If any man have ears to hear, let him hear: “The KJV actually sang quite well.”
When composer Christopher Tyler Nickel set out to create an oratorio of Mark’s gospel, he made an ambitious decision to set not just the narrative but the whole text to music, word for word.
The resulting work is an expansive, seven-hour musical. Nickel’s composition leads the listener through Mark’s account of Jesus’ ministry, sculpting and shading the story through the use of voices, timbre, theme, and meter.
As many Christians around the globe observe Holy Week, The Gospel According to Mark offers a musical addition to the canon of artistic meditations on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. The work will be released in its entirety on Good Friday by Avie Records, and excerpts are available in three EPs: Salvation, Prophecy, and Death and Resurrection.
Nickel’s composition contributes to a genre with historical roots dating back to the 17th century; Handel’s Messiah is one prominent example of a sacred oratorio, as is Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Besides its length, The Gospel According to Mark differs from these older works in its exclusive use of the gospel text, without poetic elaborations or additions.
Nickel’s work invites listeners to meditate on the gospel text and open themselves to the ways that the marriage of the music and Scripture might move their emotions.
The conclusion of the work, “The Ascension and Amen” (Mark 16:19–20, KJV), isn’t a glorious crescendo or grand chorus. The orchestra and voices weave together, swelling and retreating as the amen repeats over and over, accompanied by deliberate and steady open chords. The voices and instrumentation subtly, peacefully fade away.
The passage “leaves the listener with an unfinished ...
from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/05IVQBE
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