Tag: Mesrop of Khizan

Roundup: Armenian passion art, Messiaen and Richter for Good Friday, the paradox of Holy Saturday, and more

Victoria Emily Jones6 Comments

Holy Week starts this Sunday. Per usual, I’ll be publishing daily art and music pairings during that period (so, too, during the Easter Octave), but here is some additional art and music, and a theological reflection, for the occasion. You might also consider spending time with the Holy Week Playlist I curated on Spotify.

TENEBRAE SERVICE: Good Friday, April 2, 2021, Good Shepherd New York: Not all churches host a service on Good Friday, but for me, it is one of the most meaningful services of the year and helps make Easter all the more potent and celebratory. It wasn’t until 2011 that I attended my first Good Friday service—of the Tenebrae variety, Latin for “darkness,” meaning we started with multiple lit candles, and they were gradually extinguished throughout the evening, symbolizing the Light of the World dying out. If you’re curious about what such a service might look like, here’s a great example from 2021, from Good Shepherd New York. Filmed during the pandemic, it was a digital-only offering. As is typical, it combines song and scripture readings to tell the story of Christ’s death. Some Tenebrae services include a brief homily, but this one does not. I’ve included a list of time stamps to the songs below.

  • 1:15: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason
  • 6:26: “I Need Thee Every Hour” by Annie Hawks and Robert Lowry
  • 11:19: “The Reproaches” by Paul Zach [previously]
  • 17:06: “Shepherd Strong” by the Brilliance
  • 20:55: “Your Blood Ran Down” by Paul Baloche
  • 24:28: “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townend
  • 31:08: “Remember Me” by Paul Zach
  • 35:50: “Were You There?,” African American spiritual (with a watercolor by Soyoung L Kim, inscribed with Isaiah 53:11a: “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied”)

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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOR GOOD FRIDAY: The one Facebook group I belong to is Liturgy Fellowship; I joined when I was a worship planner and stick around because of the many great resources, especially musical ones and ideas for marking holy days as a congregation, that are shared by Christians across denominations. One post I made note of is from Andrew Kerhoulas, the associate pastor at Grace Mills River in Mills River, North Carolina. As a prelude for their 2023 Good Friday service, he said, Grace Mills River musicians played an excerpt from the fifth movement of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Here’s the full movement, performed by cellist Bingxia Lu and pianist Jackie Tu:

“The piece is avant-garde and not a little abrasive to those with pop music sensibilities,” Kerhoulas wrote to the group. “But once you know that it was written in 1941 by a French prisoner of war while in a German prison and first performed for fellow prisoners, it takes on depths of meaning. So too the cross: It is grotesque and horrific, but it becomes meaningful and even beautiful when you know the occasion—the deeper story—in which Jesus gave up his life.”

The church concluded its Good Friday service with a string quintet postlude, “On the Nature of Daylight” by Max Richter, played to the dimming of lights. Again, the following performance is not from Grace Mills River, but rather by Louisa Fuller, Natalia Bonner, John Metcalfe, Chris Worsey, and Ian Burdge for the fifteenth anniversary edition of The Blue Notebooks album.

Some people think that music used in Christian worship as a focal piece (i.e., not in the background) needs to have words to be worshipful and productive. I strongly disagree. Instrumental music conveys beauty and sets a mood and, yes, even communicates—often that which is difficult to express verbally. I love Grace’s thoughtful inclusion of these two modern and contemporary pieces from the classical tradition in their community’s observance of Good Friday.

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ART COMPILATION: “Crucifixion: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts” by Levon Ounanian: This compilation brings together thirty-one Armenian miniatures of Christ’s passion. (Miniatures are painted illustrations in a manuscript, so called not because they’re small, though they usually are, but because artists often sketched them using a red lead pigment called minium.) According to the author, of the 31,000 Armenian manuscripts currently listed around the world, about 6,000 of them contain miniatures, not to mention the many more that contain non-narrative decoration.

Khzanetsi, Mesrop_Christ nailed to the cross
Mesrop of Khizan (Armenian, active in Persia, ca. 1560–ca. 1652), The Nailing on the Cross, from an Armenian Gospel book, 1609. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Arm. d.13, fol. 13v. Click to view the fully digitized manuscript.

