The traditional Conference in the name of St. Michael the Archistrategos were held in Minsk under the aegis of St. Michael Orthodox Fraternity in November. Professor of the Moscow State Conservatory Dr. Medushevsky who is also renowned for being a music theologian took part in this conference. The Sisters of St. Elisabeth Convent invited this remarkable person to visit our Convent. Here you can read some pieces of the talk which was held in warm friendly atmosphere.

Dr. Medushevsky:

– Let’s try to guess if the church music can be sung in a materialistic way? Surprisingly, yes. Conservatory choirs can do it easily: they sing practically everything in plain voice.

The thing is that everything depends on INTONATION. These are intonations that reflect our souls accurately.

Now let’s look at ourselves. How do our facial gestures work? They are combined and integral. Look, now I am very serious, I have wrinkles on my forehead that denote special attention. And now I am trying to smile at the same time. Can I smile with my lips only? No, I can’t. It would rather be a grin. When I smile it means kindness inside of me. Our face is not just about the way the brows are curved, or the nose, whether it is crooked or something: it’s something integral. Facial expression is intonation indeed because it is integral, it gives full picture of what is inside. Intonation consists of many aspects of sound and all of them correspond to meaning. That is why singing is so responsible.

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What is wealth? Wealth can be good or bad. God is good in all His qualities: humbleness, purity. When you were singing some moments ago, hearts melted… Purity means quiet voice. The Lord is quiet, meek and lowly… And all these qualities are reflected in music. The essence of music, if it is good, is always in tune with the Gospel. The Holy Bible reads, “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

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We have two kinds of music: in-church and out-of-church. We often say that music can be secular and church. This is not quite accurate because all music ought to be church music. The old times did not know such division.

Take Bach, for example. He never separates the eventual goal of music, be it in church or outside it. For him, it is the same. The eventual goal of music is to serve God’s glory, to become consecrated by the Spirit. “If it is not taken into consideration, that would not be called music, but rather noise and devil’s babble”. “Music or not music” - a more accurate criterion can hardly be found.

Mozart wrote to his father once, “…I have learned that a right thought about death is the best friend of the humankind”. The thought coincides with that of the Holy Fathers! Death is gates to the Heavens. We imagine that the life we live is a real life. It is real now, but it will completely perish in two hundred years. However, the afterlife is bright and real, there is power and grace in it! We want to feel it, and music helps us. Secular, or out-of-church , music helps us understand what this world is like. It is the portrait of life, it shows us how we must live righteously, and how the Lord acts in it…

What is the difference between in-church and out-of –church music? The difference lies in the goals which we attempt to achieve through music. We come to church and pray. All the songs that we sing are to achieve one goal – to come closer to God. Everything there is in church – icons, singing, gestures - is made to reach this goal. We try to be closer to God. How can we do that? First of all, we attempt to resemble God. When we look at icons, we are ashamed at first, for we are not the people we must be. We want to become better persons so we begin to pray. We do not change by ourselves. Can we save ourselves? – No, it’s God who saves us! We just have to express our willingness, our readiness…

The two aspects of music are intertwined. What is the goal of out-of-church music? It reflects real life and transforms it. It shows us how we ought to behave ourselves in real life. What were the Apostles doing most of the time? How did they live with the Lord? Yes, they prayed and worked, but first and foremost the Lord was teaching them. He gave them freedom, He did not sermonize them, He observed them, saw how they behaved. If they did something wrong, the Lord taught them that it was wrong; for example, for them to show off, to seek superiority over others.

That how we ought to live. A person is a person’s Apostle, and even more, a person is God to another person. This is the ideal in grace. But what does out-of-church music do? It reflects real conditions, as they are. For instance, do we always pray in church or at home in silence? No, not always. Our conditions may differ. How can we pray then, how can we live then? Music can teach us.

As far as church music is concerned… Znamenny chant stems from Greek chant. But it is not the same thing… According to Konotop (one of the researchers), people used psalmody. Then it was lost, complex chants were impossible for our hearing to copy. But we copied the soul of this music. How can we restore it now? This is a hard job. There are certain attempts, but it is sung as something restored, it lacks authenticity.

Wonderful as it may see, there is no mix in the Church. I was deeply impressed when my wife brought me a disc of a Greek monastery choir from America. All of the chants were familiar to me but… at once I heard bleating. You know, at first I could not believe it. Soon I learned that this piece of singing was done by the flock of the monastery, Orthodox Lebanese who had built the church. The Church embraces everything, everything that hath breath praises the Lord.

I think it was Clementus of Alexandria who said that “church music must not go in variety”. The Greeks do not have thematic contrast. They do not have themes at all. What they do have is tune development, i.e. continuous line from beginning to end, and all this bases on one lasting sound, so called ison. One nun in the Ormylia Convent, she was a Serb and could speak Russian, asked me, “Well, what do you think about our singing?” I said it was good, excellent, and asked her what singing with ison gives. At first, she could not understand me. I said that we touch the very core of being through it. She answered yes and I regretted I hadn’t a dictaphone with me for she was speaking so enthusiastically, she gave me a real lecture.

We are gradually ascending and ascending… Sometimes we can’t do it – well, do not worry! Can you imagine that even paper icons shed myrrh?! I did not see it myself, but I read about the fact that a simple paper icon had not just been restored, it had been completely rewritten. This is a great miracle! Same with singing – our Lord is merciful. He will always help us.