TY - JOUR
AU - Doherty,, Seán
AB - Abstract The Scottish composer James MacMillan has denied the use of programmatic elements in his Fourth Symphony (2015), insisting that the work is ‘essentially abstract’. This study, however, reveals the work to be the Roman Catholic Mass, to use MacMillan’s own phrase, ‘transubstantiated’ into music. I explicate this programme by the identification of pre-existing music heard throughout the symphony—that of the sixteenth-century Scottish composer Robert Carver, plainchant, liturgical recitative, Jewish cantillation, Wagner, and self-quotation—which combine to form a chain of quotation and allusion that aligns exactly with the elements of the Eucharistic liturgy. The aim of this analysis is not merely to reduce the work to a ground-plan of liturgical correspondences, but to give it its due as a profound meditation on the subjective experience of sacred ritual. I consider the reception of the symphony and contextualize the work within the composer’s campaign to improve Catholic liturgical music in general. Sir James MacMillan (1959−) is internationally acclaimed as a foremost composer of concert music.1 His substantial catalogue of orchestral and choral music is extensively performed and recorded by professional and amateur ensembles, and his work is frequently the focus of festivals and retrospectives.2 Aside from his distinguished reputation as a composer and conductor, he is also one of Scotland’s best-known and most outspoken lay Roman Catholics, whose high-profile and long-term personal involvement in the country’s cultural, civil, and religious life has, it has been argued, informed Scottish Catholic identity itself.3 The composer was also actively involved with Catholic liturgical music at a local level, having established the parish choir of St Columba’s Church in Maryhill, Glasgow, in 2005.4 MacMillan has always been candid when discussing the significant influence of his faith on his artistic practice,5 despite his perception of a liberal establishment in the Arts that is strongly hostile towards expressions of religiosity.6 Religious themes are to the fore in MacMillan’s output, which includes many large-scale concert works for chorus and orchestra that are settings of the major texts of Christian sacred music, including Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), St John Passion (2007), Credo (2011), St Luke Passion (2012 − 13), Stabat mater (2015), and A European Requiem (2015). Religious themes also permeate his purely instrumental music: Ninian (1996), a concerto for clarinet and orchestra, depicts scenes from the life of St Ninian, an important figure in Scottish ecclesiastical history; his Third Symphony, ‘Silence’, is based on the Shusaku Endo novel of the same name, which tells the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to seventeenth-century Japan, and who endures persecution in the time of Kakure Kirishitan (‘Hidden Christians’). Among these diverse religious stimuli, the Catholic liturgy has been a special source of inspiration for the composer, who has incorporated liturgical elements into pieces such as Veni Veni Emmanuel (1992), Epiclesis (1993), Kiss on Wood (1994), Cello Concerto (1996), The World’s Ransoming (1996), Symphony No. 1 ‘Vigil’ (1997), Fourteen Little Pictures (1997), and the Third Piano Concerto, ‘The Mysteries of Light’ (2008). The use of quotation is a habitual feature of MacMillan’s compositional style; instances of quotation in his output have been estimated to outnumber those in that of the arch-borrower Mahler.7 MacMillan’s quotations are drawn from throughout the canon of Western Art music (from Allegri to Bach, Berio, Britten, Donizetti, Mozart, Haydn, Musorgsky, Tallis, Tchaikovsky, Victoria, and, as will be discussed presently, Wagner), as well as from folksongs, anthems, and traditional music.8 Gregorian chant is a rich source of material for the composer, and one that is especially relevant to his Fourth Symphony:9 I quote chant, I elude [sic] to it, I fragment it, I dissect it, I use it as the building blocks, the DNA, of larger structures. It obviously means a lot to me. It is a kind of perfect music. I also feel I am rooting myself in something very deep culturally and spiritually. I feel I am plugging into a rich seam because, not only is Gregorian chant the most perfect music melodically, it is also the music that singly most characterises Catholic musical tradition and which carries the liturgy and theology behind the chant.10 It is essential, therefore, to consider MacMillan’s use of chant beyond its merely totemic significance: it serves as an organizing principle in both small- and large-scale musical structures, and conveys referential meaning according to its liturgical use, theological import, and historical context within the Catholic musical tradition. In addition to allusions to the music of other composers, MacMillan frequently references his own works.11 It has been estimated that at least two-fifths of his published works share some musical material.12 For example, MacMillan’s melody ‘The Tryst’, has appeared in no fewer than eleven different guises since its original presentation in 1984.13 The melody has accumulated referential meaning with each new, often incongruous context, from its original conception as a folk-inspired setting of an erotic poem by William Soutar, to its reincarnation as the ‘Sanctus’ of the St Anne’s Mass (1985), to the stately climax of the St John Passion (2007).14 Though MacMillan’s use of pre-existing music is extensive, he does not resort to self-quotation for the sake of expediency, nor does his use of quotation and allusion ever descend to mere pastiche. His use of pre-existing music has been shown to be deliberate and symbolic,15 the result of a high theology inspired by the passage from Genesis in which God, having fashioned man from earth, created a woman from one of the man’s ribs.16 MacMillan sees this passage as an analogy to the ‘eternally regenerative creative process’:17 The creativity implied in the story of Adam’s Rib has many resonances for composers who, through the centuries, have always taken fragments of material, consciously or unconsciously, from elsewhere and breathed new life into them, creating new forms, new avenues, and structures of expression. Whether these fragments are taken from liturgy, from plainsong, from folk song, from self-quotation, from allusions to other sources, from traditional cadential formulae, from half-remembered melodic shape, from a dimly perceived harmonic resonance, from a distant pulse of rhythm—they are all like embers of an old fire, extracted and gathered up, and wafted into a new flame.18 For MacMillan, therefore, to create new music through the recombination of pre-existing material is, in itself, a deeply theological act. MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony was premiered on 3 August 2015 at the Royal Albert Hall by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Donald Runnicles, to whom the composer dedicated the work in celebration of his fellow Scot’s sixtieth birthday.19 This was MacMillan’s fortuitous return to the symphonic form after a hiatus of more than a decade;20 fortuitous because, by his own admission, this work is an ‘orchestral piece that turned into a symphony. … I had the feeling that I wanted to write a big, abstract work, and it made sense for it to become a symphony’.21 MacMillan’s insistence on describing the piece as ‘abstract’ was noted by David Kettle when interviewing the composer in advance of the world premiere: ‘He [MacMillan] repeatedly uses the word “abstract” to define his new work, as if keen to stress that the symphony isn’t “about” anything.’22 MacMillan also emphasized this point in an essay on Beethoven’s influence on the symphonic tradition, in which he drew a parallel between himself and Vaughan Williams, who having both written three programmatic symphonies, opted for an abstract fourth.23 MacMillan has used an element of extra-musical narrative in the majority of his instrumental music, and a truly abstract (i.e. non-programmatic) work would have been exceptional in the composer’s mature orchestral output.24 His earlier usage of the term ‘abstract’ appears to be inconsistent with its standard definition, specifically the meaning that refers to ‘instrumental music which is not intended to be illustrative or representational in any way’—a definition shared by the term ‘absolute music’.25 Music of this type is typically understood to be wholly self-referential.26 For MacMillan, however, for a work to be characterized as abstract does not preclude the inclusion of the extra-musical: ‘Some of the more abstract works that I write do have a kind of extra-musical dimension—a theological nature, sometimes text-based sometimes image based.’27 Nor does the term ‘abstract’ preclude references to pre-existing music. MacMillan has used the term to characterize his early Piano Sonata, despite the piece containing, as will be discussed below, allusions to the ‘Tristan’ chord: ‘Some of it has become more abstract. There are two piano sonatas, cello sonatas and a horn quintet where there’s nothing extra—no theological context.’28 MacMillan, rather, uses the term ‘abstract’ to refer to instrumental works which have no explicit theological inspiration: ‘When lovers of music talk about the “spirit” of the arts, they mean all music, not just music that’s been inspired by liturgy or theology. It’s the purely abstract works as well.’29 In preparation for writing his Fourth Symphony , MacMillan conducted research on the subject of liturgy by consulting two relevant secondary sources, in order to situate his personal understanding of the liturgy amid a broader philosophical and historical context. For him, this research could, and indeed should, inform this overtly abstract work, owing to the importance of the subject to the composer, while the work itself remained autonomous and self-contained: In the writing of my recent symphony, the Fourth Symphony, which is, as I say, a purely musical abstract work, I did read around a lot of what liturgy was about. The two very different books, one is quite difficult, impenetrable, philosophical study of liturgy and culture, and the other is more of a kind of exploration of the roots of liturgy. But in their different ways they provided a kind of bedrock for my thinking before I started writing the piece of music. I suppose what was important to me, I began to realize, is if liturgy is such a big thing for me, and it has been practically, but also in my reading and thoughts, then could it impact on a purely abstract work? And it should, really. But how it does is a matter that I’m still working out.30 The present analysis reveals that liturgy, indeed, has had a strong impact on MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony, but this impact, consequently, has invalidated the composer’s claim that the piece remains ‘purely abstract’. In this work, MacMillan has created numerous passages that may be interpreted as directly illustrative of the formal, historical, and theological considerations formed by his practical involvement with liturgy, his contextual research on the subject, and his own personal philosophy. He draws out the formal structure of the liturgy as two phases (the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist) punctuated by three occasions of movement (at the start, middle, and end), by using the same processional music for each occasion. He highlights the textual and formal resonances between the outer sections of the Mass Ordinary, the Kyrie and Sanctus, by reversing the music of the first section in the final section. He draws attention to the shared history of Christian and Jewish liturgical chant by using signifiers of both traditions in the section representative of the Liturgy of the Word. He provides musical representations of various concepts in Eucharistic theology that are embedded in the liturgical elements, such as the Eucharistic adoration during the Elevation, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and of the doctrine of consubstantiality contained in the Trinitarian formula, which is spoken while making the gesture of the ‘Sign of the Cross’. It is misleading, therefore, to characterize the Fourth Symphony either as ‘purely abstract’ or as ‘essentially abstract’, as MacMillan has done, because this is a strongly representational work that possesses a well-defined, albeit somewhat submerged, liturgically inspired programme. In the programme note, however, MacMillan denied the use of programmatic elements. He acknowledged the incorporation of two referential elements in this symphony, which is consistent with his own usage of the term ‘abstract’: the idea of music as ritual, and quotations of music by the Renaissance-era Scottish composer Robert Carver.31 The term ‘ritual’ is used here in a broad sense, and without the specification of any particular ritual: My earlier three symphonies employed programmatic elements, whether exploring poetic imagery or literary references, but this new work is essentially abstract. I’m interested here in the interplay of different types of material, following upon a fascination with music as ritual that has stretched from Monteverdi in the early 17th century through to Boulez and Birtwistle in the present day.32 MacMillan proceeds to offer an interpretative framework for the symphony, as the interplay of four archetypes: There are four distinct archetypes in the symphony, which can be viewed as rituals of movement, exhortation, petition and joy. These four ideas are juxtaposed in quick succession from the outset, over the first five minutes or so. As the work progresses these can be individually developed in an organic way, or can co-mingle, or they can be opposed and argumentative.33 The composer’s use of personification and the term ‘organic’ gives the impression that these archetypes are semi-independent actors with their own agency in a symphonic eco-system; this analysis will demonstrate that each archetype is a quotation of, or an allusion to, pre-existing music, which is deployed in a highly systematic way in order to advance a coherent programmatic narrative. The composer’s interpretative framework has been noted and accepted by critics and commentators, who were generally favourable in their reception of the work,34 though one expressed exasperation as to the meaning of the Carver quotations: ‘What these intrusions [the Carver quotations] contribute or represent is impossible to fathom