The 1507 South Wall Frescoes of Brand’s Parish Church (Vorarlberg)

Walk into the Parish church of Brand in Brandnertal, Vorarlberg, Austria, and you’ll notice several things.

The first is that the church is a curious mix of Gothic and modern, redesigned in modern times to adapt to the needs and size of a large and growing local congregation. The two sections are distinct, the warm wood tones of the modern addition from the 1960s contrasting with the largely white-plaster walls of the Gothic section, known to have been consecrated by the Auxiliary Bishop of Chur, Stephan Tschuggli in 1507 (Fragments, p. 4). 

Brand (Vorarlberg) Parish Church, Exterior

 

Second, as an active church, the Church of the Assumption of Mary (Mariä Himmelfahrt) houses an array of Catholic devotional items. Modern flowers and candles are paired with early modern statuary; two sets of rosary beads and a few polished pieces of pink quartz sit before another mother-and-child with not one but two apples. And, of course, fliers and announcements for upcoming programs are readily available near the entryway.

But to a medievalist, the most striking feature of the Brand church would definitely be its Swiss-influenced frescoes, rediscovered in 1942 by restorer and painter Toni Kirchmayr (Fragments, p. 8). Today’s post focuses on the South wall, where six maroon-framed images remind us that churches of the early sixteenth century were colorful, highly-illustrated places.

LEFT (3 Holy women plus Anna Selbdritt with donors)

Brand (Vorarlberg): Fresco featuring 3 Holy Virgins (above) and Anna as mother of Mary (below)

As the photo shows, the first pair of images of the South wall – the set to the left – focus on women. On top, the three Holy Virgins, St Margaretha with her cross (though her trampled dragon is now obscured by the centuries underneath plaster), as well as St Barbara and St Katharina appear.

Below, we find Anna as mother, coiffed in an oversized headdress and holding the young Mary. They are adored by two donors, identified with coats of arms. We catch the left-hand donor in a moment of prayerful contemplation, hands together and held at a 45-degree angle upwards with a rosary draped and dangling, a message of devotional intent from a mere decade before the reformation.

Brand (Vorarlberg): Donor with rosary and coat of arms

MIDDLE (Three Male Saints and the Immaculata)

The panel of women are matched in the middle pillar by an image of three male saints, this time with banderoles, though lamentably the text is not preserved and the saints have not heretofore been identified; I offer a tentative identification below. 

Brand (Vorarlberg) Fresco: Three male saints (above), and the Immaculata (below)

These three men are all bearded and haloed. Figure 1 holds something at waist height. It appears to be mechanical, since his thumb is pressing a lever and there is some kind of gear and screw configuration. This is likely the windlass of St Erasmus, a gruesome reminder of the torture he faced.

Brand (Vorarlberg): Erasmus with his windlass

If Erasmus is present, and grouped with both the Holy Virgins of the previous panel and male companions here, it seems likely that this complex is part of an elaborate depiction of the 14 Holy Helpers, the Nothelfer, whose veneration was widespread at the time. Using that framework, we can try to identify the other two men posed with Erasmus.

Figure 2 has two layers of cloth over head and shoulders and is wrapped in his cloak; he is more subdued in his movements; his arm seems to hang down, for it is lower than that of our putative Erasmus. He has a grey beard but with a darker mustache, perhaps to evoke his long-suffering life, showing both age and remembered strength. This could be St Eustace, often depicted as one of the more passive of the Nothelfer.

Figure 3 is bareheaded with abundant hair, and holds his left hand palm up with pointer and middle finger curled upwards. Given the gesture, this could well be St Cyriacus, who  was an exorcist.

At the bottom right-hand edge, a much smaller figure peeks up at the three saints, emerging from the frame. Given its size and location, this is likely a donor image.

Below these male saints appear in the panel above another image of Mary, identified as the Immaculata (Fragments, p. 6), though many of the details have been lost.  

Brand (Vorarlberg): Mary Immaculata

She is depicted as a young pregnant woman set against a sunburst of wavy rays, and she stands on something, though, like Margaretha, we can only guess at whether or not it was a crushed dragon. (It seems more likely that they are rocks.)

Like the donor of the previous set of images, Mary’s hands are waist-high and upright, raised in prayer, but unlike the donor, whose palms touched, Mary intentionally steeples her fingertips to create a triangular space above her swelling abdomen. The triangle can be read as an allusion to the Trinity, and we are invited to see Mary as the “Vas spirituale,” the spiritual vessel, bearer of Christ the redeemer. (I have written on Dominican prayer gestures in a previous post, though that discussion was more about posture than hand gesture.)

