Stick Time: Art Responds to Horror

Just when one thinks one has seen all the horrors that terrorists have to offer, those who prefer death over discourse find new ways to astonish and appall us.  In the wake of tragedy in France, politicians make bold yet empty pronouncements, believing somehow that another investigation or blue-ribbon commission will salve a blind hatred that spans millennia.

While we common-folk have no access to the halls of power in fighting such oppression, those of us in the arts are not without specific tools.  Surely, the artists in the community of satirical cartoonists were understandably stricken, and many were quick to use art to highlight their outrage.

As choral musicians, how can we respond to yet another attack? Certainly, those who teach young students have an opportunity to demonstrate courage in the face of such barbarism, through their actions, commentary, and programming.  Music history includes powerful works composed to decry the horror of war (how else can one describe such evil?).  Franz Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War) and Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem come immediately to mind.

It is though perhaps in sharing images of hope, strength and unity that we in the choral art are best suited.  Our art form is brimming with works that speak to the hopefulness of peace and the resilience of the human spirit.

 

With that said, here is a performance of Ned Rorem’s In Time of Pestilence, from a recent ACDA conference.  Certainly we are experiencing a new form of plague upon our world, wrought not by germs, but by the poison of zealotry.  As the 16th century, poet Thomas Nashe used verse in an attempt to understand the horrors of his time, so too must all artists work with our respective media to decry the infection of the 21st century.