Gott ist nicht tot. The sacred in post WW2 music.

[DaveF]

James MacMillan has written a large amount of sacred music, much of it intended for liturgical use.  Some is very loud, and all very proud (he's a Roman Catholic).  I sang the Magnificat last week:

Congregation was a bit stunned at the end.  Lots of Messiaenic birdsong in it.

[San Antone]

Barber : Agnus Dei
Voces8

[Mandryka]

Ralph Shapey's Praise contains settings of central Jewish liturgical texts like The Shema and the Kedushah as well as some psalms. I can't recommend it more highly, I'm a bit of a Shapey fan and this is one of his more astonishing pieces.

Some more info here, it's streaming everywhere.

https://www.newworldrecords.org/products/ralph-shapey-praise

[Mandryka]

I also want to mention Scelsi's Quattro illustrazioni sulle metamorfosi di Visnu, which are musical metaphors for four traditional incarnations of Vishnu. Todd McComb's comments here

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/scelsi/4illus.php

and a random performance on youtube

[AnotherSpin]

I also want to mention Scelsi's Quattro illustrazioni sulle metamorfosi di Visnu, which are musical metaphors for four traditional incarnations of Vishnu. Todd McComb's comments here

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/scelsi/4illus.php

Are there four parts, one for each? Lord Vishnu, the preserver within the Trimurti, is said to possess innumerable incarnations. Among the most renowned are Rama and Krishna.

[aukhawk]

I want to mention Britten's War Requiem.  There is a whiff of irony in the juxtaposition of the Mass and the poems of Wilfred Owen, but even so ...   
Britten has also given us several works based on Biblical content, such as Burning Fiery Furnace and Cantata Misericordium.

Equally epic is Penderecki's St Luke Passion.

The majority of Messiaen's music is devotional in nature, often explicitly so such as Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus, and L'Ascension, etc.

Likewise Tavener - Celtic Requiem etc.

Not believing in Gott does not, as far as I know, affect my enjoyment of any of this music.

[Mandryka]

Anyone who thinks that serial music is inexpressive or cerebral or ugly hasn't heard Krenek's Lamentations. It's gorgeous. The reviews on Amazon say better than I can what this music is like.

There are at least three recordings and two are streaming. Creed does seem a bit special actually- that's the one that's not streaming unfortunately.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Krenek-Lamentatio-Jeremiae-Prophetae-Lamentations/dp/B001927MJ0

[steve ridgway]

Equally epic is Penderecki's St Luke Passion.

Penderecki composed a number of religious pieces; Credo is quite pleasant.

Stravinsky also wrote a few in his later years.

[Todd]

A couple years ago I did a mini survey of post war requiems.  I ended with Helga Pogatschar.  It is an amazing work, though I suspect many people will dislike it.

Full scribbling: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php?msg=1506862.  The other works covered came before for a couple weeks.

[Mandryka]

George Crumb's Lux Aeterna - I'd love to actually see this because the title is "Lux Aeterna, after a 13th century Requiem Mass, for five masked musicians."

[André]

I listened to Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jésus. Over 2 hours of piano music with little obvious variety. The 'sacred' in this work is more in the subtext (Messiaen's description of the pieces) than in anything the music itself carries. As it unfolds though there is a sense of the mystic, an aspiration to the sublime. I was quite impressed and definitely more involved than in most of his other pieces.

Quatuor pour la fin du Temps is another overtly religious piece (based on the Book of Revelation) where the music (sublime) needs to be listened to with the composer's stated intent in mind. Because the music alone will not carry that message.

[Mandryka]

Volker David Kirchner wrote the Missa Moguntina for Mainz cathedral. We're in a world of Neue Einfachheit - this mass is extremely expressive and lyrical, a sort of latter day Missa Solemnis.

[Mandryka]

Scelsi wrote the Tre Canti Sacri in 1958. There's an Angelus, a Requiem and a Gloria. The third, Gloria, is a major masterpiece, real "religious" energy.

Lots of recordings - the one above from Manfred Schreier is amazing really.

