This past Saturday in our orchestra and chorale's rehearsal of Brahm's Requiem I had an interesting experience. There were three strong thoughts which arose as I listened to the music and participated in it. These thoughts made me shudder at their beauty, and I think it is because of my experience and dialogue with Brahm's music.
Before I speak of these thoughts, let me clarify my current opinion of what it means to dialogue with music: composers, for various reasons/paradigms, make an aural image. These musical images directly reflect, or imitate, certain kinds of truth.
For now I will speak of one kind: the idea of relationship in music. If one has learned to listen sharply to a musical work, he will recognize that the individual parts are related to one another. They work together and constitute the entire image. Sometimes they are in unison, sometimes they are in harmony, other times they develop one another, and other times they fight.
As an example of harmony, the Ainurlindale of Tolkien's Silmarillion shows the creation of Ea through the music of the Ainur. They each take up their part of the entire creative vision of Iluvatar.
As a person, I have a strong relational emphasis in how I see life, and so I dialogue with Brahms' Requiem by asking what relational truths might be found in music. And this is heightened through the participation of my mind and body.
So here are the thoughts which arose from the dialogue:
First, I realized that Brahms' or his music, or perhaps beautiful music in general, calls us into deep and beautiful community. Yet it is so beautiful that it cannot be appreciated and performed justly without everyone's blood, sweat, and tears. Our culture today is so efficient and demanding for simple, immediate pleasures (often base), that it is hard to seek beauty.
The relational nature of music requires each person to understand that they must listen to other parts in order to understand their own. To translate this thought into a question for the individual, "How can one 'Know thyself' without knowing what he is not?"
Yet we are to go beyond the self. We learn to enjoy the music of humanity (though not always perfect) as a whole. When we listen to Brahms' Requiem, we strive to listen not only to individual parts, but their fundamental relationships and development, as well as their context within the greater structure of seven movements.
This is "big picture" thinking. Marva Dawn uses the structural image in "A Royal 'Waste' of Time", where she compares the biblical history of mankind as seven movements of a musical work. If we can learn to appreciate Brahms' music maybe we can appreciate God's music.
The second thought I had during rehearsal: I realized that I had long forgotten the beauty and pleasure of playing in tune with another person. It seems better than playing by one's self. My pride, fear, and weak listening skills had prevented this for a long time.
Relationally speaking, when I compare my desire to be alone (God forbid) and this image of community in the Requiem I find the desire to be fundamentally alone small.
Practically speaking, when I sense tension/discord between myself and another whom I am seeking deeper friendship, I should listen to that person more and reconsider my own nature. I must believe that a music exists for the two of us to be called into, because of our One Faith. Perhaps this is the unity Christ prays for us in John. How can we have a vision of what that beauty is, so that we can seek it together?
And the third thought: I thought of the music of the heavens in Dante's Paradise. Does that beauty call us to tune ourselves to it? What does it mean to be in harmony with Nature? For Dante it seems he must have a vision of God:
High phantasy lost power and here broke off;
Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars,
My will and my desire were turned by love,
The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
Before I speak of these thoughts, let me clarify my current opinion of what it means to dialogue with music: composers, for various reasons/paradigms, make an aural image. These musical images directly reflect, or imitate, certain kinds of truth.
For now I will speak of one kind: the idea of relationship in music. If one has learned to listen sharply to a musical work, he will recognize that the individual parts are related to one another. They work together and constitute the entire image. Sometimes they are in unison, sometimes they are in harmony, other times they develop one another, and other times they fight.
As an example of harmony, the Ainurlindale of Tolkien's Silmarillion shows the creation of Ea through the music of the Ainur. They each take up their part of the entire creative vision of Iluvatar.
As a person, I have a strong relational emphasis in how I see life, and so I dialogue with Brahms' Requiem by asking what relational truths might be found in music. And this is heightened through the participation of my mind and body.
So here are the thoughts which arose from the dialogue:
First, I realized that Brahms' or his music, or perhaps beautiful music in general, calls us into deep and beautiful community. Yet it is so beautiful that it cannot be appreciated and performed justly without everyone's blood, sweat, and tears. Our culture today is so efficient and demanding for simple, immediate pleasures (often base), that it is hard to seek beauty.
The relational nature of music requires each person to understand that they must listen to other parts in order to understand their own. To translate this thought into a question for the individual, "How can one 'Know thyself' without knowing what he is not?"
Yet we are to go beyond the self. We learn to enjoy the music of humanity (though not always perfect) as a whole. When we listen to Brahms' Requiem, we strive to listen not only to individual parts, but their fundamental relationships and development, as well as their context within the greater structure of seven movements.
This is "big picture" thinking. Marva Dawn uses the structural image in "A Royal 'Waste' of Time", where she compares the biblical history of mankind as seven movements of a musical work. If we can learn to appreciate Brahms' music maybe we can appreciate God's music.
The second thought I had during rehearsal: I realized that I had long forgotten the beauty and pleasure of playing in tune with another person. It seems better than playing by one's self. My pride, fear, and weak listening skills had prevented this for a long time.
Relationally speaking, when I compare my desire to be alone (God forbid) and this image of community in the Requiem I find the desire to be fundamentally alone small.
Practically speaking, when I sense tension/discord between myself and another whom I am seeking deeper friendship, I should listen to that person more and reconsider my own nature. I must believe that a music exists for the two of us to be called into, because of our One Faith. Perhaps this is the unity Christ prays for us in John. How can we have a vision of what that beauty is, so that we can seek it together?
And the third thought: I thought of the music of the heavens in Dante's Paradise. Does that beauty call us to tune ourselves to it? What does it mean to be in harmony with Nature? For Dante it seems he must have a vision of God:
High phantasy lost power and here broke off;
Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars,
My will and my desire were turned by love,
The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
