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Is Tchaikovsky too secular?
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BobL
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Location: Chicago

PostPosted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 7:51 pm    Post subject: Is Tchaikovsky too secular? Reply with quote

I've been asked to do a prelude for a Christmas Eve service this Thursday and I am really enjoying the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker. It's coming together as a very classical sound with a triumphant emotional ending but I'm concerned that it might not be religious enough. The group is generally receptive and all that but it's a waltz really and I wonder if any of you has heard of this or maybe done it.

Input is welcome -
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John Cadd
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A waltz is a dance. The "Church "always wanted to keep anything connected to any pleasure that got near a five letter word beginning with W was to be kept strictly outside. Dancing brings you in close proximity to W---- and so there is your cultural force in action .
I used to go to a Catholic church in the days when I used to go to Church and just before the priest came out a bell would sound.But it was not a simple bell .It was an electric doorbell A Bing Bong bell.
It was a cultural anomally.
There must be an erudite description in the world that defines all the restrictions. You will have to wait a long time before you hear a Blue note in church.Whole keys are probably banned.
Hey,who said the "Church" was perfect?
Now look what you`ve started!
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Amalia
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, as a very conservative religious person (but not mainstream), the "dance" part of it doesn't bother me at all. However, the Nutcracker Suite is not the story of the birth of Christ in any way, shape, or form, and therefore, in my opinion, has no place at a RELIGIOUS Christmas Eve service, although it would be fine elsewhere.
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John Cadd
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can`t beat L`Enfance du Christ by Berlioz if you want music completely in tune with the season.This lovely piece has somehow escaped the repetition that others have suffered. Nothing can touch it`s elegance and peace.
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BobL
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the Pastor and the music director both say this sounds good to them so we are going to try old Pyotr Ilyitch for the prelude to a service on 12/24. I will let you know if there is any feedback from the parishioners.

We're gonna do it -
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John Cadd
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just make sure nobody does any cartwheels or somersaults.
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techfiddle
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In my experience as a choir director, I'm sure it will be fine. Most people will have some sort of chain of associations with it, but I don't think anyone would object. My associations are Russian ballet/atheism, but that's a small part of the picture.

Before I went back to school I worked at a sort of ritzy nursing home, ambulatory, which had a lot of Jewish residents, including a couple of survivors from Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz, in once instance. They had a choir which I directed. At one time we sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" which has really militaristic lyrics, if you look at them closely. So I felt sort of odd, directing the choir and the whole room, in this piece: an atheist musician directing a group of Jews in a Christian song. But people loved it and no one minded.

I guess it would be accurate to say that most people don't think that deeply, and the Jews that were there--many of whom had profound intellects (one lady had been a professor at NYU - she and her daughter survived the camps because they were used as prostitutes to the Nazi soldiers!), but their short term memories were so bad, if they objected, they didn't remember what they objected to!
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Amalia
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It seems baffling to me, when allegedly devout believers (in whatever religion) don't care when non-religious or anti-religious music is played in their allegedly religious services. I mean what's the point of being religious if you really are not? What's the point of attending a religious service if what goes on there is not religious?

Last edited by Amalia on Fri Dec 25, 2009 10:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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techfiddle
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 6:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Amalia wrote:
It seems baffling to me, when allegedly devout believers (in whatever religion) don't care when non-religious or anti-religious music is played in their allededly religious services. I mean what's the point of being religious if you really are not? What's the point of attending a religious service if what goes on there is not religious?


Are you presupposing that people are logical? Because they're not (or they wouldn't be religious in the first place, IMO). People have vastly other objectives for staying in situations where religious sorts of events occur; social, mostly, don't you think?

You shouldn't be surprised if you find that people are not rational. Bertrand Russell wrote (in this famous quotation):

Quote:
Man is a rational animal-so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents. On the contrary, I have seen the world plunging continually further into madness. I have seen great nations, formerly leaders of civilization, led astray by preachers of bombastic nonsense. I have seen cruelty, persecution, and superstition increasing by leaps and bounds, until we have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogey regrettably surviving from a bygone age. All this is depressing, but gloom is a useless emotion. In order to escape from it, I have been driven to study the past with more attention than I had formerly given to it, and have found, as Erasmus found, that folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived. The follies of our own times are easier to bear when they are seen against the background of past follies. In what follows I shall mix the sillinesses of our day with those of former centuries. Perhaps the result may help in seeing our own times in perspective, and as not much worse than other ages that our ancestors lived through without ultimate disaster.

From:
An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

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John Cadd
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh Techfiddle,Now you`ve done it.
When you mentioned the past,I have been listening to the bickering start about Global Warming between China and the USA and if we assume that human nature never changes ,my conclusion is drawn to the plight of the Easter Island tribe. We all know what happened there.Will the whole planet be an Easter Island?
Hey ,it`s Christmas ----Bit early for Easter!

ps Did you ever learn some interesting Yiddish words at the home ?
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Amalia
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
People have vastly other objectives for staying in situations where religious sorts of events occur; social, mostly, don't you think?


Fiddletech, do you regularly attend religious sorts of events in order to satisfy your need to socialize?
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techfiddle
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Amalia wrote:
Quote:
People have vastly other objectives for staying in situations where religious sorts of events occur; social, mostly, don't you think?


Fiddletech, do you regularly attend religious sorts of events in order to satisfy your need to socialize?



Techfiddle, not fiddletech. No: I avoid religious events unless I'm being paid to play in them.
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techfiddle
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

amezcua wrote:
Did you ever learn some interesting Yiddish words at the home ?


Not really any that I didn't already know.
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Amalia
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would say that's logical. I think most people are generally logical. Most people are also able to rationalize their behavior to support their personal desires, which is also logical, though not usually beneficial.
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techfiddle
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

>>I would say that's logical.

*What's* logical?


>>I think most people are generally logical.

You DO??????????


>>Most people are also able to rationalize their behavior to support their personal desires

"Most" is rather a large category, though you're probably correct. *Some* people, however, think clearly.



>>which is also logical, though not usually beneficial.

Huh?
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