cover image Echoes from Calvary: Mediations on Franz Joseph Haydn's the Seven Last Words of Christ [With CD]

Echoes from Calvary: Mediations on Franz Joseph Haydn's the Seven Last Words of Christ [With CD]

Richard Young. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., $24.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-7425-4384-3

On Good Friday in 1787, Franz Joseph Haydn premiered his enduring string quartet The Seven Last Words of Christ, a musical meditation on the final sayings that Jesus was said to have uttered from the cross. Today, this work is still performed on Good Friday in some three-hour services that combine music with homilies about these last words. Young, the violist for the world-famous Vermeer quartet at Northern Illinois University, brings together some outstanding reflection and commentary on the seven words, from luminaries such as Martin Marty, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Peter Gomes, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Andrew Greeley. The book is divided into seven sections, with excerpts from about a dozen thinkers and preachers about each saying. Additional mini-essays deal with the interaction between the liturgical texts and Haydn's musical score; the history of meditation on Christ's last words; the meaning of the sayings for us today; and the community that has formed around the University of Chicago's annual Good Friday service, whose chapel has featured the Vermeer Quartet since 1997. Moreover, the book comes complete with a 2-CD set that contains the Vermeer Quartet's Grammy-nominated recording of Haydn's classic, along with seven spoken meditations. This marvelous pairing of music and great preaching will inspire Christians of many different traditions.