasaka (a kind of hollowed, grooved
instrument made of a carapace or shell played by scraping across the grooves).
The percussion instruments create an intense, rhythmic ostinato which accompanies melodies intoned by the solo voice as
well as the choir voices. Father Guido Haazen applied both responsorial (in Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) and solo (in Gloria
and Credo) textures. Instrumental
parts are often improvised especially where they accompany the culmination of
words.
In the process of Europeanization of native South
American cultures and under the dominant influence of Spanish, Portuguese and
Dutch conquerors on the language and traditional religious beliefs rhythms and
melodies characteristic of Native Americans were pushed into the background. A
long lasting practice of omitting local customs and traditions in conducting
liturgy was stopped by the Second Vatican Council which in the year of 1963
allowed for the use of vernacular language in Holy Mass. Almost immediately, in
1964, Ariel Ramirez composed the very first non-Latin Mass in his mother
tongue. By combining traditional liturgical elements with South American
folklore, he created a stylistically consistent whole. However, each of the
five parts of the Mass comprises different dance rhythms typical of Argentinian, Peruvian and Bolivian traditions. Ramirez’s
more famous piece Missa criolla
was composed in 1963 for two soprano voices, a mixed choir and an orchestra
consisting of a grand piano, percussion instruments, flute, guitar, and bass
guitar. The solo vocal parts are often transposed to male voices (tenor,
baritone). The music of this Mass is based on Latin American folklore which was
already adopted by art music. 1964 also heralded the première of Navidad Nuestra – a series of
Christmas songs to texts by Felix Luna which present and explain the mystery of
the Incarnation in an accessible way. Each of the six episodes was interspersed
with the characteristic rhythm of Argentinian folk music. Both joy and peace
lighten up this musical vision of the Lord’s Birth by means of tone colour.
Paco Peña, one of the most immediately
recognizable flamenco musicians, composed his Mass in 1988 to order of
Wratislavia Cantans festival. His Missa
Flamenca was repeatedly performed in numerous countries the whole world
over. The artist brought his Flamenco Company also to Wroclaw Cathedral where
he began the concert with guitar improvisation and was subsequently joined by
other members of the ensemble. A certain austerity could be heard in their
guitar playing in both nostalgic and dynamic dance fragments. This introductory
section of the piece invoked the atmosphere of Andalusia, the crib of flamenco,
conveying at the same time the character of sacred musical composition. While
he was working on his flamenco Mass, Paco Peña repeatedly conferred with the
clergymen of Cordoba about a suitable musical equivalent for the text of
liturgy. A nine-part composition draws from traditional flamenco forms which
combine Muslim and Christian music influences.
The Mass, which was written for the Wroclaw
Music Festival by Paco Peña, is not the only well-known example of a hybrid of ordinarium texts and flamenco music. Misa Flamenca composed by José
Torregrosa from Alicante clearly derives from the Catalonian liturgy. This
piece is based on cante grande traditional
flamenco singing and refers to Gregorian chant.
Luis Enriquez Bacalov, an Argentinian composer
living in Rome, also used a five-part ordinary of Mass in his Misa tango. However, unlike
Father Haazen, Ramirez or Peña, who, apart from improvisation skills, did not
confront soloists with any technical problems, Bacalov composed solo sections
for two professionally trained voices – Ana María Martínez as mezzo-soprano and
Plácido Domingo as tenor. Misa tango
debuted in 2000. The soloists were accompanied by a bandoneón virtuoso Héctor Ulisses Passarella as well as the Roman St
Cecilia National Academy Orchestra. In his Mass Bacalov follows the footsteps
of other eminent composers: the choir entrance in Kyrie makes one think of Verdi, Gloria
is considerably influenced by Bernstein, whereas Credo marked “tempo di
milonga” and “candombe” which
have roots in Argentina and Uruguay respectively, may be associated with Astora
Piazzolli and his tango nuevo.
The year 2000 also marked the first performance
of St Mark Passion written by
Osvaldo Golijov who was commissioned to compose the piece as part of “Passion
2000” project by Helmuth Rilling. The founder of the International Bach Academy
in Stuttgart invited four contemporary composers to write Passion pieces. Among
the composers were Sofia Gubajdulina, Tan Dun, Wolfgang Rihm and Golijov. Gubajdulina’s
contribution was St John Passion which alludes to the Orthodox Church ceremony.
It is worth noting, however, that the Orthodox Church does not have the
tradition of using musical instruments during Mass or performing Passion as any
theatrical elements which employ direct representations are considered
secondary compared with the personal experience of sacrum. Wolfgang Rhim chose to include a text by Paul Celan in his
contribution Deus Passus – St Luke
Passion. Celan’s verses helped the composer raise human suffering to the
level of God’s suffering. Hunan born and New York-based Tan Dun also accepted
Relling’s commission and wrote Water
Passion after St Matthew. In adopting water as a universal symbol of
humanity, the composer fused the original Bach elements with traditional
oriental music thus creating a complicated study of sound. A descendant of
emigrants from Eastern Europe Osvaldo Golijov was born in Argentinian La Plata.
He placed his work in the specific context of Latin American Catholicism with
its complicated political references. A visual representation of this piece
(available on DVD) evokes Brazilian Passion performances originating from folk
traditions. In a purely musical sense Golijov drew from Brazilian and
Afro-Cuban folk as well as art music of the whole South America.
The aforementioned examples of musical
inculturation require a brief comment. It should be noted that they belong to
the sphere of “concert” music which can be performed independently of liturgy
and not necessarily inside a church. Thus their affiliation with the sphere of sacrum remains symbolic. Similarly,
Bach’s Mass in B minor, Beethoven’s Missa
solemnis or Penderecki’s St Luke Passion do not constitute the focal point for
the contemporary observance. It is hard to imagine liturgy conducted with parts
of the Holy Mass set by 18th century composers. The only two
examples that spring to mind are Mozart’s Coronation
Mass with liturgy conducted by St John Paul II in St Peter’s Basilica and Requiem combined with mourning liturgy
conducted by the Archbishop of Vienna on December 5th 1991 to
commemorate Mozart’s 200th death anniversary. Even though the pieces
enumerated in this article were never combined with liturgy, they were performed
inside as well as outside churches. These attempts of contemporary composers
who draw from “ethnic” music can be interpreted as coinciding with local
churches activity towards inculturation.
In his address to musicians on the occasion of
the International Day of Music in 1985 John Paul II pointed out that “in liturgy, which is the highest moment in
the life of Church, music constitutes the element of dignified worship, it is
an expression of and aid to prayer, the sign of solemnity understood by
everyone. Taking all this into account, without any discrimination against different
techniques or styles, the music of liturgy is required to be authentic art
always directed at the divinity of worship”.
