The Fredösphere

Michael Parker has created a website he hopes will become the "one stop shop" for information on Robert Shaw.

Browsing the site, I learned for the first time Shaw's interest in theology.  A chance encounter with Fred Waring, who overheard Shaw rehearsing a glee club, saved Shaw from the gaping maw of seminary and put him on the straight and narrow path of conducting.

Shaw as a theological thinker is a strange idea to those of us familiar with his reputation for arrogance, impatience, and a foul mouth.  In fact, Shaw's monomaniacal approach to rehearsal tended to inspire either a worshipful attitude, or eye-rolling.  (See both attitudes in this post and the subsequent comment.)

Shaw brings the same impatience to his descriptions of bad worship:

First, for worship to occur, there must be a sense of mystery and an admission of pain. Referring to the lines of two American folk hymns, "What wondrous love is this/which caused the Lord of bliss/to bear the dreadful curse for my soul" and "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me," Shaw remarks, "These words are magic to me, and their melodies, shaped and worn by Niagaras and years of tears, are as perfect as anything I know in music."

In his youth, he encountered a "shoutier boastier fare," such as "O there’s power, power, wonder working power/In the precious blood of the Lamb." In the great hymns and spirituals of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as in "There is a balm in Gilead/to make the wounded whole," and "Swing low, sweet chariot,/comin’ for to carry me home," he finds "a directness and a fervor of utterance and humility which involves man’s nobility and, to me, a spark of divinity."

How different these hymns are from what he calls the "foulsome flush" to which we are subjected on some religious broadcasts. Shaw deplores the fare emanating from what he calls "Crystal Christ-o-rama, California," maintaining that "there are not enough disposal plants in the country to handle TV Sunday morning effluence!" No mystery, no pain.

"Crystal Christ-o-rama, California."  I wonder that that is a reference to.