in the midst of MacMillan’s otherwise imaginatively generous music.’35 A uniquely perceptive interpretation of the symphony appeared, not in the broadsheet reviews nor on the new-music blogs, but in the pages of the Catholic Herald. Matthew J. C. Ward inferred the liturgical basis of the work, through his identification of the plainchant Os justi meditabitur, the Gloria incipit from Missa de Angelis, the tones for liturgical chant, and the plainchant Sanctus and Pater noster, describing it as ‘not only a stunning piece of music but also an extended meditation on being at Mass’.36 The favourable, if somewhat muted, reception by established contemporary-music critics was in contrast to the extravagant praise lavished on the symphony by the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Damian Thompson, who enthused that MacMillan’s ‘Fourth [symphony] is a masterpiece; perhaps the first great symphony written by anyone since the death of Shostakovich’.37 He continued: ‘That it should also be a meditation on the Mass demonstrates that our Catholic heritage can be refreshed in an entirely original way.’38 Indeed, the magazine cited this symphony in particular when honouring MacMillan with its inaugural award of the title ‘Catholic of the Year’.39 I will argue that the Carver quotations are better understood as part of a continuous chain of quotations of, and allusions to, specific pre-existing music, which, when taken as a whole, parallels the liturgy of the Pauline Mass, the post-Tridentine Mass promulgated by Paul VI. This reflects MacMillan’s previously articulated priority when using extra-musical stimuli, that the stimulus be ‘transformed, or transubstantiated, if you like, into the musical … the pure musical, and that one is the same as the other’.40 Indeed, the Fourth Symphony represents a continuity and development of MacMillan’s approach to liturgical stimulus, programmatic elements, pre-existing music as deployed in his previous chamber and orchestral music,41 rather than a departure, as he implied in his essay on Beethoven and the symphonic tradition.42 The symphony, in fact, exemplifies MacMillan’s approach to incorporating liturgical ritual that he adopted in his triptych of works for Rostropovitch and the London Symphony Orchestra, entitled Triduum: ‘It’s not to say that the music is simply a mirror of liturgy. It takes liturgy as the starting point and allows the music to develop its own drama.’43 These quotations and allusions can be combined in the form of a table, which aligns exactly with the corresponding liturgical sections of the ‘Order of Mass’ in the Missal of Paul VI (see Table 1). Table 1 Chronological Use of Quotation / Allusion in MacMillan Symphony No. 4, and the Corresponding Sections of the ‘Order of Mass’ in the Missal of Paul VI.a Bar Quotation / Allusion Mass Section Mass Part Sign of Cross 1–27 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Entrance procession Introductory Rites X 28–35 Festive tone Penitential Rite 35–82 Dum sacrum mysterium / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Kyrie 82–98 Gloria incipit, Missa de Angelis Gloria 98–163 Carver, ‘Gloria’ 163–74 Festive tone Collect 174–85 Prophecy tone First Reading Liturgy of the Word 185–225 Cantillation Psalm X 225–48 Epistle tone Second Reading 248–91 Gospel Acclamation Gospel Acclamation X 292–326 Liturgical chant Gospel 326–84 Carver, ‘Credo’ Credo 385–418 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Offertory Procession Liturgy of the Eucharist X 418–33 Eucharistic Doxology Eucharistic Prayer 433–56 ‘Sanctus’, Missa Deus Genitor alme Sanctus 456–99 Carver, ‘Sanctus’ 499–537 MacMillan, St Luke Passion Words of Institution X 538–55 Wagner, Tristan und Isolde 556–65 ‘Pater noster’ chant Pater noster 565–603 ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’ chant / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Agnus Dei 603–755 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant CommunionProcession X Bar Quotation / Allusion Mass Section Mass Part Sign of Cross 1–27 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Entrance procession Introductory Rites X 28–35 Festive tone Penitential Rite 35–82 Dum sacrum mysterium / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Kyrie 82–98 Gloria incipit, Missa de Angelis Gloria 98–163 Carver, ‘Gloria’ 163–74 Festive tone Collect 174–85 Prophecy tone First Reading Liturgy of the Word 185–225 Cantillation Psalm X 225–48 Epistle tone Second Reading 248–91 Gospel Acclamation Gospel Acclamation X 292–326 Liturgical chant Gospel 326–84 Carver, ‘Credo’ Credo 385–418 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Offertory Procession Liturgy of the Eucharist X 418–33 Eucharistic Doxology Eucharistic Prayer 433–56 ‘Sanctus’, Missa Deus Genitor alme Sanctus 456–99 Carver, ‘Sanctus’ 499–537 MacMillan, St Luke Passion Words of Institution X 538–55 Wagner, Tristan und Isolde 556–65 ‘Pater noster’ chant Pater noster 565–603 ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’ chant / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Agnus Dei 603–755 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant CommunionProcession X aAdapted from Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 307. View Large Table 1 Chronological Use of Quotation / Allusion in MacMillan Symphony No. 4, and the Corresponding Sections of the ‘Order of Mass’ in the Missal of Paul VI.a Bar Quotation / Allusion Mass Section Mass Part Sign of Cross 1–27 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Entrance procession Introductory Rites X 28–35 Festive tone Penitential Rite 35–82 Dum sacrum mysterium / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Kyrie 82–98 Gloria incipit, Missa de Angelis Gloria 98–163 Carver, ‘Gloria’ 163–74 Festive tone Collect 174–85 Prophecy tone First Reading Liturgy of the Word 185–225 Cantillation Psalm X 225–48 Epistle tone Second Reading 248–91 Gospel Acclamation Gospel Acclamation X 292–326 Liturgical chant Gospel 326–84 Carver, ‘Credo’ Credo 385–418 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Offertory Procession Liturgy of the Eucharist X 418–33 Eucharistic Doxology Eucharistic Prayer 433–56 ‘Sanctus’, Missa Deus Genitor alme Sanctus 456–99 Carver, ‘Sanctus’ 499–537 MacMillan, St Luke Passion Words of Institution X 538–55 Wagner, Tristan und Isolde 556–65 ‘Pater noster’ chant Pater noster 565–603 ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’ chant / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Agnus Dei 603–755 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant CommunionProcession X Bar Quotation / Allusion Mass Section Mass Part Sign of Cross 1–27 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Entrance procession Introductory Rites X 28–35 Festive tone Penitential Rite 35–82 Dum sacrum mysterium / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Kyrie 82–98 Gloria incipit, Missa de Angelis Gloria 98–163 Carver, ‘Gloria’ 163–74 Festive tone Collect 174–85 Prophecy tone First Reading Liturgy of the Word 185–225 Cantillation Psalm X 225–48 Epistle tone Second Reading 248–91 Gospel Acclamation Gospel Acclamation X 292–326 Liturgical chant Gospel 326–84 Carver, ‘Credo’ Credo 385–418 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant Offertory Procession Liturgy of the Eucharist X 418–33 Eucharistic Doxology Eucharistic Prayer 433–56 ‘Sanctus’, Missa Deus Genitor alme Sanctus 456–99 Carver, ‘Sanctus’ 499–537 MacMillan, St Luke Passion Words of Institution X 538–55 Wagner, Tristan und Isolde 556–65 ‘Pater noster’ chant Pater noster 565–603 ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’ chant / ‘Kyrie’, Missa Orbis factor Agnus Dei 603–755 ‘Os justi meditabitur’, chant CommunionProcession X aAdapted from Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 307. View Large PROCESSIONS The theme that MacMillan identified in his programme notes as the archetype of ‘movement’ is the plainchant Os justi meditabitur.44 The text of this plainchant is a verse from Psalm 37: ‘The mouth of the just meditates on wisdom, and his tongue speaks of justice.’45 This plainchant melody functions as an introit in the Gregorian repertory: a fragment of a psalm that, with its antiphon, is sung to accompany the procession of the celebrant and ministers as they enter the church and approach the altar. MacMillan uses this plainchant three times during the symphony, and on each occasion it is used to represent a procession within the Eucharistic liturgy: the entrance procession (horn 1 and cor anglais, bb. 14–27); the offertory procession (horn 1 and cor anglais, bb. 402–15); the Communion procession (horn 1–4 and bassoon, bb. 650–738). The chant Os justi meditabitur is found in the Common of the Saints, a division of the Missal and Breviary that contains Masses and Offices for all those saints who have not had special ones assigned to them.46 This text has two usages in the Gregorian repertory: as a gradual in the Common of the Doctors of the Church,47 and as an introit in both the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop and the Common of an Abbot.48 In his depiction of the entrance procession, MacMillan quotes the first two phrases of the Introit Os justi meditabitur, transposed up a tone and retaining the stresses of the original chant (Ex. 1).49 Ex. 1 View largeDownload slide (a) Os justi meditabitur, plainchant. Liber usualis (1961), 1200; (b) MacMillan, Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 14–26 Ex. 1 View largeDownload slide (a) Os justi meditabitur, plainchant. Liber usualis (1961), 1200; (b) MacMillan, Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 14–26 An extra spoken prayer distinguishes the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop and the Common of an Abbot, which is not in evidence in the music of the symphony. This chant, and consequently this symphony, celebrates the feast of a possible thirty-four people. A saint of special interest in this group is St Columba. St Columba may be a hidden third person to whom this symphony is dedicated, along with Runnicles and Carver, for the following three reasons: he is a figurehead in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland; MacMillan has based other works on the life of this saint, or texts attributed to him;50 MacMillan was the choir director at the parish of St Columba’s in Maryhill, Glasgow, to which many of his other works have been dedicated and where they have been premiered.51 It is conceivable, therefore, that this symphony is intended as a musical ‘transubstantiation’ of the Mass for the feast of St Columba.52 The offertory procession is the point in the liturgy at which the bread and wine are presented for consecration, and marks the transition between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.53 Here, MacMillan repeats the opening of the symphony, now transposed up a major sixth. The Os justi meditabitur chant forms part of this recapitulation: at the opening, the chant has its finalis on e′, and in the recapitulation, the finalis is on c♯′.54 The second occurrence of this chant represents the offertory procession, as the gifts are conveyed to the altar. This large-scale repetition may have caused some listeners to hear this section as a false recapitulation, and thus view the symphony as a ‘variant on traditional sonata form’.55 The repetition of the chant is more coherent within the programme of the symphony, however, when it is understood as connecting three occasions of procession in the Eucharistic liturgy: the movement of the celebrants into the church (introit); the movement of the gifts towards the altar (offertory); and the movement of the communicants towards the altar to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist (Communion). This interpretation of the offertory procession is supported by the contracted quotation of the plainchant of the Eucharistic doxology (‘Through him, with him, and in him … ’) heard directly after this recapitulation (bb. 418–32), and the following Sanctus from Missa Deus Genitor alme, both of which are found in their liturgically appropriate location within the Mass (Ex. 2 and Ex. 3).56 Ex. 2 View largeDownload slide (a) Eucharistic Doxology (Graduale Romanum (Paris, 1974), 811); (b) Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 418–32 Ex. 2 View largeDownload slide (a) Eucharistic Doxology (Graduale Romanum (Paris, 1974), 811); (b) Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 418–32 The Communion procession is the point in the liturgy at which the congregants come forward to receive the consecrated bread and wine. In the liturgy, this procession is heralded by the ringing of bells, which MacMillan represents with the small, high triangle, which pierces through the unison cello and double-bass melody (bb. 618–33).57 The Os justi meditabitur chant is heard in augmentation in the tutti horns and doubled in the bassoon (bb. 650–720) before the incipit is fragmented and developed in a rising chromatic sequence (bb. 721–34), until the original transposition is reached. This return to the original transposition signals that the archetype of movement has reached its final destination: the sacrament of the Eucharist, the climax of the communicants’ participation in the liturgy and the climax of the symphony. introductory rites The archetype that MacMillan identified as ‘exhortation’ is an allusion to the liturgical chant for prayers, specifically the Festive tone (bb. 28–34).58 Common tones are chanted on a monotone (recto tono) and use inflections of one or more pitches that occur at key points in the text.59 These inflections may occur in a sentence at a minor break (the flexa), the principal break (the metrum), and at the end of a sentence (the punctum).60 The Festive tone uses three inflections: the flexa falls a semitone from the reciting tone after the final stressed syllable; the metrum falls stepwise by two notes before the final stressed syllable, which resumes the reciting tone; the punctum is sung recto tono.61 When a single melodic line is isolated (see Ex. 4), it may be seen that MacMillan uses the inflections in the order flexa, metrum, flexa, metrum—implying that this melody was based on a chant text that consists of two moderately long sentences, both containing phrase breaks. At its first presentation, the Festive tone represents the Penitential Rite, and it is noteworthy that Formula B for the Penitential Rite has the same construction: (Priest): Have mercy on us, Lord. (Congregation): For we have sinned against you. Show us, O Lord, your mercy. And