Speak, Euterpe

(An aside: I always thought it unfortunate that the muse of music should have such an ungainly name. Somebody should look into it.)

As a result, chiefly, of several nights of poor or insufficient sleep, I am in no state to do any serious thinking. (I would like to believe that some thought goes into posts on this-a-here web-log, though perhaps some readers may wish to correct that particular misapprehension of mine.) However, I would like to present two examples of admirable music, of divers and sundry kinds. Both are indisputably good, though the question of what makes music good will have to wait for another time.

Fretwork: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582:


Art Tatum: "Night and Day":

Religion Beyond Cliché

Clichés, as insufferable as they are, exist because they generally express things that are true. The most unfortunate thing about clichés is that, with prolonged exposure, they lose their effectiveness: we not only take the truth for granted, but begin to doubt its accuracy to begin with. This, as I see it, is one of the chief weaknesses of religion. Revolutionary ideas become Sunday-school platitudes, first disdained and then ignored entirely. (This goes some way towards explaining why, in a society permeated with Christian symbolism and mores, Christianity itself is not taken the least bit seriously. Granted, we've mostly ignored the teachings of Christ — "love thy neighbor", hmm? — for the last two thousand years, but at least there was a time when the religion itself was taken seriously.)

Occasionally we encounter situations that expose to us the very real truth behind the cliché: like a character in a Flannery O'Connor story, we are shocked into seeing the true nature of things, if only for a moment. Let us assume that it is better to seek unpleasant truth than to be contented with comfortable falsehood. (Only a hedonist could prefer the latter.) It is therefore beneficial to seek situations that lead to those experiences that make us more aware of reality, and likewise to avoid those things that keep us comfortably oblivious.

What is reality? From a Christian perspective, the ultimate — and indeed, the only — reality is that of God's love for us. (Come to think of it, this may apply to some other religions as well. But I won't make claims on behalf of other belief systems.) How, then, are we to become more aware of this? There are many arguments to be made for asceticism, for conscious renunciation of worldly pleasures. I suggest that the ascetic life, if it is one's vocation, is a good and noble calling; certainly we all "must achieve the character, and acquire the skills, to live much poorer than we do", as Mr Berry so admirably puts it. But it is clearly not the case that every man should flee to the monastery, or to the hermitage. What, then, is the course of action for he who is not called to seek God by himself? I hope to think about this further.

Washington, D.C.

Greetings, dear reader, from Our Nation's Capital. Though this is apparently the very worst time of year, weather-wise, to be here, I have found it a pleasant-enough place during this past week's vacation. Well, it is not technically a vacation, as I have been put to work: this morning I served as organist at Luther Place Memorial Church, which is on Thomas Circle, in what is a nice — if terribly gentrified — part of the city. The organ is a 4-manual Möller that has undergone several renovations, but it's not as bad as I feared. The reeds are surprisingly robust, but the mixtures emit a rather awful shriek, like some examples of less-fortuitous Orgelbewegung design.

The more places in this world I visit, the less inclined am I to see the sights everyone is enjoined to see. This is chiefly because one is always surrounded by tourists in such places, and tourists — especially, I have noted, American tourists — are almost always insufferable. (Perhaps this amounts to a measure of self-loathing on my part?) At the National Gallery of Art — which is a fine museum, though rather disappointing compared to my beloved Art Institute of Chicago — my experience was severely hampered by obnoxious tourists talking loudly and ignorantly, with art-school-reject tour guides shouting to be heard over them ("Now, the art in this room is a style known as Byzantine!"). Despite the ambiance, the collection is a good one. I find I am drawn the most to late medieval painting (Giotto is a particular favorite, and he has a wonderful Madonna and Child there) and to early Renaissance Netherlandish paintings: there's a spiritual richness there that one doesn't see in many other times and genres. Some things (e.g. American colonial art) leave me entirely cold.

Whilst in the city I have availed myself of various things one cannot do (not well, anyway) at home. I have discovered several excellent restaurants: perhaps the nicest surprise has been Julia's Empanadas, on Connecticut Avenue between M and N. (An empanada is, apparently, the Hispanic equivalent of the Cornish pasty: it is very tasty, indeed, at least at Julia's, and they are quite reasonably priced.) Today I took a yoga class: it was at a level a bit above my current skills (that is, none), but enjoyable nonetheless. And I have been wandering around various parts of the city. From what I have seen D.C. resembles far more closely a European city than its American counterparts: there's a sort of Hausmanesque plan to the streets, and indeed some impressive Second Empire architecture down closer to the Mall. The strict guidelines for building height make it a cozier — if more congested, traffic-wise — place to live. The metro and other mass transit services are not nearly as convenient or ubiquitous as those of Vienna, but one mustn't complain about such things.

