The large stage of Sanders Theater, filled to its last square foot with young people as singers and players, provided the setting last week for a stirring musical performance. Verdi’s Requiem resounded through the hall with all the vigor, and the subtlety, of the great composer’s creative art. Members of the audience, clearly held in rapt attention during the performance, at the end rose to their feet and applauded mightily the conductor and all who had brought us such an experience.
Since its introduction 125 years ago, this composition of Giuseppe Verdi has taken its place among the great works of art that support the faith of believers and bring other listeners into the realms of spirituality. I never listen to it without being moved to serious reflection upon the profound mysteries of death and continued life.
I feel the same allegiance to many other masterpieces of music: Handel’s Messiah which makes sacred history felt along a wide range, from the tenderness of Christmas to the sorrows of the crucifixion and the ecstasy of the Hallelujah chorus. The same must be said for Johann Sebastian Bach’s great oratorios that translate into words and melody the most sublime events that feed spirituality.
Among operas, a personal favorite is Dialogues of the Carmelites, a French work from the 1950s. Here the composer Francis Poulenc depicts in highly dramatic fashion the courage of the Carmelite nuns who, at the time of the French Revolution, died for their faith. In the unforgettable last scene of the opera the nuns walk to an unseen scaffold singing the Salve Regina, one of the great Latin prayers to the Blessed Virgin. As each of them is guillotined the voice of the chorus gets weaker until the drama ends in silence.
A recent visit to Rome reinforced for me this connection between art and spirituality in the area of painting and sculpture. Seeing again the great masterpieces of Michelangelo and other sculptors and painters of the Italian Renaissance brought home to me the intimate ties between the two spheres.
A vacation in Rome for me always involves looking at Michelangelo’s Pietà. Crowds of tourists in Saint Peter’s basilica around this world-famous sculpture witness to the awe which people feel for it. The mother receiving her dead son in her arms stirs up in us emotions of pity, fear, and love. Faith takes on much more vivid meaning when seen in the wonder of figures wonderfully cut out of stone.
Similarly with the great carving of Moses that Michelangelo created for the church of St. Peter in Chains. Seeing the massive figure sitting in a meditative pose, one senses the spiritual greatness of this leader who brought the chosen people out from slavery in Egypt. Encountering this heroic figure as the artist imagined him, one can more easily identify with his decisive role in sacred history. The sheer weight of this man and his robustness make him a personage to be reckoned with.
In another church, Our Lady of Victory, I saw for the first time Bernini’s great baroque statue of St. Teresa in Ecstasy. This masterpiece depicts the great Spanish mystic from Avila at the moment when her heart is pierced with divine love. An angel is depicted standing over her and striking an arrow into her body already transfixed with supernatural passion.
The folds in the saint’s garment as worked out in white marble seems to me the most dazzling aspect of a wonderful piece of flamboyant art. Bernini succeeded in creating from the marble a marvelously dynamic portrayal of spiritual reality.
These artistic monuments, I am well aware, all take their inspiration from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Other spiritual traditions draw on works of art as well. I have a little familiarity with but too little knowledge of great monuments inspired by Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim spirituality.
The artistry mentioned here need not presuppose a classical education. More democratic arts such as film, television, photography and folk music can also inspire viewers to prayer and spiritual reflection. That’s the way I feel about movies such as those of Steven Spielberg , television documentaries of Ken Burns, and the photos of Ansel Adams.
The main point is that art sustains spirituality. We human beings need to find in concrete form the often non-material ideas given us by faith. We must see and hear artistically translated for us the epic events and personages connected with our spiritual traditions.
Richard Griffin