Recording of the Bruckner

by Martin Gaskell

       Psalm 84, a psalm of the sons of Korah, is about longing to be in God's temple, a special place where God was worshipped in Bible times.   With COVID-19 we've been longing for our modern special places where people worship together.  Different places are special for different Christians, so this week, to illustrate our choir piece, I alternated between some pictures of St. Mary's cathedral in Linz, the largest church in Austria -- specifically, the east end chapel where the Bruckner motet was first performed -- and  our Bonny Doon Church (the largest church in Bonny Doon!)   

       A parallel I've made in the first few images is that the first picture of the chapel in Linz cathedral zooms up to a stained glass window depicting the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove.  I made this image transition into a photo of the stained glass depicting the same thing in Boon Doon Church.

       Verse 3 of the psalm has the beautiful imagery of sparrows and swallows nesting in the temple.  God allowed even the birds into His temple.  The swallow family in the second bird picture was nesting in our garage in Nebraska.

       Some weeks we've included pictures or video of us singing or playing the choir music.  This week I've included a couple of pictures of the composer instead, Anton Bruckner, the most famously devout of 19th century composers.  The first one is a painting showing Bruckner as a model for one of the 12 disciples at the Last Supper in a painting by the famous German artist, Fritz von Uhde.  Von Uhde was a Christian who was famous for depicting Jesus as a real person with ordinary people, especially poor and humble people.  When von Uhde met Bruckner at a concert, he asked the composer if he could paint him into the Last Supper.  Bruckner was horrified at the thought and declined because he felt he was not worthy to be used as a model.  Von Uhde went ahead anyhow from memory and painted a disciple looking like Bruckner, the one at the head of the table on the left.  The other picture of Bruckner I have included is from a stained glass window in Linz Cathedral.

      One thing I notice every time I put together one of our virtual choir recordings is how much the different voices contribute.   I think there is a mini-sermon in this.  Sometimes, as I'm putting tracks together I've listened to parts with someone missing.  When I add the missing person into the mix it always sounds better.  What is interesting is that it's not just a matter of numbers; it's a matter of diversity.  Occasionally we are a bit thin in some section and if I add in multiple recordings of the same person it's just not as good as having multiple people singing the part.  The difference is quite striking.  It would be easy for me to prepare some demonstrations of this.  I could say, "here is the whole choir; now here is the choir without X."  Interestingly, the inevitable small mistakes we make in singing our parts end up being a plus.  The obvious parallel here is the Christian life.  God gives believers different spiritual gifts.  If one person is missing then his or her exercise of that spiritual gift is missing.  Having another person do twice as much in a church just isn't as effective.  Also, while we try to go out best, we don't need to be perfect.