Month: July 2022

SONG 10: Isaiah 53:10b-12
When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Living a life in loving service to others will entail for us a degree of suffering. There will be those who will reject us and our service to them. Often, in service to others we will find that like empaths, we will take on the suffering of those we serve. A life of service will always carry with it, a degree of sacrifice. There are times when a great deal of our time is consumed by those we serve, providing little time for self-care and little time spent with our families. There are times when our own health, physical, spiritual, and emotional may be adversely affected by our service. And, at the very extreme, we may find our lives threatened and endangered by our service to others.

As we discover in meditating on the four Servant Songs, the life of the Servant of God entails much sacrifice on the part of the Servant, even, in the end, requiring the Servant to die and be buried in disgrace among the worse of humanity. Others behold the Servant and seemingly think that God has abandoned the Servant, as expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 22, in the Book of Job, and especially in the passion accounts of Mark and Matthew. However, as Psalm 23 reminds us, being Servants of God does not mean we will avoid suffering and death. Rather, during the darkest and cruelest moments in life, we do not suffer in isolation. God may seem silent to us in our suffering, but God never abandons us. God is present to us and sustains us in our suffering.

What this part of the fourth Servant Song also reveals is that the death of the Servant is not the end. It is through death that the Servant enters glory at its fullest. The suffering and death of the Servant opens up that path of glory to everyone. As is expressed at the end of Psalm 22, in the story of Job, and in the passion and resurrection accounts of the gospels, the story does not end in misery and death. The story ends in a glorious new life.

So often in our own suffering, while we may find our abilities lessened as a result, the suffering is a catalyst in opening up for us abilities and possibilities we would not otherwise have discovered. Suffering can lead us into living out more fully our lives and positively impact the lives of others.

THE MUSIC

This last song in the Songs of the Servant is a Rhapsody. Like a Fantasia and an Impromptu, Rhapsodies don’t really have a designated form or meter. There is a sense of improvisation in a Rhapsody.

In this last song there are two dominant motifs. The first, the “suffering motif” is in a minor key, at a slow tempo, and is very solemn. The second, the “glory motif” is in a major key, at a very fast tempo, and is more dance like. The first motif represents the suffering of the Servant, and the second motif represents the glory of the Servant. As the text of this last part of the fourth Servant Song points out, it is through the suffering that the Servant is led to glory. So, we will find encased within the fast, “glory motif”, a restatement of the “suffering motif”, albeit at the fast tempo of the “glory motif.” The song ends with a triumphant restatement of the glory motif. For those who find this interesting, this Rhapsody is based upon two elements present in the modern day Polish dance, Mazurka. The slow “suffering motif” is based on the Polish dance, Kujawiak , and the second “glory” motif based on the Polish dance, Oberek.

SONG 9: Isaiah 53:7-10a

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.

Of all the movements in the Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah, this section is the most upsetting to the human spirit. Not only does the Servant absorb the hatred inflicted upon him in silence, the Servant does so knowing that the end is bleaker than the torture and death inflicted upon him/her. At the time of Isaiah, there was no after life, no Heaven and no Hell. We hear mentioned in the psalms of a place called Sheol, the realm of dead in which the shades/ghosts of the dead wander aimlessly and formlessly. The realm of the dead seems similar to that of that pictured in Greek Mythology of Hades. Yet, in spite of such a bleak and hopeless future, the Servant remains dedicated and resolute, enduring torture and death. The words that leapt out of the text for me are, “By a perversion of justice he was taken away.”

This section of text from the Fourth Servant Song is similar in content to that of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me …”. Were just this part of the Fourth Servant Song and the opening passages of Psalm 22 read, we would be filled with despair. Yet, these lines are not the end. God’s love is far more enduring than despair and death. The utter defeat and destruction of the Servant will end up, as we will see in the final section of the Fourth Servant Song, being the pathway to ultimate victory and glorious joy.

Of all the music in this collection of songs, this song was the most difficult to compose. In composing this song I ended up discarding and erasing many attempt to capture the text. I zeroed in on the words of the Servant being “led away”. With a Christian predisposition of seeing in the Servant the person of Jesus of Nazareth, along with the narrative of the Passion and Death of Jesus in the Gospels, images of an armed cohort leading Jesus away dominated my meditation. This armed cohort, first, that of the Temple guard leads Jesus to the court of the Sanhedrin to be beaten and interrogated, and following being tried before Pilate who ordered the torture of Jesus and subsequent sentencing to death, Jesus is led away by Roman Soldiers to his execution on Golgotha. These images being led away suggested to me a macabre death march.

As you listen to the music, note how the march begins at a pretty fast tempo. While it begins pianissimo (very soft) the volume of the music increases until it reaches fortississimo (ridiculously loud) and the music becomes more chaotic and jagged in sound. Then, abruptly, the tempo slows to a crawl and eventually ends as softly as the song began with a three octave sound of the pitch, G.

SONG 8: Isaiah 53:4-6
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

In the text of this song, we discover the great love of the Servant for us. How much as the Servant of God loved us? The Servant of God has loved us so much, that the Servant, like an empath, has taken on all of our hurt, all of our sorrow, all of our brokenness as human beings, and in taking on all of that cuts us down, shares in that pain in solidarity with all of us. In the Servant, we all come to know we do not suffer alone. We do not suffer in vain. The overwhelming love of the Servant assures us of this. This is the message that Servant bears to us from God. God does not abandon us even when at the times we feel the most unloved and the most abandoned.

As I composed this music, I envisioned it as the last love song of the Servant sung to us before the death of the Servant. As such, there is no violence, there is no horror of that which the Servant has absorbed from humanity. Rather, what is expressed here is the great love the Servant has for us, a love so great, that the Servant participates in our pain. There is a bittersweet quality to this song as we all come to know how greatly we have been loved and ARE loved.

