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Goodbye Jesus

Musical Question


Beowulf

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I've got a musical question especially for those of you who have escaped graduated from Bob Jones or some other Fundy school. This past weekend I was in a performance of the Mozart Requiem and Mozart Coronation Mass. The Requiem is one of my all-time favorite choral works - Mozart truly was a genius.

 

In our organization there are many former BJU students, and even one faculty member. However, I don't think I've ever seen an advertisement for a performance of any of liturgical music at Bob Jones University itself, such as the Mozart masses. Do these schools have some sort of injunction against performing various composers' Masses because of the connection to Catholicism? Just curious.

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This made me curious so I did some research on it. No, it looks like BJU does in fact appreciate Mozart:

 

University Faculty Series

 

The BJU music faculty series will present a four-part series throughout September and October featuring some of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's finest works in honor of his 250th birthday.

 

http://www.bju.edu/collegian/pdf/col_20_02.pdf (Page 3, Fine Arts Brief)

 

Oddly enough, I know people who are great music lovers but cannot stand listening to the Great Mass in C minor because it brings back their terror of being an altar boy in the Catholic church 6 days a week. For me, I don't make that association and consider it a wonderful work. Maybe this is an issue in your local church? I know the church I was in was mostly modern gospel music oriented, rather than classical. No wonder I left them :wicked:

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Good find - thanks, Antlerman!

 

The file to which you linked really didn't provide me the answer. It just refered to an all-Mozart concert. I saw lots of references to opera, but no titles of sacred works. However, I did a search for the word "Mass" on their main web site, and I came across references to the Haydn "Lord Nelson Mass" and several other pieces they refered to as "concert masses." That pretty much answers my question.

 

I guess if it's a "concert mass", it's OK.

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I can't remember if there were any liturgical pieces performed while I was a student there, but it doesn't seem to be something that BJU would have a problem with. Despite their hatred of the Catholic Church, BJU is home to the "largest collection of religious art in the Western Hemisphere," many pieces of which were Catholic-oriented. They used to (and probably still do) get a lot of flak from other Christian institutions about that, as well as their performance of secular plays.

 

Respectfully,

Franciscan Monkey

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