I want to suggest something that I fully believe personally but which I have rarely talked about in a public way, beyond those I have come into personal contact with.

It is the essential, for me, connection between theologizing and music. I have for almost 40 years, following a traumatic time in my life, sang the Biblical narratives. Operating on the assumption that if I could sing them they would make sense to me. I have written song after song. When I recently worked with the Q narrative my first act was to begin singing the earliest parts of Q. To give a simple example, the song I came up with in dealing with the coat-cloak, other cheek narrative, something we can surely attribute to Jesus, has as its main “hook” ‘It’s the only way to turn this thing around — to treat them as you wished they treated you.” This had the effect of suggesting to me that these injunctions are not a summons to perfection as many are taught, as much as a highly practical means of survival.

The height of this for me was turning Mark into songs and working with a minister names Pam Moffatt who eventually taught the songs to thousands of kids. Much of the theology I have comes from the whole panorama of music I have done. I am sure I am not alone. Charles Wesley and zillions of others have probably arrived at their understanding through music.

I neither read nor write music but I do it still. Cheers, S

Thanks for your comment. What are some of the later pieces that Boulez wrote, as I’d love
to listen to them? Also, you make a good point about the new music not being possible if the experiments of the 50s had not occurred–could you elaborate more specifically on that? E.g., in what specific ways is that the case and which composers etc. do you have in mind?

Best wishes,
Cynthia