A JOYFUL NOISE

By Christine Burton

Glorious word is welcomed back from 40-day exile

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Like an old friend, we welcome this word back from its 40-day exile in the desert during the Easter Vigil, showing how much we miss it by repeating it twice at the end of every mass for the entire season of Easter.

And how I have missed it in the music. Alleluia. Hallelujah. Two variants, one expression of faith. Not only does it convey so much about my faith (its roots come from the Hebrew and mean Praise God! and it is often sung with an uplifting joy, conveying an entire prayer in a single word) but it’s also a great word to sing — round vowels that let us ring out a tone that is at once clear and warm; that comfortable “l,” easy to move on, essentially the same shape in the mouth (unlike the demon “r,” a terrible consonant for singers). And that great construction means that everyone can say it, from the youngest to the oldest members of our communities. Our Baptist brothers and sisters, especially those in the African-Canadian tradition, know the power of the word — using it not only in their hymns, but in their spontaneous responses to readings and preaching and singing.

It’s used in and comfortable within every language tradition, subtle pronunciation differences reflecting the host language. Small wonder Handel used it as the lead word in the Hallelujah Chorus and Mozart as the only word in the Alleluia Exultate Jubilate — everyone sounds good singing it and everyone loves to listen to it.

So much ability for a word that is not even part of our linguistic tradition — it has moved from strictly religious use to an expression of joy, praise and thanksgiving in response to any long-awaited, hoped-for event, its meaning resonating beyond any given language.

I think this is in part because great joy is ineffable and inexpressible, even with the richness of so many vocabularies in so many languages. The word alleluia, with its cross-cultural application and its ease of expression, allows us all to fully enter into the spirit and intent of the prayer underlying it, one people with one voice.

So too with music. Music that is easy and widely known can be instrumental in bringing the choir and the assembly into greater harmony. Music that includes the word alleluia even more so. And so it is not surprising that Easter music features the word alleluia so often, and that the best known, most traditional of Easter hymns are alleluia-heavy. Is there any one of us who can hear Wesley’s melody dating back to the 1700s of “Jesus Christ is risen today” without responding ‘a-a-a-a-a-le-e-lu-u-ia’ (complete with all the breathy ‘hs’ between a-a’s and lu-u’s)?

Alleluia! Even when spoken, you can hear, it was made for singing, and there is music within the word itself.

Alleluia! Praise God — for the gift of the Easter resurrection and the gift to sing our thanksgiving on Easter Sunday and every day of the year.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

A Saskatchewan soprano, Burton has sung praises to the Lord in Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and now at St. Joe’s in Ottawa, where she is a chorister and cantor at two masses.