This service was conducted by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, in cooperation with Randy Fayan.
Readings
This is our annual music service, a chance for us to reflect on the importance of music in the life of our church, and in our own lives.
First reading and commentary
The first reading is short and requires commentary. In an essay titled “Vonnegut’s Blues For America”, an essay about the blues, Kurt Vonnegut wrote:
“No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
“THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC.”
[Scotland, Sunday Herald, 7 January 2006.]
By way of commentary, it must be noted that Vonnegut was a humanist, that is someone who did not believe in the existence of God. During one interview, Vonnegut told this story:
“…I am a humanist. I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association… I succeeded Isaac Asimov as president, and we humanists try to behave as well as we can without any expectation of a reward or punishment in an after life. So since God is unknown to us, the highest abstraction to which we serve is our community. That’s as high as we can go, and we have some understanding of that. Now at a memorial service for Isaac Asimov a few years ago on the West Coast I spoke and I said, ‘Isaac is in heaven now,’ to a crowd of humanists. It was quite awhile before order could be restored. Humanists were rolling in the aisles.”
If Vonnegut did not believe in God, for him to say that music is an adequate proof of God is certainly humorous. Yet he was also a member of a Unitarian Universalist church, so I would expect that he wouldn’t fall into the trap of humanist fundamentalism. Therefore, I believe he is clearly saying that if you do believe in God, music is the only proof you need for God’s existence; and if you don’t believe in God, music can provide an adequate salvation for your soul.
Second reading and commentary
The sermon this morning will consist of our music director, Randy Fayan, performing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” And for the second reading, I have a short quotations about this piece of music from Gershwin himself; who told his biographer, Isaac Goldberg, how the composition of “Rhapsody in Blue” came to him, all at once, on a train ride from New York to Boston:
“It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer — I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise… And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper — the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.”
[George Gershwin, quoted by Isaac Goldberg. “George Gershwin: A Study in American Music.” 1931. Quoted in Orrin Howard, program notes LA Philharmonic
http://www.laphil.org/resources/piece_detail.cfm?id=314, accessed 5/3/07]
Some brief commentary on this reading: “Rhapsody in Blue” represents some of the best of the American national mythology: our ideal of a multicultural society that can bring together many different cultures; the energy that can arise from that multiculturalism; all grounded in the blues, our great national music, a music of personal liberation.
Third reading and commentary
The conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas, who revived the original orchestration of “Rhapsody in Blue” in 1976, in a performance with the Columbia Jazz Band, told a writer for the Washington Post:
“[Gershwin] took the Jewish tradition, the African-American tradition, and the symphonic tradition, and he made a language out of that which was accessible and understandable to all kinds of people.”
[Ron Cowen, “George Gershwin: He Got Rhythm”, The Washington Post, 1998. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/nov98/gershwin.htm, accessed 5/3/07.]
Tilson-Thomas’s words need a little bit of commentary: In this one piece of music we have Gershwin’s own European Jewish tradition, a tradition shaped in part by a tremendous sense of the history of the Jews, and part of that history is the story of a people who retained their identity in the face of persecution by a majority Christian culture. And we have Gershwin’s deep knowledge of African American music — the blues, and jazz — a musical tradition shaped in part by the history of the African peoples in North America, and a part of that history is the story of a people who retained significant portions of their musical culture in the face of their enslavement and brutal treatment at the hands of a majority white culture.
Music does many things, but one thing music does is to help us remain human in the face of devastating trouble and loss. Music seeps into our very souls, and confirms that we are indeed human — vitally human, full of life and passion. It is a form of salvation that is available to us here and now, in this life; we don’t have to wait for some afterlife.
Music is also fleeting; it lasts for a certain amount of time, and then it’s done. Randy’s performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” will last for sixteen minutes and thirty seconds, give or take a few seconds; and then it will be done. Once the music is done, where will our salvation be then?
Yet I persist in believing that we can accomplish some measure of salvation here in this life; that we can somehow build a heaven here on earth, here and now. Music can light a spark within our souls; music can relight the flame within us, the fire of love, and commitment, and passion, and deep humanity.
That’s why we have music in our worship services: to heal our souls. As we listen to “Rhapsody in Blue,” we can find a measure of salvation in this music. And when Randy has finished playing, we’ll sit in silence for a moment — no applause, this is a worship service — we’ll sit and let the healing sounds soak in a little bit. And then we’ll greet one another, and wind up the worship service as we always do….
Sermon
For the sermon, Music Director Randy Fayan played George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.