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SONG: “Saare Paap” (सारे पाप) (All Sins), performed by James Bovas: In this video, James Bovas [previously] performs a Hindi version of a Malayam song about the Crucifixion. The Hindi lyrics and English translation were supplied to me by the Indian gospel media production company Sarah Creation.

सारे पाप और दाग ममटाकर, मुक्क्त देने के मलए
मुक्क्त दाता ने बहाया, खून अपना क्रूस से
खून के प्यासे भेडियों ने, आके घेरा यीशु को
मारे कोिे टोकी कीले, धारे ननकली ज़ख्मों से
मेरे मन तू याद कर ले, क्यों सहे दुुःख यीशु ने
तेरा खानतर जान देकर, दी ररहाई यीशु ने
श्राप सारे लेके मेरे, दे दी मुझको आमशषे
यीशु के पावन लहू से, भाग्य मेरे खुल गए

To remove all the stains and sin, and to give salvation
The Redeemer shed his blood on the cross
Bloodthirsty wolves surrounded Jesus
He was scourged, nailed, and a stream of blood issued forth from his wounds
O my soul, never forget why Jesus suffered!
He gave his life to set you free
He took all my curses and gave me all the blessings
By the holy blood of Jesus, my destiny changed forever

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ESSAY: “The Path from Death to Life” by Kurt Koch, Plough, March 30, 2024: A Catholic cardinal reflects on the dark side and the bright side of Holy Saturday. “As the day Jesus rested in the grave, Holy Saturday is the day of God’s concealment and silence in history,” Koch writes. “And yet, Holy Saturday also has a hopeful and joyful aspect. . . . [On this day] Jesus traveled to [Hades,] the place of greatest loneliness – a place completely bereft of any human relationships – and stirred the souls and limbs trapped by rigor mortis with the warming love of God. He transformed their grave into a place of new life.” This essay is anthologized in the revised and expanded edition of Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Plough, 2026).

Roundup: Christmas art Digitorial, Norwegian jazz, bluegrass “Carol of the Bells,” Chopin meets Hillsong, Armenian Gospel art

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE: “Holy Night: The Christmas Story and Its Imagery”: This “Digitorial”—a responsive, multimedia, educative webpage—was created as a supplement to a physical exhibition at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt that ran from October 12, 2016, to January 29, 2017, which brought together over one hundred paintings, sculptures, and other precious objects, mostly from medieval Germany, to tell the story of Jesus’s birth. Featured online are a magnificent Rhenish tapestry (seriously, click that link and zoom in!), an ivory relief carving, an altar, a wooden statuette of Mary with a removable flap on her belly that reveals the Christ child, a liturgical cradle and doll, a manuscript illumination, a woodcut, and more. Also included, for listening, are readings from the Revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden (a fourteenth-century mystic whose vision of the nativity had widespread influence) and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (source of the legend of the miraculous palm tree on the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt), as well as a lullaby from a medieval mystery play at Leipzig and perhaps also sung as part of the custom of Kindleinwiegen. Curator Stefan Roller introduces the exhibition in this video:

Joseph's First Dream (Antwerp)
The Angel Appears to Joseph in His Dream, 1518, from the predella of the Antwerp Altarpiece in the Lady Chapel of Saint Mary’s Church, Lübeck, Germany. Mixed media on oak, 46 × 40.2 cm. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany.
The Virgin Mary's Confinement
The Virgin Mary’s Confinement, Meuse region, ca. 1380. Walrus tooth with remains of the old coating, 51.8 × 58 × 14 cm. Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany. Photo: Thomas Goldschmidt.

The “Holy Night” Digitorial is written for a middle-grade reading level, I’d say; some of the narration seems geared toward kids. It doesn’t assume any knowledge of the Nativity story, and in addition to highlights from the biblical accounts, it mentions some apocryphal story elements, like Joseph’s backstory, the midwives at the birth, the palm tree and wheatfield miracles, and the identity of the “kings.” I appreciate how it covers the full story, including Jesus’s circumcision and the flight to Egypt. My only two wishes are that the images were provided in higher resolution and that full credits (especially the collection these objects are from) were given at the bottom. 

