A Polyphonic Interlude with Bonhoeffer – sounds around WW2

In his final days, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was pursued by technical musical theories of counterpoint, polyphony and ‘cantus firmus’ while pondering ultimate concerns about God and the Christian religion.

I do wonder if he might have resonated with this?  “………. We know that the modern world is a violently disenchanted swirl shaped by the speculative flux of money and power that presses in on all sides. Yet, when we listen to the music that we love, the world seems reanimated, bursting with sense, utterly alive…….. When we listen, it is as if the world falls under the spell of a kind of natural magic. In music, the cosmos feels divinely infused. It is impossible to be an atheist when listening to the music that one loves”

(Heinrich Schutz, 1585-1672)

Polyphony

Bonhoeffer’s musical affections were with the Baroque masters, Heinrich Schutz and Johann Sebastian Bach.  In them, the inherited traditions of polyphonic possibilities were developed and finely tuned.  So, how can the many ways of ‘loving’ in life be expressed to the full, if we love God to the uttermost at the same time?  Can erotic love be part of our love for Christ? Can we hold the many ways of loving together – like a polyphony of voices sounding together – and be true to the Christian ‘way’ without being branded ‘religious’? Could there be such a thing as loving ‘religionless’ Christianity?

My mind goes back to that magical moment years ago in the Bethel Hospital in Norwich, when Samuel Wesley, like a man possessed, picked me up and played J S Bach’s ‘Chaconne’.

Unlike a choir, a group or an orchestra, I am – as a violin – not naturally disposed towards playing multiple melodic (horizontal) lines simultaneously.  But when called upon, as in some ‘Chaconne’ passages, my body has to hold together two opposing themes in creative tension.  Even though we are here speaking of only two simultaneous themes, it can still be described as ‘polyphonic’.  In addition, when up to four different tones are played (struck or plucked) at the same time – i.e. in a vertical position – the violinist describes this as ‘double-stopping’. 

Cantus Firmus

We noted earlier that Bach’s ‘Chaconne’ is often connected to the understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus, and I am beginning to think that this could be linked with Bonhoeffer’s celebration of ‘cantus firmus’.  There is a principal ‘Theme’ which runs through the piece like a golden thread, and all the ornamentations, runs (stretti), melodic variations are like contrasting reflections and improvisations sounding together polyphonically, often in creative tension, but the basic theme, the ‘cantus firmus’ is ever present, even if it is not predominantly sounded.  The double stopping serves only to expand the polyphonic composition of the piece, and thus of my voice.

Can the crucifixion of Jesus be a ‘cantus firmus’ always perceptible in the world, even if it is not easily heard or recognised.  Could this be ‘transcendence’ which implies that the glory of God is present in the world, and how humanity may need to sharpen its senses to perceive and hear how this ‘cantus firmus’ of love pervades the universe?  After all, Bonhoeffer asked: ‘Who is Jesus Christ for us today?’ during these terrible days.

Hearing inwardly

Bonhoeffer was caught up in the thought of the importance of hearing with the ‘inner’ ear, as opposed to the physical. When writing about Beethoven and his deafness (of which, as you readers know, I had direct painful experience), he ruminated: ‘it’s strange how music, when one listens with the inner ear alone and gives oneself up to it utterly, can be almost more beautiful than when heard physically.  It’s purer, all the dross fall away, and it seems to take on a “new body”’.

So when pieces like Bach’s ‘Chaconne’ are drawn out of my body, there is no doubt that the ‘inner ear’ of my player, as well as my hearers, is participating in hidden, non-physical tones, including overtones, undertones and harmonics, which affect the ‘body’ of sound, my authentic voice.

(Bonhoeffer in 1939)

Is all this ‘polyphony’ another example of the ‘golden thread’ running through these fiddling rambles of mine, i.e. is musical expression inextricably intertwined with theological perception?

And, as we travel on through the years, will we see (and hear) that Bonhoeffer might have influenced the multitude of  theologies which have emerged after the War? A polyphony of ecumenical, multi-faith, liberation, feminist, ‘death of God’, and other sounds?