2008 summer vol xvi · no 9 music · worship · arts Prismyale institute of sacred music common ground for scholarship and practice Welcome, New Faculty Martin D. Jean In the 2008-09 academic year we welcome two familiar faces to the ISM and one new one. The bells are still pealing in celebration of Peter Hawkins’s return to Yale. You can read a full report on Prof. Hawkins and his work in the April 2007 edition of Prism. Peter taught religion and literature at Yale before leaving in 2000 to go to Boston University. Here he was a member of the Religion faculty and directed the Luce program in Scripture and the Literary Arts, an interdisciplinary program which explored the literary afterlife of the Bible. Peter now returns to the ISM and YDS having conducted a number of new studies at BU which produced books such as Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs; Medieval Readings of Romans; and From the Margin I: Women of the Hebrew Bible and Their Afterlives (2008). Peter will teach courses familiar to many ISM graduates on the work of Dante, the literature of the Passion, and modern religious poets. Additionally, he will teach a course on Genesis and its literary afterlife with Victoria Hoffer, lecturer in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Gordon Lathrop will again be Visiting Professor of Liturgical Studies, and this year he will also serve as Acting Assistant Dean for Chapel while Siobhán Garrigan is on leave. Professor Lathrop visits from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, where he is Charles A. Schieren Professor of Liturgy, Emeritus. Previously, he taught at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa; was campus pastor at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington; and served as parish pastor in Darlington, Wisconsin. He has been a Lutheran pastor for 36 years, twenty of which have been spent at the Seminary in Philadelphia. Among other books, he is the author of Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Fortress 1993), Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Fortress, 1999), Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology (Fortress, 2003), Central Things: Worship in Word and Sacrament (Augsburg Fortress, 2005), and The Pastor: A Spirituality (Fortress, 2006). Together with Timothy Wengert, he has also published Christian Assembly: Marks of the Church in a Pluralistic Age (Fortress 2004). He has lectured widely, been a visiting professor at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and, in the 1990s, was a participant in Faith and Order consultations on worship and Christian unity, and Lutheran World Federation consultations on worship and culture. He is an associate editor of the journal Worship and was the tenth president of the North American Academy of Liturgy. continued on page 2 New Faculty continued from page 1 Musical Offering: Robin Leaver is a long- St. John Passion time friend of the Institute but this year will be his Schola Cantorum’s new CD of the St. John first on the faculty as he Passion on the Gothic label, whose release fills in for Margot Fassler was announced in the March Prism, has been who is on leave for the reviewed by Brian Clark for Early Music Review. year. Professor Leaver is The review — including a most favorable internationally recognized mention of the ISM! — is reprinted below in its as a hymnologist, entirety, with permission. musicologist, liturgical expert, Bach scholar, and The 1725 version of Bach’s St. John Passion Reformation specialist, who has authored numerous has not often been recorded. The most books and articles in the cross-disciplinary areas obvious differences between this and the of liturgy, church music, theology, and hymnology, original (performed in Leipzig one year A primary area of Professor Leaver’s research is earlier) are the outer movements – the Lutheran church music in which he has made final chorale from 1724 is replaced by a significant contributions to Luther, Schütz, Bach, setting of the German version of the Agnus Brahms, and other studies. A festschrift was Dei, while instead of the opening chorus recently published in his honor, Theology and ‘Herr unser Herrscher’, Bach uses the Music: Essays in Honor of Robin A Leaver, edited by movement which would eventually close Daniel Zager (Scarecrow Press); his major study, the first part of his St. Matthew Passion. As Luther’s Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications Markus Rathey’s informative notes state, (Eerdmans) was published in 2007; and his latest this changes the liturgical emphasis of the book, A Communion Sunday in Scotland ca. 1780: entire work; instead of glorifying God, the Liturgies and Sermons, is forthcoming. Professor Passion now highlights human sin and the Leaver has taught at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, necessity and wonder of Christ’s death for Westminster Choir College, Princeton, Drew the redemption of