Mysteria Incarnationis

By David M. Gordon

On November 13, a new album of my music entitled Mysteria Fidei was released worldwide. The project is the fruit of a six-year collaboration between me and Far Song, a husband-and-wife art song duo from South Carolina. Featuring three sacred chamber works, Mysteria Fidei explores the notion of “searching amidst life’s many difficulties—searching for understanding, searching for rescue, searching for hope, searching for fulfillment, searching for joy, searching for God.” Along the way, it deconstructs hymns spanning nearly two millennia and recontextualizes them within our polarized, fear-stricken, and increasingly isolated 21st-century milieu.

At the core of the album is Mysteria Incarnationis, a large song cycle for soprano, violin, and prepared piano. In what follows, I will provide a brief overview of that work, along with a handful of audio excerpts. I will freely confess that my aim is to entice you into a deeper exploration of the album. Should I fail to achieve that objective, I hope—at the very least—to provide some insight into how and why I created a sacred song cycle of this scope.          

Mysteria Incarnationis is designed to stimulate personal contemplation of the incarnation, as well as the Chalcedonian Formulation of Christ’s dual nature (“perfect in deity and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man… to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion or change, without division or separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person”). My goal is to provide a space in which listeners and performers must confront their own beliefs about the meaning and relevance of orthodox teachings on the incarnation. Mysteria Incarnationis is mainly concerned with questions about the incarnation, not answers. It revels in the ostensible paradoxes of Christ’s dual nature, especially as they are displayed within the nativity narrative, and uses them as a catalyst for worship. The ancient Latin term “Mysteria” is thus used here in the ecclesiastical sense of “a religious truth known or understood only by divine revelation; especially a doctrine of faith involving difficulties which human reason is incapable of solving." By directly engaging with these complex doctrines, listeners will hopefully be led to a fuller appreciation of God’s immense power, wisdom, humility, and sacrificial love.

I also aim to defamiliarize the incarnation by clothing the nativity story in unfamiliar poetic and musical garb. As I have discovered firsthand, the strong associations between Christmas—especially in its more sentimental manifestations—and the incarnation can easily deaden the latter’s intellectual and emotional impact. The quaint, peaceful manger scenes that the incarnation invariably conjures often draw one’s attention away from the fact that the incarnation was an unprecedented act of divine sacrifice. God, the source of all reality, became a helpless infant, unable to see clearly, control his limbs, regulate his bodily functions, or even lift his head. The Perfect, Eternal, All-Knowing, All-Powerful One needed to be cared for and instructed by his own wayward creations, all so that those creations could be redeemed from their transgressions and restored to a right relationship with their maker. This is a picture of a rather different sort—one which elicits a profound sense of gratitude, awe, and even sorrow. It is this alternate vision of the incarnation that I hope to evoke.

Mysteria Incarnationis is a cycle of six interconnected songs using texts by fourth-century poet, composer, and theologian Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306–73). The texts are taken from Ephrem’s Hymns on the Nativity, a series of extended poetic meditations on the wonders and enigmas of Christ’s incarnation. Many of these hymns—which Ephrem himself referred to as lullabies—were likely composed for liturgical use on the Feast of Christ’s Birth and Manifestation to the World. Although they were originally set to music, and perhaps even sung by female choirs, their melodies have long since been lost.

Like all of Ephrem’s writings, his Hymns on the Nativity were composed in Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language that Jesus himself spoke. Syriac is rarely used in Western art music and is quite far removed from the Romance and Germanic languages in which Western classical singers are normally trained. Nevertheless, I resolved to set Ephrem’s poetry in its original language so as to preserve its distinctive sounds, rhythms, and historical associations.

The first song in Mysteria Incarnationis—“Shbih hakimo”—sets a single stanza from Hymn No. 8. In that short excerpt, Ephrem praises God for the wisdom he displayed in uniting human and divine natures within the person of Jesus Christ. He vividly compares God to a painter who mixes pigments in order to bring about a new color. Given that this text describes the incarnation abstractly, divorced from the concrete historical narrative of Jesus’ life, I thought it best to set it as a chant, albeit of a rather rarefied sort. I ordinarily associate chant with the proclamation of divine truths, since it has served as a medium for sacred teachings and devotions for over 2,000 years, and so it seemed a natural complement to these particular lines. The melody also makes extensive use of quarter-tones, however, which lend it a strangely alien quality that is meant to suggest the “otherness" of God’s ways.

