Some people think atheists can’t grasp the transcendental sublimity of sacred art. Wrong. Some of us like it just fine; we just feel no compulsion to ascribe the response we feel to any supernatural explanation. What’s being “transcended” is the ordinariness of our typical emotional states, not the naturalistic laws that describe their origin or the other workings of the world.

Me, I’ve always loved sacred choral music in the Western tradition. I was in school choirs from the age of ten; in high school, our mixed concert choir was given a variety of styles, and “classical” sacred works were often among them. One year (my junior year, I think), we, like lots of other high school choirs everywhere, did Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus. It’s a short (only 46 measures) motet setting the hymn—part of the magic cracker sacrament—to a fairly chromatic melody, with accompaniment:
 

I wish I could credit the performers, but the info on the YouTube clip doesn’t say; it does, though, sound suspiciously like this performance of the Wiener Sängerknaben, the Chorus Viennensis, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2006.

It’s a strange death cult of a religion, but it gave rise to (or perhaps just latched itself onto) some beautiful emotional expressions. I love how in this piece, Mozart is able to throw in accidentals, and use big leaps sparingly, to evoke this feeling that’s warm and joyous, but not romantically so—it’s a reverent and distant kind of joy.

I’ll find some other sacred music that I’ve enjoyed in church services and in choir, and post it on following Sundays.

Tags: Music