Holy Week music has a very specific purpose that Enya just doesn’t fulfil. Stick to theme, Alex Vella Gregory tells the masters of the holy ceremonies.

Funeral band marches are a staple ingredient of most Good Friday processions. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

One of my earliest childhood memories of Good Friday is watching the Good Friday procession come out of Mosta church and, as soon as the first purple banner appeared at the door of the church, a croaky old lady proceeded with intoning a suitably painful hymn in an indeterminate key. Her thin steel voice echoed across the village from strategically placed loud speakers. It was like 10 German schoolmistresses scratching their nails across 10 blackboards simultaneously. I was horrified.

Worse is when you get a full choir of old croaky ladies. Usually, each hymn ends up being sung in 10 different keys at 10 different speeds. And then there is always that one lady who finishes half a verse after everybody else… and at the end of it scowls at the rest of the congregation for having rushed.

Then, of course, you get the accompaniment. With so many great organs, lovely harmoniums and even good digital keyboards available, why do they insist on those awful Casio keyboards that sound like a Eurovision song from the 1980s? And don’t get me started on guitars. The same three chords, played in the same manner no matter what the song is. Abominable.

It was not so much the tunes that irk me, but the delivery. To this day I still have not forgiven Vatican Council II for giving people the idea that everyone can sing and play and that God actually likes it. I always thought God gave each us talents with which we could praise him. If you haven’t got the voice feel free to mime your appreciation.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not being a cultural snob. On the contrary, I think even a much abused tune like Ġesu Tiegħi can sound good if sung properly and a guitar can sound wonderful if properly played. The problem is this idea that anything goes.

Then, of course one cannot not mention the many Passion plays that happen all over the island. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have been to a few of them and some of them proved to be interesting, with some even turning out to be surprisingly well-written and produced. But I do take issue with some of the musical choices.

One of the most impressive bands in this regard is the La Vallette Band taking part in the Valletta Good Friday procession

I will state this very clearly: The Soundtracks to 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) have nothing to do with the Passion of Christ. Neither does Enya. I have seen Passion plays where Christ walks triumphantly into Jerusalem to the sound of Aragorn’s theme from LOTR. Granted, Viggo Mortensen would make a good Christ on film, but Aragorn would not.

The thing is this... there is a lot of good music out there. Music which captures the essence of the Passion narrative and helps us come to grips with the tragedy. Different composers have reacted differently to the story and, with each work, the narrative is enriched. It does not even have to be strictly sacred music, but I find it hard to understand the mystery of Redemption with Orinoco Flow in the background.

People sometimes forget that music is a very functional art. The reason we have so much different music is that each style and form serves a different purpose and once you change the context you can render it banal, no matter how beautiful the music actually is. Take, for example, Gregorian chant, an almost de rigueur component for many a Holy Week exhibition. The chant is intricately tied to ritual and reducing it to background music simply lulls you into a catatonic state and leaves you staring in front of the exhibits.

There is one genre of Passiontide music which I am particularly fond of and that is funeral band marches. These are a staple ingredient of most Good Friday processions and other related events. The slow lilting marches and plaintive melodies make them ideal for processions. The works of Melilli, Miruzzi and Ciappara are all perfectly crafted gems of popular music.

One of the most impressive bands in this regard is the La Vallette Band taking part in the Valletta Good Friday procession.

The combination of a carefully-coordinated step, the squeaking of the statues as they are carried on the shoulder and the suggestive backdrop of the city make it one of the must-see Good Friday experiences in Malta.

So, I guess the upshot of this all is that music about suffering should not make you physically suffer but rather make you contemplate suffering. I also firmly believe that Christ suffered enough as it is. Inflicting croaky old ladies and Enya on him is just wrong.