There are few figures in history I hold lower in esteem than Jean Calvin, founder of one of the grimmest sects in the catalogue of the world’s religions. Too dark even for Martin Luther, who was far from being the benevolent Reformer of myth, Calvin was the inspirer of the vile Scot John Knox and of the doctrines of the “Synod of Dort” (held in Dordrecht, South Holland, 1618-9) which drove my grandmother insane…
That last item calls for an explanation. I never knew my maternal grandmother, and neither did her daughter, my mother. Grandma van der Vorst developed schizophrenia as a teenager when the attractive and happy girl was crushed under the weight of Calvinist “doom and gloom”, as one of her cousins put it. She was briefly organist at the Dutch Reformed church in her native North Dakota village, which was full of immigrants from The Netherlands. One night after a dance organized by a traveling band she was seduced by one of the German musicians, a fellow named Schatz, and the resulting baby was taken from her and put up for adoption. That was my mother. She grew up in a loving family of Swedish immigrants. My grandmother was sent to a state insane asylum after this final blow, where she died in 1972, just weeks before her lost child tracked her down. From that illegitimate coupling in the summer of 1926 I trace much of whatever native musicality I possess.
A great lady whom I knew in Holland lived in intermittent terror as her life waned. Her Calvinist church, to which she was devoted, taught her that no matter how she had lived her life, she could just as well go to hell as heaven when she died, because everything had already been planned by God before Creation. This doctrine of predestination strikes me as one of the most idiotic ever conceived –– a reductio ad absurdum of God’s supposed omniscience.
So I was surprised to find myself in agreement about anything with this hero of the Reformation. But his preface to the Geneva Psalms (1563), with their wonderful tunes by Loys Bourgeois and others, has the following passage:
“Now among the other things that are proper for man’s recreation and delight [volupté], music is either the first, or one of the principle ones: & we must hold it a gift of God ordained for this purpose. Which is why we should all the more take care not to abuse it, for fear of soiling or contaminating it, converting it to our damnation, whereas it was dedicated to our profit & spiritual health. If there were no other reason than this, it should be enough to move us to moderate music’s usage, to make her serve all things honorable, so that she not be made an occasion to give rein to dissolution, or to effeminate us with disordered delights, and that she not become an instrument of debauchery, nor of any indecency.
“But there is yet another reason: it would be very difficult to find anything in this world more capable of turning or bending the morals of mankind this way or that, as Plato prudently thought. And it is a fact that in our experience, music has a secret and almost incredible power to move hearts in one direction or in the other. Which is why we should be all the more diligent in regulating it in such a way that she be useful to us, and not pernicious. This is why the ancient Doctors of the Church often complain about how the people of their times abandoned themselves to shameful and indecent songs, which they justly called mortal & satanic poison corrupting the world.
“Now in speaking of music, I understand it to have two parts, to wit, the text, or subject & material: secondly, the song, or melody. It is true that any bad word (as St. Paul says) perverts good morals: but when accompanied by melody, it will transfix the heart with much greater power, & enter into it: as when wine is poured into a goblet through a funnel, thus the venom & the corruption is distilled to the depths of the heart by the melody.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather after I read that. First we must define “volupté” as used in 16th century French. It means “legitimate delight”, not voluptuousness in the erotic sense. The connotation had changed by the 18th century. But Calvin does seem rather obsessed (and frightened) by all the things that we would call voluptuous, does he not? His is the morality of the ascetic, the Puritan, the Anchorite almost. I can’t say that I ever subscribed to it myself.
But oh, how he loves (and fears) the power of music! He echoes St. Augustine, who referred to periculum voluptatis –– the danger of experiencing pleasure while listening to music in church, instead of being inspired to devotion by it. A couple of centuries later Rousseau thought elaborate music dangerously “unnatural” –– and therefore composed drivel.
Countless others have reacted in similar ways. I can vaguely recall the shock caused by the first appearance of Elvis Presley, whose talent I admire greatly, but whose effect on crowds of screaming teenage girls had their parents calling for his imprisonment. The Beatles arrived when I was 12 years old, with similar results, although they were found to be a bit less…voluptuous than Elvis. I didn’t much care one way or the other at the time, and I certainly thought the banning of hard rock music in the latter days of the Soviet Union was ridiculous and futile.
I’m not so sure anymore. When I contemplate the present state of popular music, I find myself secretly yearning for one of Plato’s philosopher kings, who would have had the power to ban modes he considered insidious. There are boundaries placed on hate speech, at least here in Europe. Why not on the “satanic poison” of the “shameful and indecent songs” which are the Lydian and Ionian modes of our sorry age? In his De Musica (ca. 300 AD), pseudo-Plutarch says:
“Thus the ancients, being most concerned with guarding morality, preferred and highly esteemed the fashion for grave music, not the strange and affected. And they say that the assembly of Argos ordained definite punishment upon those who offended against music, and condemned him who first added a seventh string to his lyre, and who dared to use the Mixolydian mode, to a heavy fine.”
Call me an ancient, but that man had it coming. I mean to say, seven strings and the Mixolydian?
I’m actually a libertarian at heart, but I fear a MAGA, not to say Russian, Chinese or Talibanian reaction at some point. Even classical music clearly can’t moderate or regulate itself. This gets into political and philosophical issues that I am fortunately too old to cope with. Time to cultivate my garden for the years remaining to me.
14 December, 2025
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