Ecclesioscapes: interpreting gatherings around Christian music in and outside the church. The Dutch case of the 'Sing Along Matthäuspassion'
Mirella Klomp
Introduction
Movement 75. The baritone on stage steps forward to sing his Aria. The amateur orchestra begins, he enters with: "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein, Ich will Jesum selbst begraben..." After the final note, he turns around to walk back to his seat. But the conductor gestures to him to stay at the front. The baritone takes position again, the conductor invites all participants in this Sing Along Matthäuspassion to sing this Aria, she cues, and the orchestra starts the introduction of movement 75 for the second time. Although this repeat comes out of the blue, the choir enters and in full voice sings "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein…" The audience (approximately a third of the size of the choir) partially sings along too. Apparently, most of the choir members are only familiar with the very first part of the melody, and rush to find the rest of the notes in their sheet music. Following the trail of the baritone, they stumble through the Aria. The performance then continues with movement 76.
To a considerable extent, large Christian musical forms (Masses, Requiems, Passions, Stabat Mater's, etcetera), liturgical-musical repertoire (e.g. Choral evensongs) and other sacred sounds in late-modern network societies have been moved from the domain of the church to the wider domain of the culture. Many practices of Christian music are no longer confined to worship, but occur in the context of concerts and cultural projects. In the Netherlands, they are organized by, for example, music ensembles and foundations; churches or congregations are seldom involved. This 'transfer' of Christian music practices to the 'extra-ecclesial' domain is part of a broader development: in liquid societies, where change and flexibility have taken the place of continuity and stability (Baumann 2000), religion as a whole has become more flexible and fluid. Hence, the performance of J.S. Bach's Matthäuspassion could take the shape of a Sing Along Matthäuspassion, during the performance of which an aria for baritone solo was spontaneously repeated by all.
Scholars of religion have suggested the notions of 'religioscapes' (McAlister 2005, 251) and 'sacroscapes' (Tweed 2006, 61) to describe the religious dimension of global cultural flows and flux. These are parallels to the '-scapes' that anthropologist Arjun Appadurai employed to describe the cultural dimensions of globalization (1996). Observing that the change and flexibility of liquid societies are characterized by the flows and flux of money, people, ideas, technologies and information (with the term 'flows' challenging the more static notion of 'world systems'), he described these cultural dimensions as ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes. Applying this to religion, Thomas Tweed emphasized that the term sacroscapes "only helps if we have aquatic and not terrestrial analogies in mind. Sacroscapes, as I understand these religious confluences, are not static." (2006, 61) They describe religious flows across time and space that occasionally come to a temporary standstill here or there. The images Tweed has in mind are indeed dynamic, since he considers religions as complex processes instead of reified substances (2006, 59). In an effort to contribute to an adequate understanding of contemporary ritual-musical practices outside the church, with my colleague Marcel Barnard I proposed 'sacro-soundscapes' as a notion to point to sound aspects of religions, thus updating the discipline of hymnology (Klomp and Barnard, 2017). We used it to refer to the scenery of sacred sounds that move through times and spaces and find temporary dwellings in hymnals, concert programs, music festivals and events, etcetera.
The notion 'sacro-soundscapes' enabled us to investigate and better understand ritual practices of Christian music both in- and outside the church. However, it immediately also raised questions about the meaning of 'congregational music', and the difficulties of distinguishing the 'ecclesial' from the 'extra-ecclesial' domain. How inclusive or exclusive should these notions be taken? What does the 'ecclesial domain' look like in late-modern societies? This scenery of sacred sounds that move through times and spaces and find temporary dwellings demands that we think out the communal aspects of 'congregational music': sacro-soundscapes require ecclesiological notions that also commensurate with flexible, fluid gatherings around music.
Rethinking 'congregation' from the viewpoint of ecclesiology is particularly relevant in the context of a book series that presents studies of 'Christian congregational music'. One of the big challenges for the study of 21st century practices of Christian music is to account for the 'liquid church' (Ward 2002) and other fluid forms of gathering around Christian music. Thus, the thesis of this contribution is that the study of Christian congregational music should take account of sacro-soundscapes also in terms of its understanding of 'congregation'. Aiming to develop a concept that serves studies at the intersection of ecclesiology and ethnography in the context of congregational music studies, I ask this question: what theoretical concept can be employed to better understand gatherings around Christian music in and outside church in late-modern culture? Taking the Sing Along Matthäuspassion as an example, this contribution discusses the question how to understand 'congregation' in liquid times.
Below, I will first briefly sketch the context of the changing ecclesial landscape in Western Europe and particularly the Netherlands, and portray the Sing Along Matthäuspassion as an example of fluid practices of Christian music (2). As a cultural phenomenon, this music practice offers a nice case to illustrate the need to think about fluid ritual-musical practices from an ecclesiological perspective. Afterwards, I will give a brief overview of how in some recent ecclesiological publications the conception of church as people gathering in one place at one time, has been challenged in favour of an update of the notion of church in liquid times (3). I will then introduce and elaborate the notion of 'ecclesioscapes' as a concept suitable to the interpretation of both ephemeral and more solid communal practices of Christian music in late-modern culture (4). I pose that liturgical ecclesiology opens a space to theoretically understand concrete communal practices of Christian music as dwellings in an ecclesioscape, thus pushing the boundaries of practical ecclesiology. I conclude this contribution with some implications for further research in various fields (5).
