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ricardienneI think Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is one of my favorite pieces of all time. I spent this weekend listening to it mostly continuously. I wish we could play it, but I know that this orchestra wouldn't be up to it, and we don't even have enough players.
Actually, I think I like Tallis's music on its own as much as or more than just about any Renaissance composer. He's at least as good as Gesualdo, for choral sorts of things. And the setting of that psalm is just… there are no words. It's in my sight-singing book, and when I don't want to practice, I get it out and play through the parts on the piano.
It's strange: music is the medium that conveys the most spirituality, to me. (Well, architecture, too, in a sense: Cathedrals always make me shiver in a good way.) As I'm not religious, I don't really know whether what I'm feeling approximates at all what it must feel like to really believe, but it's in religious music that I think I can understand the power of the texts and the beliefs. I can read the Bible; I can read Augustine; but that's really just words on a page. I can disassociate the meaning from the religious content. I can say: this is what some people believe(d), but it remains completely separate. Likewise religious paintings. They can be beautiful, and moving, but I can only comprehend the spiritual content in a third person sort of way. Not so, music.
Last fall, the choir sang Haydn's Missa in tempore belli. I hadn't listened to a full mass* in a very long time, and certainly not when I was in a position to follow along with the text. Then, I think I had a glimpse (or whatever the aural equivalent of a glimpse is) of what the words really might import to someone who did believe, and how they might effect that power. It was rather incredible. I really saw (heard?) the mystery and, well, mysticism that, when one comes down to it, is at the heart of Christianity, or at least, the historical kind of Christianity I tend to think about. There is certainly an intellectual tradition, but it's the non-rational part that is the most powerful, as I have come to see it. And perhaps music is abstract enough that it can demonstrate that even to an unbeliever.
*I've been to Catholic weddings and funerals several times, and once to an ordinary Sunday mass, but they were quite short in comparison to an (old-fashioned?) orchestra one.
Obviously, it is Easter that is provoking all of this. Actually, Easter is just sort of an excuse, as there is all of this faith sort of spilling over from everyone. I think about this quite a bit.
I keep running into people from my lit class, and it's sort of embarassing. I've had discussions about whether or not we can ignore the Monday noon deadline for papers under the office door in light of Tuesday's class being cancelled due to the professor giving a lecture at Cambridge University. The thing is: it doesn't matter for me, because I've got my paper pretty much done, have a copy printed and, barring some disaster (knock on wood) I will get it in tomorrow morning well before noon. I haven't told anyone this; I just say that my paper is "coming along." This makes me feel rather dishonest, but I don't want to seem so weird and show-offy by saying, "well, I basically finished my paper Friday, and all I'm really worrying about right now is whether or not I can get away with a slightly smart-alec Shakespeare reference in my conclusion." Why am I embarrassed by this? That's the way I work; I have to start early, and it isn't necessarily better. As several people have pointed out to me, I torture myself over papers from the moment they're assigned until the moment I hand them in, and even then, I tend to get depressed over them. But it does sound like I'm trying to set myself up as better than anyone else when I'm worrying about a paper that I've already banged out most of and someone else hasn't looked at the topics, yet. I shouldn't be ashamed of it: there's nothing wrong with taking a long time. It is more impressive to think that one can write a great essay the night before it's due, and I do admire the people who can do that, but that isn't how I work.
This is all very reminiscent of St Augustine, actually. I remember that infamous passage from his Confessions where he talks about how he lied about sinning so he would seem to fit in better with his utterly depraved classmates at Carthage. It's the same ultimately self-promoting complaint I'm making about myself: "Oh, how terrible, I'm lying to seem worse than I am!" Because, of course -- although this lack of modesty is unbecoming, it is the truth -- I do think it is a good quality I have, that I start early and have time to rewrite and revise.
Actually, I think I like Tallis's music on its own as much as or more than just about any Renaissance composer. He's at least as good as Gesualdo, for choral sorts of things. And the setting of that psalm is just… there are no words. It's in my sight-singing book, and when I don't want to practice, I get it out and play through the parts on the piano.
It's strange: music is the medium that conveys the most spirituality, to me. (Well, architecture, too, in a sense: Cathedrals always make me shiver in a good way.) As I'm not religious, I don't really know whether what I'm feeling approximates at all what it must feel like to really believe, but it's in religious music that I think I can understand the power of the texts and the beliefs. I can read the Bible; I can read Augustine; but that's really just words on a page. I can disassociate the meaning from the religious content. I can say: this is what some people believe(d), but it remains completely separate. Likewise religious paintings. They can be beautiful, and moving, but I can only comprehend the spiritual content in a third person sort of way. Not so, music.
Last fall, the choir sang Haydn's Missa in tempore belli. I hadn't listened to a full mass* in a very long time, and certainly not when I was in a position to follow along with the text. Then, I think I had a glimpse (or whatever the aural equivalent of a glimpse is) of what the words really might import to someone who did believe, and how they might effect that power. It was rather incredible. I really saw (heard?) the mystery and, well, mysticism that, when one comes down to it, is at the heart of Christianity, or at least, the historical kind of Christianity I tend to think about. There is certainly an intellectual tradition, but it's the non-rational part that is the most powerful, as I have come to see it. And perhaps music is abstract enough that it can demonstrate that even to an unbeliever.
*I've been to Catholic weddings and funerals several times, and once to an ordinary Sunday mass, but they were quite short in comparison to an (old-fashioned?) orchestra one.
Obviously, it is Easter that is provoking all of this. Actually, Easter is just sort of an excuse, as there is all of this faith sort of spilling over from everyone. I think about this quite a bit.
I keep running into people from my lit class, and it's sort of embarassing. I've had discussions about whether or not we can ignore the Monday noon deadline for papers under the office door in light of Tuesday's class being cancelled due to the professor giving a lecture at Cambridge University. The thing is: it doesn't matter for me, because I've got my paper pretty much done, have a copy printed and, barring some disaster (knock on wood) I will get it in tomorrow morning well before noon. I haven't told anyone this; I just say that my paper is "coming along." This makes me feel rather dishonest, but I don't want to seem so weird and show-offy by saying, "well, I basically finished my paper Friday, and all I'm really worrying about right now is whether or not I can get away with a slightly smart-alec Shakespeare reference in my conclusion." Why am I embarrassed by this? That's the way I work; I have to start early, and it isn't necessarily better. As several people have pointed out to me, I torture myself over papers from the moment they're assigned until the moment I hand them in, and even then, I tend to get depressed over them. But it does sound like I'm trying to set myself up as better than anyone else when I'm worrying about a paper that I've already banged out most of and someone else hasn't looked at the topics, yet. I shouldn't be ashamed of it: there's nothing wrong with taking a long time. It is more impressive to think that one can write a great essay the night before it's due, and I do admire the people who can do that, but that isn't how I work.
This is all very reminiscent of St Augustine, actually. I remember that infamous passage from his Confessions where he talks about how he lied about sinning so he would seem to fit in better with his utterly depraved classmates at Carthage. It's the same ultimately self-promoting complaint I'm making about myself: "Oh, how terrible, I'm lying to seem worse than I am!" Because, of course -- although this lack of modesty is unbecoming, it is the truth -- I do think it is a good quality I have, that I start early and have time to rewrite and revise.