This interpretation of Mary's role as a vessel of grace is reinforced by other elements of the fresco. Mary’s gaze is drawn to a serpent, the representation of her purity a stark contrast with the evil of sin.

Likewise, in the upper left corner, we see an angel holding a chalice and a crown. The chalice is closer to Mary than is the crown. That is, this is not a depiction of the crown on offer but rather one in which the promise of a crown is glimpsed. Why? The pregnant Mary is only mid-way through her difficult journey, not yet serving as Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven) but rather preparing herself to be the receptacle of grace.

The other corner may once have held a second angel but that image is, alas, effaced.

RIGHT (Harrowing of Hell and Four Men)

The panel on the right changes up the thematic content. This time, there are four male figures in the lower image, and above we see the Harrowing of Hell, with the released souls emerging from their graves. 

Brand (Vorarlberg): The Harrowing of Hell (above), and four male figures (below)

The bodies emerging from the graves in the upper panel are the holy dead; they have halos and are naked or, like the right-most figure, are in simple shifts. The central figure of the group, however, is in a dark fur-lined coat and is assisting the others over the tomb edge. Above, a majestic haloed figure stands. Banderoles, both for the heavenly figure(s) and for those emerging from the grave would have helped contemporaries interpret the story.

The four men in the lower image are less easily identified. Of the four, two wear hats (of different sorts) and two do not. At least three of the four men have beards; the right-most figure might be clean-shaven. One of the men looks at us and seems to be smiling; the other three look outside of our scene and have more serious expressions. None have halos, though the four do stand against a lighter bit of sky – a cloud, or the glow of sunrise both come to mind.

Could these be patrons, gazing (mostly) on the Immaculata of the previous panel? Or are they patriarchs, without halos? And why is there space running along the left-hand edge – are they by a shore, perhaps? Or was there meant to be a fifth figure? Why was the order inverted – why are these men not in the upper panel like the saints of the other sets? Was the artist ensuring that we read them as secular figures? The image leaves more questions than answers.

SUMMARY

On this Southern wall of the Brand church, we have two images of Mary – to whom the church is dedicated, of course – and one of Christ’s freeing of souls from limbo. We also have six saints –  three women and three men – plus an additional panel of four men. And we have the two adoring patrons of the first pair of images, actively pursuing devotional prayer as a model for the congregants who gathered in this space. 

Such images were meant to activate the church's space. They called the viewer to remember particular biblical stories, they reminded the viewer of the presence and support to be had from the saints, and they modeled the practices and postures of prayer, as we saw with the donor and rosary. They served, in other words, as a distinctive testament to pre-Reformation faith in the Walser areas of Alpine Vorarlberg.

To me, the south wall’s frescoes are a kind of devotional anchor for the parish – rooted, orderly, and densely populated with saints and familiar sacred moments. Our donor figures here are both observers and participants, integrated into the sacred story. It's almost as if they are inviting parishioners to imagine themselves there, too. 

I’m also struck by the sense of continuity that these images suggest. The saints act as intercessors, protectors, and models, and are placed alongside Marian devotion and Christological scenes in a way that feels almost liturgical.  

Eamon Duffy reminds us in The Stripping of the Altars that late medieval English parish churches were “full of presence,” filled with images, rites, and smells that made the divine tangible. The same clearly applies here in late medieval Vorarlberg. This wall’s carefully choreographed figures were likely central to local rhythms of prayer and memory – not just passive decoration, but a kind of visual litany embedded in the painted plaster that made the church so resplendent.

WORKS CITED:

[Anonymous]. Parish Church “Our Lady of the Assumption” Brand: Fragments from the Church History Chronicles of Brand / Vorarlberg. [Undated Church Pamphlet.] Cited as "Fragments."

Cyrus, Cynthia. "Dominican Prayer Gestures" [blog post], Silences and Sounds, 3/29/25 https://silencesandsounds.blogspot.com/2025/03/dominican-prayer-gestures-32925.html.

Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992/R2022.

Note: The photos – taken by the author in July 28, 2025 with an iPhone 12 (!) – have been adjusted to bring out image details. The author is happy to provide untouched originals if needed. Photos and text are CC BY-SA: You are free to share and adapt this material, provided appropriate credit is given; any derivative works must be distributed under the same license.