“Man hi tamrah," the second song in the cycle, begins by underscoring the internal conflicts that Mary undoubtedly faced as the mother of Christ. How was she to treat him? As God or a human child? Who had authority over whom? Should she rely upon him or provide for him? Guide him or be guided by him? My setting of the first stanza projects tension and uncertainty, combining music of child-like simplicity with intimations of grandeur and ritual austerity. Distantly-related keys are superimposed, creating discordant clashes, and concurrent melodic lines move at opposing speeds. All the while, quarter-tones continue to permeate the texture, imbuing the music with an unearthly aura. After reaching an agitated climax, the music becomes increasingly diatonic and spare, signifying a turn from indecision to an acceptance of the truths recounted in the second and third stanzas. Even if their implications are not fully understood, the scriptural portrayals of Jesus as creator, son of God, redeemer, high priest, king, and descendent of Abraham can be internalized by faith. The chant-like ambiance of the first song eventually returns, though now shorn of melodic quarter-tones and hence more “earthly" in tone, as the transcendent reality of Christ’s nature is filtered through limited human intellects.

Ephrem’s designation of his Hymns on the Nativity as lullabies is fitting, since many of them feature Mary singing directly to her infant son. “Manu yab lo (Lullaby 1)" sets two such passages: a lengthy excerpt from Hymn No. 5 and a single stanza from Hymn No. 16. Here, Mary meditates on the deep mysteries of the incarnation in theological and philosophical terms. Though these ruminations are set in the manner of a lullaby, the rhythmic and timbral complexity of the music suggest that these strains are addressed to a truly unusual child. Melody and accompaniment often move at different tempos. Out-of-tune children’s instruments, such as toy piano and harmonica, freely intermingle with more conventional ones. The singer and pianist are called upon to play multiple instruments at the same time. On a large scale, “Manu yab lo" is organized similarly to a theme and variation set. A simple, modal melody is presented in several different guises, as though Mary is attempting to disentangle the complexities of the incarnation by viewing them from alternate vantage points.

The fourth, and shortest, of Mysteria Incarnationis’ songs—“Manu mtse dnimar"—is also its most unusual. The opening stanza sets the tone, posing the rhetorical question “Who is able to speak about the hidden Son Who came down and put on a body in the womb?” Following this are two homely, yet striking, images: Christ feeding at his mother’s breast and crawling among other infants. For an ordinary human child, those activities are unremarkable, but for God, who is “majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds," they border on the absurd. As a result, my musical setting of these two brief stanzas is mostly inscrutable in its emotional content. The prepared piano has a sheet of paper placed over its strings, producing a raspy, buzzing sound, and even excepting this special alteration, its pitches are cold, metallic, and non-tempered. Meanwhile, the violin speaks with guttural scratches and groans as the voice intones a snaking, chromatic melody.

“Lo aten ber," the second of Mysteria Incarnationis’ two lullabies, merges a tender affect with an otherworldly atmosphere. The text, which is taken from Hymn No. 16, is both deeply intimate and profoundly mystical. Mary now contemplates Christ’s love and care for all people, paradoxically affirming his physical presence with her and his spiritual presence with the entire human race. Like “Manu yab lo (Lullaby 1),” “Lo aten ber (Lullaby 2)" features music of child-like innocence, but with a distinctively foreign flavor. The pianist plucks the instrument’s strings while the violinist performs on a retuned autoharp, suggesting the sound of a large, exotic zither. Quarter-tones once again enter the sonic landscape, calling to mind the mysterious workings of God’s mind, as well as the incomprehensible riches of his grace. Though the music is gentle and introspective, it is also somewhat discomfiting, as it traverses strangely distorted harmonic and melodic terrain.

The final song in the cycle—“Brikh hu dlo sokh destayakh"—is a regal expression of worship, joyously exclaiming God’s grace, majesty, and sacrifice. As the music progresses, it becomes increasingly emphatic, working itself into a controlled celebratory ecstasy. Despite its late occurrence in the work, this is the first section in which the pianist plays full chords, which evoke the resonant chiming of large church bells. The voice and violin declaim the text in octaves as a concluding symbol of Christ’s dual nature, and the melody soars ever higher in celebration of Christ’s redemptive incarnation. Despite—or perhaps even because of—its profound mysteries, the coming of the God-man is cause for exultation. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

David M. Gordon, composer

To access Mysteria Fidei in various formats, click here.

To hear more of David’s music, please visit his website.