14 Replies to “What sort of music befits eternity?”

  1. Glad this was posted here, could'nt get it going on the old FB. Truly beautiful; the story, the music, the video. I think that if OG is an AG (or variant) were used, I'd have stopped watching…

  2. Beautiful. I recently read that scientists are now discovering that the microsphere of the tiniests things we cannot even see may be even more vast than the macrosphere! So, although we are so incredibly tiny in one context, we are super huge in the other. Maybe man really is "the measue of all things" as the medieval saying goes.

  3. Riddle me this, Wood:
    How come the soprano who supplied the film "Gladiator" with her sublime, olive infused tones, gets to sing for all the good films?
    Profound video, never saw it before. Makes me revel in the genius of Gerard Manley Hopkins a bit more.

  4. There is no such song, except in the minds of parodists. "Happy Birthday" and "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" don't make for a fitting soundtrack either, but I'm not going to stop using them in appropriate settings.

    Personally, I'd prefer to travel the universe accompanied by Hovhaness Symphony no 6, Celestial Gate. Keep the soprano on the home planet.

    Todd

  5. 'Scuse me, bro' Todd, but my soprano and I practice the Naomi and Ruth protocols, so should I be so fortunate to join you worming around the Cosmos, plan on W joining us. And being "Old School" on my soundtracks, I'm going to go all-Sagan with Vangelis and Bach. And maybe a little of both Strauss's and Ligeti to honor Kubrick.

  8. No amount of arrangement and musicianship can rescue a hymn whose words are sentimental, insipid, or vague. Music is a fine thing but serves to support prayer, not substitute for it.

  9. Todd, "Quality of musicianship" and songs like OG is an AG exclude each-other. You also can't perform terrible things well; they remain on some level always terrible.

  10. I disagree. The refrain is more than salvageable, and I use an SATB arrangement for Taize prayer now and then. Good musicians can make good music work in a lot of situations with a bit of imagination and creativity.

    It's a mystery to me why so many musicians waste the energy to diss the music they never use. The very least they could do is offer an alternative. Too bad Adam had to ruin an otherwise good video and good thought with needless snark.

    Todd

  11. Gregorian chant (nuns are better), anything with a harpsichord works for me. Classical music by Mozart and Bach.

  13. No amount of arrangement and musicianship can rescue a hymn whose MUSIC is sentimental, insipid, or vague.

  14. Again, I disagree. I've heard many sentimental pieces, like the Schubert Ave Maria, otherwise overused and not often performed well, presented in liturgy with a profound gravitas.

    For the song in question (it is not a hymn), I certainly wouldn't call it any of those three adjectives.

    Skilled musicians may well decline to get involved with some genres and some particular pieces of music (and I might draw the line here and there myself) but I think you lose the credibility of complaint by not engaging things directly and just abdicating to lesser talents.

    That said, there's nothing like an irrelevant point that plays well to the base for derailing an otherwise interesting discussion. May I ask, Dr Mahrt, what would be on your soundtrack were you to journey to the stars?

    Todd

Comments are closed.