mankind. University, Madison, and is currently visiting That this recording is the product of a professor at the Juilliard School, New York City, and largely student ensemble is, quite frankly, at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. His astonishing. Simon Carrington (who honors include: Winston Churchill Fellow, Honorary participated in the 40th birthday concert Member of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, at the end of April of the group he co- and Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music. He founded, The King Singers) and Robert is a past president of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mealy, one of the United States’ leading Hymnologie and of the American Bach Society. baroque violinists, draw fantastic perfor- mances from their singers and players With new faculty come renewal and new ideas. We respectively. Without doubt, Derek Chester welcome these colleagues to the ISM and to Yale has a great career ahead of him as the and look forward to working together. Evangelist in any baroque passion — he tells the story while sustaining a glorious sound (an essential in this Are you receiving notification ofPrism repertoire) — and Douglas Williams will online? The online edition is available long surely follow suit as Christus. Indeed, the before Prism lands in your mailbox. E-mail musical set-up at Yale is fast becoming a Albert Agbayani at [email protected] hotbed for the nurturing of talent in the to get on the e-mail list. field of sacred music, and – largely thanks to Simon and Robert (though not under- playing the raw talent the students bring with them), the Institute of Sacred Music is surely now one of the world’s centres of excellence in 17th- and 18th-century choral performance practices. /BC/ Prism is published ten times a year by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music An article by Margot Fassler about her new film Martin D. Jean, director Performing the Passion: J.S.Bach and the Gospel of John appeared in the spring 2008 Bulletin of 409 Prospect Street the American Academy. Last December Professor New Haven, Connecticut 06511 Fassler gave a presentation to the Academy with telephone 203.432.5180 live musical performances by ISM students fax 203.432.5296 and clips from the film, which showcases the editor Melissa Maier performance on the CD. The article is available [email protected] online at www.amacad.org/publications/ alumni and job placement editor John Allegar bulletin/spring2008/gospel.pdf. The film clips [email protected] are on the ISM website at www.yale.edu/ism/ layout and design Elaine Piraino-Holevoet, PIROET events/PerformingthePassion.html. From the Director’s Desk Martin D. Jean The 2008 ISM study trip was four years in the making. Already while planning the 2006 trip to Mexico we had our sights set on southeastern Europe as a possible next venue. There were many reasons for this: the close proximity of so many different religious communities (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox); the rich and varied practices of worship, music, and arts within those cultures; and, of course, our daily access here at Yale to one of the world’s great theologians, Miroslav Volf, who calls that part of the world home. You have already met our guide, Prof. Ivica Novakovic, who wrote about the trip in the last issue of Prism. Prof. Novakovic, himself Croatian, was introduced to us by Miroslav Volf, and in live there. We were deeply touched by the openness the course of one and generosity of our hosts who were consistently short year became willing not only to communicate the facts of their our collaborator, lives, but also the feelings. The people we met colleague, and friend. were brave and forthright in their sharing of what He worked with a it has meant to be Serbian, Bosniak, or Croatian, planning committee particularly in recent years. of faculty and For my part, I look back on this trip with great students to construct thankfulness. As well as to those who hosted us an itinerary that during the trip itself, I owe a debt of gratitude to would put students in our wonderful staff, particularly to Andrea Hart contact with people in and Laura Chilton who supported the trip quite their own disciplines, literally every step of the way; and to the planning while at the same committee that included Profs. Brooks, Rathey, time introducing and Spinks and students. Louise Johnson, formerly them to those in on the ISM staff and now working free-lance, various walks of life. provided valuable advance logistical research and In my opening remarks of the year, I suggested arrangements. And most of all, I am grateful to our that the primary benefits of the trip would be in beloved Ivo Novakovic and to his wife Lidija, whose our yearlong preparation for it through listening indefatigable persistence and good will created the to music, watching videos, looking at art, hearing kind of experience by which lives are changed.