Da Pacem Domine
Da pacem Domine? AI-generated image, C. Levin (Iowa Annual Conference)
Iowa Annual Conference | Nov. 22, 2024
A month before the 2024 election, on the day that marked the first anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel, I came across the oddest piece of music.
Now I can’t stop thinking about it. And praying it.
I had found myself filling in for a few weeks accompanying the Ames Choral Society, so I got to sit at the piano on Monday evenings playing parts and accompaniment as this collection of 40 or so talented vocalists practiced through a range of music, looking ahead to Christmas. We had worked hard on John Rutter’s “Christmas Lullaby” and the swing-y “We Wish You the Merriest,” then picked up the very familiar “Little Drummer Boy”—an a capella arrangement in which the men’s voices beautifully carried the feel and beat of the drum.
And then there was this very odd piece, with words in Latin and vocal parts that consisted of seemingly endless successions of sustained notes separated by staggered rests. All to be sung at the astonishingly slow tempo of 40 beats per minute.
We don’t sing very many pieces that slowly. A metronome marking of 60 equates to 1 beat per second. The Eagles’ “Desperado” is at about that rate; listen and I think you’ll notice how rarely popular music slows down this far.[1]
Now think about slowing down even further, to 2/3 that rate.
The first few times we picked up this piece, I was busy worrying about playing the right notes, but by that October 7 rehearsal, the singers had progressed to where the director, Steve, asked me to drop out. And I had time to wonder what was going on here. Why this unusual tempo and pattern of notes and rests? It was all holding together, but in a most unaccustomed way: Loooonnngg note. Short rest. Loooonngg note. Short rest. Each part doing that same thing, but staggered so that each part’s rest came when the other’s notes were sustained.
Which meant that each movement by every set of voices had to make sense in the midst of the slow, tender progression of the other three parts.
As I puzzled over how unusual this music felt, I got curious about the meaning of the Latin—which was not shown (as it is in many vocal pieces) line-by-line. I found the answer on the back cover. It was about peace.
Give peace, O Lord,
in our time,
because there is no one else
who will fight for us
if not you, our God.[2]
It was all one sentence. One simple sentence which—as soon as I read it—I heard speaking into this day on which we were singing. In singing these words, we were praying for the peace that has proven so elusive in Israel, Gaza, and the whole Middle East. And not only there but in Ukraine. And in our own streets, and homes, and hearts.
The piece is called “Da pacem Domine” and I found this YouTube rendition that actually shows the vocal parts as they are sung. You’ll see what I’ve just described. The slow, ethereal, intense sound of peace, unfolding.
It struck me, listening to the singing that night, that the very structure of the music matches the prayer it represents. The work of peace—God’s, through us—is going to have to look something like this piece of music: Voices, or perhaps actions, found to be in perfect unison, that connect in successive harmony with other groups of unison voices, or efforts—always moving into new, unhurried configurations. And then, falling silent—making room for one another, or perhaps finding rest periodically, because the work is long. And then brief periods in which multiple voices move together in utter agreement, soaring in perfect beauty.
The words admit we cannot do this ourselves. But, God, oh that you would fight for us to find the peace so deep and sustained!
I heard this music, on that October 7 evening, pouring its light and longing into the conflict in Israel, Gaza, which had recently expanded into Lebanon.
The composer is Arvo Pärt, born in 1935 in Estonia which has a complicated history as an oft-occupied territory—including by the Soviet Union for much of Pärt’s life. Pärt is described as a composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant.
In recent days I’m hearing this piece anew as a prayer for us here in the U.S. in the wake of an election that seems the antithesis of a decision for peace.
Give peace, O Lord, in our time…
This week we learned of the incoming administration’s plans to declare a state of emergency on his first day in office, in order to carry out long-announced plans to deport undocumented immigrants. Something like half of America celebrates these plans, crowing that undocumented immigrants should have no expectation of anything like peace. My heart recoils from this American “Holocaust,” the hunting down and rounding up of human beings who have lived among us, unprotected and underpaid.
…for there is no one else who will fight for us…
Singing even a beautiful, evocative song of peace is not the work that lies ahead of us. But perhaps its example of concerted, harmonized, deliberate action together, with pauses for needed rest while others labor, is the song, and the prayer, that are needed now. God’s work will always be manifested through the full-throated work and action of people like us who faithfully align our voices and deeds with the prayers we sing together. Slow enough to find and sustain the harmony.
…if not you, our God.
[1] The AI comments to my Google search on this subject included this compelling nugget, about songs at this 60 bpm tempo: “Listening to music at a tempo of around 60 BPM can help to synchronize the brain with the beat, which can cause the brain to produce alpha brainwaves and enter a more relaxed state.”
[2] Here’s the Latin:
Da pacem Domine,
in diebus nostris
quia non est alius
pugnet pro nobis
nisi tu Deus noster.
Lee Roorda Schott
The Rev. Lee Roorda Schott
The Rev. Lee Roorda Schott is a retired clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.