SONG 7: Isaiah 53:1-3
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

In the Servant Songs, the narrator changes from God to the Servant, and now to us. In this song, we look upon the Servant. As we apply the what we, as human beings, value as important, we find that the Servant lacks all those attributes we value. In spite of the Servant being the “arrow” of God shot into the midst of humanity to give us the message of hope and love from God, we, like so many others before us reject the Servant and the message the Servant carries from God. The concluding line of this section of text says it all, namely, “We held him of no account.”

I meditated long on this text as I began to compose the music. this is no more than a simple Prelude, the shortest of all the songs in this collection. In its brief duration, it speaks volumes.

As we read and reflect on the four Servant Songs of Isaiah, over time there appears movements spiritually and emotionally in the texts of the Songs. I have tried to reflect those movements in the way I have composed music for these songs. Here is how I see the songs reflecting these movements in the Servant Songs of Isaiah.

he First Servant Song has one song.

The Second Servant Song has two songs.

The Third Servant Song has two songs.

The Fourth Servant Song has five songs.

The Fourth Servant Song

I reflected on five different movements within the Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah. Here is the text for the first of the five movements.

SONG 6: Is 52:13—15

See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals— so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

My Poem reflection on this passage

The ways of the earth
Have been irrevocably altered,
The ugliness of its greed,
Its cruelty, its violence
Has been absorbed by you,
My Beloved, and imprinted
Upon your body so that
All who behold you
See upon your body
That which they carry
Within themselves.

By you, the World has been re-ordered.
Emperors, Kings, Presidents,
Prime Ministers and Premiers,
Who revel in their absolute rule,
Look upon you and realize
Their power is impotent.
This understanding, this insight,
Is not isolated to one moment
In the long string of days in
Chronological Time.
No, It will continue
To be perceived by the eyes,
By the ears, and in the hearts
Of people for ALL AGES.

Fantasia in B

I approached this first part of the Fourth Servant Song from the standpoint of John’s Passion. In John’s Passion, Jesus does not die in despair, nor resignation as in the Synoptic Gospels. Rather, in John’s Passion, Jesus dies in victory. Jesus’ last words are, “It is accomplished.” Notice how, in this Passion, the centurions look upon the crucified Jesus in awe.

In spite of how marred and harmed the Servant appears, the powerful and mighty are in awe of the Servant. They discover in the suffering of the Servant, a greatness and glory they are unable to achieve. In the suffering of the Servant, the glory and majesty of God shines.

I composed this song as a Fantasia. In Classical music, a Fantasia does not have any strict musical form. Like the Impromptu it is improvisational and can take many forms.

I chose not to compose this in the standard meter used often for music, e.g. duple, triple, and quadruple meter (think the meter for a march, foxtrot, waltz). I chose 5/4 meter which to the ear sounds different.

The initial melody is full, glorious, triumphant reflecting the glory of God shining through the Servant.

The second melody keys in on the words, “Just as there were many who were astonished at him —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals.” It begins quietly and somberly in a minor key, but does not remain quiet and somber but gradually gets louder and grander as those who behold the Servant see in the suffering of the Servant a glory absent in the suffering of most humans.

To end the song, the first melody returns.

The Song

Fantasia in B, Songs of the Servant Opus 17 (c) 2022 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

When I began composing the music for the four Servant Songs of Isaiah, I reflected on the different movements within each Song, the relationship between the Servant and God, and the emotional content that I felt is expressed between the Servant and God. We are all “Servants” of God, each of us having in our relationship with God, moments of exhilaration, a sense of a life’s mission, and all the events of living out that mission with its disappointments, joys, love, anguish, doubt, anger, confidence, assurance and at times, anxiety, and desperateness.

The music is meant to act as aural iconography. The purpose of an icon is to draw the one meditating on the icon to a deeper truth that exists beyond the two dimensional image. The same is what is intended for the listener of the music, that is, to draw the listener deeper into the spiritual experience. In a seminar a long time ago, John Michael Talbot said that music is in the language of the Spirit, expressing that in which words are far too limited to ably express.

The Text

SONG 5: Is 50: 7-9

The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

POEM – Prelude (minor key)

Like stones, rebukes are hurled at me
From the mouths of those oppose me,
Their vitriolic words hang in the air
Like a poisoned cloud.
Yet, I remain unharmed, no sign
Of their mark appears on me.
It is You, I AM, who is my help,
Who at my right side shields me from harm.
They dare not confront me,
Nor attempt to wrong me,
For You stand with me in all things.

Variations on a Theme

In this second part of the Third Servant Song, the Servant is being attacked by those opposed to God’s mission, experiencing many different forms of abuse, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Yet, the Servant is at peace knowing that God’s love and vindication of the Servant remains present with him/her. The Servant notes that God’s love is everlasting, and those who are inflicting abuse upon him/her, will die and be forgotten.

The confidence and trust of the Servant in God is first stated in the melody. The joy of the Servant in God and also the hardships and injuries that Servant suffers is expressed in the seven variations on that first melody. The first two variations are stated in a major key and have a joyful quality to them. The next four variations in a minor key expresses the sufferings of the Servant. The final variation returns to the joy and the confidence of the Servant in God.

Variations on a Theme is exactly what the title implies. A “theme” or melody is stated, and what follows are musical variations on that melody, changing meter, major and minor keys, forms etc. Some of the more famous variations in music are Mozart’s Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Beethoven’s Eroica Variations, and Mendelsohn’s Seventeen Variations on a Theme. In more popular musical forms, variations are heard in the improvisation of Jazz, Blues, and Rhythm and Blues music.