grant us your salvation. The Festive tone is primarily associated with the Collect, or Opening Prayer, which comes after the Gloria as the last section of the Introductory Rites. It may be seen that MacMillan reprises the Festive tone at this liturgically correct location (flute and clarinet, bb. 163–74 with reciting tone on e♭″′). After this reprisal of the Festive-tone allusion comes the first instance in the symphony of MacMillan’s direct quotation of Robert Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium. Ex. 3 View largeDownload slide (a). Sanctus, Missa Deus Genitor alme, Mass XVIII (Parish Book of Chant, 14); (b) Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 433–43; (c) Symphony No. 4, tpt. (C) 1, bb. 449–50 Ex. 3 View largeDownload slide (a). Sanctus, Missa Deus Genitor alme, Mass XVIII (Parish Book of Chant, 14); (b) Symphony No. 4, hn. (F) 1, bb. 433–43; (c) Symphony No. 4, tpt. (C) 1, bb. 449–50 Ex. 4 View largeDownload slide (a) Festive tone (adapted from Heckenlively, Fundamentals, 110–12); (b) Symphony No. 4, cl. 1, bb. 28–34 Ex. 4 View largeDownload slide (a) Festive tone (adapted from Heckenlively, Fundamentals, 110–12); (b) Symphony No. 4, cl. 1, bb. 28–34 robert carver’s mass dum sacrum mysterium MacMillan describes this symphony as a homage to the sixteenth-century Scottish composer Robert Carver, whose music he had admired since performing it as a student.62 The quotations of Carver, however, may be read, not merely as a homage to an admired composer, but as part of a long-standing mission by the composer to rectify the perceived creative void caused by the deleterious influence of the Scottish Reformation and Calvinism,63 as outlined in his controversial speech highlighting anti-Catholic prejudice, entitled ‘Scotland’s Shame’: If I have a mission I think it must involve acts of remembrance, of recollection, of rediscovery of the past or a re-animation of our heritage, of a reawakening of our culture. There has been a forgetting of our past with the result that modern-day Scotland lacks proper cultural roots. In contrast to England, the received history of our nation seems to be one marked by discontinuities, by breaks with, repudiation, and ultimately, denial of the past. The greatest such discontinuity within cultural memory is, of course, the Reformation. 1560 became year zero marking the beginning of a cultural revolution—and one could draw interesting parallels between Mao Tse-tung and John Knox, Pol Pot and Andrew Melville (well, perhaps not). This cultural revolution involved a violent repudiation of art and music from which it could be argued we have not fully recovered. So a Scottish composer like myself is left with only fragments of a broken past. All that we have left from distinctively Scottish music are the remnants of plainsong, such works of the Scottish Renaissance as survived the 1560 cultural revolution, Gaelic psalm singing from the Western Isles and folk singing from the lowland peasantry.64 Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, therefore, is used as a cultural touchstone, negating the arrested cultural development caused by the Scottish Reformation, and linking MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony to a Golden Age of Scottish, and, significantly, Catholic, creativity. Robert Carver or Carvor, alias Arnot (c.1484–after 1567), was a Canon of the Chapel Royal in Stirling and of the Augustinian Abbey of Scone in Perthshire.65 His biography, the subject of much speculation, is important in understanding the use of this Mass as a cultural touchstone.66 His five masses and two motets survive in the Carver choirbook, a manuscript largely in his own hand, which also contains a work by Du Fay, as well as anonymous Renaissance English and Netherlandish composers.67 Carver’s distinctive and sophisticated vocal polyphony, exuberant in decorative detail, elaborate in rhythmic complexity, has led to his acknowledgement by some as ‘Scotland’s greatest composer’.68 Carver signed various documents relating to his work at Scone Abbey, the last of which is dated 21 August 1568.69 The elderly Carver, therefore, lived through the Scottish Reformation, during which Scone Abbey was sacked by a Protestant mob, roused by the fiery preaching of the reformer John Knox—the physical embodiment of the cultural destruction wreaked by the Scottish Reformation.70 The Mass Dum sacrum mysterium is a cyclic mass for ten voices, in which each movement is unified by the plainchant from which it takes its name, the Magnificat antiphon at Vespers for the feast of St Michael the Archangel: The cantus-firmus text refers to the Last Judgement as described in the Book of Revelation, when, after the book’s seven seals are opened, at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the temple of God is opened in heaven.71 Dum sacrum mysterium cerneret Johannes, archangelus Michael tuba cecinit, ignosce domine deus noster qui aperis librum et solvis signacula eius. Alleluia. While John beheld the sacred mystery, Michael the Archangel sounded the trumpet; forgive, O Lord our God, thou that openest the Book and loosest the seals thereof. Alleluia Dum sacrum mysterium cerneret Johannes, archangelus Michael tuba cecinit, ignosce domine deus noster qui aperis librum et solvis signacula eius. Alleluia. While John beheld the sacred mystery, Michael the Archangel sounded the trumpet; forgive, O Lord our God, thou that openest the Book and loosest the seals thereof. Alleluia View Large Dum sacrum mysterium cerneret Johannes, archangelus Michael tuba cecinit, ignosce domine deus noster qui aperis librum et solvis signacula eius. Alleluia. While John beheld the sacred mystery, Michael the Archangel sounded the trumpet; forgive, O Lord our God, thou that openest the Book and loosest the seals thereof. Alleluia Dum sacrum mysterium cerneret Johannes, archangelus Michael tuba cecinit, ignosce domine deus noster qui aperis librum et solvis signacula eius. Alleluia. While John beheld the sacred mystery, Michael the Archangel sounded the trumpet; forgive, O Lord our God, thou that openest the Book and loosest the seals thereof. Alleluia View Large The Mass Dum sacrum mysterium was signed and dated by the composer as 1506, and subsequently altered to 1508, 1511, and 1513, making it Carver’s earliest extant work, regardless of the alterations of date.72 It has been suggested that the date may have been altered retrospectively to 1513 to create the impression that this work had been composed at short notice to serve at the coronation of the infant James V in the Chapel Royal at Stirling.73 The infant’s father, James IV, was killed at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513, and, according to the contemporary historian Lindsay of Pitscottie, James V was crowned ‘at Stirling the twentieth day thereafter’. This day, 29 September, is the feast of St Michael. Furthermore, the Chapel Royal at Stirling was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Michael. Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, therefore, with its plainchant cantus firmus for this feast day and Carver’s dedication of the work ‘to the honour of God and St Michael’, would have been particularly suitable for use at this coronation.74 Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium is, therefore, a symbolically potent choice of quoted material, when understood in the context of MacMillan’s stated mission: it is an acknowledged masterpiece of vocal polyphony, written by a young and ambitious composer who was familiar with the latest stylistic trends in learned music, during a flowering of native creativity before cultural development was arrested owing to the Scottish Reformation, and that may have been first performed at a decisive moment, and at an important location, in Scottish history. Furthermore, the title of the mass ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’ offers a clue as to the programme of the symphony—the sacred mystery of the Roman Catholic Mass. the mass ordinary MacMillan quotes from the Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus of Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, but not from the Agnus Dei.75 Each quotation is of the entire ten-voice texture and retains the chronological order of Carver’s Mass and, therefore, may function as a signpost by which one may orientate oneself within the musical liturgy. These quotations are placed in the background, the vocal lines ‘muted and muffled, literally in the distance’,76 as they are transferred from their original vocal parts to the back desks of muted violas, cellos, and double basses, creating an evocation of a Tudor viol consort; the cantus-firmus-bound texture of the quotations calls to mind the sonority of a lost ‘In nomine’. MacMillan quotes from Carver’s Gloria in the violas and double basses (Carver, Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, bb. 1–51 in MacMillan, Symphony No. 4, bb. 105–55); Carver’s Credo in the violas and double basses (Carver, bb. 52–71 in MacMillan, bb. 325–46) and later in the muted brass (Carver, bb. 133–50 in MacMillan, bb. 350–84)—the one occasion on which a Carver quotation is given to a different instrumental group; Carver’s Sanctus in the violas and double basses (Carver, bb. 6–30 in MacMillan, bb. 454–80; Carver, bb. 100–09 in MacMillan, bb. 489–98).77 Each quotation will now be discussed in order of appearance to demonstrate how MacMillan uses the Carver quotations to construct the Mass Ordinary. Carver’s Gloria is itself introduced by a quotation of the Gloria incipit for Solemnities and Feasts (Missa de Angelis, Mass VIII), ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’,78 transposed up a tone, to begin on d′, and first heard in Trumpet 1 and Violin 1, bb. 82–83 (Ex. 5). MacMillan identified this section as the ‘Joy’ archetype in the programme note, which accords with the celebratory nature of the text. This incipit leads to MacMillan’s quotation of Carver’s Gloria from the Mass Dum sacrum mysterium,79 which dissolves into a glissando smear after the first phrase of the cantus-firmus text, ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’, with a cadence in G minor. Some voices then begin the next phrase of the Gloria text (‘Domine Fili’) on this cadential resolution but are interrupted by the glissando smear. This suggests that MacMillan has prioritized the sense of the original cantus-firmus text (‘Dum sacrum mysterium’) over the Gloria text in this quotation. The brass conclude this quotation of Carver’s Gloria by reprising the Gloria incipit. Ex. 5 View largeDownload slide (a) Gloria incipit for Solemnities and Feasts (Missa de Angelis, Mass VIII); (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 82–3 Ex. 5 View largeDownload slide (a) Gloria incipit for Solemnities and Feasts (Missa de Angelis, Mass VIII); (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 82–3 Carver’s Credo is not introduced by any identifiable incipit, but is anticipated in the orchestral texture by repetition of the motif based on the ‘Deum de Deo’ section of Carver’s Credo. MacMillan does not quote from the beginning of this Mass section, but rather begins at the second phrase of the cantus firmus—‘cerneret Johannes’—where the cantus-firmus quotation from Carver’s Gloria had ended. This is further evidence that these quotations have been selected according to their cantus-firmus text, rather than their text in the Mass Ordinary. It is traditional that the congregation bow at the words ‘Et incarnatus est’, and rise when the celebrant rises, towards the end of the Credo.80 MacMillan represents this gesture in the music. Just before the quotation of the ‘Et incarnatus est’ passage, the quotation dissolves into a glissando smear, and, after a grand pause, Carver’s Credo resumes, now in augmentation in the muted brass, at the words ‘Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen’, to finish the quotation from Carver’s Credo. The timbral change of the quoted material, from strings to muted brass, which, significantly, occurs after the ‘Et incarnatus est’ (and by the Holy Spirit … and became man) and during the bow, may be interpreted as representing the transformation of God becoming man, yet remaining consubstantial. This passage, therefore, may be heard as directly illustrative of the doctrine of consubstantiality and is an example of MacMillan’s ‘transubstantiation’ of an extra-musical stimulus—in this case, a theological concept that is embodied by a liturgical gesture—into the purely musical. Carver’s Sanctus is introduced in the context of the Liturgy of the Eucharist by a contracted quotation of the plainchant for the Eucharistic Doxology (see Ex. 2 above),81 followed by a contracted quotation of the plainchant ‘Sanctus’ of Missa Deus Genitor alme (see Ex. 3 above).82 MacMillan begins the quotation from shortly after the start of Carver’s Sanctus, excluding the head motif that unifies the original Mass, and giving the impression of Carver’s Sanctus emerging in medias res. MacMillan has not, hitherto, altered the Carver quotations in any way, save for their translation to instrumental forces. In this quotation, however, he abruptly transposes the quoted material up a major third. This occurs at the cadence just before the entry of the cantus firmus ‘Dum sacrum mysterium’—where the cadence ought to have ended on G minor, the quotation is hauled up to B minor instead (Carver, b. 28 in MacMillan, b. 478). After the first two notes of the cantus firmus, the quotation fragments into a descending sequence in all voices. There follow three majestic string-dominated chords from which emerges the ‘Hosanna in excelsis’ section of Carver’s Sanctus, now returned to its original mode. This upwards transposition of the quoted material may represent the movement of the elevation, a ritual raising of the consecrated Host, so that the congregants may adore it.83 The three majestic string-dominated chords, accordingly, represent the ritual of elevation, which is traditionally accompanied in the liturgy by bells, provided in this passage by the aluphone, tubular bells, and tam-tam.84 This is another example of MacMillan’s ‘transubstantiation’ of an extra-musical stimulus—in this case, the practice of Eucharistic adoration and the associated the ritual of the elevation—into the purely musical. The archetype that MacMillan identified in his programme notes as ‘petition’ may be understood as the Kyrie section of the Mass Ordinary, owing to its location in the liturgical narrative, coming after the Penitential