Kin, Cash, and Convent: Providing for Nieces (and Nephews) in 1613 Bludenz

Excerpts of AT-VLA, BludenzStadtA, Charter 10255 of 1613

In Counter-reformation Bludenz in 1613, widow Catharina Zürcherin*, a citizen of the town, prepared her legacy with a special eye toward her female kin. Childless herself, and without the guidance of her late husband (Anton Marks of Braz), she gave all her funds to her siblings’ children.

The family was doing well. The male Zürcher siblings and cousins – Hans, Georg, Dietrich, Gabriel, Adam and Sebastian – had recently been elevated by Emperor Maximillian to the hereditary nobility just a few years before (1610 April 5, Innsbruck, AT-StaAB Urkunde 741). In the document, the emperor names the brothers and cousins alike for “in consideration of their services to the House of Austria.” But, of course, none of the females of the house were named. Such gendered recognition (and gendered absence) was common practice at the time.

So back to Catharina: As she makes her will, she chooses to recognize the children (of both genders) of her sister Anna Zürcherin by both husbands, and those of her brother Mathias Zürcher. As for the third sibling, Gabriel Zürcher, well, Catharina wrote in a special provision for his daughter, her niece, Elsbeth Zürcherin.

For Elsbeth, Catharina set aside 200 Rhenish guilders, and explicitly intended these funds to be used as a convent dowry. This would give Elsbeth access as a choir-sister to an elite Catholic institution of her choice. Given the location, Catharina probably had in mind Elsbeth’s joining St Peter’s in Bludenz, the Dominican women’s convent at the edge of town, though other nearby options included the Clares at Valduna in Rankweil, the Franciscan Tertiaries at Thalbach in Bregenz, or the recently founded Capuchin convent of St Anna’s, also in Bregenz.

Catharina has clearly thought about the situation, for while she is generous, that generosity is conditional. She stipulates that if Elsbeth decided not to enter a convent, the money would come to her only after Catharina’s own death.

If, however, Elsbeth were to predecease her such that the money might revert to her brother Gabriel, well, sorry, then that special legacy would be revoked, and the money be divided evenly.

In these provisions, Catharina is doing several things. She’s supporting the next generation of her natal family. She’s promoting the Catholic faith. She’s making possible a conventual lifestyle for a favored relative. And, given the conditions on her gifts, it seems she just might be thumbing her nose at her brother.

One wonders if niece Elsbeth felt a calling that went unsupported by her father. If so, Auntie Katharina may have been defying male expectations by stepping in here to be sure a favored niece was able to find her way into a religious life.

Either way, it’s clear that one determined woman could shape the lives – and privileges – of the next generation.

One afterwards to this story: while Elsbeth Zürcherin’s future is unknown to us, it seems likely that she was related to the Maria Magdalena Zürcherin of Bludenz, daughter of Adam  Zürcher and Elisabeth Leu – perhaps a cousin or a second cousin of our Elsbeth? – who took up the monastic calling at Thalbach in Bregenz about fifteen years later, in 1627, and took orders there under the name Maria Victoria (Fußenegger, 140). 

NOTES

I honor the early modern Austrian practice of naming women by their patronymics with the feminine “-in” ending. Women of the day did not typically adopt their husband’s surname.

* The name Catharina Zürcherin can also be rendered Katharina Zücherin. Spelling of the period is notoriously inconsistent, and the handwriting itself challenging to read. However, outside of the two documents cited here, the family surname spelled with the interior “R” – Zürcherin – is preferred (102 documents to 2, according to monasterium.net!), and I have adopted it here.

WORKS CITED

Documents, accessed through monasterium.net:

• Bregenz, Stadtarchiv, Urkunde 741 (5. Apr 1610, Innsbruck)

• Vorarlberger Landesarchiv - Bludenz, Stadtarchiv Charter 10255 (6. Nov 1613)

Secondary Literature:

• Fußenegger, Gerold. “Bregenz am Bodensee: Terziarinnenkloster Thalbach.” Alemannia Franciscana antiqua 9 (1963): 93-140.

Why illustrate a prayerbook?

Woodcuts from Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek Handschrift 17

So there she was, my scribe. She’d put all this effort into copying out all those individual prayers. In a manuscript of more than 300 folios, that’s a lot of writing time. And then, before binding the manuscript, she – or one of her sisters? Or the binder himself? -- ran through the visual images available and plopped in two woodcuts, one an image of Mary with child (derived, as it happens, from a plague image), and one a Mary as Mother of the Seven Swords.

