Sing unto the Lord

I'm not a v. religious person.
I'm not gah-gah for Jesus.
And yet.

And yet I find myself perpetually at church and singing Christian music.
Plus, I am LOVING it.

I sing in two groups - a community group and my church choir. Like many classical vocal groups, there are a lot of Masses and Latin text Christian works. It's not a Jesus thing. It's a music thing.

In the past, some of the most beautiful music ever written was commissioned by the church. Masses, Requiems, litanies, glorious praises to God. Perhaps there was devotion in the hearts of the composers, perhaps it was just the money. Or both. Just as I tend to ignore my own odd motivations for church-going, I really don't care about the motivations of these composers.

Gabriel Fauré's Requiem is one of my favorite pieces to sing, and listen to. It soars, and cries, and mourns. It carries you through all those emotions a mass for the dead should. Recordings by really top-notch performers have made my chest clench and brought me through physical reactions. It begins with a quiet, almost whispered dirge and swells like the tears of a loved one. The Agnus Dei is v. dark and mournful. The Sanctus soars like angles.

Two large works I am currently singing are John Rutter's Requiem and Missa Gaia/Earth Mass by Paul Winter. The Rutter is a modern take on the funeral mass. It is not a straight requiem like Fauré's is. He inserts psalms and other songs. His melodic structure is markedly modern, and turns something usually thought of as old-sounding into a v. contemporary song at times. But still it inspires and moves. It has a different flow of emotion, but an equally strong one.

The Earth Mass is just that - a mass, prayer, for Mother Earth. Winter combines psalms and liturgical music with things such as "Canticle for Brother Sun." There is a CD that accompanies the piece with wolf and whale sounds. It is odd, and not one for the strictly classical types. He takes the inspiration from the sounds of nature. He writes the entire Kyrie based on the notes of a howling wolf.

There is beautiful classical music out there. Most of it is religious - Christian and otherwise. It's just something you get used to as a performer.