Rite and before the quotation of the Gloria incipit. The label of ‘petition’ is in accordance with the text of the Kyrie (‘Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy’), and is marked ‘pleading’ in all melodic parts. This section for divisi strings is a heterophonic development of a composite theme built from the chant Dum sacrum mysterium, the cantus firmus of Carver’s Mass, and the Kyrie from the Missa Orbis factor, a Gregorian chant setting of the Ordinary of the Mass for Sundays during the liturgical season known as Ordinary Time. The original Dum sacrum mysterium chant is in the Hypomixolydian mode on G (Ex. 6(a) and (d)), but to create this theme, MacMillan transposes the chant with the text ‘Dum sacrum’ (Ex. 6(b)), down a perfect fourth (Ex. 6(c)), and that with the text ‘Archangelus Michael’ (Ex. 6(e)) down a perfect fifth (Ex. 6(f)). Here, the quotation of the Dum sacrum chant breaks off, and, after a crotchet rest, an ornamented quotation of the Kyrie from the Missa Orbis factor (Ex. 6(g)) is heard in its original pitch of Dorian on D, transposed up an octave (Ex. 6(h)). By transposing these two phrases of the chant Dum sacrum mysterium, MacMillan retains the intervallic relationships within each phrase of the chant, while creating a cohesive theme in a Dorian/Hypodorian modality. Ex. 6 View largeDownload slide (a) Dum sacrum mysterium plainchant, first phrase (from Carver, ed. Elliott, 297); (b) Tenor of Carver, Gloria, Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, Tenor 3, bb. 37–48; (c) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 43–4; (d) Dum sacrum mysterium plainchant, second phrase; (e) Tenor of Carver Gloria, Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, Tenor 3, bb. 57–63; (f) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 45–6; (g) Kyrie, from Missa Orbis factor; (h) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 47–9 (downwards stems highlight Kyrie chant) Ex. 6 View largeDownload slide (a) Dum sacrum mysterium plainchant, first phrase (from Carver, ed. Elliott, 297); (b) Tenor of Carver, Gloria, Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, Tenor 3, bb. 37–48; (c) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 43–4; (d) Dum sacrum mysterium plainchant, second phrase; (e) Tenor of Carver Gloria, Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, Tenor 3, bb. 57–63; (f) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 45–6; (g) Kyrie, from Missa Orbis factor; (h) Symphony No. 4, vn. 1.1, bb. 47–9 (downwards stems highlight Kyrie chant) The strings play this theme in canon at the distance of a crotchet. In the violin 1 parts, this theme is repeated immediately in ascending octave transpositions and then in double augmentation; the violin 2, viola, and cello parts gradually peel away from the canon to develop the theme through increasingly independent and insistent scalar ornamentation, bariolage, trills, tremolandi, and glissandi. This alludes to the Hebridean style of liturgical singing, in which individual congregants embellish and vary the monophonic hymn tune and so create a heterophonic texture.85 MacMillan listed this traditional singing style in his stated mission to remember and rediscover distinctively Scottish music, and allusions to this style have become a recognizable feature in his oeuvre. The complete theme is heard three times in the violin 1.1 part and is underpinned by a bass line that descends chromatically. This bass line breaks off after the third, and last, complete statement of the ‘petition’ theme, echoing the tripartite structure of the Kyrie section of the Mass Ordinary (b. 72). MacMillan chooses not to quote from the Agnus Dei of Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, but finds another way to represent this section. The Kyrie section is heard in exact retrograde near the end of the symphony, between the Pater noster plainchant quotation and the Communion procession, where the Agnus Dei is located in the liturgy (bb. 43–79, in retrograde bb. 565–601). The retrograde version of the Kyrie may be understood to serve as the Agnus Dei section. In doing so, MacMillan points out the formal and thematic similarities between the texts of these outer sections of the Mass Ordinary—both sections are tripartite pleas for mercy from God. This punctuated palindrome creates a structural and thematic chiasmus, a venerable rhetorical device featuring symmetry of ideas or phrases in the form A, B, ( … ) B′ A′. The term ‘chiasmus’ refers to the resemblance of this symmetrical structure to the Greek letter chi (X), which, owing to its cross shape, and as it is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός (Christos, or Christ), is a long-established symbol for both Christ and the cross.86 In deploying this chiasmus, MacMillan symbolically draws attention to the sacrifice of Christ within the liturgical narrative. The chiasmus allows the listener to perceive the intervening narrative as a complete unit, as it frames the entire Mass Ordinary. MacMillan has discussed his use of palindromic structures: I am very concerned with palindromic structures, [and] still work with them sometimes, … I have this inkling, this suspicion, that there’s something about that kind of structure and development that brings about some kind of opening, or reassessment of material at another given point in the structure, depending on what has preceded it and what has shaped the expression of moods before it.87 The use of the structural chiasmus, therefore, encourages us to reassess the second plea for God’s mercy in the light of the intervening actions, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist—the plea is now amplified, having undergone the ritual of the Mass. the liturgy of the word MacMillan has used formulae of liturgical chant to depict the readings that form the Liturgy of the Word.88 The readings, such as the Epistle and Gospel, in a fully chanted Mass are chanted on a monotone, with inflections of one or more pitches occurring at key points in the text, similar to the liturgical-chant formulae used for the prayers.89 MacMillan has used the Prophecy tone to depict the first reading,90 and the Epistle tone ad libitum to depict the second reading.91 The Gospel section, introduced by a quotation of the Gospel Acclamation Alleluia (Mode VI),92 does not follow strictly the tone for any recitation formula,93 but rather appears to be an exaggerated version of the Prophecy tone ‘full stop’, Tonus Evangelii ‘full stop’, and the Epistle tone ad libitum ‘full stop’.94 The Prophecy tone is used to recite the first reading of the Mass, which is taken from the Old Testament (except during Easter and other exceptional occasions). This recitation formula has a flexa, dropping an interval of a semitone at the end of major clauses within a sentence; a full stop, dropping an interval of a perfect fifth at the end of every sentence; a question formula; and a concluding formula (Ex. 7(a)).95 If one isolates the Trumpet 1 (bb. 174–80), MacMillan appears to use the flexa, leaving a reciting tone on c″ to drop a semitone (b. 176), the full stop, resuming the reciting tone before dropping a perfect fifth (b. 177), the flexa again (b. 179), before giving a contour of the concluding formula (Ex. 7(b)). The Prophecy tone has a chromatically inflected final note, which remains uninflected in this allusion. No question formula is used. It may be extrapolated, therefore, that the passage of Scripture on which this section is based consists of two moderately long sentences, as the flexa may be omitted in very short sentences, or repeated several times in a long sentence.96 MacMillan’s careful use of the liturgical-chant tone suggests that this section was based on a small passage of Scripture, although the multitudinous possibilities prevent the identification of a specific Old Testament passage. Ex. 7 View largeDownload slide (a) Prophecy tone (adapted from Roman Rite, 175); (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1 only, bb. 174–80 Ex. 7 View largeDownload slide (a) Prophecy tone (adapted from Roman Rite, 175); (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1 only, bb. 174–80 The Epistle tone ad libitum, also called the Ancient ad libitum or Solemn tone, has traditionally been used to recite the second reading of the Mass, which is usually drawn from the letters of the Apostles. This tone has a metrum formula, a full-stop formula, a question formula, and a concluding formula (Ex. 8(a)).97 MacMillan uses this tone, transposed up a minor third, in a melody that uses two metrum inflections and one full-stop inflection (Ex. 8(b)). This melody is immediately repeated (bb. 236–44). The metrum in this tone is variable, subject to stress patterns in the text. One always leaves the reciting tone three syllables before the last stressed syllable. The penultimate note is repeated when the last stress does not fall on the last syllable. One may distinguish, therefore, two distinct metrum patterns in MacMillan’s use of this tone: bar 227, where the last stress does not fall on the last syllable, and so the penultimate note (d′) is repeated; bar 231, where the last stress falls on the last syllable, and so the penultimate note (d′) is not repeated. Ex. 8 View largeDownload slide (a) Epistle tone ad libitum (adapted from Roman Rite, 175); (b) Symphony No. 4, pno. only, bb. 224–32 Ex. 8 View largeDownload slide (a) Epistle tone ad libitum (adapted from Roman Rite, 175); (b) Symphony No. 4, pno. only, bb. 224–32 The full-stop inflection is also subject to the stress patterns in the text. If the penultimate stress were followed by three unstressed syllables, the antepenultimate note (b) would be repeated. In MacMillan’s usage, this note is not repeated, meaning that the penultimate stress is followed by two unstressed syllables or fewer. It is possible, therefore, to draw a number of conclusions about the passage of Scripture on which this section is based: it is a long sentence with three clauses—in the first clause, the final syllable is unstressed, in the second clause, the final syllable is stressed, and in the third clause, the penultimate stress is followed by two unstressed syllables or fewer. As in the first reading, the careful use of the liturgical-chant tone suggests that it was based on a specific verse, but one that it is not feasible to identify from the music alone with any degree of certainty. MacMillan uses a quotation of the Gospel Acclamation Alleluia (Chant Mode VI) as a signpost within the Liturgy of the Word (Ex. 9).98 This overlaps with the end of the Epistle-tone material, when muted Trumpet 1 hints at each of the three phrases of the repeated ‘Alleluia’, now transposed into C major (bb. 242–6), before all three trumpets, now without mutes, proclaim the Gospel acclamation in full (bb. 248–56). The section that depicts the Gospel reading does not use the traditional recitation chant for the reading strictly but appears to mix inflections from the Prophecy tone, the Epistle tone ad libitum, and the Tonus Evangelii, the latter of which is one of the traditional Gospel tones (Ex. 10).99 The reciting tone in this richly harmonized passage is d″, as this is the tone to which the Trumpet 1 invariably returns, notwithstanding the re-harmonization in the other voice parts. In the first phrase of this section (bb. 292–3), the chant appears to leap a descending seventh from this recitation tone, which would be impossible in the liturgical-chant repertory. If this phrase is considered within its harmonic context, however, it will be seen that it moves downwards in block chords, from G major to C major. This reflects the descending perfect fifth, which characterized the metrum of the Prophecy tone. Ex. 9 View largeDownload slide (a) ‘Alleluia’, Mode VI (Gregorian Missal, 348); (b) MacMillan, No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 242–6; (c) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1–3, bb. 248–56 Ex. 9 View largeDownload slide (a) ‘Alleluia’, Mode VI (Gregorian Missal, 348); (b) MacMillan, No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 242–6; (c) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1–3, bb. 248–56 Ex. 10 View largeDownload slide (a) Prophecy tone, Tonus Evangelii, and Epistle tone (adapted from Roman Rite, 174–5); (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 292–301 Ex. 10 View largeDownload slide (a) Prophecy tone, Tonus Evangelii, and Epistle tone (adapted from Roman Rite, 174–5); (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 292–301 The second phrase (bb. 293–4) uses the traditional full-stop inflection for the Tonus Evangelii, which descends a minor third on the fourth syllable before the end of a sentence. In the third phrase (bb. 297–8), the recitation tone (d″) is harmonized as part of a G major chord with a c in the bass, until the downwards inflection to an A major chord on the final note of the phrase, as the recitation tone falls, as in phrase 1, to e′. This suggests that this inflection, though harmonized differently, performs the same recitation-formula function as phrase 1—that of a metrum. The fourth phrase (bb. 300–1) combines a minor-third alternation of the full-stop inflection of the Tonus Evangelii with the full-stop inflection of the Epistle tone ad libitum. Though MacMillan’s depiction of the Gospel reading appears to use a variety of recitation chants, the initial phrase structure is clear (as in the preceding sections), consisting of four phrases articulated by inflections. At the end of the Gospel section, however, the chant tenor of phrases 3 and 4 is repeated and then developed in an ascending sequence in which the minor-third oscillation anticipates the opening phrase of the quotation from Carver’s Credo (bb. 302–19). MacMillan does not use an allusion to liturgical chant to depict the psalm section of the Liturgy of the Word, which occurs between the first and second readings. Rather, he alludes to Jewish cantillation by using several signifiers of this tradition,100 which point to the origins of the psalms as the biblical canticles in ancient Judaism, as well as drawing attention to the shared heritage in the parallel traditions of logogenic liturgical performance, in which the music is determined by the text.101 The psalm-chant melody (bb. 206–20, Ex. 11) is in the Ahava Rabbah liturgical mode, also known as the Freygish scale, or simply the ‘Jewish’ scale,102 with its prominent and, indeed, emphasized augmented seconds.103 The allusion to cantillation is supported by the improvisatory