To Blame for the Abuse

http://www.channel4.com/news/sex-scandal-five-uk-music-schools-implicated-exclusive

Channel 4 news have broken the silence surrounding the scandal of sexual abuse at the UK's most prestigious music schools. One lady's words in this latest report are impossible to forget.

She taught at one of these colleges, where sexual contact with pupils was - allegedly - rife. She said it was not just tolerated, it was normal. She was asked by the journalist whether she had considered blowing the whistle on it all. She had thought about doing so, but she had counted the cost in the knowledge that they would close ranks. In other words, she would have lost her job.

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The Sound of Smut - Stephen Ward

This week Andrew Lloyd Webber launched the first taste of Stephen Ward the musical - based on the life of the pimp central to the Profumo affair.

Just as in Jesus Christ Superstar, Webber sought to make a hero out of Judas Iscariot, so here he says he wants to exonerate Stephen Ward:

It's about the life of this man - and how a man who was probably the most popular, most sought after, most urbane - a figure who you really wanted to meet if you were in London - ended up as a waxwork in the chamber of horrors in Blackpool. He was the fall guy for what happened in a whole series of events that spun out of control... but the more you look at the story the more it's quite clear that a lot of things that were alleged to have happened probably didn't happen.

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The Music of Funerals

The antithesis is sharpening.

Funerals are now taking on a new complexion in England. Some are religious and some are humanist. And people are becoming so indifferent as to the distinction that, more often than not, they do not tell you it will be humanist until you are outside the door of the "Church".

The fact that a funeral is classed as humanistic does not remove religion. In my experience, humanists always need music. 

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The Bible and the Composer

One of the matters I sought to refute in Beauty and Joy: The Christian Nature of Music is the idea that the best art made by Christians is art with content drawn from the Bible.

Paul Westermeyer advocates - or rather assumes - this:

If you emphasise Christ’s humanity at the expense of his divinity, you might choose music that affirms our humanity - music that relates to us who are beings with bodies. If you follow this logic, the music may be rhythmic and perhaps even sensuous. Or may be the highest possible art.

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Depression

Katharine Welby, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been speaking about her "battle with depression". Met by tremendous sympathy, she has responded by launching the public presentation of the "Happiness Course". This is an Alpha-course lite - positive thinking and no Gospel. One might ask why the daughter of the Archbishop thinks this is a wise move, given her profession of faith as expressed on her own site. Where is the common ground?

The common ground is in the language of humanism as determined by one word: depression. Miss Welby thinks of depression as a disease, an affliction, a trial. She is bold in doing so, in the face of a Church that likes to pretend that as role models to the world, Christians must be perfect. And that is why she will be welcome to everyone - Christians will have sympathy and humanists will rejoice to see a Christian who admits that she still has problems.

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Whatever happened to Reformed worship?

Tim Challies is highlighting a free to download recording of The Church's One Foundation.

http://www.challies.com/articles/hymn-stories-the-churchs-one-foundation-free-download

His introduction spells out how important hymns are to the Church, and especially as a means of teaching. He selects Exodus 15 as an example of this latter point, which is curious. The songs of Scripture, namely the Psalms, are designed (according to the Holy Scriptures) to record, thank and praise (see Rev. Romaine's Hymns Most Perfect for more information). They are not designed to teach. That might be a side effect, but it is not the purpose of songs. The song in Exodus 15 records, thanks and offers praise. It is a proclamation relating to the specific experiences of the Children of Israel - not a homeschooling sing-song to let the kids know what is going on and why.

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When Hate is Cathartic

A controversy is looming. Margaret Thatcher's death is being celebrated by the Left's appropriation of the song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead from The Wizard of Oz film. Its presence in the charts would usually necessitate it being played in Radio 1's Sunday-evening Top 40 countdown. Since this manipulation of the charts has been contrived to register hatred of the late former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, some say that it should not be played.

Mark Biddis, who has led the campaign for the song to reach no. 1 believes it would be tantamount to censorship if the song was not played. He obviously values censorship as a "sin", whilst not thinking there can be anything wrong in promoting an Orwellian style "minute of hate" for those who do not mourn the passing of Margaret Thatcher and have chosen to celebrate instead.

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The Inevitable Prodigy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218844/The-Mozart-Alma-Deutscher-7-play-piano-cello-beautifully-written-opera.html#comments

Little Alma Deutscher has been likened to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for being remarkably musically precocious.

Some praise her concentration, others her technique. Most of all, she is praised for having developed her talent at such an early age. And this is the lot of the prodigy, the dangerous, poisoned chalice - for most prodigies do not reach the level of genius when they reach maturity of years. They achieved something sooner than the rest, but rarely better. When the novelty dies everyone begins to listen to the specific ability with more care, and discovers that what they took as special was quite ordinary ability after all.

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The non-Christian nature of music

There is no jihadist Bach-equivalent, writing Soli Deo Gloria at the top of stirring musical masterpieces. Islamist “religious zeal” leads to lack of music appreciation and the quenching of creativity. All Western music was officially banned in northern Mali in an August 22 decree issued “by a heavily bearded Islamist spokesman in the city of Gao” Morgan reports. The decree referred to such music as “the music of Satan.” It informed the Malian people that “Qur’anic verses must take its place.

from The Sound of Silence in Mali - November 1, 2012 - Faith J. H. McDonnell

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-sound-of-silence-in-mali/

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UKIP, Flanders and Swann

The bunting is out for the maverick voice, as UK councils turn purple towards UKIP. People on the street tell the media that they're not racists - they just like the idea of Border control. And the media pretends to understand.

The pace of change is frightening. People are expected to cope with the loss of national identity, merged as it is today in the spectacle of multi-culturalism. Those people who have voted for UKIP may be the same ones who have begun to wonder why they alone lack the right to an opinion in a country they call their own.

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The Siren Song of Music

Carl Davis & Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Thursday 12th July 2012, 7.30pm

Programme:

  • SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953) Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet

  • CARL DAVIS (b.1936) The Rainbow

  • LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Allegretto from Symphony No.7

  • CARL DAVIS Amazons, Sophy and Dr Harrison from Cranford Suite

  • JOAQUÍN RODRIGO (1901-1999), arr. Carl Davis Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez

  • PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake Finale from Swan Lake

  • JOHN LENNON (1940-1980) & PAUL McCARTNEY (b.1942) Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane

  • JAMES HORNER (b.1953) Titanic Suite

  • ALEXANDER FARIS (b.1921) / CARL DAVIS / PETER SALEM Upstairs Downstairs / Call the Midwife

  • MONTY NORMAN (b.1928) / DAVID ARNOLD (b.1962) James Bond Theme / Casino Royale

  • SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) Adagio for Strings

  • VARIOUS Fantasy on Liverpool Themes world premiere

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How not to Wright a Song

This is a video of N. T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham, also known as "Tom". His ability to sell theological books seems to know no bounds. And now he also sings, after a fashion.

Comments could be made about the music. It might be said that it is cheap artistry to steal someone else's song and change the words (which it is). It might be said that his lyrics barely scan and that the song itself makes precious little sense.

But setting all that aside, what we have is N. T. Wright sticking two fingers up (musically speaking) at Creationists and doing so with the cockiness more commonly found in posturing and inebriated adolescents.

And therein lies the other problem.

This is a former Bishop of the Church of England. Where is his sobriety? Where is his reverence? How can he even think of singing flippantly of the Fall and even consider "why did we have to fall, I don't know, it doesn't say" as a tolerable sentiment?

Wright performed 3 songs for the private group and the comments on that site are perhaps more enlightening than the songs themselves, as it is assumed by one contributor that having Tom Wright sing anything comes under the umbrella of "Psalms, hymns and Spiritual songs".

As a parting shot, the former Bishop is quoted as having said of the evening that he had not had so much fun in a long time. One shudders to imagine "fun" as a requisite for Rev. George Whitefield, for Hugh Latimer, Thomas Bilney, for William Tyndale, or any of the other Englishmen who have lived and died as ministers of Jesus Christ.

Show - don't tell (The Wind and the Lion)

Christians in art say that they make films as they do in order to communicate the Gospel message. So they usually have a strongly "Christian" perspective in terms of characters, setting, even story. And because it has been regarded as a sine qua non of Christian film that there should be an absence of the real, dirty, sinful world (violence, language, sex, drugs, smoking, dancing ...) this has made sure that many Christian films are sanitised bubbles.

Watching The Wind and the Lion last night brought home an alternative view.

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Dmitri Tiomkin and Maurice Jarre: Musical Terrorists?

On the way back from a family holiday, we spent 7 hours moving a few miles down the motorway. The police had decided to blow up a van in a suspected terrorist incident. It turned out that the owner of the van was not a terrorist but an antique dealer who had parked the van and gone about his lawful business. Either way, we had a very tedious journey and we had almost run out of music and audiobooks. What we had left was a 4 CD box set of the music of Dmitri Tiomkin.

If anything, Dmitri made a bad situation worse. After getting halfway through the first CD, we resorted to sitting in happy silence, counting the cars and watching people stretch their legs on the motorway. Anything but listen to it anymore.

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Hubert Parry on BBC 4

Programme: The Prince and the Composer

Aired: Friday 10th February 2012

Hubert Parry is best known for two works: "Jerusalem" and "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". A religious man, we might think. But no. His father's heart was made to ache by his son's rejection of Christianity.

He reminds me of Samuel Wesley, son of Charles Wesley, who left Methodism and became a Roman Catholic (while the work was there). And he in turn reminds me of so many men who have composed grand music "for the Church" from outside the Church. 

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The Diamond Jubilee

Once upon a time, before musicians were "emancipated" from the stability of permanent work and board known as Patronage, the great and the wealthy who employed these musicians sometimes found themselves praised in music. And why not? They were paying for the privilege.

In sharp contrast we have the unusual presentation of music in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. The concert included a variety of acts and a variety of music. It praised many things. But oddly enough, not the Queen herself. Eric Coates' Three Elizabeths Suite is perhaps the last music written specifically to honour a living Monarch. We can play music to a Queen. We can play music in the presence of a Queen. But music for a Queen is something else. In short, it is nothing like the specially composed Jubilee song called "Sing" (by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gary Barlow).

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Mortality, Music and Culture

The death of Whitney Houston is yet one more victim of humanistic "music". I speak of the culture which separates music from the Christian faith and tells musicians that they are special, wonderful, gifted, extraordinary, remarkable people. Such praise is hollow because the musician knows

  1. how much hard work is involved

  2. how ordinary they are.

No one is that praise-worthy. Some are wealthy. Some are famous. Some are adored. But these three factors only exacerbate emptiness if they are not ignored and if the glory is not given to God.

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