I’ve written about both prayerbook images (Cyrus, 2020), but have been thinking more about their purpose, and found it helpful to put the Thalbach tradition of using devotional images into dialog with a non-Western practice of the same period.

To do so, I’ve read Jahnabi Barooah Chanchani’s “Text, Image and Devotion,” (2018), looking at a Sanskrit devotional fragment, “two illustrated folios from a dispersed late 15th-century manuscript of the Bālagopālastuti (BGS) in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.” I was drawn to the use of color in her fragments – so much more fun than mere woodcuts – but I was also drawn to her argument, which I put in dialog with my own material below.

In both cases, text and image work in tandem not to narrate a story literally, but to prompt affective and imaginative engagement. Each pulls its weight in its own way; and bundled together – literally! – word and illustration open up multiple pathways to the divine.

1) Chanchani tells us that in Sanskrit realms, looking at images “was a vital component of the devotional praxis…. The verses and paintings complement each other in helping a devotee envision” their target divine figure.

The same is true for the sisters at Thalbach – or for those at any of a host of women’s houses in late-medieval German lands. For Chanchani’s text, the reader cogitates on Kṛṣṇa,in the Thalbach prayerbook, it’s the suffering Mary of the Seven Swords. In both cases, the role of reader presumably toggles with that of viewer. Each act of engagement informs those that follow, so that meaning is additive across the multiple media being consumed.

2) Chanchani’s manuscript fragments are part of an illustrated “picture-book of songs,” drawing on familiar texts. Nevertheless, as she points out, the paintings don’t directly illustrate the verses. In the images of the first folio, for example, no flute appears, and the extra women of the songs are missing.

Likewise, in the Thalbach prayerbook, Mary’s suffering is represented as a totality; all seven swords piercing her at once, whereas other rendition of Mary’s sorrows become composites, with rondels to narrate the details of her individual sorrows, as Carol Schuler articulates. In the prayers that follow, we instead dwell on details of Mary’s losses. The images in both cases are weirdly both summative – here is a divine personage in the midst of activities – and reductive, in that we are faced with a reduced single-moment capture of that experience.

3) Chanchani explicates that darśan, the process of exchanging gazes with divinity, is at the heart of Hindu devotional practice. Seeing, as she articulates it, is a form of knowing.

For sisters in a monastic environment, the same could very often be true. Jeffrey Hamburger in particular has explored the ways in which images serve as vehicles of inspiration. “Images,” as he establishes, can “serve not as props, but as the principal protagonists” in ceremonies, for instance.(Hamburger, 429). Images could spark visions and other personalized experiences of the divine; many instances can be found among the Nonnenvitae in convent chronicles. Given their status as launching-points for individuated faith experiences, Hamburger argues, images called out for control, duly provided through regulation and admonitions over the later medieval period.

And yet, sisters continued to incorporate images into their worship practices, saying particular prayers at specific altars, gazing on their precious pages in the choir stalls. The two devotional pictures found during archaeological excavation at Wienhausen (Appuhn) are a case in point; worship and gaze are intertwined as practice.

4) Why? Why intermingle imagery and text? I think here Chanchani’s observations are apt. As she explains, reading and looking are (both) imaginative acts. They invite readers to hold multiple aspects of the God-reference in mind. For Chanchani’s text, it is Kṛṣṇa; for the Thalbach sisters it is Mary, apostrophized in multiple metaphors as a signal of the complexity inherent to the divine

Illustrating a prayerbook, then, is not a matter of ornament – instead, it’s about amplification. Just as Chanchani’s manuscript invites the devotee into a multisensory encounter with Kṛṣṇa, so too do the Thalbach images summon a similarly layered engagement with Mary -- not to explain the prayers, but to deepen the contemplative practice surrounding them. Read, look, think, intuit: the praxis of devotional reading is more, so much more, than just working through the words.

In other words, in both Hindu and Christian-monastic tradition image and text operate not merely in service to each another, but work instead through a process of dynamic tension, for each pushes the devotee toward a more expansive and imaginative apprehension of the divine.

WORKS CITED

Appuhn, Horst. Der Fund im Nonnenchor. Kloster Wienhausen, Bd 4. [Wienhausen]: Kloster Wienhausen, 1973.