melodic style, which contrasts with the regular rhythm of the bass accompaniment. The melody is also replete with the ornaments and grace notes expected of a competent chazzan. Ex. 11 View largeDownload slide (a) Ahava Rabbah liturgical mode; (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 206–21: vn. 2.2, Ob. 2, Cl. 2; doubled at octave in vn. 1, vn. 2.1, fl. 1, ob. 1, vl. 1; doubled at octave below in va. Ex. 11 View largeDownload slide (a) Ahava Rabbah liturgical mode; (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 206–21: vn. 2.2, Ob. 2, Cl. 2; doubled at octave in vn. 1, vn. 2.1, fl. 1, ob. 1, vl. 1; doubled at octave below in va. MacMillan used these features as signifiers of Jewish liturgical chant when writing the role of Christus in his St John Passion (2007): ‘His [Christus’] music has an eastern, Semitic feel—lots of melismas and glissandi. I do a lot of embellished liturgical chanting myself and that’s fed directly into how I’ve treated Christus.’104 These elements, therefore, support an interpretation of this section as an allusion to Jewish psalm cantillation, in addition to its occurrence between other sections containing Catholic liturgical chant for the first and second readings. Furthermore, the bass accompaniment to this psalm-chant melody is provided by plucked cello and double bass, in a possible reference to the original Greek word ‘psalm’, which, in its use in the Septuagint and the New Testament, referred properly to a song with plucked string accompaniment.105 Also notable is the use of timbales and sizzle cymbal—a possible reference to Psalm 150: ‘Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals.’106 the liturgy of the eucharist The first three sections of the Liturgy of the Eucharist—the offertory procession, the Eucharistic doxology, and the Sanctus—have been discussed above, in relation to the Processions and the Mass Ordinary. The final quotation from Carver’s Sanctus leads directly to the Words of Institution, which MacMillan represents through the quotation of the same passage taken from his own St Luke Passion (Ex. 12).107 The role of Christus, sung by a children’s choir in MacMillan’s St Luke Passion, is given in the symphony to the cello section. The passage has been treated to only minor alterations in its translation to purely orchestral forces and retains its original key. The text of the quoted section from the St Luke Passion reads (the text excluded from this quotation is placed within square brackets): ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you from now on I shall not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ [And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying,] ‘This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after the supper, saying, ‘This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood’.108 The Words of Institution are central to the Christian understanding of the nature of the Eucharistic sacrament, as it was at the Last Supper that Jesus instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood; the words are especially important in relation to this symphony, which celebrates the Eucharistic liturgy by representing it through music. This quotation is not merely self-referential, but highly symbolic: its inclusion makes a direct connection between this key point in the Passion narrative and its ritual re-enactment as part of the Mass. This direct connection expresses the Catholic doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which holds that Jesus is substantially present in the Eucharist, and not merely symbolically or metaphorically. Ex. 12 View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide (a) MacMillan, St Luke Passion, Chapter 22, bb. 106–15; (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 499–508 Ex. 12 View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide (a) MacMillan, St Luke Passion, Chapter 22, bb. 106–15; (b) Symphony No. 4, bb. 499–508 The self-quotation breaks off after the Words of Institution and moves seamlessly into an allusion to Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In MacMillan’s St Luke Passion, the final phrase, ‘is the new covenant in my blood’, is set to an ascending D flat major scale, with the final tonic note on ‘blood’ harmonized as part of a G flat minor chord, which is held momentarily before dissolving into a chromatic cluster and continuing the Passion narrative. At the corresponding point in the Fourth Symphony, the final word of this passage, ‘blood’, is reinterpreted enharmonically and harmonized as part of an F sharp minor chord, and joined by the ethereal sound of the ringing temple bowls (bb. 534–6). MacMillan’s self-quotation from his St Luke Passion ends here. The cello section, which before had the music of the Words of Institution, now plays the ‘Look’ motif from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (Ex. 13).109 There is a further allusion to Isolde’s exclamation as she sinks upon Tristan’s breast, ‘Treuloser Holder!’ (‘Treacherous darling!’). Ex. 13 View largeDownload slide (a) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Scene v (adapted from Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Schirmer Opera Score Editions (New York: G. Schirmer, 1906), 91–2); (b) Symphony No. 4, vc., bb. 539–4 Ex. 13 View largeDownload slide (a) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Scene v (adapted from Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Schirmer Opera Score Editions (New York: G. Schirmer, 1906), 91–2); (b) Symphony No. 4, vc., bb. 539–4 MacMillan has paid musical homage to Wagner since childhood, writing a Tribute to Richard Wagner for six tubas and orchestra when he was 11 years old.110 He has continued to make reference to Wagner’s works as a mature composer, quoting widely from Der Ring des Nibelungen.111Tristan is a work of particular significance for MacMillan, and has been quoted by the composer in works spanning his entire career, including the Piano Sonata (1985), the Second Symphony (1999), and St John Passion (2007), from which the choral work Miserere (2009) was extracted.112 Though MacMillan’s fervent admiration of Wagner’s Tristan has remained constant over decades, the referential meaning of Tristan quotations has changed with time and context. A brief survey of MacMillan’s musical quotations from Tristan will contextualize the inclusion of the ‘Look’ motif in the Fourth Symphony. MacMillan’s quotations of, and allusions to, the music of Tristan prior to the Fourth Symphony have consisted of references to the ‘Tristan’ theme, or variations of it, heard in the opening bars of the Prelude, to which a huge volume of commentary is dedicated.113 This theme has traditionally been understood to consist of two separate leitmotifs, ‘Tristan’ and ‘Isolde’, whose confluence results in the ‘Tristan chord’: f−b−d♯′−g♯′ (Ex. 14(a)).114 In the early Piano Sonata, MacMillan created subtle allusions to the ‘Tristan’ chord itself (Ex. 14(b)), without reference to either leitmotiv, and with no particular referential meaning, notwithstanding the great weight of historical and cultural significance that is already attached to the ‘Tristan’ chord: ‘I was certainly aware of the allusion to Tristan in the 1985 sonata, [although] I wasn’t aware of any deep reflection on why it was there.’115 Ex. 14 View largeDownload slide (a) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Prelude, ‘Tristan’ theme: (1) ‘Tristan’ motif; (2) ‘Isolde’ motif; (3) ‘Tristan’ chord (after Scruton, Death-Devoted Heart, 200); (b) MacMillan, Piano Sonata, b. 18; (c) MacMillan, Symphony No. 2, Movement III, bb. 57–9; (d) MacMillan, St John Passion, Movement X, c.a., bb. 23–6; (e) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act III, Prelude, Variation of ‘Isolde’ motif (after Scruton, Death-Devoted Heart, 206); (f) MacMillan, Mass of the Blessed John Henry Newman, bb. 2–4 Ex. 14 View largeDownload slide (a) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Prelude, ‘Tristan’ theme: (1) ‘Tristan’ motif; (2) ‘Isolde’ motif; (3) ‘Tristan’ chord (after Scruton, Death-Devoted Heart, 200); (b) MacMillan, Piano Sonata, b. 18; (c) MacMillan, Symphony No. 2, Movement III, bb. 57–9; (d) MacMillan, St John Passion, Movement X, c.a., bb. 23–6; (e) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act III, Prelude, Variation of ‘Isolde’ motif (after Scruton, Death-Devoted Heart, 206); (f) MacMillan, Mass of the Blessed John Henry Newman, bb. 2–4 MacMillan consciously developed this Piano Sonata, including its allusions to Tristan, in his Second Symphony (1999).116 These quotations are far more explicit than in the Piano Sonata, as the ‘Tristan’ chord is heard with the ‘Isolde’ motif (the ‘Tristan’ motif is omitted). MacMillan repeatedly frustrates the expected resolution of the ‘Tristan’ chord onto a dominant-seventh chord: the harmonic foundation collapses when the strings (marked ‘sighing’) fall away into glissando smears, in the same way as the quotations from Carver dissolve mid-flow in the Fourth Symphony (Ex. 14(c)).117 These quotations had now attained a referential meaning for MacMillan: ‘When I came to the 2nd Symphony it became apparent that there was something there to be pursued. The tragic quality of the doomed love story seemed appropriate for a work that grew out of my “breach” with Scotland!’118 These subverted quotations, therefore, represent MacMillan’s dying love for his native country, owing to the issues raised by the composer in his aforementioned speech ‘Scotland’s Shame’, in which the composer initiated a heated and ongoing debate over perceived anti-Catholic prejudice in Scottish society. The referential meaning of the Tristan quotations changed owing to MacMillan’s reading of the philosopher Roger Scruton’s Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (Oxford, 2004), which has had a profound impact on the composer’s understanding of the opera.119 In his interpretation, Scruton portrays Wagner’s treatment of the Tristan legend, not as the composer’s sublimation of his love for Matilde Wesendonk, but as a profoundly religious work in which are explored themes of love, sacrifice, and redemption.120 He argues that Christ’s Passion and the passion of Tristan and Isolde share a common theme: that death can be transcended through an act of self-sacrifice. This argument is supported by Wagner’s description of the love potion as the Sühnetrank, or ‘drink of Atonement’, which is identical with that offered as part of the ritual celebration of the Eucharist in atonement for the sins of the world.121 MacMillan has acknowledged the influence of Scruton’s interpretation on his compositional output: He [Scruton] draws attention to what he describes as a kind of ‘Eucharistic’ scene in Act I of Tristan, which surprises lots of people, where they share this cup, a loving cup, a draft or potion which makes them lose their minds and memory: they fall in love at first sight straight after they drink this potion. There is a kind of communion aspect to this as well, they lose themselves to themselves, and they lose themselves to love itself, which is what the Eucharist is about. It’s a body and soul commitment to the living presence; you are taking in a divine essence in the Eucharist. And Scruton—in much more focused and developed ways than I can do—has teased this out of Tristan.122 As a consequence of Scruton’s interpretation, the referential meaning of MacMillan’s quotations from Tristan has shifted from that symbolic of a ‘doomed love story’ to that which parallels and celebrates Christ’s self-sacrifice in atonement for the sins of the world in a sacred Liebestod.123 MacMillan’s new understanding of the Tristan legend is demonstrated by his inclusion of two brief quotations of the ‘Tristan’ motif in the instrumental final movement of his St John Passion (‘Sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis’). Each quotation contains an incomplete version of the Tristan chord; it lacks the g♯′ that begins the absent ‘Isolde’ motif (Ex. 14(d)). The omission of the ‘Isolde’ motif and a complete Tristan chord may represent the distinction between the erotic sacrifice of the Tristan legend and the agapeic sacrifice of Jesus.124 MacMillan has also made reference to a variation of the ‘Isolde’ motif, heard in the Prelude to Act III of Tristan (Ex. 14(e)),125 most notably in his Mass of the Blessed John Henry Newman, a congregational setting commissioned to celebrate the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom in 2010. The machinations around this congregational setting would later cause a minor national controversy that will be discussed in the conclusion to this study. The reference, described by the singer Rebecca Tavener as the ‘elephant in the room’, is heard in the Kyrie section to the text ‘Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy’ (Ex. 14(f)).126 According to MacMillan himself, this reference has a direct continuity of meaning from the quotation of Tristan in his St John Passion. In MacMillan’s St John Passion, the quotations of the ‘Tristan’ motif are heard in a distinctive orchestral colour: the cello section and cor anglais play the motif, and are supported harmonically by tuned gongs, muted horns, and trumpets, which cover and uncover their bells with a harmon mute at different speeds. A strikingly similar orchestration is heard in MacMillan’s quotation of the ‘Look’ motif in the Fourth Symphony. (The cor anglais is omitted and another type of metallophone, the docai or temple bowls, is used in the place of tuned gongs.) This similarity in orchestration of these quotations from Tristan strengthens the connection between Jesus’ sacrifice in the Passion narrative and its remembrance during the Eucharistic ritual, in the same way as did MacMillan’s self-quotation from the St Luke Passion in the preceding section that featured the Words of Institution. The ‘Look’ motif has a special significance in the dramatic narrative of Wagner’s Tristan, as it is to this motif that Tristan and Isolde sing each other’s names upon returning to consciousness after drinking the Sühnetrank. Whereas MacMillan’s quotation of the ‘Tristan’ motif in the St John Passion drew attention to Christ’s self-sacrifice as a sacred Liebestod, his quotation of the ‘Look’ motif in the Fourth Symphony adds a focus on the Eucharistic nature of the Sühnetrank. The transition from the self-quotation from the St Luke Passion and the allusion to the Sühnetrank scene from Tristan hinges on the harmonic recontextualization of the word ‘blood’ from the St