Class 4: The Telling of Stories

A. Why Tell Stories?

1. Title Slide 1 (Engraving, Abraham and Isaac)

Today I am going to focus on five stories from the Bible—four actually, as two of them are simply episodes in a longer story. In doing so, I am going to jump all over the place in time, because I am not so much interested in the stories themselves as in how artists, writers, and composers have treated them. I am going to start with a brief sample of each, without comment. For clarity, I have mostly selected from a relatively early period. You can probably guess the subject of each. But as you watch, I want you to ask why this particular story has lasted, where does it stand on the scale of fact and fiction, and how does it differ as a subject from the other four? Don’t worry about the style; what interests me is their subjects.

2. Anonymous: Noah’s Ark (16th century) 3. Greek Orthodox: The Sacrifice of Isaac 4. Mostaert: Abraham Sending Hagar Away 5. German manuscript: Belshazzar’s Feast (from the Weltchronik, 1400–10, Getty) 6. Church window: The Return of the Prodigal Son 7. — combination of all the above

Let’s discuss. I chose these partly because of the range of art and music I can show you about each, but also to illustrate different aspects of storytelling. You can have myths; you can have history; and you can have parables—that is, fictional stories made up to make a particular point. A fourth category, dreams and visions, I’ll leave to a later class. I think we’ll find that the various categories overlap. So-called historical subjects will have some basis in fact, but more often than not, they will be mythologized to some extent. And at the same time, one reason why we keep turning back to these mythologized histories is that they so often encapsulate a moral point; though true, they also serve as parables. • Noah’s Ark is an example of a creation myth, similar to those found in many other cultures. While there may be some evidence in cataclysmic floods in prehistory, all the details are made up. • The Sacrifice of Isaac is found in the Bible, where it is presented as part of the historical record. I am not going to go into the question of historicity, but it is clear that this is an episode that has been mythologized, because of its importance to the foundation story of the Jewish people. [It also has an additional significance for Christians, as a prototype of the idea of a Father sacrificing his beloved Son, which is a central tenet of Christianity.] • Abraham Dismissing Hagar is part of the foundation story of the Moslem people, as Hagar gave Abraham his first son, Ishmael, when it was thought that his wife Sarah was too old to conceive. But when she did indeed give birth to Isaac, she insisted that Hagar (whom she had supported as her surrogate) be cast out. Ishmael is traditionally acknowledged as the father of the Arab race. The painting is by Jan Mostaert (c.1475–1555).

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• Belshazzar’s Feast is historical in that it relates to the period of the Hebrew captivity in Babylon, many of the events of which can be independently dated. But while Belshazzar existed, he never actually became King. The story is obviously a poetic construct, and worries about facts only when it cares to do so. • The Prodigal Son differs from all the others in that it is a parable made up by Jesus to illustrate the love of God and his boundless capacity for forgiveness.

As to what they have in common, three of the stories have to do with miracles performed by God, and two of them establish a covenant with his people. The Abraham and Isaac story also shares with the Prodigal Son the fact that both are about the love of a father for his son. I shall discuss the two Abraham stories at length after the break. For the rest of this hour, we shall look at each of the other three.

B. Noyes Fludde

8. Edward Hicks: Noah’s Ark (1846, Philadelphia)

The picture is a Noah’s Ark by the American Quaker primitive painter Edward Hicks (1780–1849). “The animals went in two by two, / The elephant and the kangaroo.” The Noah’s Ark story has always had a great fascination for children. And when Benjamin Britten (1913–76) tackled the subject in 1948, he wanted to write a piece that could not only be enjoyed, but largely performed, by children. He took a Middle English text from another cycle of mystery plays, this time from Chester. Intended for staging in a church rather than a theater, the set, costumes, and props are deliberately simple. The cast calls for a couple of professional singers, a few more at student level, and as many children’s choirs as possible. Similarly the orchestra has a professional string quartet, students who play only in the first position, and even younger ones who play only on open strings. It also includes recorders, which British children learn at school. The percussion goes all the way from timpani to Britten’s patented “slung mugs” that he uses to represent rain. Somehow, in the storm scene that builds during the following excerpt, all these forces combine in a huge passacaglia that eventually uses every single note in the scale. At its climax, the cast and audience join in the 19th-century naval hymn, “Eternal Father, strong to save.”

9. Britten: Noyes Fludde, storm scene 5½ 10. Jan Brueghel I: The Flood with Noah’s Ark (1601, Zurich) 11. Charles Wilson Peale: Noah and his Ark (1819, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)

And of course the sheer profusion of the subject gave a marvelous opportunity for animal specialists like Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) to go to town on all the exotic detail. Here is a before-and-after pair, the first by Brueghel, the second a curious (but charming) flashback by the American painter Charles Wilson Peale (1741–1827). But not every treatment is pretty. Here is another before-and-after pair by Léon Comerre (1850–1916) and our friend Thomas Cole (1801–48). What do you make of them?

12. Léon Comerre: The Flood (1911, Nantes) 13. Thomas Cole: The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge (1829, Smithsonian)

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C. The Writing on the Wall

14. German manuscript: Belshazzar’s Feast (repeat) 15. Beauvais Cathedral with Play of Daniel MS

There are comparatively few paintings of Belshazzar’s Feast. But I chose the subject because it has inspired at least two outstanding musical works. The first is the earliest example we know of a complete musical drama written to be performed in a church. Ludus Danielis or The Play of Daniel was written for, and quite possibly by, the students at the school of Beauvais Cathedral sometime between 1227 and 1234, so it is a century older than any of the mystery plays. Although sung in Latin rhymed verse, it has no liturgical function, but seems to combine education with entertainment. The music is monophonic, a single vocal line; we must conjecture what to do with it, in terms of rhythm and accompaniment. This performance from the Cloisters in New York is a recreation of the 1958 reconstruction by Noah Greenberg, which may have been the first attempt to perform a medieval music drama in modern times. I have added titles for the solo lines. But the excerpt includes two examples of conductus or processional music, which contain too much text to translate: one show the Satraps bringing in the sacred vessels captured from the Temple in Jerusalem (although they look quite prosaic here); the other is the entrance Belshazzar’s queen. These. In between is the comic scene in which the King’s supposedly wise men fail to decipher the Hebrew writing, the music for which is improvised.

16. Anonymous: The Play of Daniel (excerpt) 7 17. — still from the above

I will post online the scene where Daniel reads the writing. It shifts the genre of the piece from pageant to real musical drama, but it is harder to excerpt for this class.

18. : Belshazzar’s Feast (c.1636, London NG) 19. John Martin: Belshazzar’s Fe