Robert Peters replies me about music as religious"propaganda":

>I have respect for any religion.  But my problem with them is that they
>all claim to speak the "truth".  (And worse: some want to missionize.)
>For me there is not one truth, there are a lot of truths and every
>religious statement is a metaphor not something factual.

You criticize religions for missionizing?.  You condemn elephants for
eating peanuts?.  For Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions truth is
not (and can't be) relative and their statements are not (and can't be)
metaphores.  Propaganda is based, specifically, on the notion of relative
truth, and consists of the manipulation of these partial truths by
mass-media.  So, I don't think this expression fitted to the statements
of any religion (besides, that would be anachronism).  However, I'll stop
here, because I don't wat to tempt the anger of Dave Lampson, who says
clearly (Lp.  3:14): "Thou willst keep your posts in the ground of music,
or I shall break them in pieces, like a potter's vessel".  [And cast them
into the fiery pit of despair, verily I say unto thee.  -Dave]

>I love church chants and listen very often to music by Josquin, Hildegard,
>Perotin and the likes.  It is soothing, meditative music which speaks of
>a mysterious and moving faith.  But this world is this world: religion
>has always been political.

All we know that.  In fact, until XVIII century, politics used to be just
a small branch of religion.  My only point is this: for Catholic Church,
music poetry and painting were intended often as doctrinal tools.  You may
like it or not, but you can't adscribe them to a concept which has quite
different connotations and meanings.  Or do you think that the "Credo in
unum Deum" belongs to the same ontological category than a political
jingle?.  I'm sure you don't.

>I, as a teacher, want to awaken in my pupils a sense of history and
>interconnections.  So it is okay to just enjoy and analyze a work of art.
>But I think the occupation with art is incomplete without contemplating on
>the whole history of the work of art and that means, too: why has it been
>written, for whom has it been written.  I like people who are able to enjoy
>AND criticize.

Nobody is going to disagree with this.  The problem here --in order to
reach a critical knowledge of these works of art-- is to understand the
actual function of this music, its deep (almost constitutive) connection
with liturgy, and, by the other hand, to be aware of the modern
connotations of certain terms used in that analysis.

Pablo Massa
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