Speaking of Music - A Cautionary Observation

Those who know me well are familiar with my admiration of the music of Benjamin Britten. I recall my former choir master, who had once been an associate of Britten's, saying something to the effect that Britten wasn't especially keen on talking about music. For Britten, as I imagine it is for any serious music practitioner, it seems music itself is an active endeavor, even for the listener. Rest assured that this is not a post about active listening in music. Much has been written on that topic by far better minds than mine, but I do believe there is another lesson to be drawn from the Britten mindset.

A good ten years ago, following all the news on the "Mozart Effect," (a set of research results which concluded that listening to classical music, specifically Mozart, may raise one's IQ) I heard a piece on NPR which examined the implications of this finding on dwindling music education programs. One of the commentators noted that by finding all these external justifications for school music programs, the understanding of music's intrinsic value may ultimately be lost. Would music be any less valuable if it didn't do everything from raising IQs to producing greater civic involvement, personal discipline, and teamwork? I say no.

American culture, for better or for worse, is awash with sales pitches. Because of this, American’s are used to being hustled or having all manner of things "talked up" in order to make them seem worthy for the consumer. Classical music is not immune to this phenomenon. All sorts of verbiage has been employed to make classical music seem cool, accessible and worth one’s time and energy. It seems every prominent conductor or star performer has a spiel about how great music ‘brings the world together’ or that it produces some other cathartic effect. This canned speech usually concludes with something like ‘and to me that’s really what music is all about.’ Is it really?

Ultimately, the lesson from all this may simply be that it is difficult to talk about the value of music without reducing it to a commodity. In this blog, dedicated to talking about music (along with other arts) within the framework of spirituality and worship, the danger of “selling” great church music is amplified because in this context, music is not an end in itself. As discussions continue, it is worth remembering that it is music’s intrinsic spiritual value, a trait which is impossible to fully describe, that make it so well suited for worship in the first place.