Luke Passion, suggesting that it is the transformed ‘blood’ that is the ‘drink of Atonement’. MacMillan’s quotation of this motif, after the self-quotation of the Words of Institution from the St Luke Passion, allows a meditation on the nature of the Eucharist during what may be understood as the point of transubstantiation—a moment of great significance in the liturgical narrative, at which the wine is changed into the blood of Christ. This understanding is supported by the subsequent quotation of the first two phrases of the plainchant Pater noster, which is in its liturgically appropriate location (Ex. 15).127 Ex. 15 View largeDownload slide (a) Pater noster, plainchant; (b) Symphony No. 4, tbn. 1, bb. 556–61 Ex. 15 View largeDownload slide (a) Pater noster, plainchant; (b) Symphony No. 4, tbn. 1, bb. 556–61 the sign of the cross A motif occurs at key points in the symphony that is not immediately identifiable within the liturgical narrative. This motif is first heard at the opening, against the tolling bells that call the congregants to worship and before any of MacMillan’s identified archetypes. This eight-note motif has the trappings of a subdued ceremonial fanfare and is heard most prominently in the Trumpet 1 part, calling to mind the trumpet of Michael the Archangel as described in the cantus-firmus text of Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium (Ex. 16(a)). I will refer to this motif as the ‘fanfare’ motif. Unlike the other motifs, themes, and textures in the symphony, it is seemingly not derived from any pre-existing music. When repeated, the pitches of the original motif are used in cyclical permutation—the second statement begins on the third note of the first statement (d♯″), and the third statement begins on the second note of the second statement (b′)—while the rhythms of each statement remain the same. The isorhythm and the cyclical permutation end at the same point, halfway through the third statement of both (b. 12). Ex. 16 View largeDownload slide (a) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 6–13, ‘Greeting’; (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 2, bb. 206–14, ‘Psalm’; (c) Symphony No. 4, hn., bb. 248–58, ‘Gospel Acclamation’; (d) Symphony No. 4, xyl. 1 and 2, bb. 665–70; 3: bb. 681–5, ‘Communion’; (e) Symphony No. 4, xyl. (doubled at octave fl., picc., ob., cl., vn. 1 & 2), bb. 267–71, ‘Triple Sign of the Cross’ Ex. 16 View largeDownload slide (a) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 1, bb. 6–13, ‘Greeting’; (b) Symphony No. 4, tpt. 2, bb. 206–14, ‘Psalm’; (c) Symphony No. 4, hn., bb. 248–58, ‘Gospel Acclamation’; (d) Symphony No. 4, xyl. 1 and 2, bb. 665–70; 3: bb. 681–5, ‘Communion’; (e) Symphony No. 4, xyl. (doubled at octave fl., picc., ob., cl., vn. 1 & 2), bb. 267–71, ‘Triple Sign of the Cross’ The fanfare motif is heard again in the strings after the section that represents the first reading—once more against the dotted-crotchet rhythm of the opening bells, now sounded ominously in the timpani and bass drum (bb. 185–202)—in the Violin 1 part, in brief canon with the Violin 2, and in augmentation in the Viola. The motif is developed freely, eschewing both isorhythm and cyclical permutation, but retains its prominent intervals of the oscillating minor third and perfect fifth. At the cantillation-like melody in the psalm section, the fanfare motif is heard in the horn and trumpet parts (Ex. 16(b)), in a complete set of three statements which use the permutation row and retain the rhythmic outline, but without the exact isorhythmic construction of the first occurrence (bb. 206–14). A complete set of three statements of the fanfare motif is heard against the quotation of the Gospel acclamation (bb. 248–57), which retains the permutation row and a similar pattern in rhythm, but does not use exact isorhythm (Ex. 16(c)). After the Gospel-acclamation chant ends, and just before the ‘Gospel’ section, the fanfare motif is subjected to fragmentation and development in a virtuosic passage for unison woodwind, violins, and xylophone, in which the three statements are heard once (Ex. 16(d), bb. 267–71), and are followed by an additional occurrence of the first statement of this set (b. 279). The fanfare motif is heard as part of the recapitulation of the opening section at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist (bb. 394–401). The final occurrence is during the Communion procession, where the motif punctuates the Os justi meditabitur chant. This occurrence uses the same pitches as the occurrence at the opening, and is the only other example (notwithstanding the recapitulation during the Liturgy of the Word) of an exact isorhythmic structure (Ex. 16(e), bb. 665–82). The fanfare motif occurs at points in the liturgy where the gesture of the ‘Sign of the Cross’ is made: at the Greeting, before the Gospel, during the Eucharistic prayer, when blessing oneself upon receiving Communion. Furthermore, the extended development of this motif, after the quotation of the Gospel acclamation, is in the location at which the triple Sign of the Cross is made. (It is Catholic tradition that the Sign of the Cross be made on the forehead, on the lips, and on the heart before hearing the Gospel.) In the use of the cyclic permutation and of isorhythm, each full set of three statements of the fanfare motif has clear Trinitarian overtones, in that all three statements are ‘consubstantial’ in their musical construction, which further supports the interpretation of this motif as representative of the Sign of the Cross gesture. The occurrences of the fanfare motif after the first reading (bb. 185–202) and during the psalm (bb. 206–20) may be regarded as retaining their referential association with the Trinity. conclusion This study shows MacMillan’s quotation of, and allusions to, pre-existing music to be highly deliberate, systematic, and symbolic, and to form a structure that is entirely coherent when understood in relation to the Pauline Mass. It also shows MacMillan’s proposed interpretative framework of the four archetypes (movement, petition, exhortation, and joy) to be lacking in explanatory power, and his characterization of the symphony as ‘essentially abstract’ to be misleading. MacMillan has admitted appealing to abstraction in order to fudge questions about the sources of his own inspiration, which would naturally include the consideration of a theological stimulus, a programmatic narrative, or extra-musical elements: Most of the time it’s easy to hide behind answers which tackle the abstract nature of music. Most composers, myself included, devise methods of channeling attention towards impressive-looking charts complete with complicated note rows, fibonacci series and Schenkerian-style structural analyses. Music is, after all, the most abstract of all the arts.128 MacMillan’s proposed interpretative framework may be one such method of directing attention towards the abstract and diverting attention from the true stimulus of the work, the Pauline Mass. If the intended function of this interpretative framework was to divert attention away from the work’s liturgical programme, then it has been successful: established critics have accepted MacMillan’s conception of the work as abstract and have reported his interpretative framework, without comment, in their reviews.129 By contrast, the feature in the Catholic Herald makes no mention of the abstract nature of the work, nor of MacMillan’s proposed interpretative framework, and correctly treats the work as representational of the sequential sections of the liturgy.130 MacMillan had prior experience of such a divided reception from the premiere of his Third Piano Concerto, ‘The Mysteries of Light’ (2011), which is based on the Rosary meditations of the same name. He noticed the tendency for music critics at the elite broadsheets to be oblivious to the religious references, while, one assumes, ordinary Catholics with no special musicological training were finely attuned to them: One of the first reviews [of Piano Concerto No. 3], in the Pioneer Press [a daily broadsheet newspaper in Saint Paul, Minnesota], a nice one, nevertheless seemed baffled by all the religious references. The reviewer heard nothing of their application, but this didn’t seem to interfere with his facility for engaging with the music. Would his readers want him to be more knowledgeable on these matters? Would they have learned more about the music if he had been able to communicate the connections between the prayers and the resulting music? Who knows. But I was at the performance with a bunch of American friends who got every reference, number symbolism and transition, from all the Gregorian quotes and allusions, to the scriptural picture-painting to the reason why the fast coda was so brief (or as perfunctory as the Guardian or the Scotsman will no doubt say). Who got more out of the concerto, then? The guys who knew their Rosary, or the musicologist who knew nothing about it? The answer to MacMillan’s question, judging by the reception of the Fourth Symphony, would appear to be the former. The reception of both liturgically based works, divided between extremely positive reviews from those who appreciated the religious references and more tepid reviews from those who did not, would suggest that a familiarity with the religious references is a critical factor in its reception. For MacMillan, however, this familiarity is not essential in the initial experience of the work, as it is the music alone that takes priority over any programmatic narrative or extra-musical element: An ongoing debate in music has revolved around the question of whether it is necessary or important for a listener to know, understand or recognize the extra-musical, or pre-musical associations that were obviously important for the composer’s inspiration. … Personally, it doesn’t matter to me if the general listener doesn’t want to follow the connections, especially on first hearing. It is the musical outcome of the inspiration that matters after all, and only that will communicate any power, meaning, feeling or fluency. There are certain things that have drifted out of public consciousness anyway, such as the Rosary, for example. It is inevitable that many listeners would not be familiar with the references above [in Piano Concerto No. 3], their symbolism, and their potential for musical encapsulation. MacMillan’s Third Piano Concerto and Fourth Symphony, and the rest of the composer’s mature orchestral output, share a strongly programmatic structure. An interesting difference lies, however, in their attendant discourse. His programme note for the Third Piano Concerto succinctly summarizes his approach to using the Luminous Mysteries as a stimulus for the composition of the concerto, doubtless a great help to the general listener in following the work.131 In his programme note for the Fourth Symphony, however, MacMillan claims that the work is unlike his previous symphonic output because it lacks a programmatic element, and he provides an interpretative framework that discourages the general listener from appreciating the liturgical programme. Outside of published discourse, MacMillan has acknowledged his reluctance explicitly to associate the work with a liturgical programme, much less to identify the many liturgical references in the programme note: [I]n the Fourth Symphony, I at least acknowledge that there’s something, there’s an attempt to try to absorb a lifetime of interest and involvement in liturgy into what I do as an abstract composer. So the Fourth Symphony isn’t liturgical music, but it’s imbued with a kind of memory or experience of ritual that one associates with liturgy. And there’s no need to say as much as that, even in the program note, although I do mention certain types of rituals associated with liturgy, that become the basis of the musical germination, as it were, of the work.132 These ‘rituals associated with the liturgy’ are the four archetypes of the interpretative framework, which are obliquely named after their specific usage in the liturgy of the Pauline Mass. I have shown these archetypes to be quotations of, and allusions to, other pre-existing music: ‘movement’ is the plainchant Os justi meditabitur and represents the introit procession; ‘exhortation’ is an allusion to the chanted Penitential Rite; ‘petition’ is based on the plainchant Dum sacrum mysterium and the Kyrie from Missa Orbis factor, and represents the Kyrie section; ‘joy’ is a quotation of the incipit for the Gloria of the Missa de Angelis. The interpretative framework of the four archetypes, however, fails to account for the many other references to pre-existing music throughout the symphony—to other plainchant and liturgical chant, Carver, cantillation, Wagner, and self-quotation—and significantly downplays the sophisticated network of intertextual references produced by the continuous chain of quotation of, and allusion to, a wide variety of specific pre-existing music. The denial of a programmatic element in the Fourth Symphony represents a break in MacMillan’s previously stated priority when using extra-musical stimuli: [I]t’s important for me to make those interconnections [between the extra musical and musical] clear so that the extra-musical stimulus is transformed, or transubstantiated, if you like, into the musical … the pure musical, and that one is the same as the other … that there’s a substantive connection and that the connection is audible and meaningful to the people when they encounter the music.133 Though MacMillan may have obscured the interconnections between the extra-musical and the musical when discussing the Fourth Symphony, this has not denied the audience (or some of them, at least) the ‘transubstantiation’ of the Mass into the purely musical, as evidenced by the reception of the work in the Catholic press. As the reception of his Third Piano Concerto had demonstrated to the composer, listeners who were familiar with the religious references would understand them without explication, and listeners who were unfamiliar would enjoy the work as absolute music. In any case, MacMillan understands the effect of the numinous to be available in all music, regardless of its initial stimulus, so that ‘there probably isn’t anything substantially different in the effect of communication between the works that are purely abstract and non-theological and the ones that are theological’.134 Even the most astute listener, intimately familiar with the Catholic liturgical tradition and with the repertory of Gregorian