Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s New Testament reading is quite exciting and exotic. Through John’s beatific vision, we catch sight of the celestial worship that continues ceaselessly before God’s throne.

It’s a marvelous vision, and perhaps we feel a bit lost in all of the imagery: the crystal sea, the emerald rainbow, a voice like thunder, flashes of lightning, and in the center a figure like jasper and carnelian.

And then there are the four ‘living creatures’, each resembling a different animal or a man, each covered with eyes and having six wings.

In a real way, this feels like somebody grasping for descriptive language, for the right metaphor or simile by which to communicate the solidness, the realness, the ineffable sublimity and utter potency of this vision.

Similarly, as composers attempt to set the paean of the six creatures — ‘Holy, holy, holy’ — they too struggle with their musical metaphors, hoping to manifest some aspect of God’s glory.

Let me give three examples, with links to recordings, along with my own, very subjective adjectives. I am fascinated at the opposite qualities music seems capable of holding together simultaneously. Indeed, this multivalency is encouraging, insofar as it suggests the possibility of transcendence, of a glimpse at something beyond  — as God himself must surely exceed the limits of human imagination and rational thinking.

Yours in Christ,
Justin

Sviate Bozhe, Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998), Credo Chamber Choir (Ukraine), Bogdan Plish
- Timeless, static/yet in constant motion, warm/yet cold, sorrowful/yet hopeful

Sanctus from Missa Trinitatis Sanctae, Francis Grier (b. 1955), St. Thomas Choir of Men & Boys (USA), John Scott
- Exotic, lush, syncretistic, woven, polychromatic, refulgent

Sanctus from Mass for Double Choir, Frank Martin (b. 1890-1974), Nederlands Kamerkoor (Netherlands), Peter Dijkstra
- Austere/yet luxuriant, alien, intricate, shocking