Robert Cundick’s “The Redeemer” at the Tabernacle last night
Hi guys –
Thanks to Aaron Dalton for passing me some highly-coveted tickets (thanks Aaron, and thanks Sus for babysitting for us!) Emily and I were able to attend Robert Cundick’s “The Redeemer” at the Tabernacle on Temple Square last night.
Mack Wilberg was conducting (the director of the BYU Men’s Chorus for me, Jordan, and Neal) and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed. The orchestra used was the Orchestra at Temple Square, and there were about half a dozen soloists (Clayton Brainerd was the Bass/Baritone — very cool!). It was kind of a format like Handel’s Messiah (I guess it would be called a cantata, perhaps?). Frankly, I think it’s a great Easter bookend to the Messiah at Christmas. It also reminded me of Crawford Gates’ stuff.
President Monson was there, and it was a very powerful almost sacred performance. I have been to lots of performances, and even at the most elegant of operas there have always been loud cheers/whistling/cat-calls at the end during the applause. This was MUCH different — you could tell in the Tabernacle that everyone was quite impacted, because there was thunderous applause but NO voices — just clapping. It was so unique to hear that — it would have broken the Spirit in the room to speak afterwards. So we just all clapped and kept clapping harder.
They were going to prepare to present flowers to the soloists during the applause, but the soloists said not to. They wanted the focus to be on the Savior, as it was last night. What a powerful performance! “The Redeemer” was written in 1977 by Robert Cundick, a member of the Church who wanted to write something that would ring true not just for members (since a lot of the lyrics of the piece are taken from the Book of Mormon & the Doctrine and Covenants), but for any Christian. It is split into 3 acts: 1) The Prophecy, 2) The Sacrifice, 3) The Promise. I’ll post more later, but I wanted to get this up there for you guys. Here is a link to buy a CD of it from target.com if you want: click here.
OKAY, I’m back for just a minute to post a little more of my thoughts….
As I mentioned, most of the lyrics are from the Book of Mormon & the Doctrine and Covenants, with several excerpts from the Old & New Testaments too. A couple of things that hit me were as follows:
Reading the libretto as they were singing it was very inspiring. The way it was divided into the Prophecy, the Sacrifice, and the Promise was a great way to split it up. And the scriptures chosen were excellent scriptures. One that particularly struck me was in Mosiah 15, I believe, where I believe Abinadi is speaking about how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who publish peace. and he says this: “Yea, Lord, thy watchmen shall lift up their voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.”
When I was on the mission I taught a Jehovah’s Witness whom I respected quite a bit. I have some real trouble with their doctrine — in my mind it really tries to remove the divinity from Christ, among other things. It was quite infuriating sometimes, and offensive to me that he degraded Christ’s role. But I can’t deny the sincerity & humility of that man and we had a good relationship where we discussed the gospel openly and bore testimony frequently. Come to think of it, the sincerity & humility he portrayed is pretty typical of the attitude & sincerity of most Jehovah’s Witnesses that I have met. And so when I heard that phrase “thy watchmen shall lift up their voice” I thought of their publication “the Watchtower” and how disappointed I was that I could never bring him around to see eye to eye with us on how Christ is the Redeemer and the Lord and several other points we discussed. When Christ comes again, during the Millennium there will be good people of many faiths on the earth. But when I heard that phrase “together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion” it made me hope that the good people of the earth will all see eye to eye. You know, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.
One other thing I noticed was a scripture in 2 Nephi 31 that talked about Christ showing us the gate of baptism by water, the baptism of fire by the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end in faith. And when I heard that phrase of the Holy Ghost being like a fire I saw this imagery of a blacksmith pounding on a red hot blade and the black bubbles of impurity flaking off or being squeezed out of the metal. And I realized that THAT is why the companionship of the Holy Ghost is so important every day — it acts like a fire inside that continually burns off the impurities that fall onto us throughout the day. It also reminded me that to become pure we might have to get banged around a bit, like a sword being made by a blacksmith! 
Anyway, it was a great event and very impactful. I had more thoughts, but no time to share them right now. Hope you get a chance to hear it sometime, or see it performed — it is definitely worth it!
love,
Brig
March 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Brig,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I am so glad that you and Emily go to go and I hope that Mother and I will be able to see it some time. It is very powerful when inspired music and inspired words come together. Music can bring the Spirit and be a great teacher.
I remember Ben and I had a nice Gospel discussion, as we often do. We were talking about a Jewish convert to the Church (I’m sorry I don’t remember his name right now). He finally agreed to accept an invitation to attend Church by some friends who were LDS. He was baptized and became a strong member of the Church. When he was asked when and how he was converted, he said that he was converted during the opening song the first time he attended Church, somewhere in the second verse. The song was “Israel, Israel, God is Calling.” That music with those words changed his life forever and became the most important thing to ever happen in his life.
Love, Dad