[Mandryka]

Nicolas Bacri is another "néo - tonaliste" not afraid of writing music that speaks of the sacred..;

".....Bacri's style defies classification, benchmarks, and eras. A free, independent creator, he unfolds a powerfully original, neo- or post-tonal, accessible language—without the slightest hint of consensual or regressive lukewarmness. A pure lyricism, sometimes close to Jean-Louis Florentz; by turns minimalist or fluctuating. While his early period betrays a deliberately atonal style of writing, he refutes all aesthetic dogma, all scholastic conceptions of musical art. He could make his own the poet Tristan Tzara's words: "I know that I carry the melody within me and am not afraid of it." Let us quote Bacri himself: we must strive to "examine the possibilities of reconnecting with expanded tonal symphonic thought." This is perfectly illustrated by the current recording.

The strengths of this explorer of sound? A science of choral illumination, contrapuntal rigor, rhythmic pulse. He is not a vulgar epigone, proceeding by skillful collages or artificial quotations; Bacri's talent consists in forging a complex alliance of opposites, a crossing of harmonic ogives. It is experimental and syncretic music. The cantata Arc-en-Ciel du Silence (Isiltasunaren Ortzadarra, on Basque texts – tracks 3 to 15 of disc 1) is an absolute masterpiece. A frantic rush of lyrical impulses, close to opera... Vehement and wild chords, crossed by Webernian micro-silences, followed by a burst of hypnotic, disembodied melodies. Clearly, the Song of the Earth haunts Bacri just like the Adagietto of Symphony No. 5: in track 7 we discover impalpable Mahlerian glissandi."

from:

 https://www.anaclase.com/content/nicolas-bacri

Re Florentz's Asun -- this may be of interest. It does indeed sound impressive.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/le-mitan-des-musiciens/jean-louis-florentz-in-memoriam-1-5-8299986
https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/le-mitan-des-musiciens/jean-louis-florentz-in-memoriam-5-5-1717043

And Nicolas Bacri has put one of his cantatas on soundcloud -- I shall order the cd

https://soundcloud.com/user-813852459/bacri-1994-95-cantate-n4-op-44-sonnet-66-de-w-shakespeare

[pjme]

Very different artistic takes on the Mass and a Passion.

Petr Eben :  his Missa cum populo (1982) swings and is rather fun. Do churches exist that have a chorus and orchestra?.

Michaël Levinas : La Passion selon Marc. Une Passion après Auschwitz ( ca 2016-2017):. first listen .... to some fragments and was distracted by the many ugly close ups of singers. ...
First time ever experience with music by Levinas. Couldn't help finding it ..old fashioned.. However, I may give it a second listen, without visuals...

is 

[pjme]

Possibly this is the (Boulez) performance I heard on the radio  (late seventies, early eighties), and, again, I am deeply impressed.

I bought later this cd



The 7 minutes "duet" for soprano and trombone "Voice crying in the wilderness" is wonderfully extatic. The entire score is extravagant and grandly exuberant, yet manages -imho- to convey grandeur and mystery ...

"The Latin text in Star-Child was adapted from Dies irae and Massacre of the Innocents of the thirteenth century, as well as John 12:36 which says, "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them."[10] Crumb used Latin text because he believed it conveyed a universal meaning of finding a way out of despair to a hopeful and bright future. Although four conductors are required for this piece, only conductor number one conducts the vocal lines.The first phrase of Dies irae is specifically used in the fourth movement as well as at the very end of the piece. The second movement contains text from Dies irae as well, which is sung by a solo soprano in a duet with a solo trombonist located in front of the orchestra between solo vocalists. The final text of the piece comes from John 12:36"

[pjme]

Re Florentz's Asun -- this may be of interest. It does indeed sound impressive.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/le-mitan-des-musiciens/jean-louis-florentz-in-memoriam-1-5-8299986
https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/le-mitan-des-musiciens/jean-louis-florentz-in-memoriam-5-5-1717043

thanks! 

I will listen soon.
P.