chant, could not be expected to identify aurally the myriad references to pre-existing music in the Fourth Symphony. These references hold true significance for MacMillan alone, as their selection is uniquely important to his biography—his role as the choir director of St Columba’s Church, Maryhill, his love of Carver’s music from his student days, his performance of embellished liturgical chant, his childhood obsession with Wagner’s music, and the references to his own works. For this reason, therefore, the symphony must be read not only as representational of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass (a famously uniform ritual worldwide), but as the composer’s deeply personal engagement and response to this liturgy, as well as his celebration of the tradition of liturgical chant. The revival of liturgical chant, and the standard of Catholic liturgical music generally, has been a concern of the composer for over two decades, and MacMillan’s personal advocacy in this cause is relevant when considered in relation to his concurrent composition of the Fourth Symphony. This symphony is a public work with a private programme in celebration of the sung Catholic liturgy. Its period of composition (2014–15),135 however, followed a public and internecine quarrel, splashed across the pages of national newspapers and stimulating intense debate on social media, over the preferred style of music for use in the Catholic liturgy.136 The debate centred on the continued diminution of traditional chant-based liturgical music in favour of newly composed songs, hymns, and responses, which are generally reflective of contemporary styles of folk and popular music.137 MacMillan has been publicly critical of declining standards in Catholic liturgical music since the premiere of his Galloway Mass (1997),138 but the composer sparked a national-level debate on this issue in 2010 after the state visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Scotland.139 MacMillan was jointly commissioned by the Bishops’ Conferences of Scotland, and of England and Wales to write Mass of the Blessed John Henry Newman, which was intended for use in the open-air liturgies at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, and, a few days later, at Cofton Park in Birmingham.140 The music directors Monsignor Gerry Fitzpatrick and Father Michael Hudson and National Music Advisory Board (NMAB) oversaw the music at the Bellahouston liturgy. NMAB forms part of the Liturgy Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and has official responsibility for liturgical music at a national level in Scotland.141 MacMillan’s new Mass setting had been, unbeknownst to the composer, assessed by NMAB, who found it to be ‘not pastoral enough’, ‘unsingable’, and ‘not fit for purpose’, and sought to block its performance, which only went ahead to avoid a potential ‘media car crash’.142 In an excoriating blog, MacMillan condemned the perceived agenda of the committee who had sought to reject his Mass setting: Their [NMAB] agenda is to pursue the 1970s Americanised solution to the post-Conciliar vernacular liturgy, to the exclusion of more ‘traditional’ possibilities. They have been known for their hostility to Gregorian chant, for example, but have reluctantly had to get in line since the arrival of Benedict XVI. They also have a commitment to the kind of cod-Celticness that owes more to the soundtracks of Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, than anything remotely authentic. There has also been a suspicion of professionals with this committee, and many serious musicians in the [Roman Catholic] Church in Scotland have felt excluded from their decisions and processes, or have chosen not to become involved in territory which is felt to be hostile.143 The attempted rejection of MacMillan’s Mass setting, therefore, had a significance far greater than a simple disagreement over the difficulty level of a piece intended for a performing group of limited ability: it was seen as symptomatic of an official agenda antagonistic towards more traditional liturgical styles. MacMillan implied that Scottish Catholic liturgical music was being controlled by a committee suspicious of ‘professional’ and ‘serious’ musicians (MacMillan being the example par excellence), and hostile towards Gregorian chant, that is for MacMillan the ne plus ultra of Catholic liturgical music, and is, outside of its use in the liturgy, the keystone of his artistic practice. Owing to MacMillan’s high international profile, his account of this experience and public criticisms of Catholic liturgical music were reproduced and commented upon both nationally and internationally, in the Catholic press, secular press, and in online media. MacMillan established Musica Sacra Scotland in 2013 with the aim of addressing this perceived decline in the standard of contemporary Catholic liturgical music, and to restore the primacy of chant-based worship.144 It sought to achieve this aim by teaching people to sing English-language chant, encouraging the return of Latin chant and polyphony, and commissioning young composers to write congregational music.145 The first Musica Sacra Scotland conference on ‘Music in Catholic Liturgy’ was held on 9 November 2013 in Turnbull Hall, University of Glasgow. Philip Tartaglia, the Archbishop of Glasgow and President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, formally opened the event, which included sessions on music in the liturgy, an introduction to the Mass Propers, presentations on choral singing, and both introductory and advanced chant classes. The event culminated in the celebration of a sung Mass in the Memorial Chapel of the University of Glasgow.146 Speakers featured at the event included Charles Cole (The London Oratory & Westminster Cathedral), Rebecca Tavener (Cappella Nova), Fr Guy Nicholls (Newman Institute of Liturgical Music), and MacMillan himself.147 Shortly after this inaugural conference, Musica Sacra Scotland, alongside the choir of St Columba’s Church, Maryhill (which MacMillan also directed at the time), publicly challenged NMAB, by claiming that their representatives were being excluded from the committee, and from other structures with official responsibility for overseeing Catholic liturgical music-making in Scotland: St Columba’s, Musica Sacra Scotland, and countless committed parish musicians, clerics and lay Catholics are currently excluded from the various ‘official’ committees, to the detriment of all. Minutes are not published, submissions are not invited and positive initiatives are routinely ignored, obstructed and misrepresented under the current arrangements.148 This challenge appeared to have been effective when it was reported that ‘the current make-up of the NMAB committee and the whole question of its membership will shortly be reviewed’.149 At present, however, there is no indication that this development has occurred, or that MacMillan and members of Musica Sacra Scotland have successfully gained access to the National Music Advisory Board.150 MacMillan has a strong media presence, owing to his aforementioned international reputation as a composer, as well as his history of making outspoken, and at times controversial, public remarks on a range of musical and non-musical issues, both in print and on social media.151 He has used this strong media presence to highlight the problems he perceives in Catholic liturgical music, to challenge the existing national structure, and to promote the revival of chant-based worship. Recently, however, MacMillan has claimed to have resigned from his significant personal role in the national public discourse on this issue: ‘I’ve given up the liturgy wars since [the controversy that followed the 2010 Papal visit to Scotland]. I stepped back from parish music involvement and now just sit in the pews, suffering with the rest of the Catholic faithful.’152 Arguably, though his role as a media spokesperson may have diminished, his activism has continued through the medium of purely instrumental music. Some months after the premiere of his Fourth Symphony, MacMillan reflected on other composers and their relationship to society, noting that ‘Controversy and societal change have affected many composers … Shostakovich made a decision to stay schtum. He is an interesting example of someone who said everything through his music.’153 In the wake of the controversy that followed the 2010 Papal visit, MacMillan appears to have followed the example set by Shostakovich, in secreting a programme in the score of his Fourth Symphony through the incorporation of musical quotation.154 By withholding an explicit programme from this work, he has spoken through the music alone. His sermon in sound in celebration of the traditional Catholic sung liturgy has been received, understood, and praised by those familiar with the liturgical references, and has even inspired some to reignite the public debate on the preferred style of music for use in the Catholic liturgy, in line with the aims of Musica Sacra Scotland.155 MacMillan has achieved this remarkable act of musical communication by his use of references to music drawn primarily from the sung Catholic liturgy, as well as from sources more personal to the composer himself, such as Carver, Wagner, and his own output. This use of these references in a continuous chain of quotation and allusion also allows for the emotional detachment that MacMillan understands is required for liturgy, as he has stated in relation to his work Seven Last Words from the Cross. In this work, however, only moments of subjective personal reaction to the liturgy were allowed to assert themselves within the objective liturgy.156 The chain of quotation and allusion in the Fourth Symphony allows the music to operate simultaneously on both an objective level, depicting the unfolding order of the liturgy, and on a subjective level, revealing a personal and emotional reaction to this ritual. This study has situated MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony more exactly within the composer’s oeuvre, showing it to be a continuation and development of his established approach to liturgical stimulus, rather than a departure from his previous practice, as claimed in his programme notes. This continuity has been demonstrated by the identification of pre-existing musical material, which combine to form a continuous chain of quotation and allusion that aligns exactly with the elements of the Pauline Mass. It may be seen, therefore, that this is a strongly representational work in which a programmatic narrative, that of the Catholic liturgy, can be discerned readily. As well as demonstrating a continuity in approach to programmatic narrative, this study has also shown the Fourth Symphony to be consistent with MacMillan’s previously stated aims and methods that are recorded in his public remarks—on the eternally regenerative creative process, the importance of plainchant in his creative practice, the remembrance of music from pre-Reformation Scotland, and the preferred style of Catholic liturgical music. The result is a deeper understanding of the evolving referential meaning of pre-existing music in MacMillan’s ever-expanding network of quotation and allusion. Footnotes 1 Ken Walton, ‘Classical Review: BBC SSO/James MacMillan, Glasgow’, Scotsman, 13 Jan. 2014, www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/music/classical-review-bbc-sso-james-macmillan-glasgow-1-3265637 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 2 Jeremy Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2007), 176. 3 Michael Ferguson, ‘Understanding the Tensions in Liturgical Music-Making in the Roman Catholic Church in Contemporary Scotland’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 2015), 353. 4 Ibid. 173. 5 James MacMillan, quoted in Bess Twiston-Davies, ‘My Art is Shaped by my Faith’, The Times, 9 Apr. 2009, www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article2100373.ece (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 6 James MacMillan, ‘Unthinking Dogmatism’, Spectator, 30 Jan. 2008, www.spectator.co.uk/2008/01/unthinking-dogmatism/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 7 Dominic Peter Wells, ‘James MacMillan: Retrospective Modernist’ (Ph.D. thesis, Durham University, 2012), 202. 8 Ibid., ‘Appendix C1: Instances of Quotation from other Composers’, 316–19. 9 Ibid. 317–18. 10 James MacMillan, ‘God, Theology and Music’, New Blackfriars, 81 (2000), 16–26 at 17. 11 Wells, ‘Appendix F2: Recycling and Self-quotation in MacMillan’s Works, 1983–2010’, in ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 331–5. 12 Ibid. 335. 13 Ibid. 331. 14 Ibid. 110–12. 15 Richard McGregor, ‘Transubstantiated into the Musical: A Critical Exegesis on James MacMillan’s Veni Veni Emmanuel’, in Graham Hair (ed.), A Companion to Recent Scottish Music: 1950 to the Present (Glasgow, 2007), 21–42. 16 Genesis 2: 22–3. 17 MacMillan, ‘God, Theology and Music’, 22. 18 Ibid. 22. 19 James MacMillan, ‘Composer’s Notes for Symphony No. 4 (2014–15)’, Boosey & Hawkes Online, www.boosey.com/cr/music/James-MacMillan-Symphony-No-4/58307 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 20 MacMillan’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Silence’ was premiered on 17 Apr. 2003, NHK Hall, Tokyo, by NHK Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit, Boosey & Hawkes Online, www.boosey.com/cr/music/Symphony-No-3-Silence/15181 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 21 James MacMillan, quoted in David Kettle, ‘Classical: Sir James MacMillan’s Symphony No. 4’, Scotsman, 22 July 2015, www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/music/classical-sir-james-macmillan-s-symphony-no-4-1-3837526 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 22 Ibid. 23 James MacMillan, ‘The Symphony: A Moral Vision Revealed in Music’, Standpoint, Oct. 2015, www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/6234 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 24 Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 226; Symphonic Study (1981) was written when MacMillan was a student at Edinburgh University; despite its generic title, Sinfonietta (1991) represents political tensions in contemporary Scottish society, through its ironic use of pre-existing music, such as the Loyalist anthem ‘The Sash my Father Wore’. See Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 56. 25 ‘abstract, adj. and n.’ and ‘absolute, adj. (and adv.) and n.’, OED Online, www.oed.com (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 26 Mark Evan Bonds, Absolute Music: The History of an Idea (Oxford, 2014), 1. 