All in all, it's not a bad city. No, indeed.

Admirable Words, Vol. II

1. Brume
   
2. Catarrh
   
3. Embroglio (a better spelling than the more common Imbroglio)
   
4. Ibex
   
5. Plinth
   
6. Poltroon
   
7. Pottage
   
8. Reprobate
   
9. Sentinel
   
10. Tin

Ars Itineris?

Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, XXVIII. "On Travel as a Cure for Discontent":

Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience? Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind? You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Virgil remarks: "Lands and cities are left astern," your faults will follow you wherever you travel. Socrates made the same remark to one who complained: he said, "Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels." What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.

Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to his nephew Peter Carr, 10 August 1787:

[Traveling] makes men wiser, but less happy. When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret — their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men who travel are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite, by repeated and just observations at home. The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood — it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile and condemnation. Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, and its recollection poisons the residue of their lives. Their first and most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, and they carry home the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this that a habit of idleness — an inability to apply themselves to business — is acquired and renders them useless to themselves and their country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little obstructed by foreign objects, as in your own country, nor any, wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be learned, and be industrious, and you will not want the aid of traveling, to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself.

Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness, p. 43:

[T]he world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home."

Adventures in Openmindedness, Part II

Well, I finished that Murdoch book. It was, at least, more satisfying than A Severed Head, though I suspect the discrepancy owes much to the different circumstances in which I read each: one was drudgery — and, as it seemed, not morally or intellectually profitable drudgery — while the other was my own choice to read, upon the recommendation of (relatively trustworthy) counsel.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat belongs in that class of books, along with The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lolita, in which people do wicked things — things which lead readers to denounce the books as immoral — but eventually receive their comeuppance — a fact that is often ignored by the outraged sort of reader. Such books have, as Wilde observed of his book, "a terrible moral". (This is, of course, the older and more etymologically correct meaning of terrible: "causing terror", not "very bad".) Murdoch's work differs from those two books, however, in that justice is not visited upon all transgressors equally. Indeed, the peccadilloes of relatively good characters result in harsh consequences, while far worse offenders go, for the most part, unpunished.

If a morality can be gleaned from this book, it is a decidedly anti-consequentialist one. We've all discussed the hypothetical scenario: it's 1941 and you're hiding Jews in your attic: when the Gestapo officer asks you whether you're hiding anyone, is it immoral to lie? If it is always immoral to lie, then the moral thing to do is to tell him, "why yes, they're in the attic." However, if morality is determined by the consequences of one's actions, and the result of honesty in this case would be the death of innocents, then the consequentialist would lie (normally a moral evil) to effect the saving of lives (considered — we must assume! — a good). But in Murdoch's world, even the best-intentioned lies lead to disaster and despair. It is, perhaps, a reminder that we are ultimately ignorant creatures, quite unable to judge the consequences of our actions, regardless of our intentions. It is not a reässuring moral.

In any case, I have reconsidered my opinion of Dame Iris. I don't believe I'd get along with her very well if we were to meet, but then, that is rarely the case with authors and composers and artists I admire. (Dürer or Mahler would probably be rather irritating in person, I suspect.) Hers is not a world I wish to inhabit, but it is an acceptable one — perhaps even a necessary one — to visit.

Adventures in Openmindedness, Part I

It is important to examine one's prejudices. This is not to say that all prejudice is bad; no, indeed! We need prejudice to adequately function in the world: without prejudice we'd have to impartially examine each and every person and situation we meet, and there simply isn't time for that. But we must, when we have time, reässess certain things, in case we have judged them unfairly.

The particular thing I wish to examine, in this instance, is the work of Iris Murdoch, which (and whom) I took a dislike to during my years of undergraduate study. My distaste was fortified by the opinion of one of my favorite writers, Flannery O'Connor, who said Murdoch's works are "completely hollow". Thus summarily dismissed, I was content to leave it at that. But considering the advice of a friend, who gave me a copy of A Fairly Honorable Defeat, I am prepared to give Dame Iris another chance.

I am now two chapters into that book. Almost immediately I noticed a similarity between it and A Severed Head, my other foray into Murdochiana. The chief characteristic of Murdoch's characters — at least, all those I've encountered so far — is that they are all terribly bored, and it is this boredom that leads them to do various wicked things. (I do not mean to say that the characters are boring; Murdoch is a good enough writer that she can at least keep our interest. And besides, I am not yet of the opinion that only virtuous people are genuinely interesting; there are enough books with bad sorts that are still compelling.)

