Apprehending the Music of Being
Having written in my last two columns about the work of two more accessible composers—Franz Schubert and Gabriel Fauré—I set out to consider how to commend the remarkable work of a little-known Franco-Flemish composer from the sixteenth century. In listening attentively to Masses, motets, and Magnificats by Nicolas Gombert (c. 1495 – c. 1560) over the past few weeks, I came to appreciate how the expressive complexity of his work exemplified some important truths about the nature of meaning in music. So before considering what he accomplished in some of his works, it will be helpful to set my considerations in a larger context.
Christ the Creative Meaning
Readers of Touchstone are likely to agree that we are not living in a golden age. There are crises aplenty, meriting a large array of descriptive adjectives: political, economic, social, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and so on. One way or another, each of these angles of vision embodies what Canadian cognitive scientist John Vervaeke has called “the Meaning Crisis.” It’s not a new condition: Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning was published in 1946. An important article by Owen Barfield titled “The Rediscovery of Meaning” appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1962. Some of Barfield’s concerns were echoed in philosopher William Barrett’s 1979 study, The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization.
All too rarely is the crisis of meaning recognized as an effect of the un-Christening of the West, of the modern assumption that we can understand the world and ourselves without reference to Christ. Not just without reference to God or the gods but to the One who is before all things, and in whom all things hold together. The crisis of meaning can only be addressed adequately by moving beyond generic religious terms toward Christology, since Christ is the font of meaning. To reject him is to abandon meaning.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on music from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Bach's Cantata BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbesteZeit (God's time is the very best time) by Ken Myers
more from the online archives
14.6—July/August 2001
Three Bad Ideas for Women & What to Do About Them by Frederica Mathewes-Green
32.1—January/February 2019
The Diabolical Failure of Leaders in the Present Crises by James M. Kushiner
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
