UKC

I find it hard as a previous cathedral chorister (Bishop's chorister, a term that now sounds dubious, but back then was highly coveted; an honour), who has been an atheist for decades, to deal with church music.

On top of that as a republican, I now find it hard to hear music which will play at the coronation, without having a dichotomy of feelings. Just now "I was glad" by Hubert Parry is playing, and it is one of my favourite choral pieces: Yet I feel aggrieved that it has such an association with the royalty and coronations, institutions which I thoroughly disagree with. Similar feelings arise with Handel's Zadok the priest etc.

How do others who are non-royalist feel?

I intend not seeing anything of the coronation, but I would like to occasionally be able to hear those pieces without as much of that association. Yet that seems hard to "chorale" in a practical way. (I apologize for my poor pun).

Rob

I know what they say about Elvis but to me he was just a fat bloke in a sequinned catsuit and dodgy sideburns. Give me Eddie Cochran or Buddy Holly any day.

If I like a piece of music I will listen to it without giving any thought to whether or not anyone considers it religious / royalist / christmassy etc.

I went to church schools and sang in church choirs.  I now have no religious belief and find I still love church music.  Choral Evensong on R3 on a Wednesday afternoon is a great pleasure, but I quietly ignore the religious sentiments.

The only way I can relate to what you say is the churning nauseous feeling I get when I walk into a supermarket and hear till beeps. Memories of dark days.

I have no such triggers with music however other than songs used at funerals etc that bring back sad memories. But no hatred.

A very different type of music, but I’m going to see the Orb in Manchester tomorrow night. Their latest album is called Abolition of the Royal Familia.

The last evensong I sat in on was at Winchester, during the height of Isis. The first reading was about god righteously smiting some town with fire and brimstone, for some transgression of some religious tract. I couldn't see any difference between this and what Isis were claiming as justification for their behaviour, and wondered just what message I was supposed to take away from this reading. I almost got up and left the choir in disgust. The rest of the service was rather spoiled for me...

There's no getting around the fact that some of the most noble achievements of Western art are inspired by religion: Bach's Mass in B Minor and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis; Michelangleo's Sistene Chapel and Tintoretto's Scuola di San Rocco; Dante's Divina Commedia and Milton's Paradise Lost etc etc. Personally, I've never found lack of faith any barrier to feeling the power and beauty of such works. As for music which has associations with royalty, it would be tragic if your enjoyment of great works dedicated to royal patrons was somehow tainted by the association. You'd be losing a hell of a lot of Beethoven, including the Ninth. And didn't Mendelssohn dedicate the "Scottish" symphony to Queen Vic?

A religious upbringing can be quite scarring - might be worth going into it with a therapist if you want to get back to enjoying the music (and iron out the other wrinkles)?

Intellectually I still have a strong dislike for the catholic church, but I've tamed the strong emotional reactions I used to have.

Yesterday evening I listened at full blast to my recording of Mozart's Cminor mass under Karajan. God, the power of it, how else can I describe it?

Difficult call. Mahler Symphony 2; Resurrection vs Black Sabbath Greatest Hits

Just to wish my fifth monarch on his way i've just listened to Mozart's so called Coronation mass. Even the qui tollit peccata mundi is almost cheeerful

I have the same problem: a lifetime of church music, if you cut me I bleed psalms, but I no longer believe there is a Managing Director upstairs ... nevertheless, JSBach's B Minor Mass, Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus, etc etc take to somewhere like heaven. This is a puzzle.

Obviously not all religious music does it for me. I play the organ once or twice a month for evensong at our parish church, because they need a spare pair of hands, and while I'll play Victorian anthems if it makes the choir happy I can live without them (Ok, I like "I was glad"). Baroque and earlier is the stuff for me. I spend a lot of my time on instrumental music but the choral stuff is fantastic - and  I can't divorce the music from the words, any more than we could listen to it all without the Bflats or without the bass line.

Coronation music is less of a problem; I won't be watching today's shenanigans, but I can listen to Handel's Coronation Anthems and enjoy them as pieces written for their precise context, a Coronation long ago with hysterically funny old geezers in powdered wigs. Zadok the Priest remains a delight, and a lovely piece of history (by which I mean both the Bronze Age event that the words describe, and the much later event for which the music was written).

Well done for the Bishop's Chorister btw.

I think football killed that one.

I find it really easy to make very personal associations with certain music and songs to a time, place, emotion; and yes sometimes it's detrimental to just enjoying the music for what it is.  I have managed by force to re-associate with time and effort; I really wanted to enjoy certain songs without self inflicted personal baggage.

I seem to remember that Richard Dawkins was once a guest on Desert Island Discs and one of his choices was Bach's St Matthew Passion (I think). Sue Lawley couldn't understand why such an avowed atheist would choose music with such a religious theme. Dawkins was just staggered by Lawley's stupidity and (I think) walked off.

The lyrics on god music and monarchy songs leave me cold, so no singing in church for me.  The music however can be awesome, What to do, what to do...

as an antidote, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEaxow3PoO0&ab_channel=STAGES

Yes but context matters. Listening in the privacy of your own home you can dissociate the nonsense and irreverence which others attach to it