The banning of the instrumental version of Biebl's Ave Maria reminds me of the old one about the girl who was complaining about her blind date, "He was awful! All evening long he kept whistling obsene songs!!"

 

Joe Boonin

Walnut Creek, CA

While I think the initial decision and the upholding of it were wrong, I don't think it is fair to characterize this as "the social minority shaping the actions of the majority again."  There has to be balance.  Being sensitive to the fact that not everyone holds the same views is constructive.

 

 

 I will begin by saying that I do not support the school district decision.  However, the "whistling obscene songs" comment as well as the renaming comment bring to mind something which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

 

As a church musician, I really don't care for the use of secular music that has a strong image outside of church for music during church services.  Some people have taken the "renaming" of instrumental music to a point where the image is so well associated outside of church that people can be and often are distracted from their worship as they are reminded of the secular context of the piece.

 

I would rather we kept the original title and found our way into a world where there is greater acceptance for what is beautiful from any context.  Our desire to meet the needs of every culture in our public schools results in meeting only the needs of the atheists, really.  I don't know what it is, but there surely is some better way.

 

Nan Beth Walton

Seattle, WA

Agreed. I don't doubt that "Adagio for Strings" would have been accepted while "Agnus Dei" would not have. And those that would give a hoot would not recognize its religious affiliation.

Norge Yip

bass

Los Angeles

I just think this is PC gone haywire - let it be noted that I'm not religious and don't support praying and such in public schools. But banning a melody is too much!

As a church musician, I would have been perplexed and offended at hearing the Biebl at a high school graduation...that was the venue, correct?  It's one thing to take the Barber "Adagio" which has no connotations except dramatic movie use, and put a sacred text to it.

It's another issue to use a sacred composition indiscriminately and in an odd context, even if not sung.  It even would have been better in a concert instead of a graduation.

 

I recall during the time when chant had become a "fad" when young people in Europe discovered its beauty, but unfortunately had no idea what the text was about.  It did bring chant back into people's ears, but I recall hearing an Agnus Dei used in gasoline commercial and was appalled.  Thank goodness someone must have got to them because I think it was pulled from the airwaves.

 

Terry Hicks

 Such sensitivity. Since when have church musicians eschewed a good/even bawdy tune?  How intolerant can political/civic forces be about any controversy? No end to this.

SIR

NYC

I am personally very concerned about the education of the students and the willingness of people to be accepting and tolerant.  The Biebl Ave Maria is certainly a worthwhile work of art and for that reason, if no other, it should be taught alongside all other musical works of art in music classes.

 

Whatever personal feelings I have about this matter, it concerns me that some here are assuming the people protesting would be unaware of the sacred origins of the work.  It seems unproductive to assume that those who find the piece inappropriate are therefore ignorant or unintelligent.  We all know ignorant and unintelligent people, but we must be careful not to be perceived as ignorant, unintelligent ones at times.

 

Incidentally, in (partial) answer to the question "since when have church musicians eschewed a good/even bawdy tune," how about 1565:  the documents drafted at the Council of Trent addressed among other musical concerns, the intrusion of secularism by the use of secular cantus firmi in parody masses. 

Just interested - what would happen, legally, if a school or college went ahead and sung a religious work?  Are there fines to pay, or just a war of words and protesters running around with placards?

 

Here in Australia, where apparently about half the population says it is not religious and about 90% do not attend any church, we love the music from the Christian tradition in schools, parks, malls, concerts, graduations...anywhere.    In my community choir we sing about  Jesus to our heart's content.    The songs at Christmas time that I will teach the children in the special school I work at will be from the Oxford Book of Carols.   How else will they ever know beautiful music?     

 

It is very puzzling as to why and how the USA got to this point.  Why are people so uptight and sensitive about it?     Why doesn't common sense reign?

 

By the way, I'm not religious.

 

Jane Becktel

www.morningsong.com.au

In reply to Jane Becktel's  observations ... just the fact that Australians are even allowed to call the season around Dec. 25, "Christmas"  and not be castigated, gives me yet another reason to move "Down Under."  I don't know how the USA has gotten to this point, but I find it increasingly strange and confining that in a country which is based on the concept that the wishes of 51% dictate the national ethos, can allow a  3% tail to wag  a 97% dog. We have so little time in our lives to just relax and soak in beauty wherever we can find it.   Can we not just let it be without a contentious  exegesis of religious/constitutional implications?  If I walk by Joshua Bell playing in a subway station,  am I going to become combative if one of the tunes happens to be a Bach Ave Maria,  or am I just going to drop my jaw and be full of an aesthetic moment of grace?  life is just too short ... 