The changing Dutch ecclesial landscape and the Sing Along Matthäuspassion
The changing Dutch ecclesial landscape
In Dutch culture, religion and/or the sacred have, over the last decades, seen relocations and considerable change. As in other Western-European countries, decreasing church attendance and continuous church closure show that institutionalized Christianity is in ongoing decline. Nevertheless, Christian religion in the Netherlands has not disappeared; it has undergone deep transformations (De Hart 2014 and 2011; Post 2010; Borgman 2006; Van de Donk 2006; Sengers 2005; Frijhoff 1998). When focusing on practices of Christian music, we no longer see people en masse attend worship and sing hymns on Sunday mornings. Rather, we observe many people participating in a variety of other practices of Christian music: during events, such as contemporary passions performed in concert halls, Sing Along Stabat Mater's, Choral Evensong concerts, Christian music festivals, etcetera. Christianity has collapsed, but a 'basal sacral' (Juchtmans 2008, 306-316; 379-386) behaviour remained and unaffiliated 'floating believers' (De Hart 2015) arose: people freely shape rituals with Christian roots, and make sense of these rituals in their own manner, based on their own (personal) frameworks. Christian language and ritual practices thus moved from the 'ecclesial' domain to other domains: the private, public, and cultural domains, and those of nature, healing and sports (Post 2010). Christian religion has been transferred and transformed. As for Christian music, many people who would never want their names in the church administration today are engaging in practices of music with Christian roots.
The Sing Along Matthäuspassion
The Dutch phenomenon called Sing Along Matthäuspassion may serve as an example of the abovementioned development. Although written for liturgical practice, Bach's Matthäuspassion over the last 120 years in the Netherlands has come to be mostly performed as a concert in church buildings and concert halls, by professional as well as amateur choirs and orchestras. In 1998, the first Sing Along Matthäuspassion popped up, a phenomenon that in the last two decades became rather popular: every year during Lent, amateur singers have numerous opportunities to join one every year. People register to participate in a performance of Bach's masterpiece, pay a fee, perhaps practice at home (or come to a separate rehearsal if one is organized), and for one day form an ad hoc choir to sing, mostly, the chorales and choir parts. Professional singers perform the arias and recitativo's. At the end of that very day, the piece is performed during a concert, often (but not necessarily) in front of an audience.
In 2012, I performed ethnographic fieldwork at two Sing Along Matthäuspassions in Amsterdam and Utrecht, organized by a small independent foundation that specifically focuses on sing along projects. I registered online and paid 49 euros for each performance. This all-inclusive price allowed me to join the Sing Along Matthäuspassion (a day of rehearsing, leading up to a performance), as well as an extra SATB rehearsal day taking place two weeks in advance, and a two-days crash course for sopranos/altos or tenors/basses a few weeks earlier (on a voluntary basis). Rehearsals took place on Sundays in March, in a conference centre on a green estate in the middle of the country. Once in the conference centre, the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed; a mix of a distance of individualism, and a benevolence of expectations. The ages of participants ranged from somewhere in their 20's to in their 80's. They were on their own, or together with a relative or (small group of) friend(s). We studied the chorus parts and the chorales, worked extra hard when things did not go so well, and were proud when successful. On the days of the Sing Along Matthäuspassions we rehearsed together with the amateur orchestra, and later, together with the soloists, ran through the entire Passion.
Then we had a 90-minute break. Before the performances started, someone gave an associative talk on the meaning of the Passion by way of introduction. Afterwards, we performed the entire piece, in two parts with a 30-minute break in between. The audience were a minority, and mostly consisted of friends and relatives who had bought so-called 'listeners-tickets' for 20 euros.
Below, I briefly present two qualities of the Sing Along Matthäuspassions that are striking in view of the topic of this contribution.
Participation in a communal practice
Several participants declared that they would never want to be part of the audience of a Sing Along Matthäuspassion: they would prefer buying tickets for a professional performance. Yet, they loved to sing it; participation in this project to them was a special experience, no matter the number of times they had done it before. This appeared to be also related to the length of the piece: the concert itself was a three hours' session, and the entire project took a whole day. Even without crash courses and separate rehearsal days, it was primarily an event to engage in. Its value was contained in participation and engagement, which explains why the number of singers in both projects exceeded the number of listeners.
Crucial in this engagement was the accessibility of the event: there were no auditions; everyone could take part, no matter their vocal skills or their ability to read sheet music. The aim of the Sing Along Matthäuspassion, according to the conductor, is to offer an opportunity to sing the Matthäuspassion to anyone who has ever heard the piece and thought: 'How I would love to sing this myself'! The focus is on 'singing together' and 'engagement' with each other and the music. She claimed that 'taking part' creates a more intensive 'presence', and singing gives greater joy than listening. "It is important that people have fun, sing with joy and without the stress of worrying about the right notes, and through that have a more conscious experience of the entire passion." On the other hand, musical quality is not unimportant: below a certain level, she said, there is no joy; that is why choruses and chorales are sung by the choir, and other parts are sung by professional singers. In short, the Sing Along Matthäuspassion aspires to a balance between joy and accessibility on the one hand, and seriousness, involvement, and ambition on the other hand. In the view of participants, failing is indeed part of the game. Various interviewees underlined their engagement in the piece by saying that the conductor invited them to sing 'with heart and soul', to sing 'passionately', and to support each other; and claimed that participation in this communal practice stirred deeper, spiritual levels in them. An atmosphere of acceptance and togetherness came about through their 'musicking' (Small 1998).
The value of participation in this communal practice in several interviews appeared to not just relate to the Sing Along project, but also to the Matthäuspassion as such. This may be nicely demonstrated by something that occurred on the day of the performance in Utrecht. When I entered the church building in the morning, a reed basket was sitting on the reception table. It was filled with cherry liqueur chocolates, wrapped in cellophane by piece, and closed with a hand-made ribbon with white hearts and a text printed in red letters, reading: "'Ich will dir mein
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