What This BYU Professor Learned from His Music About His Savior
How do you combine your passions in life with your love for the Savior?
For professor Christian Asplund from BYU’s School of Music, he has spent the last few decades blending sacred texts with diverse musical genres. Asplund's contributions to both the academic and artistic worlds are as expansive as his musical range; his work spans from traditional classical pieces to jazz and modern improvisational compositions.
Drawing inspiration from scripture — particularly from the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants — Asplund has created a remarkable body of sacred music that reflects both his personal spirituality and his innovative approach to music-making. Learn more about his process in the following Q&A.
Q: What inspired you to start setting scriptural text to music?
Asplund: I started composing hymns in 1990, inspired in part by the words of Spencer W. Kimball and Boyd K. Packer, encouraging the production of new hymns — specifically with themes of the restoration. I began by setting existing sacred texts, especially ones from hymns that were no longer sung. I moved gradually from 4-part congregational and choral hymns to solo songs with piano accompaniment and songs with melody and chord symbols only.
From 1990 until the pandemic, this activity of composing sacred songs was in the background of my creative activity. During the pandemic, most commissions and collaborative musical activity dried up. Solitude became a new lifestyle. Then, I focused on writing sacred (and some secular) songs along with jazz tunes (the latter I had been doing since high school).
Q: Could you tell me about your process for setting the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants to music?
Asplund: I was inspired by the three Grant Hardy editions of the Book of Mormon, in which I placed passages in verse. Then, I decided to start setting Doctrine and Covenants passages. Nobody, to my knowledge, has versified the Doctrine and Covenants (except for the apocalyptic song in section 84). I started at the beginning and set verses that seemed musically evocative. Now, I have published an entire volume of Book of Mormon songs and two volumes of Doctrine and Covenants ones and am almost finished with a third.
I try to listen to a text — to its rhythm, color, timbre, emotion, etc. I listen for musical sounds and textures that are suggested by or implicit in the words. I try to listen to these properties more than the overall meaning of a text. I do not like to force or manipulate a text to do something it does not naturally do.
Q: How did you come to the name “The Wide Expanse of Eternity 1?”
Although “The Wide Expanse of Eternity” fit on one CD, streaming services only allow albums to have 50 tracks, so I had to split it into parts 1 and 2. The name comes from Doctrine and Covenants 38:1–4, which says: “I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the same which looked upon the wide expanse of eternity, and all the seraphic hosts of heaven before the world was made;”
I fell in love with the opening passages of many sections in Doctrine and Covenants (that I had mostly skipped over in the past) where Jesus bears testimony of himself, assuring us and Joseph Smith that He is the author and is omnipotent. The image of Him surveying the wide expanse of eternity — straddling time, temporality and eternity — felt so grand and beautiful.
One of music’s wonderful properties is its ability to give us a taste of the eternities. For me, making music is impossible without spirituality. I see creation as a collaboration between mortals and the divine; music bridges both our spiritual and temporal yearnings in transcendent ways.