Here is an article out of the Seattle Times. The students unanimously voted to have ‘Ave Maria’ played by the band at Graduation. Many people consider this one of the greatest pieces of music of all time. It is one of those classical musical themes that can make you cry. Anyway, the superintendent vetoed the song because it was too Christian. Funny thing is, the tune is secular in nature, written by Bach as part of
Das wohltempierte Klavier (First prelude from Book 1). In English, this translates to ‘The well-tempered piano’ – not too religious so far. ‘Ave Maria’, the words, were put to this music much later by a French Composer named
Charles Gounod.
So, what the Superintendent did was ban the students from playing a secular Bach tune because someone, somewhere along the line, once put Christian words to it. I suppose if the Superintendent begins to lose the lawsuit, she may plead ‘musical ignorance’. However, I believe this is another case of, “when blinded by Christian-hatred, the facts don’t matter”. Seems like there is a lot of this going around.
