Art and Christianity Part Four - Novel

This my fourth post on the Art and Christianity meme commenced by Jonathan Evens.

Artwork: Antony Gormley - 'Field for the British Isles'
Drama: Film 'Chariots of Fire' (1981)
Music: J S Bach - St Matthew Passion
Novel: Victoria Hislop - The Island
Poem: Wilfred Owen - The Parable of the Old Man and the Young


Novel: The Island - The 2005 work by Victoria Hislop is based around a quest by the main character to discover their heritage. This opens up to fascinating revelations of the mysterious island called Spinalonga where lepers are despatched once their symptoms have been discovered. On Spinalonga a microcosm of society emerges, then later everything changes with the advent of WW2 and subsequent advances in medicine. However, the island of Spinalonga does actually exist on which there is now a museum of the former leper village. Victoria's thorough research means the blur twixt fact and fiction is only maintained by the storyline and the evocatively described characters that play it all out in your imagination.

This wonderful book has many deeply touching themes which align it with the importance of sacrifice, devotion, committment and discipleship.

Social media working to raise funds...

Image of iPhone courtesy mashable.com who report how the Red Cross have now received over $1,000,000 from this text campaign to raise funds for urgently needed support in earthquake torn Haiti. In the UK a number of websites now offer direct links to the charities offering a means of making a credit card donation online.

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Social media working to help ...

The speed at which information and images can be propagated has increased significantly over the last couple of years. Is this where Social Media can mature?

Early disaster updates were posted on Gleaning information from Haiti

Mashable reports on how Twitter carried mobile/cell phone pictures, as above and below, across the web within minutes of the disastrous earthquake

A Posterous instant blog is set-up to carry updates from aid workers and journalists in Haiti

The disaster become a top trend in Twitter

Christian Aid, Tear Fund, Oxfam commence donation programs immediately using their Twitter accounts (@decappeal @oxfamgb @christian_aid) to post more information - please act

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Social media working...

Came across this in my research for a course I'm creating on another blog.

Scary?!

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Mumford and Sons - Music to mend...

Sometimes I hear something that can change me forever:

It seems that all my bridges have been burnt,
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart

From the song 'Roll away your stone' 4th track on the amazing album 'Sigh no more' from Mumford & Sons. Passionate songs to restore the spirit - vitally energetic, acoustic, anthemic, imaginative, intelligent, poetic genius...

From the title track 'Sigh no more':

Love that will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you and will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design an alignment to cry,
of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

Wonderful!

Art and Christianity Part Three - Music

This my third post on the Art and Christianity meme commenced by Jonathan Evens.

Artwork: Antony Gormley - 'Field for the British Isles'
Drama: Film 'Chariots of Fire' (1981)
Music: J S Bach - St Matthew Passion
Novel: Victoria Hislop - The Island
Poem: Wilfred Owen - The Parable of the Old Man and the Young


Music: J S Bach - St Matthew Passion. I remember filing in the Royal Festival Hall at 10:00am on a Good Friday to experience Bach's epic Passion and wondering what to expect having been told by my hosts that we would not be leaving until 3:00pm! On advice I had managed to obtain a choir score from Upminster library to help me navigate my way through Bach's interpretation of Matthew chapters 26 and 27. Now whilst I still don't read music I would say it was pretty essential to peruse the score to be able to greater appreciate the composer's genius in using motifs and phrasing to highlight activity and mood.

I was familiar with the beautiful hymn, 'O, Sacred Head! Sore wounded', (also known as the Passion Chorale) yet as soon as the double choir launched into their opening chorale I was transported heavenwards by the breathtaking and all enveloping wall of sound undergirded by the massive double orchestra and pipe organ. There appeared to be around 10 soloist parts and I came across the word Recitative for the first time... had already heard of Arias!

However, it is not an easy piece to listen to in its entirety and despite the sublime chorales the tension Bach creates musically is tangible. Nowadays we are so used to a high solo violin scraping away to semaphore impending doom in a film or tv drama but this would have been very early examples of this sort of technique. Whenever Jesus has narrative or 'speaks' there is a 'sound' Bach has scored a special full violin section sound to emphasise what we can consider to be Jesus' 'Spirit', the pre-Pentecost Holy Ghost. This musical effect, which is referred to as Jesus' 'halo', is conspicuously absent as Christ utters 'Eli, eli, lama sabachthani' and I found this deeply moving.

Here is the moment of utter desolation (and multiple Recitative performances) that narrates 'Now the Lord is brought to rest'. Then in the finale chorale, as per the youtube example above, the choirs can be heard 'answering' one another and the stereo effect of the double orchestra can clearly be heard... as the final chord resolved and faded I do not recall whether there was applause or not as I made my way out, I had been transported to another place, I do remember tactfully averting eye contact so folk around me would not spy my wet cheeks.

It took me until Sunday to recover physically. I ached from feeling the palpable tension, from concentrating on the passage, the sense of loss as the Passion unfolded (such a vital part of the Easter weekend) and I will never, ever forget...

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