I really love the Digitorial format! It’s engaging. If I could afford it, I would endeavor to hire web designers to help me produce products like this. This one was designed and developed by Scholz & Volkmer with funding by the Aventis Foundation. More about Digitorials: “Digitorials are short, interactive, online editorials that combine text, images and animations into a meaningful whole and enable innovative storytelling. Digitorials are not intended to replicate or replace physical exhibitions. Rather, they are a useful way of adding breadth and depth, and are usually used before or after visiting an exhibition. The format was developed by the Städel Museum, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung and Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt and is breaking new ground in art mediation, as it uses digital technology to offer an accessible and approachable way of engaging with art. It has already been awarded the Grimme-Preis.” See other examples: https://www.staedelmuseum.de/en/digitorial; https://www.liebieghaus.de/de/angebote/digitorial; https://www.schirn.de/en/program/offerings/digitorial/.

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SONGS:

>> “Jeg Synger Julekvad” (In dulci jubilo): This Christmas hymn of German origin often appears in English-language hymnals as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice!” or the gender-neutral “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!” This jazz arrangement by Heidi Skjerve, with Norwegian lyrics by Magnus Brostrup Landstad, is performed by Skjerve (she’s the vocalist on the left) and students from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Department of Music [previously]. The other two vocalists are Liv Ellen Rønning and Jakob Leirvik. See the full list of musicians in the YouTube description. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “Carol of the Bells,” arr. Al White, performed by the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble: Al White, who taught Appalachian instruments at Berea College in Kentucky until retiring in May, founded the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble in fall 1999 to give students with backgrounds or potential in bluegrass music an opportunity to play in a bluegrass band with weekly rehearsals, performances, and travel. This is one of the many arrangements he wrote—sometime around 2008. In this 2016 video, recorded inside Berea’s Danforth Chapel and outdoors, White plays mandolin and leads four other musicians: Brenna Macmillan on banjo and vocals and Theo Macmillan on fiddle (the two are siblings, now performing and recording as the Theo & Brenna Band), Matt Parsons on guitar, and Casey Papendieck on upright bass (he’s part of the Handshake Deals). As of this fall, the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble is under the direction of Sam Gleaves. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “Peace Upon the Earth” by Hillsong Worship: Since being introduced to Chopin by my piano teacher as a kid, he’s been one of my favorite composers to play—his etudes, nocturnes, waltzes, fantasias. In this 2017 song from Hillsong’s Christmas: The Peace Project, Marty Sampson wrote lyrics for Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major (op. 9, no. 2), which actually works really well! It’s a beautiful handling of the iconic melody. Starting at 3:44, Sampson talks about his songwriting process. He says he was inspired by “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” which came about when William Hayman Cummings adapted the melody of “Vaterland, in deinen Gauen,” a song from Mendelssohn’s secular Gutenberg Cantata, to fit Charles Wesley’s hymn text.

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NEW ACQUISITIONS: “2 Armenian Manuscripts Join the Getty Collection”: This year the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired, among other art objects, (1) a detached leaf with a full-page Nativity illumination from a seventeenth-century Armenian Gospel-book, and (2) a sixteenth-century Armenian Gospel-book illuminated by a brother and sister team, Ghoukas and Eghisabet. (A female illuminator named in an early modern manuscript—woot woot!) “Little is known about the involvement of women in the trade of manuscript illumination, but we hope that highlighting figures like Eghisabet will spark further research and understanding about their role,” write Elizabeth Morrison and Nava Streiter in this Getty blog post.

Mesrop of Khizan (Armenian, active 1605–1651), The Nativity with the Adoration of the Shepherds and Magi, from a Gospel-book made in Isfahan, Persia, 1615. Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment, 23 × 16 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 118 (originally from Ms. Ludwig II 7).
The Way into Eternal Life
Eghisabet (Armenian), The Way into Eternal Life, from an Armenian Gospel-book, 1583. Tempera and ink on parchment, 24.8 × 17.9 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 119, fol. 6v.

Ms. 119 is now the third Armenian Gospel-book in the museum’s collection, and Morrison and Streiter compare one of the illumination subjects side-by-side across all three books—in addition to providing visual comparisons with Ethiopian and Byzantine Gospel-books.