Essence or Context

One of the chapters in Taruskin's recent collection Cursed Questions, is titled "Essence and Context" and it deals with the "ontology of music," specifically with the idea of "music as music" that is, music considered in the abstract, without considering context. Opposed to this is consideration of music as inextricably linked to a context--social, historic, etc.

This makes me think that there is really a sort of spectrum from music that, at least on the face of it, is pretty much music as essence. At the other end of the spectrum is music that is all about the context. At the abstract or essence end is a piece like this, perennially popular with theorists:

Or this, also popular with theorists:

Typically, at this point a musicologist would start to dig into the pieces to show that yes, even these, supposed abstract musical "examples" still do have a context. But I want to go in a completely different direction. Let's see if we can find some music that is all about context with a minimum of abstract musical interest. How about this?

The tune, "Mansions of the Lord" is a hymn, written in traditional style, by Randall Wallace with music by Nick Glennie-Smith. It was used in the soundtrack of the film We Were Soldiers. The performers here are the West Point Band and West Point Glee Club. Context? Layers and layers of context. The text honours fallen soldiers, the music is in the style of a traditional hymn, the performers are young people destined to become soldiers and the audience are undoubtedly soldiers and relatives of soldiers. This is a kind of niche in which music preserving a style hundreds of years old is entirely suitable. This is about 95% context and 5% pure musical interest.

Here is another example, but using a non-Western musical genre, the haka. The haka is a war chant used by the Maori in New Zealand. It has found its way into two cultural niches in modern New Zealand: as a suitably demoralizing pre-game ritual by the New Zealand Blacks rugby team, and also to honour fallen comrades by some New Zealand army units. The words, gestures, dance, facial expressions are all traditional.

Now, of course, I am trying to think of some examples not connected with armed services, but perhaps there needs to be a niche this strong to resist the temptation to any sort of musical innovation! The haka dates back a couple of hundred years.