Beauty Ever Ancient and Ever New

Contemporary Sacred Music by the Texas-based Composer Andrew Dittman

Today, there is a stark divide between high culture (often confined to a small, educated elite) and popular culture, which appeals broadly but lacks the depth of traditional artistic forms. We see this pattern of the separation of high and pop culture in art, music, architecture and literature, and are so used to the idea that it is easy to imagine this it has always been so.

On the one hand, you have what now passes for high culture, which is typically so ugly and inaccessible that to be able to appreciate it, you need years of education at a modern university to remove your good taste and common sense (which is the primary purpose of a modern education). On the other hand, you have a popular culture that is accessible and can sometimes be beautiful, but is limited by its scope and the ambition of what it aims to communicate. As a result, it is often also base and crude.

Historically, however, this was not always the case. Dickens and Shakespeare had mass appeal, for example, and the music of composers such as Mozart and Beethoven resonated as much with the aristocracy and the educated as with the ordinary people, drawing from a shared cultural font, which is the sacred. Even for music that had no obvious religious or sacred connections, the forms of the mundane were derived from, and hence point back to, the forms that dominated the sacred music of the time. If we believe that it is good for all to appreciate and participate in the highest expressions of human creativity and beauty (and I do), then it becomes desirable to eliminate the gap. Some seek to do this by artificially elevating the place of pop culture to that of the sacred, by, for example, using the forms of pop music in church. This is the movement that brings guitar-strumming folk bands and rap into the choir loft.

I prefer another approach, which is to encourage a fresh creativity in traditional forms of music, in order to restore a high culture that is noble, accessible, beautiful, and universally cherished. For this to be simultaneously popular and elevating, it must both be of its time so that it speaks to the people of the current age, and conform to tradition. If this is ever to happen, sacred music within the liturgy must reclaim its role as the pinnacle of artistic expression, so that it can be once again the natural driving force for all contemporary music.

It is encouraging to see composers in the present age responding to the challenge by choosing to base themselves in churches and compose for the choirs, much as Haydn or Bach did in their day. They craft music that serves worship while aspiring to artistic excellence. I think of figures such as Paul Jernberg, who composes for the Roman Rite, and Roman Hurko, who composes for the Byzantine Rite.

On a recent trip to Dallas, Texas, the music of composer Andrew Dittman was brought to my attention, and he is another who exemplifies this vision. As choirmaster at The Chapel of the Cross Reformed Episcopal Church since 2013, Dittman composes sacred music for weekly liturgical performances, rooted in traditional forms and sung in English and Latin. His work draws on a range of influences, including plainchant, Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint, creating compositions that are both timeless and approachable.

Below are examples of his sacred music from his YouTube channel, highlighting choral performances of his compositions set to both English and Latin, and including harmonised settings of the plainsong chants of the Ordinary of Mass, taken from the Latin and adapted to English:

First is a setting for the text of Psalm 131 (130), text in Latin:

The next two are adaptations of the plainchant Ordinaries to the English translation, which are then harmonised.

And a setting of the Collect of the Fourth Sunday after Trinity Sunday:

It was St Augustine who, in his Confessions, described the beauty of God as ‘ever ancient, ever new’ to describe the divine presence as encompassing all time in an eternal present moment (and which I quote above). He also famously said that those who sing their prayers pray twice! So with that in mind, and aided by the music of Andrew Dittman, let us pray…