 

I now descend my soapbox 

 

Dean Estabrook

d.esta(a)comcast.net

I wish again to repeat my belief that the decision we are discussing here was wrong.  That said, I am uncomfortable with the implication of some of the comments that the desire to respect differences is somehow misplaced.

 

I grew up in an age when every public school day began with a Christian prayer that many know as "The Lord's Prayer."  There was a Bible reading immediately following the Pledge of Allegiance.  The fact that my family and I were Jewish was somehow deemed exotic (we always had a kind of show-and-tell around Jewish holidays), but it seemed never to occur to anyone that the Bible readings and prayers were not of my tradition--to say nothing of the students whose families did not attend church.  In December, the school was lavishly decorated with all kinds of Christmas symbols, as though nothing else went on in that month.

 

Then the US Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Madalyn Murray O'Hair in 1963, decided 8-1 that forcing children to participate in Bible readings and to say Christian prayers was in violation of the First Amendment's non-establishment clause.  The daily prayers and the Bible readings as a group activity ended.

 

Since then, a lot of schools (including the one in the story that started the thread) have gone overboard in trying to keep religion out of the schools.  Schools don't need to be places free from religion; they need to be places free from the forced practice of a single religion.  It can be remarkable, though, to see what can become coercive, even when it isn't meant to be.  And I think you'd have to be on the receiving end to know how that feels.

 

That's a bit of history.  There are still problems.  When I lived in Kentucky, one public elementary school principal called all the school together in December and read them the nativity account from Luke, arguing that it was great literature and that he was appalled that not all the students knew it.  This clearly crosses a line, and he was made to stop.  One day, my daughter came home home from first grade (again, a public school) with exercises to study the CH sound.  One of the sentences she was to copy was, "It is good to go to church on Christmas."  I had to go to the school and educate the teacher about that one.  And on and on.

 

Yes, administrators, worrying about the consequences, will make excessive descions.  They will tell the choir they can't sing any piece with a religious text (which is clearly not the spirit of the 1963 Supreme Court ruling).  In the case we're talking about, the administrators were, in my view, wrong.

 

But not everyone in the United States is religious.  Not all of those who are religious are Christian.  Each is free to live this in his or her own way, but there is a place for it:  in the home, in the church, in church schools--religion and religious observance do not belong in the public schools. 

 

Finally, it is interesting to see the age-old fear that the majority would tyrannize the minority (discussed by, among others, Plato, Aristotle, and John Madison) turned on its head.  A basic principle of the United States system is that, while the majority rules, the minority is still free to state its position and have it respected.  That is what is at issue here.  And finally, finding the balance for that is always sensitive and difficult.  It cannot and should not be reduced to slogans.  Since I imagine that most of the people who read this are educators in one arena or another, I hope that we will all be sensitive--indeed, hypersensitive--to the feelings of those who do not hold the majority view, especially when it comes to religion.

  Charles said:  But we can't seem to stay out of each other's faces, and because of that we create a need for government intervention and litigation. Yes, it is that which is inhibiting the free flow of the sharing of art.  I would not mind at all attending a concert in a hall (school or otherwise) where all manner of theist symbols (here I would like to be able to add "non theist symbols, but I'm not sure such a thing exists) were in evidence (both aurally and visually).  Unity of sights and sounds wherein a Viadana Motet,  Bloch's Baal Shem, and a setting, say, of   a Taoist text could all exist peacefully side by side ( i know,  I  know, a painting of The Peaceable Kingdom comes to mind ... Menorahs, lying down with Crucifixes, as it were).  If said experience appeals  to the aesthetic, sentient nature in our humanness,  who cares from whence it comes or what cultural biases it might  imply?  If we should be hypersensitive,  let it reveal what is the same about us rather than that which divides.  Art, especially our beloved choral art.  can be the conveyance to grace ... if we relax and simply let it be.

 

Dean M. Estabrook

 Mark's example of reading the Bible reminds me of a very dear friend who, though an atheist himself,  read the Bible to all three of his children as they were growing up.  He averred that it contained great writing in many passages, and  it was his duty to expose them to all forms of great art. Of the three kids, one became a M.D. like her Dad  and married a pastor;  one became an excellent music educator and regular church goer, and one is what I would probably describe as an agnostic.  FWIW ... 

 

Dean M. Estabrook