27 Jonathan Arnold, Sacred Music in Secular Society (Farnham, 2014), 19. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 James MacMillan, quoted in interview with Bethany L. Alvey, 21 July 2015, in Bethany L. Alvey, ‘Spirituality and Scottish Identity in Selected Works of James MacMillan’ (doctoral essay, University of Miami, 2016), 41. 31 Kettle, ‘Symphony No. 4’. 32 MacMillan, ‘Notes for Symphony No. 4’. 33 Ibid. 34 Nick Trend, ‘Proms 2015: Prom 24, James MacMillan and Mahler, Review ‘“beautifully played”’, Telegraph, 4 Aug. 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/proms-2015-prom-24-bbc-scottish-symphony-orchestra-review/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018); David Nice, ‘Prom 24: BBCSSO, Runnicles’, Arts Desk, 4 Aug. 2015, www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/prom-24-bbcsso-runnicles-0 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 35 Simon Cummings, ‘Proms 2015: Colin Matthews—String Quartet No. 5 (European Première) & James MacMillan—Symphony No. 4 (World Premiere)’, 5 against 4, 14 Aug. 2015, 5against4.com/2015/08/14/proms-2015-colin-matthews-string-quartet-no-5-european-premiere-james-macmillan-symphony-no-4-world-premiere/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 36 Matthew J. C. Ward, ‘An Imagination Set on Fire by Mass’, Catholic Herald, 4 Sept. 2015. 37 Damian Thompson, ‘Can a Great Composer Revive a Tone-deaf Church?’, Catholic Herald, 24 Sept. 2015, www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/september-25th-2015/can-a-great-composer-revive-a-tone-deaf-church/ (accessed 21 Feb. 2018). 38 Ibid. 39 The Catholic Herald, ‘The Holy Warrior with a Baton’, Catholic Herald, 17 Dec. 2015, www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/december-18th-2015/the-holy-warrior-with-a-baton/ (accessed 21 Feb. 2018). 40 James MacMillan, interview during the 1998 Vancouver New Music Festival, http://web.archive.org/web/20030418031812/www.sfu.ca/twentieth-century-ltd/macmillan1.html (accessed 22 Feb. 2018); See McGregor, ‘Transubstantiated’. 41 McGregor, ‘Transubstantiated’, 25. 42 MacMillan, ‘Symphony’. 43 MacMillan, Vancouver interview. 44Liber usualis with Introduction and Rubrics in English (Paris, 1961), 1200. 45 Psalm 37: 30. 46 Donald Attwater, A Catholic Dictionary (Rockford, Ill., 1997), no pagination. 47Liber usualis, 1190. 48 ‘Common of a Confessor not a Bishop: Mass I: Os justi’, in ibid. 1200; ‘Common of Abbots: Os justi’, ibid. 1206. 49 ‘Mass I: Os justi’, ibid. 1200. 50 Including Os Mutorum (2006) and Í (A Meditation on Iona) (1997). 51 Ken Walton, ‘Row over Catholic Church Music takes a Dramatic Turn’, Scotsman, 8 Mar. 2015, www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/music/row-over-catholic-church-music-takes-dramatic-turn-1-3333451 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018) 52 The feast of St Columba is celebrated on 9 June. 53 Michael S. Driscoll and Michael Joncas, The Order of Mass: A Roman Missal Study Edition and Workbook (Chicago, 2011), 19. 54 MacMillan, Symphony No. 4, bb. 1–25, repeated in transposition in bb. 389–414. 55 Tim Ashley, ‘BBCSSO/Runnicles review—MacMillan Premiere and the Raw Power of Mahler’, Guardian, 4 Aug. 2015, www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/04/bbcsso-runnicles-review-prom-24-macmillan-mahler (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 56 Driscoll and Joncas, Order of Mass, 236. 57 Fortescue, Ceremonies, 125. 58 Lura F. Heckenlively, Fundamentals of Gregorian Chant (Paris, 1950), 110–12. 59 James W. McKinnon, ‘Recitative, liturgical’, in Grove Music Online (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 60 W. H. Frere et al., ‘Inflection’, in Grove Music Online (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 61 Heckenlively, Fundamentals, 111. 62 MacMillan used the anonymous text of Carver’s nineteen-voice motet O bone Jesu for his own setting in 2002, which contains no direct quotation from Carver’s original, apart from a similar homophonic setting of the word ‘Jesu’ at each of its many occurrences, which interrupts the otherwise intricate vocal writing of both pieces. See Richard McGregor, ‘James MacMillan’s O Bone Jesu’, Scottish Music Review, 2 (2011), 1–13 at 2. 63 Richard McGregor, ‘A Metaphor for the Deeper Wintriness: Exploring James MacMillan’s Musical Identity’, Tempo, 65 (2011), 22–39 at 25–6. 64 James MacMillan, ‘Scotland’s Shame’, in T. M. Devine (ed.), Scotland’s Shame (Edinburgh, 2000), 14. 65 Kenneth Elliott, ‘Carvor, Robert’, in Grove Music Online (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 66 Isobel Preece Woods, ‘Towards a Biography of Robert Carvor’, Music Review, 48 (1989), 83–101; D. James Ross, ‘Robert Carver, Canon of Scone: New Perspectives on the Scottish Renaissance Composer’, in G. Munro et al. (ed.), Notis Musycall: Essays on Music and Scottish Culture in Honour of Kenneth Elliott (Glasgow, 2005), 95–114. 67 National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, MS Adv. 5.1.15, ‘Scone Antiphonary; Carver Choirbook’, GB-En 5.1.15; Jean Graham, ‘Robert Carver’, in Jo Eldridge Carney (ed.), Renaissance and Reformation, 1500 − 1620: A Biographical Dictionary (Westport, Conn., 2001), 72. The manuscript can be consulted online at DIAMM, https://www.diamm.ac.uk/sources/1757/#/. 68 Graham, ‘Robert Carver’, 72. 69 Gordon J. Munro, ‘Scottish Church Music and Musicians, 1500 − 1700’, 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow, 1999), i. 24. 70 Alec Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (Manchester, 2014), 166. 71 Reid-Baxter, ‘James IV’, 245. 72 Munro, ‘Scottish Church Music’, 242. 73 Elliott, ‘Carvor’. 74 Ibid. 75 Like other examples of the early Tudor festal mass, Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium contains no ‘Kyrie’. 76 MacMillan, ‘Notes for Symphony No. 4’. 77 All bar numbers of Carver’s Mass Dum sacrum mysterium relate to The Complete Works of Robert Carver & Two Anonymous Masses, ed. Kenneth Elliott (Musica Scotica, 1; Glasgow, 1996). 78The Gregorian Missal for Sundays: Notated in Gregorian Chant by the Monks of Solesmes (Paris, 1990), 103. 79 The text of this quotation reads: ‘et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater omnipotens’. 80 Adrian Fortescue, Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 15th edn. (London and New York, 2009), 243. 81 Hn. 1, bb. 418–32. 82 Hn. 1 + 3, bb. 433–43; tpt. 1, bb. 449–50. Original chant in The Parish Book of Chant, ed. Richard Rice, 2nd edn. (Richmond, Va., 2013), 14. 83 Fortescue, Ceremonies, 118. 84 Ibid. 85 Peter Cooke, ‘Heterophony’, in Grove Music Online (accessed 22 Feb. 2018); McGregor, ‘Metaphor’, 28; MacMillan, ‘Scotland’s Shame’, 14. 86 Benjamin Shute, Sei Solo: Symbolum?: The Theology of J. S. Bach's Solo Violin Works (Eugene, Ore., 2016), 22–3. 87 McGregor, ‘O Bone Jesu’, 11. 88 Willi Apel, ‘The Liturgical Recitative’, in Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, Ind., 1958), 201–8. 89 McKinnon, ‘Recitative, liturgical’. 90 Hn. and Tpt., bb. 174–84; Fortescue, Ceremonies, 175. 91 Pno., bn., solo va., et al., bb. 226–44. See ibid. 92 Tpt. 1 and cl. 1, bb. 242–6; bb. 248–56; Gregorian Missal, 348. 93 Fortescue, Ceremonies, 173. 94 Ibid. 175. 95 The use of the Prophecy tone is described in detail in Liber usualis, 102–4. 96 Ibid. 103. 97 Epistle tone ad libitum is described in detail ibid. 104–6. 98Gregorian Missal, 348. 99 Fortescue, Ceremonies, 174. 100 John Arthur Smith et al., ‘Psalm’, in Grove Music Online (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 101 Marsha Bryan Edelman, Discovering Jewish Music (Philadelphia, 2007), 9. 102 Hankus Netsky, ‘The Evolution of Philadelphia’s Russian Sher Medley’, in Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp (eds.), The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times (Philadelphia, 2013), 288–314 (endnote 432). 103 Edelman, Jewish Music, 31; Walter Zev Feldman, Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory (Oxford, 2017), 253 and 383–4. 104 MacMillan, quoted in Rowena Smith, ‘Conceived in Silence’, Guardian, 25 Apr. 2008, www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/25/classicalmusicandopera (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 105 Smith, ‘Psalm’. 106 Psalm 150: 3–6. 107 MacMillan, Symphony No. 4, bb. 499–536, in MacMillan, St Luke Passion, Chapter 22, bb. 106–47. 108 Luke 22: 17–24. 109 Roger Scruton, ‘Table of Motives’, in Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's ‘Tristan and Isolde (New York, 2004), 200. 110 Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 82. 111 Ibid. 318–19. 112 Ibid. 113 See, for example, Erika Reiman, ‘The “Tristan Chord” as Music-Historical Metaphor’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 67 (1998), 768–73; Nathan Martin, ‘The Tristan Chord Resolved’, Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music, 28 (2008), 6–30. 114 Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 2010), 541. 115 MacMillan, quoted in Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 92. 116 MacMillan, quoted ibid. 117 MacMillan, Symphony No. 2, Movement III, bb. 57–9. 118 MacMillan, quoted in Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 92. 119 Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 6. 120 Scruton, Death-Devoted Heart, v. 121 Ibid. 49. 122 James MacMillan, quoted in Mandy Hallam, ‘Conversation with James MacMillan’, Tempo, 62 (2008), 17–29 at 22–3. 123 Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 116. 124 MacMillan, St John Passion, Movement X, bb. 23–6 and bb. 69–71. 125 See Wells, ‘Retrospective Modernist’, 89–91. 126 James MacMillan interview with Rebecca Tavener, Hyperion Records, www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CKD383 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 127 Tbn. 1, bb. 556–61. See Parish Book, ed. Rice, 26. 128 MacMillan, ‘Music, Theology, and God’, 21. 129 Trend, ‘Proms 2015: Prom 24’; Nice, ‘Prom 24: BBCSSO, Runnicles’; Kettle, ‘Sir James MacMillan’s Symphony No. 4’; Richard Whitehouse, ‘MacMillan Violin Concerto. Symphony No 4’, Gramophone, www.gramophone.co.uk/review/macmillan-violin-concerto-symphony-no-4 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 130 Ward, ‘Imagination’. 131 ‘Each image or event becomes the springboard for a subjective reflection, and proceeds in quasi-dramatic fashion, not too distant in concept from the musical tone poem.’ James MacMillan, ‘Composer’s Note on Piano Concerto No. 3’, Boosey & Hawkes Online, www.boosey.com/cr/music/James-MacMillan-Piano-Concerto-No-3/16132 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 132 MacMillan, quoted in Alvey, ‘Spirituality and Scottish Identity’, 41–2. 133 MacMillan, Vancouver interview. 134 MacMillan, quoted in Arnold, Sacred Music, 19. 135 MacMillan, ‘Notes for Symphony No. 4’. 136 Walton, ‘Row’. 137 Damian Thompson, ‘Music at Mass is Theological Warfare by Other Means’, Spectator, 28 Sept. 2013, www.spectator.co.uk/2013/09/music-at-mass-is-theological-warfare-by-other-means/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 138 Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 14. 139 See ‘Revealed: Discord over Music for the Papal Visit’, Scotsman, 27 Oct. 2010, www.scotsman.com/news/revealed-discord-over-music-for-the-papal-visit-1-826541 (accessed 22 Feb. 2018); Lindsay Mcintosh, ‘Composer Reveals Row over his “Unsingable” Mass for Pope’, The Times, 29 Oct. 2010, www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/scotland/article2786789.ece (accessed 22 Feb. 2018); ‘James MacMillan on his Mass Setting for the Pope’, Pray Tell,27 Oct. 2010, www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/10/27/james-macmillan-on-his-mass-setting-for-the-pope/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 140 Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 11 141 Ibid. 17. 142 James MacMillan, ‘How Trendy “Liturgists” Tried to Stop My Mass Being Performed for the Pope’, Telegraph (Blog), 27 Oct. 2010, blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/jmacmillan/100048309/how-trendy-liturgists-tried-to-stop-my- mass-being-performed-for-the-pope/. Quoted in Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 12. 143 MacMillan, ‘Liturgists’. 144 Beverly Stevens, ‘An Interview with Renowned Composer James MacMillan’, Regina, 5 Sept. 2014, www.reginamag.com/james-macmillan/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 145 Thompson, ‘Music at Mass’. 146 Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 17. 147 ‘Events’, Musica Sacra, https://musicasacra.com/2013/08/nov-9-musica-sacra-scotland/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 148 ‘National Music Advisory Board’, The Choir of St Columba’s Catholic Church Glasgow, 31 Dec. 2013 http://thechoirofstcolumbas.com/2013/12/31/national-music-advisory-board/ [link broken]. Quoted in Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 20. 149 Walton, ‘Row’. 150 Ferguson, ‘Tensions’, 21. 151 Ibid. 24. 152 James MacMillan, ‘Sweet Singing in the Choir’, Standpoint, Oct. 2017, www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/6950/full (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 153 James MacMillan, quoted in Phil Miller, ‘Interview: Composer James MacMillan on his Music Festival, Growing Up in Ayrshire … and Why He’s Given Up on Social Media’, 27 Sept. 2015, Herald, www.heraldscotland.com/news/13786568.Interview__Composer_James_MacMillan_on_his_music_festival__growing_up_in_Ayrshire_____and_why_he_s_given_up_on_social_media/ (accessed 22 Feb. 2018). 154 Kalle Puolakka, ‘Musical Quotations and Shostakovich’s Secret: A Response to Kivy’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 57 (2017), 37–50. 155 Thompson, ‘Tone-deaf Church?’. 156 ‘The emotional detachment that is required for liturgy has maintained itself as the most important thing throughout [Seven Last Words from the Cross], but there are moments when that objectivity breaks down and subjectivity—an emotional personal reaction, as it were, to the unfolding—takes over.’ MacMillan, Vancouver interview. © The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - The Mass ‘Transubstantiated’ into Music: Quotation and Allusion in James Macmillan’s Fourth Symphony
JF - Music and Letters
DO - 10.1093/ml/gcy072
DA - 2018-11-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-mass-transubstantiated-into-music-quotation-and-allusion-in-james-7ZUfbCPgam
SP - 635
VL - 99
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -