There’s a fatal temptation with Lent. Few people struggle to come up with a list of things to “give up” — and frequently those lists are quite long with items like sweets, carbs, TV shows, genres of music, and so on. The trouble comes when, about 10 days in, we realize Lent isn’t even nearly over, and we’ve bitten off more than we can chew (metaphorically speaking, of course, since we probably also decided to try fasting).
The result is that by the time we’ve reached the halfway mark, we’re ambling through Lent, and we feel guilty over our inability to stick to our resolutions. We accept our fate as bad Christians, but Easter doesn’t feel quite as sweet knowing that we failed Lent. (READ MORE: Happy Birthday, Rhapsody in Blue)
The root of the problem, however, isn’t our Lenten resolutions but that we tend to approach Lent as a challenge rather than as a season. In a challenge, you can simply adopt an attitude of negation; when you’re in a new season, you have to replace what you’ve negated with something else, and you have to set the mood. Fortunately, that’s something our ancestors understood. While the monks were enjoying their diets of bread, water, and beer, they were also writing music and filling their minds and senses with the texts of penance. The meaning of the Lenten season was ever present.
So as you sit down to adjust your expectations and reevaluate your Lenten penances, here is some of the best music of the ages to set the mood.
“O Sacred Head Surrounded,” J.S. Bach
The version of this hymn with which most of us are familiar comes to us from J.S. Bach’s setting of “St. Matthew’s Passion,” which has a plethora of translations and versions. “O Sacred Head Surrounded,” as a chorale embedded within the “Passion,” provides a moment for the audience to take a reprieve from the tragic story they’re experiencing and to meditate on just one aspect of Christ’s suffering: His crowning with thorns.
Of course, Bach didn’t pull the text out of nowhere; as tradition has it, he stole it from a medieval monk and reformer in France who predated him by centuries: St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard embedded the text in a longer poem of seven parts that meditates on the crucified body of Christ, beginning at His feet and slowly working its way up to His face. In that work, which is titled “Salve Mundi Salutare,” the text of “O Sacred Head Surrounded” appears just before the end. The poet has already walked with Christ and seen the wounds in His hands, His feet, and His side; now, at last, he sees Christ’s sacred face. (READ MORE by Aubrey Gulick: It’s Not the 1970s. But the Catholic Archdiocese of LA Wants It to Be.)
Bach didn’t even write the melody. He stole it from Hans Hassler, a German composer nearly a contemporary to Bach. What Bach did write was the hymn’s harmony, with its aching suspensions and moving affects. It’s an emotional setting for a hymn — a genre usually characterized by simple moving chords — and is one of the most difficult to play and perform as an organist or as a choir. It’s also, however, one of the most rewarding.
“Ne Irascaris Domine,” William Byrd
William Byrd’s story is an odd one. He grew up in the halls of the English court as a choirboy and as Thomas Tallis’ star organ student during one of the most tumultuous periods of British religious history. For some reason, Queen Elizabeth I was fond of him. Despite his Catholic faith (and tendency to rub Anglican clergy the wrong way by improvising ornate organ music during Puritanical liturgies), Elizabeth kept him at the palace for decades and showered him with favors. Byrd and Tallis were awarded the first copyright for printed music in England, and Byrd became one of the most published composers of his time in both English and Latin.
Byrd practically spent his life at the palace, but it seems he didn’t feel at home. He became the voice of English Recusant Catholics — and simultaneously one of the most powerful composers of penitential music in history. When the Church speaks of penance, she speaks of exile. She compares her Lenten journey to that of the Jews during the Babylonian captivity and invokes the stories of men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Exile was something Byrd understood. (READ MORE: We Built Ugly Churches and Still Do Not Attract Young People: How Is This Possible?)
That’s abundantly clear in his 1581 work “Ne Irascaris Domine.” Written for five voices, the choral work is split into two parts. The first pleads with God to “not be angry” with His people and to have mercy on their distress. “Behold, look upon us … we are thy people,” the choir pleads. The second part has a stunning shift in tone, as the composer explores a desolate wasteland: “Your holy city is abandoned. Zion has become a wasteland. Jerusalem is desolate.”
“Miserere Mei,” Gregorio Allegri
No list of Lenten music would be complete without this classic polyphonic work — a jealously guarded secret of the Sistine Chapel Choir until a 14-year-old Amadeus Mozart transcribed the work and received permission to publish his transcription. While that story’s truth is debated, the very fact that it exists captures the legendary status of Allegri’s “Miserere.” What is certain is that the modern rendition of the piece is not the one Mozart would have transcribed in 1770.
Like most Renaissance music, Allegri’s masterpiece has undergone an evolution. Each successive generation has left its mark on the piece. Even the High C, the climax of the piece, was an addition made by an anonymous singer and then added by an editor at some point. But regardless of the changes the piece has undergone — or perhaps because of them — it has managed to captivate audiences for hundreds of years.