Chanchani, Jahnabi Barooah. “Text, Image and Devotion in a 15th Century Western Indian Manuscript.” Aziatische Kunst 48/1 (2018): 42–53. Academia link.

Cyrus, Cynthia J. “Printed Images in a Thalbach Manuscript Prayer‑book of the Sixteenth Century.” Journal of the Early Book Society 23 (2020): 173–82.

Hamburger, Jeffrey. The Visual and the Visionary. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.

Schuler, Carol M. “The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Popular Culture and Cultic Imagery in Pre-Reformation Europe.” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 21 (1992):5–28.

From Sea Lions to Sight-Singing: What Sea Mammals Know About Music

Sea Lions of the Georgia Aquarium, April 2025

Pinnae, the externally-located parts of the sea mammal’s ear, are parallel to auricles in humans. As the Georgia aquarium explains, pinnae help sea lions (and by extension seals and walruses) with their directional hearing, especially when they're on land. And, when the pinnae are pinned back, the animals are streamlined, able to twist and turn in the water in what observers (my husband and I) might describe as a “caffeinated state.” So much motion! So little splash!

So, if sea lion pinnae and human auricles are alike, might not the sea mammal be the next freshman ear-training Wunderkind? It sure seems plausible, to judge by the scholarly literature of late!

For one thing, the more-mobile pinnae could readily serve to give sea mammals better concentration than your average freshman. How so? Well, if sea mammals have the ability to close their ears to keep out water, they might perhaps perform that same action to close out aquarium noise. With decibel levels hovering regularly in the mid-80s, the noise of the general public must surely be annoying to our mammal companions on display. Perhaps that’s why they spent so much time submerged; listening to the roar of an enthusiastic crowd may easily be imagined to “get old fast,” particularly when a mammal is capable of so much more. Close off the pinnae, reduce distraction. I bet freshmen wish they had a tool like that on tap?

Not only that, but sea mammals are also capable of changing vocal expressions in learned behavior (Reichmuth and Casey, 2014). They can imitate complex sounds. For instance, Hoover, a captive harbor seal, famously mimicked human speech with a recognizable New England accent, including favorite phrases like “Hey! Hey! Come over here!” That old expression monkey see, monkey do here becomes “Seal repeats phrases that trainer over-uses.”

Likewise, studies have reiterated that sea mammal vocabulary was volitional – done at will – and influenced by status, with dominant animals vocalizing more often than their subordinate peers. This “voluntary control over sound emissions,” the authors argue, “is likely related to respiratory adaptations for diving.” If I am following the argument here, a sea mammal might readily be moved into that sight-singing class, since they can learn to repeat what they hear, and the more self-important the beast, the better the outcome. Yup, sounds like freshmen to me!

Not only have the ear-to-voice translation capacity of our freshmen, sea mammals also are good candidates for voice department training. The elements of shaping a good singing voice are found in the “jaw, tongue, lip, and soft palate movements,” am I right? Oh wait, these “articulatory gestures” are exactly the ones that the captive harbor seal used in Goncharova’s study of the way that “wawa” sounds are shaped (Goncharova et al., 2024).

Teacher: Move that soft palate forward, and make it sound like this…
Captive Seal: like this? …
Teacher: That’s right, but give it a little more lift at the end…

So far our sea mammal student shows trainability, and the capacity for vocal shaping. But we all know that rhythm is a big bugaboo for the freshman ear training student. What of that?

Oh right, sea mammals have that covered as well! Yes, it turns out that sea lions can be taught both simple and complex rhythms. How so? Investigators (Rouse et al. 2016) taught Ronan the sea lion to nod her head in time to repeated rhythms. They then provided deliberate disruptions to her click-track. It turns out that Ronan could adjust to tempo changes and other disruptions, getting back on beat within a measure or two.

The authors suggest that the mechanism is one of auditory-motoric entrainment – that is, a coordination of the motor unit with rhythmic sounds – through neural oscillation. Moreover, because that capacity is so broadly found in the animal kingdom, they argue that “rather than being a derived ability, this faculty is instead broadly conserved.” From elephants to cockatoos to, yes, sea lions, many animal species can bop to the music. In other words, investigators found that musical skills might be much more natural and widespread in the animal kingdom than traditionally thought.

What does this say? It suggests to me that the ambitious ear training instructor might well look to their local aquarium for species-broadening outreach.

So, if your institution wants to know the public impact of your music school, just tell them this: from sight-singing, to vocal sound production, to rhythm, the sea mammal is a ready-made model for teaching and learning those modern-day ear training skills!

WORKS CITED

Goncharova, Maria, Yannick Jadoul, College Reichmuth, W. Tecumseh Fitch, and Andrea Ravignani, “Vocal Tract Dynamics Shape the Formant Structure of Conditioned Vocalizations in a Harbor Seal.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences vol. 1538, issue 1 (2024): 107-116.

Reichmuth, Colleen, and Caroline Casey. “Vocal Learning in Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 28 (Oct 2014): 66-71.

Rouse, Andrew A., Peter F. Cook, Edward W. Lage, Collegen Reichmuth. “Beat Keeping in a Sea Lion as Coupled Oscillation: Implications for Comparative Understanding of Human Rhythm.” Frontiers in Neuroscience (2016), DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2016.00257

A handful of sunrises

A sunrise begins in freshness,
In hues that can’t be named,
A wordless shout of wonders
To call forth inner joy.
The weightless effervescence of spring dew
Bejewels silent landscapes.
Darkness recedes, as inches of possibility
Slowly shapes the sky.
An unvoiced call, an eye-for-ear substitution,
An imagined roaring clamor of yellows, oranges,
And energizing shades that tingle on the tongue
Tasting like today.

As I sifted through old photos, I came upon my sunrises folder from 2022, a small treasure-trove of beauty. I gift them here as reminders of that makes our world wonderful. (All photos are May-July, 2022)

Musical Presence and Funeral Choices

Image of a minor chord and a graveyard (at Shiloh)

Musical choices matter. They matter in life, and they matter in the rituals of death as well. They represent the person and that person’s values, choices, and (with luck) tastes. Funeral music, in particular, does more than fill silence; it becomes a final gesture, shaping how we remember and are remembered.

Having recently gone through the experience of choosing music for a family funeral myself, I know that those choices are constrained by the hosting institution, by the capacities of the performer, and by the sheer quantity of “absolutely not, I cannot abide that drivel” that abounds in the funeral industry. Tasteless pop pablum: not the way our dear-departed should be ushered out of the land of the living. We ultimately had a meaningful ceremony, though not without hitting discussions of option B, option C, and let’s circle back and see if option A will pass the minister’s attention. (It did.)

Happily, my husband and I have had our lists of “recommended listening” for our own funerals in a folder on a just-in-case basis. We should both revisit it; those lists are from long ago, and newer music has penetrated our awareness. But we did that work in uncertain times, and it’s nice to know that if a family member were faced with having to orchestrate a remembrance ceremony (heavens forfend), they’d have someplace to start.

These existence of such lists show a bit of where I come from: as a musicologist, the idea of remembering me through something musical is a meaningful offering – much like a shared favorite poem or the sunrise pictures that will give folks a taste of the additive joys of my life. So much beauty, here, have some, and savor what I loved.

But here’s what brought that admittedly macabre topic to mind: Brian Fairley in a recent Journal of Sonic Studies article talks about a 1967 Georgian funeral at which, well, I’ll let his words tell it:

As the casket of the singer and choirmaster Artem Erkomaishvili lay in state at the municipal theater in Ozurgeti, a reel-to-reel tape player clicked on:

Weep for me, brothers and friends, relatives and acquaintances. Only yesterday I talked with you, yet today my hour of death has come. And now I will go to that place where there is neither hypocrisy, sorrow, nor wailing, where the slave and master stand together. (Erkomaishvili 1980: 17)

The voice was Erkomaishvili’s own, reciting a portion of the Orthodox Christian rite for the dead.

The singer had recorded the “Rite of Mourning” for his own funeral, using multiple tape recorders to overdub the three-part chants himself. He had also requested a performance by the Gordela ensemble as well. “Hey, there’s this group I’d like to sing” is one level of control. But “Hey, I’ve made a single-occasion sound recording for my funeral? That’s a level of involvement in the end-of-life ceremony that frankly had never occurred to me. It was a moment as a reader that I stopped cold. Wait, what?

But as I’ve pondered this incident, I’ve come to realize that it’s not so strange. At Sally A’s funeral, for instance, there was a performance of an arrangement she’d written of a song she’d loved. Or wait, was it a recording of her actually singing? The details now blur, but I remember the moment of poignancy – her hands, her mind, her musical choices shaping what we, gathered to celebrate her life, had shared together in community.

And we are becoming familiar with posthumous “holographic” tours – Tupac Shakur at Coachella (2012); Roy Orbison’s In Dreams: Roy Orbison in Concert (2018); “The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa” tour (2019); and the Whitney Houston tour (2020-2022), described by its promoters as “the most awe-inspiring and immersive live theatrical concert experience ever.” Yes, “live theatrical concert” of a dead person. I get it: the music lives on.

To be honest, such holographic recreations remind me of the glitz of the whole “immersive Van Gogh” media extravaganza; digitized and mediated remembrances of something that at its core once mattered to us, now repackaged and aggrandized as commercial re-imaginings with high sales potential (and juicy ticket costs).

But these things speak together as well of the nature of music as a path to remembrance. For music lingers. It resonates in the unswept corners of memory and in the silences that follow loss. Whether it’s a congregation joining in a well-worn hymn, a voice echoing from an old reel-to-reel, or a digitally-animated likeness on stage, music allows us to summon the presence of the departed – sometimes tenderly, sometimes theatrically, but always powerfully.

In that way, funeral music is more than background. It offers structure, offering shape to grief. It is a connecting gesture, extending a hand to the mourners. And it gives voice – sometimes literally – to the dead by giving them a final say in how they wish to be remembered.

As technologies evolve and expectations shift, so too do the multitudinous ways we humans craft sonic presence in rituals of parting. What remains constant is our human need to hear, to remember, and to let music speak where words might falter.

So write your description. Compile that playlist. Or even make that recording, if you wish. Choose with care. Because someday, someone will press play – and in that moment, you’ll be present, shaping new memories.

WORKS CONSULTED

“An Evening with Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour” [website]: https://www.whitneyhouston.com/tour/an-evening-with-whitney-the-whitney-houston-hologram-tour/

Fairley, Brian. “Singing at Your Own Funeral: Overdubbed Intimacy and the Persistence of Tradition in Soviet Georgia.” Journal of Sonic Studies 27 (2025): https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3509747/3509748

Special call-out to Brian Fairley, who makes a complex argument in his “Singing at Your Own Funeral” – about socio-political contexts for musical recordings in 20^thc Soviet Georgia, about the role of family stories as historical documents, about the nature of the heroic and learned singer, and of the nature, importance, and sometimes impermanence of technology. You should definitely read the whole thing!

Grow, Cory. “‘Bizarre World of Frank Zappa’ Hologram Tour Not So Bizarre After All.” Rolling Stone, April 25, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/frank-zappa-hologram-tour-review-827195/

Matthews, Justin, and Angelique Nairn. “Holograms and AI can bring performers back from the dead – but will the fans keep buying it?” The Conversation, June 1, 2023, https://theconversation.com/holograms-and-ai-can-bring-performers-back-from-the-dead-but-will-the-fans-keep-buying-it-202431.

COVID’s Musical Humor: The Toilet Paper Chronicles

3 rolls of TP and a Coronavirus meme

Remember when the world shut down and all those folks panic-bought toilet paper like it was currency? Well, musicians noticed – and they didn’t miss a beat. (Puns in a humor column, be warned.)

Okay, okay, what follows isn’t really a chronicle. But the references to the repeated runs on toilet paper were a source of much musical and artistic mirth during COVID, with examples between March and June 2020.

First, a historical reminder of where we were (and also where we weren’t):

March 2020 marked the global realization that COVID-19 was not containable, leading to lockdowns, panic-buying (hello, toilet paper), and a sharp halt to public life. Even our local park was shuttered.

April and May brought a surreal new normal: stay-at-home orders, Zoom everything (sooooo much Zoom), homemade masks, and a flood of online creativity as people sought connection and levity amidst uncertainty.

By June 2020, public health messages competed with rising restlessness, cautious reopenings began in some places, and it became clear the pandemic wasn’t a sprint, but rather a marathon.

And in response? We did that very human thing, and drew on humor as a way of coping, critiquing, and commenting on the world around us.

Some of that humor was visual… 

Next, we have the “ridiculous uses of toilet paper” category, with freelance cellist Rylie Corral of Austin, Texas, participating in the toilet paper challenge. I know about it from the news story, but by March 20, 2020, her facebook video of the unconventional performance of Saint-Saëns “The Swan” (from The Carnival of the Animals) had already drawn 700K views and generated its own hashtag.

If unconventional or extreme uses of toilet paper aren’t quite your thing, you could go for the whole toilet paper in a comedy sketch usage, this one dated March 19, 2020. The “queue the toilet rolls” remark comes in later, after the introduction of the premise – British conductor/comedian Rainer Hersch running a rehearsal of The Coronavirus Concerto (“which is due to be canceled in two days time”) – along with its follow up about the musicians getting paid (ha ha, no). A chipper upbeat string melody together with a variety of body noises (coughing, wheezing, spitting, and so on) are the lighthearted backdrop to our view of Hersch as conductor, pelted by toilet paper rolls at the 1:16 mark…

There’s the obsessively questioning “Where’s My Toilet Paper,” the minimalist contribution by Tokyo-based Zombi-Chang (the composer Meirin’s solo project). This contribution to the “please stay home!” narrative for Japan was offered up on April 6, 2020, and – implicitly – reminds the viewer that shopping is not worth dying for.

There are also laments for the losses, such as the amusingly named “Ode de Toillette” [sic] subtitled “The Great COVID19 Walmart Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020- Bagpipe Tribute.” (Happy, this is not a smell-track, the ode/eau de pun not withstanding). This amazing (see what I did there?) tribute of “Amazing Grace” performed to the empty shelves by The New Hampshire Police Association Pipes & Drums had me in stitches back in the day – the video was posted on March 13, 2020, the date of the U.S. declaration of a national emergency for COVID.

Irreverent? Yes. Funny? Also yes, both for incongruity, and through inversion of expectation. We *would* come to need those bagpipe bands, and too many of them, alas. But a moment of levity in an empty Walmart aisle doesn’t preclude the subsequent serious mourning of real and tangible losses in those early days of the pandemic. Both responses, levity and lament, speak to the human condition.

Sometimes, toilet paper is just part of the bigger picture, as with rapper Todrick Hall’s “Mask, Gloves, Soap, Scrubs” (Apr 29, 2020), that humorous parody of the oh-so-popular “Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels” of just one year before. In Corona times, the iterations of daily life are a bit different than they were in more sociable days-of-yore:

Left, right, left, right swiping on Tinder / What was life like? I can't remember / Need my haircut, somebody shave her / Where is all of the toilet paper?

Then there’s the incorporation of toilet paper as a focus of social dismay. “We’ve all seen the pictures of people online who seem to think they’re invincible,” starts the video by the technical death metal band Cattle Decapitation from April 1, 2020. “Well you’re not. Enough is enough. Go home and stay home.” And then the angry guitars start for “Bring Back the Plague.”

Here, toilet paper isn’t part of the lyrics, but it appears repeatedly as a visual signal of the “new normal” of extraordinary times – clutched on shopping sprees, rolling down the staircase, focus of a tug-of-war, an emptied roll in the bathroom. Bits and bobs of pandemic life are like the “where’s Waldo” of the COVID first wave. Tiger King and hand sanitizer, Spring break and lying on your couch with the TV remote: can you spot these details? Life was hard.

The energy and frustration at society’s glib and sometimes ridiculous responses – fighting over toilet paper packages, people, for real??? – brings the question of a lack of social accountability into juxtaposition with the unsettling idea that the “bacillus countless” are going to have their way with us whether we choose to accept that infectious reality or not.

Bring back the plague / Delete those that threaten a whole new world
Start today / Dig their graves, they'll find a way
To rid the world of finding new tomorrows 

If you aren’t part of the solution, suggests Cattle Decapitation you ARE the problem.

And perhaps the best of the best is the use of toilet paper rolls as found instruments. So I leave you with Netherlandish "designer and maker" Ruben Stelli’s June 2020 remake of the “Popcorn Song,” originally by Gershon Kingsley from his Music to Moog By album. You’ve heard it done by electronic instruments, now hear it performed by … toilet paper and its cardboard innards, used as found sounds.

Some days I think to myself, I just can’t make this stuff up; I’m not that creative!

Looking back, I actually think that these musical moments were more than just goofy distractions. Rather, these small acts of creativity in the midst of chaos made a claim to both artist and audience’s very own personal survivability. If you can laugh, you can cope. Whether through parody, protest, or bagpipe-laced lament, these songs and memes reminded us that we weren’t alone – even if the store shelves were empty.

Hope you got some joy from these samples from the past – and maybe a reminder for your next shopping list, just in case?