The "Good Life" Wasn't Good Enough

For two decades Christopher Parkening has bowed again and again, classical guitar in hand, to acknowledge storms of applause in the world’s most prestigious concert halls.

On the surface, these scenes have changed little. But seen through the eyes of the young guitar virtuoso, nothing has been the same in the 1980s. For Parkening, making fine art is now a matter of faith and thanksgiving.

As the decade began, he was playing brilliantly on his visits to 90 or so cities each year. The reviews were glowing, but his mind and heart were tired and his spirit dull.

Friends and associates had heard Parkening was planning to take a sabbatical. Few knew the truth: the protege of the legendary guitarist Andres Segovia was ready to call it quits.

“I had played enough concerts to make enough money to buy the things I wanted to live ‘the good life,’ ” he says, a few days before three appearances with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. “My dreams had all come true.… But I felt totally empty. The music I was making didn’t mean anything to me.”

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Parkening and his wife had bought a Montana ranch by a stream in which he could satisfy his love of fly-fishing. Parkening knew he could afford to sit back, perhaps teach a few lessons now and then, and let the years pass.

It wasn’t enough.

Then one day a neighbor leaned over the back fence of the Parkenings’ home in Los Angeles and invited him to visit Grace Community Church in Panorama City. The Reverend John MacArthur’s sermon cut deep. The key questions: Are you a real Christian, or a fake? Is your life yielding fruit for God?

“It’s a cliche, but I saw my life pass before my eyes,” Parkening remembers. “I realized I was only professing to be a Christian. My whole life changed.”

He vowed to find a way for his life to “glorify the Lord.” It seemed easier to do that with the guitar than with a fly-fishing rod.

Parkening has not, however, become an evangelist dressed in a concert tuxedo. He does not interrupt Vivaldi concertos to offer his views on the epistle to the Romans. And don’t look for him on electronic-church broadcasts, or expect to see him record albums of gospel tunes elongated with pseudoclassical workouts.

He believes he has another role to fill: “I feel, frankly, that it is possible to play both secular and sacred music to the glory of the Lord,” he says. “But we exist to glorify our Lord and Savior. That’s the bottom line. If I feel I can’t play a piece of music to the glory of God, then I won’t play it.”

Rave Reviews

Parkening burst onto the music scene in 1968 at the age of 20, after taking up classical guitar as a boy. The soft-spoken Californian’s first albums, “In the Classic Style” and “In the Spanish Style,” were released simultaneously to fine reviews. Segovia, in a quotation that has graced Parkening’s career ever since, called him “a great artist, one of the most brilliant guitarists in the world.”

It is an opinion shared today by a major figure in Christian music, pianist and composer Kurt Kaiser of Word Music, who has long stressed the importance of classical music to the church. But Kaiser adds that Parkening’s importance lies not just in who he is but “what he is and what he stands for.” The guitarist maintains the high standards of a world-class artist while helping set new standards for Christian artists.

Parkening’s goals are, indeed, high. One is to mine the riches of centuries of sacred classical music and to bring this music to the stage and recording studio.

The number of concert works written for the guitar is small, compared with instruments such as the piano or violin. Parkening hopes, following Segovia’s example, to transcribe or commission transcriptions of many works written for other instruments, or even voices. These can then be added to the guitar repertoire.

Parkening pursues this goal with yet another lofty standard in mind—finding music that reveals faith as well as high art: “Obviously, some of the most beautiful music ever written was written to the glory of God. As Bach said, ‘The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God.’ ”

This viewpoint has been reflected in the guitarist’s most recent albums. A 1986 release, “Pleasures of Their Company,” was recorded with heralded soprano Kathleen Battle. It includes English, Spanish, and Brazilian music and ends with six spirituals (two arranged by Kaiser). It was nominated for a Grammy award as classical album of the year. And Parkening and Battle provided one of the musical interludes in this year’s Grammy awards broadcast.

Before the album with Battle came “Simple Gifts” and a set of works for guitar and chamber orchestra adapted from Bach’s sacred cantatas. These two albums, Parkening stresses, were intended as clear “testimonies” of his new life as a Christian.

“Simple Gifts,” which will soon be re-released by Word, contains a wide spectrum of music making. There is a medley of spirituals, such as “Deep River.” But there is also a technically stunning arrangement of “Evening Prayer” from the opera Hansel and Gretel, which requires Parkening to play music originally written for full orchestra and two sopranos.

For the future, Parkening plans a set of Spanish albums.

“You’re always walking that thin line between music that pleases the purists, yet is music you want to play.… It’s hard to find works that are strictly classical, adaptable to the guitar, and sacred,” he says.

“I want to play hymns and other forms of religious music, yet I don’t want to play gospel music. I want to play music that is ‘classy’ enough for the concert stage. I am part of the classical music tradition. I must use the gift I believe God has given me.”

By Terry Mattingly, religion writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado.

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