music and beauty and faith

I've been thinking a lot recently about  how the different elements of my life are not separate entities, but it's all one life. Faith, my career and work, my personal life, among other things - it's all part of me, and I can't comprehend one without reference to the others. I've held for a long time that playing in a church band is a lot like the church itself - everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, with individual and different functions. It wouldn't work if everybody did the same thing, nor would it if everybody tried to do their own thing. The end result is something greater than the sum of its parts, and is beyond ourselves. A few days later, I also came to the distinct realisation that playing chamber music is a lot like this too. As some of you might know, I love playing chamber music. It is probably my favourite thing in all of my music-making. And if you think about it, I hope you will understand the analogy here too. Every ensemble has is individual members who have different roles to execute and at various times, some people come out more than others and at other times, one has to step back to allow others to do their thing (and often, support them in order to do so). And that the end result is extraordinary, something beyond the sum of the individual parts, that we would not be able to recognise in isolation. I told somebody about this realisation the other week and was also drawn to the analogy of a fugue. The voices are individual, and the end result is spectacular, but without one of those parts, it would not be as brilliant as it really is. This is where I freely admit that the music of Bach, for me, is a deeply personal experience. Its brilliance, ingenuity, creativity, structure, subtlety and sheer beauty point me to God.

Now, you dear reader(s??), don't have to agree with my faith. I will clearly state that I don't intend to antagonise anybody. I realise pushing this out onto the internet makes it possible for pretty much anybody to read, so that, along with the hope that my blog is a space for my musings, are the intentions.

The last few days, I've been preparing a pile of music. Much of it is focussed on some truly masterful works - Debussy's cello sonata, Hindemith's alto horn sonata and the Franck violin sonata. (Don't worry, I'm also playing a bit of Bach and Brahms, among others, every day for its sheer beauty.) The more I sit with these, the more I discover. I think this is the case with music, and also with faith. One realises that you cannot exhaust learning about these things. I've been moved to the point of weeping because I've seen a little glimpse of genius, or because of just how beautiful it is. Maybe others do or don't gain so much excitement, or such emotional reactions from enharmonic shifts, seeing structures in music, the colours that dance in space or the vivid images that pop into my head when I hear certain things. But I've come to realise that sound has a profound impact on me.

And I came to the conclusion again, that regardless of whether the composers had faith or not, God truly gave us music to experience beauty and wonder. This article I subsequently read (only today!) summed it all up so nicely.

"Beauty was created by God for a purpose: to give us the experience of wonder. And wonder, in turn, is intended to lead us to the ultimate human expression and privilege: worship. Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving."

I think I've been experiencing this beauty.