And now we will delve into an analysis of the whole novel... just kidding. 

Several weeks ago, someone asked what I wanted to play on my last Sunday. I said that it would depend on what the scriptures are, because worship isn't about me (or my last Sunday). But, I added that I hoped that it would be something for which the hymn "When Our Song Says Peace" would work, because I have a great arrangement that really highlights the contrasts of the first verse. 

When our song says peace and the world says war,
we will sing despite the world. 
We will trust the song, for we sing of God,
who breaks the spear and sword and stills the storms of war. 
 - Richard Leach

On the surface of David Cherwien's arrangement you will hear the obvious contrasts of peace and war. But since just playing something like this is never sufficient for me, I have to constantly analyze the music I play. There is so much embedded in this arrangement that most listeners would be unlikely to pick up on, but a music theorist would.

The war-like sections are composed of some musical elements that have striking implications.

The chords that are moving quickly in the middle register are actually all major chords, which seems odd in a section depicting war. However, there are two other notes being played above that. With the top note of the major chords they form a Webern trichord -- one of the most dissonant chords of three notes, named after the composer Anton Webern (who frequently used it). Coincidentally, Webern died during World War II.

In another part of the war section, there is a musical idea that builds from a single note into heavy dense clusters built out of whole-tone scales in opposing directions, a musical element often associated with the music of Claude Debussy, who died in World War I.

I don't think the use of these particular elements is coincidental. 

In the final peaceful statement of the last phrase of the hymn tune, along with the final note, Cherwien includes fragments of some of the musical ideas in the war section, like shrapnel embedded in the peace that remains.

On this Refugee Sunday, may we be quick to recognize in that final section the refugees we come into contact with -- the peace of having made it here, while still carrying in their souls the shrapnel of where they have come from. When, like the psalmist, they cry out "How long?" help us to sing God's song full of the promise to still the storms of war. 

Marshall