PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

February 25, 2025

THE FIFTH HORSEMAN

Saturday, February 10, the South Bend Symphony Orchestra performed the world premier of Michael Schelle’s The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Michael Schelle was the winner of the symphony’s 2022-23 Season’s Crossroads of America Composer competition. In the program notes for the concert and a podcast by Alastair Willis, Schelle, who is head of the composition department at Butler University, has given some history and background for the piece.

The seed for his piece came from an abstract painting of the famous Notre Dame’s four horseman at the hotel where the contestants were staying for the crossroads competition.  To reinforce the choice, 2024 is the 100^th anniversary of Knute Rochne referring to the backfield of Notre Dame’s football team as the Four Horsemen.  Also, a part of Schelle’s thinking were the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelations (Revelation 6:1-8).  They are identified as being conquest, war, famine, and death by plague.

The final piece of the composition came from Charles Sutherland Elton, an English zoologist and animal ecologist who identified the general ways in which the animal population is held in check: the horsemen of predators, pathogens, parasites, and food supply.  Sean Carroll in his 2016 discussion of Elton, The Serengeti Rules, suggests a fifth horseman, humans.  Thus, the title for Schelle’s composition.

As I listened Saturday night to the world premier of The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, I could imagine the opening of the first of four seals in chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation and the emergence of the four horsemen.  The music conveyed the destruction, havoc and fear the riders brought.

Schelle’s composition has hints of five iconic No. 5 Symphonies: Mahler 5, Tchaikovsky 5, Shostakovich 5, Bruckner 5, and Sibelius 5.  It would seem that there is an extra No. 5.  Revelation has only four horsemen.  In scriptures 3 represents heavenly, 4 represents worldly, 7 represents a perfect combination of 3 + 4, 12 represents the ideal community (3 x$), and 6 being one less than 7 represents imperfection.  The number 5 has no symbolic meaning in scriptural tradition.  So, what is it with the fifth horseman?

Joshua 3:1-5:1 tells the story of the Hebrew people crossing the Jordan river and the building of a memorial composed of twelve stones.  When the memorial has been completed, Josuha tells the people “When your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground (Joshua 4:21).”  Just as the memorial of twelve stones invited inquiry about its meaning, the title of Schelle’s composition invites inquiry about its meaning.

A possible outcome of an inquiry into the meaning of The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse is that humans, us, are one of the sources of the ecological crisis that our world faces.  The piece puts into musical language the horrific consequences of such an apocalypse.  Zechariah 6:1-8 tells of the sending forth of four chariots to carry the spirit of heaven to the four corners of the world. The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse might be seen as a call to become a fifth charioteer, to be an advocate for being good stewards of God’s creation.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)