From Gregorian…
Thomas Duchesne, (1st prize keyboard and composition, Conservatoire du Luxembourg, AMI BEST)
“Under the heading Music, the main musical works inspired by or simply making use of the text are listed period by period. The Bible is one of the most important sources of inspiration in the entire history of music, so the musical notes in the BEST try to express the great variety of styles and composers who take up the verses of Scripture.
Thus, one can encounter Renaissance polyphonies as well as Bob Dylan songs throughout the chapters. It is important that the repertoire selected should appeal to both the informed music lover and the wider public.The Gregorian chant has a prominent place in this great musical commentary. Indeed, it is the Church’s own interpretation, for it is the Church that has shaped this chant and preserved it in its multi-secular liturgy.
Major works that musically interpret an entire biblical text (e.g. the Passion oratorios, Lamentations or other Creation) can be the subject of more systematic musicological analyses. The main features of the author’s life are presented as well as the specific characteristics of the piece. For shorter passages or short pieces of music, the performance alone is sufficient.
This musical illumination of the biblical text is completely new, and introduces us to a link that is essential and has never been presented so directly. We hope to cover all the chapters of the Bible, given the immense wealth of repertoire available. This musical anthology will thus allow the reader to receive the Word in a unique way as it is played and sung in the culture. “
… to the rap
Arthur Lesage, ENS Paris, agrégé de grammaire, AMI BEST in Jerusalem in 2019-2020
Arthur LesageA young associate professor of grammar, attached to the Department of Ancient Sciences of the ENS, his research interests include cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics applied to the study of the Egyptian language.
“My contribution over the last few weeks has consisted in implementing in the multimedia database clips of French and American rap songs whose texts contain certain exploitable biblical references, then creating from these songs text notes associated with the biblical passages concerned, and commenting extensively on the verses or “punchlines” constituting biblical references.
Indeed, the Bible is a privileged source in rap lyrics, as many French and American rappers, many of whom are immigrants, are of the Christian faith (Damso, Niska, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West) or benefit from a solid Christian culture thanks to their entourage (the mother of Booba, a rapper who converted to Islam, was a Christian) or their own culture (Médine, Youssoupha, etc.). Thus, rap is an art form in which biblical references are most frequently used, either directly or indirectly, and illustrate the various ways in which the biblical tradition is received by representatives of certain communities that are sometimes invisible or silenced in our society.
Thus, it was a question of inserting in the format of a text note associated with the biblical passage concerned the link to the YouTube clip in the multimedia database, then providing in a first part contextual information on the title, the album and the rapper himself, and finally quoting the verses concerned and commenting in detail on their meaning, but also proceeding with a stylistic analysis to draw out all the evocative or rhetorical force.”
April 2020, Jerusalem
