Old Songs, Familiar Themes
I was standing in the living room and was distracted by a book about the Early Middle Ages in our bookcase. I’m a sucker for a catchy title, so I started reading. I was getting into the first few pages about King Hugh (love the name) in Provence and Liudprand of Cremona when I accidently skipped a few pages back and saw a section on The Monastic Agreement (970 A.D.), and well, I was off to the races as one might imagine. It was like a day of being glued to the History Channel before they mucked it up with all the alien shows. (My apologies to Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.) Here is where I found Te Deum laudamus, a hymn. It was to be sang at the end of the earliest recorded ceremony of the Easter liturgy (Brentano, p277) The agreement was written in 970, but the hymn was written in the 4th century, and its author is lost to time. It is suspected that St. Augustine wrote it, or perhaps Saint Ambrose, but at this point, who really knows? Its true authorship remains uncertain.
Talk about a well-covered song, though. Dvořák, Haydn, Handel, Mendelssohn, Verdi, and Mozart are some of its composers, among countless others. I suppose it is to be expected of a lyric that has lasted 1600 years, and to this day it is still part of religious observances throughout the Christian community. I put on the Dvořák Op. 103 (1892) this morning and gave it a listen. I found it full of brass and fanfare, with an interesting hemiola on the timpani to start. I wasn’t particularly overwhelmed until at 8:35 with most enchanting melody takes over. That 20 seconds of music was worth the entire 20-minute piece for me. I neglected other arrangements for the sake of time, but the soft spot in my heart for Dvořák demanded my full attention.
I’m not certain what my first memory of a song for my short history has been, but of the earliest music that I have recollection of is the album “Free to Be You and Me”. I have an awfully specific recollection of Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas talking about what it is like to be a baby in their song “Let’s Hear it for Babies”. I remember him telling her that she was “bald as a ping-pong ball,” then they discovered that one of them was a girl and the other was a boy. I have yet to hear a cover of this song. I don’t think John Williams or Hans Zimmer have any interest in keeping this song in the repertoire. I liked it though, and I miss that album.
As much as am impressed that a song could endure 1600 years, given its dominance in the culture of the early middle ages, it doesn’t seem too surprising. The Catholic church was a source of ceremony and music, and as in other cultures, the preservation of records through song is a tried and true tradition. We might forget what we were singing about, but boy do we remember that catchy chorus. The religious songs that I grew up with were from Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock opera. My favorite track was “Harrod’s Song”. I just couldn’t give up that beat. It got me dancing every time.
I would love it if this were the hymn that people look back on in amazement in 1600 years at its endurance, but I don’t think they are finishing ceremonies in church right now with it, nor do I suspect it will gain some mystical revival any time soon. I used to stand on my bed and karaoke that whole production though, and I had both the tapes and cd sets. I even made a copy of it, just in case I lost the original, or heaven forbid, something happened to the cd’s. An early song of mine included the lyrics, “I always thought something in the bread would go to my head. So, tonight is my last, life is fine.”
There may be something to be said about living each day as if it were you last. I prefer to wake up to each day as if it were my first. Keep learning, and here is the New Seekers with “Free to Be …You and Me”. Maybe it will one day come true, somewhere, if not just in our hearts.