The Mass 'Transubstantiated' into Music: Quotation and Allusion in James Macmillan's Fourth Symphony
Abstract:The Scottish composer James MacMillan has denied the use of programmatic elements in his Fourth Symphony (2015) insisting that the work is 'essentially abstract' This study, however, reveals the work to be the Roman Catholic Mass, to use MacMillan's own phrase, 'transubstantiated' into music. I explicate this programme by the identification of pre existing music heard throughout the symphony that of the sixteenth century Scottish composer Robert Carver, plainchant, liturgical recitative, Jewish cantillation, Wagner, and self quotation which combine to form a chain of quotation and allusion that aligns exactly with the elements of the Eucharistic liturgy. The aim of this analysis is not merely to reduce the work to a ground plan of liturgical correspondences, but to give it its due as a profound meditation on the subjective experience of sacred ritual. I consider the reception of the symphony and contextualize the work within the composer's campaign to improve Catholic liturgical music in general.