Existential boredom — which we must differentiate from incidental boredom, the sort even the sanest man might sometimes have, as when waiting for a bus or discussing politics with a libertarian — is indicative of spiritual malaise. It is the result of a lack of joy in one's life. It is probably the same thing as acedia, which the desert fathers were right to consider the worst of sins. What is one to make of a writer whose every last character is existentially bored? May we fairly assume that Murdoch herself felt this way? I'm not sure. Further reading should prove useful; I shall continue my (re)evaluation.

Fructus Laborum

It is important to have things to do. A day or two of bone-idleness is enough: any more than that and you'll probably end up sitting on the sofa eating bon-bons and watching soap opera (which, it should be observed, is not nearly as interesting as real opera. When's the last time a soap opera character rode her horse onto a funeral pyre, immolating herself and destroying the world?).

My recently-concluded project, with which I occupied myself after the end of classes, was to transcribe about two-dozen Michael Praetorius scores. (I had access to both Praetorius and Finale — the score-writing program — at Notre Dame's library. It is now a four-hour commute away, which is a bit too far to justify further such endeavors there.) I did this because I someday hope to avail myself of the pieces: they're terribly practical, being based on chorales, and he wrote them for all sorts of combinations of voice parts. For the benefit of others (oh, how generous, I!) I put the scores up on the Choral Public Domain Library.

Iconophilia

There is a tension inherent in the Christian tradition between the urge to glorify the Divine through art and the temptation for that same art to serve as a sort of substitute for the Divine. All too often we have put aesthetic concerns above truly spiritual ones. (Church musicians, I feel compelled to add, are far more susceptible to this sort of error, whatever our personal tastes.) Of course, the reason this mistake is so commonly made is because aesthetic experience is so easily mistaken for spiritual experience. It is the natural impulse of the artist to create beautiful things, and these beautiful things can effect a sort of transcendence within us. The problem begins when this aesthetic transcendence is mistaken for that different sort of transcendence which is truly spiritual.

Paul, preaching in Athens, touches upon this point:

For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

(That's Acts 17:28-29 (NRSV). Paul is quoting Epimenides's Cretica — which he cites also in his letter to Titus — and Aratus's Phaenomena; we see already the appropriation of Greek pagan imagery and language for the Christian God.)

As early as Paul, then, we see the impulse for iconoclasm, the reluctance to make physical objects that might take God's rightful place in the center of worship. (Indeed, this impulse is far older than Paul, dating back at least to those graven images Moses warned us against.) The easiest way to avoid the pitfall of worshipping the aesthetically beautiful is to destroy it. This explains why some Byzantines broke their icons and why Calvinists dismantled pipe organs.

But orthodox thought, in both the East and West, came to the conclusion that images aren't so bad: after all, God created the physical world and pronounced it good (whatever the Gnostics might tell you), and thought it so good that He took physical form. If Divinity itself might assume our mortal flesh, who's to say that we cannot appreciate the visible as signifier for the (invisible) Divine? Music, too, can remind us of the beauty of God.

The problem, of course, is when we forget that there is anything beyond mere art. This happens when we make the concert hall our temple, or — if we're at least so correct as to know what a proper temple is — when we put the quality of the Offertory anthem above the quality of our service to the poor. Both are offerings, of course: the sacrifice of praise is no less fitting than the succour of the needy. Both should proceed in equal measure from the well-formed soul. For further thoughts on "Art and the Motion of the Soul", I'll refer you to Peters.

Regarding Children

Do you recall the accompanist job at an elementary school I mentioned a few months ago? This week I concluded my duties there. I must say it has been a surprisingly good experience.

Chief among its benefits is that I no longer view children as an annoyance. They can be annoying, to be sure, but I now realize that this is not their default state. C.S.L. observes that it is the stupidest children who are most childish, just as it is the stupidest grown-ups who are the most grown-up. I am inclined to agree. Childish children can at least be improved; there is little hope for the incorrigibly adult. The best thing about working with the young is that it keeps one honest. (Or, at least it should.) Children are like animals in that they are acutely sensitive to — though not, usually, consciously aware of — a person's mood. They recognize mendacity, unlike so many adults, because they have not yet become inured to it. They almost always respond to kindness and enthusiasm.

For any of my readers who dislike children, I'll say this: you probably don't dislike them as much as you think. They're not all so irritating as those you see in public. (Young children are worst-behaved when with their parents, and adolescents are worst-behaved when with their peers. These are exactly the people one generally sees them with in public.)

I can say without exaggeration that this job has been a blessing. Of course, it's easy for me to say that: I experienced all the best things about teaching (seeing progress, nurturing what will become life-long interests, receiving the guileless admiration of children) without any of the bad things (disciplining children, dealing with ignorant or unreasonable parents). But in any case, I can now understand why people get such satisfaction from teaching young children.