Thou shalt not bear false witness

[This began as an essay for the church newsletter. It grew into a much longer essay, herewith presented.]

... we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and
likeness of a Maker. (J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories": p. 18)

Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called "willing suspension of disbelief." But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator" He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. (ibid., p. 12)

What makes music good or bad? Or is there no criterion beyond individual taste? Does it become a matter where artistic judgment is a popularity contest?

A better question than "is it good?" might be "is it true?" Does a musical work reflect what is true in the universe, whether in large degree or small? Does it make a difference if it does not? Is the musical work within its own confines a successful "Secondary World which your mind can enter"?

The Roman Catholic catechism discusses art and music under the Eighth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness. If this is appropriate, then it does make a difference. Music which is "not true" becomes a moral issue; it is a false witness.

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: "inner consistency of reality," it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the "joy" in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a "consolation" for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, "Is it true?" The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): "If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world." That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the "eucatastrophe" we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater— may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories": p. 23)

Good music is not always "pretty," because if it is only that, it cannot be true. Nor can music be true if it is altogether ugly, all sharp angles and despair. This has become more of a challenge in the last century or so, when the atmosphere of Western culture has become increasingly hostile to faith. Music that grows from this soil and has no place in it for God does not correspond with the nature of the universe; it is a "false witness." This applies to the work of musicians who themselves are persons of faith just as much as it does to those without faith. Believers or not, our music springs from our culture. We may question and challenge the cultural tradition, but we cannot entirely escape it.

Still, being ugly (or for that matter, pretty) is not as great a risk as being superficial. Much of the music one hears in public spaces or on the radio sounds as if it is made by musicians who are going through the motions, with no connection to what they are playing. It is often technically polished in the manner appropriate to its genre, but at heart it is facile, slick, commercial.

It is very difficult to be absolutely truthful in music, or literature, or art. It is easier to say something that is conventional, the same as others have said. It is easier, and often more profitable, not to challenge the listener. But one way or another, truth always challenges us, whether composer, performer, or listener.

In the novel "My Name is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok, the protagonist faces a difficult artistic choice. He has made a painting, and

The painting did not say fully what I had wanted to say... Within myself, a warning voice spoke soundlessly of fraud. I had brought something incomplete into the world...

Asher Lev knows that if he goes more deeply into this and completes his work, he will hurt his parents and others of his community. He knows also that should he leave it as it stands, only two or three people in the world would sense that something was wrong. "By itself it was a good painting. Only I would have known."

In the morning, I woke and prayed and knew what had to be done. Yes, I could have decided not to do it. Who would have known? Would it have made a difference to anyone in the world that I had felt a sense of incompleteness about a painting? ...

But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. (p. 328)

It is as difficult for the listener as it is for the composer or performer to judge "the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work." This is because we cannot entirely rely on our tastes; they are corrupted, like every other aspect of our fallen nature. I can think of many occasions where I have thought well of a piece of music and only later come to realize that I was wrong. Or vice-versa; my first impression was poor, and understanding came slowly. The judgment of others can be helpful: if something is considered a masterpiece but one does not at first hear it to be so, it is usually worth the time to listen to it again, perhaps many times over a period of years.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that no music or musical performance is altogether true. How is one to judge? If the work in question is something that I am playing on the organ, or teaching to the choir, or a congregational song, one indication for me is whether it "wears well." As I return to it time after time in rehearsal, does it become more meaningful? Or less? Sometimes I have scheduled an organ or choral piece and begun its preparation, and have only gradually come to realize that it is not wearing well. By then, it is often too late to replace it with something better.

A musician, and especially a church or synagogue musician, has a duty to exercise his best judgment in these matters, with the awareness that even our best judgment is often mistaken. For this, we must call upon the Lord for mercy.

After each church service where I have played or conducted, I pray this, a little prayer from the RSCM:

Pardon, O Lord, all the faults of our prayers and praises, and help us to worship thee more worthily; for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

At the end of a church service, I am often acutely conscious of the wrong notes I have played; all the errors of musical shape, tempo, articulation; the wrongness and incompleteness of anything I have improvised. All of these faults weaken the integrity and communicative potential of the music. But deeper than all this, the presentation of a "false witness" to the Gospel by inappropriate selection of music lies always in the background.

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.