Musical Forms from the Middle Ages to Beethoven

I assembled the following to be a pleasing and perhaps instructive journey through music history and because we all know people who refer to "Classical" music.

Sacred Music IV: An Unfair Comparison

Gloria de Angelis vs. Gloria Bossa Nova

Is it fair to compare the ancient Missa de Angelis with the Missa Bossa Nova, circa 1966? Nope. Yet I make it to provoke a question in those who are not onboard the chant express.

1. If you don't like the 1966 piece but do like other non-chant music at mass, what's the difference between the Bossa Nova and what you do like?
2. Your answer to #1 has established has established a criterion for sacred music. What are its implications?

My Point

I would guess most people don't like the Bossa Nova mass and with good reason. It's hokey and lacks expressivity. It lacks anything of musical or structural interest. It's jingly and irreverent. These observations are all criteria for sacred music, criteria I think many people have. When one compares most popular liturgical music to the Bossa Nova I think most people will consider the Bossa Nova worse. Yet if this criteria exists then one most compare the music one does like to the same standards. One must ask, "If the Bossa Nova is less reverent than what I like, is there anything more reverent than what I like?" The answer I'm trying to suggest is of course, "chant." The next question I'm trying to suggest is of course, "then why not sing it?" Can it be too reverent, too expressive, too interesting, too good? Again, I think most people would say, "surely not," so I ask again, why not chant?

On Gratitude

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought;  and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. – G. K. Chesterton

Achilles tends to Patroclus

By what quirk of fate I know not but the quote above fortuitously percolated its way to my attention in my Twitter feed this afternoon. I say fortuitous because of the wonderful counterpoint it plays to a short story about gratitude I came upon this morning, also by chance, via a friend. From him I read a brief expression of love from a woman, now passed, for her grandson. "What a joy you are to me," she wrote. Now I did just say the letter expressed love but truly the first word that occurred to me was thanks. We of course will not indulge that facile tendency to say that two things are the same but there is of course much of thanks in love. A specific kind of thanks, mind you. 

It is not the thanks for equitable exchange or thanks for justice. It is not even strictly thanks for kindness since the kind act, for all its good, can be done simply for the sake of kindness and not the individual. It is not even thanks for emulating, that is to say, thanks to someone for providing a good example. Why? All of these forms of thanks imply some kind of utility, ulterior gain, or adherence to some other principal to which the deed is ancillary. As The Philosopher instructs us, friendships of utility love not for themselves but some good gained, that is, some good for you, be it pleasure or convenience. These relationships are facile and feeble. Often they are not even mutual but when such utilitarian friendships are mutual it is best when each gets the same from each.

We may observe in the above examples there is indeed, though, some element of thanks, of gladness at the happy accident, the fortunate turn of events, a kindness, an obliged return and so forth. Yet from any of the Latin forms, grates and gratus, it is hard to tease out from the quotidian sentiments any pure sense of unobliged, useless thankfulness, what I propose to call gratitude. Useless, I say?

Venus

Yes, useless, though it may sound a strange thing. We scarcely realize it but we are trained to use things, all things. Commerce, rather reasonably, trains us to use things. Today art trains us to use it and it is indeed use because without any sense of purpose such as religiosity or beauty it can only be used, to rouse and pleasure or relax and mollify, even to conjure an image or emotion. Such works, even great ones, exist to do and do for you or even to you, rather than simply be. Education too teaches us to use. Science teaches us to use nature only to manipulate it and to gain knowledge to get a job. English teaches us to write just to learn about ourselves. Economics teaches us to work only so we may spend. Even philosophy itself is abused to the point of utility today because without some view of man's nature and his good, whether it be Aristotle's contemplative life or some other, without true philo-sophia, it is simply a tool of breaking down, of de-struction. 

The love of someone or something for its own sake then is something quite special. To have gratitude not toward but for someone and not because of any qualities but for the sum of that person, to have gratitude for a work of art not because of what it does but what it is, is to have gratitude for that which makes up an important part of living. To know such gratitude, in giving or receiving, is to make a joy of being in the world, and thus "that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

If you enjoyed this essay you may also be interested in:

• Why Beauty Matters (Documentary) [YouTube]
• Ideas: Part I | Part II
• The Anonymous Artist
• Culture and Community
• Caution: Intellectuals at Work

In Praise of the Copier

So at work I have access to this amazing device. It's nothing short of extraordinary, I assure you. What does it do, you ask? Well let's say you have a brilliant essay you want to share with someone but you need it for yourself also. Clearly you need a copy. What do you do? Are you going to copy it by hand? Are you going to have the type set in metal in a printing press? Surely not. Well that's where this machine comes in. You put your document in the top and it spits out an identical copy in about five seconds. Really! I kid you not. In fact that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I can put in a pile of documents and get as many copies as I want. I can put in a pile of papers with writing on only one side and it'll copy them back to back and use half the paper. It'll even staple it! That's right, I can put 50 single-sided documents in and in about 30 seconds I'll have the same document, stapled, in 25 two-sided pages. I can make the page darker or lighter or bigger or smaller and any combination thereof. It will collate them any way I want so I can get all my 1st pages grouped together and my second pages grouped together and so forth, or it can print the document sequentially. It works with letter-sized, legal-sized, thick, thin, and any color of course. It even has separate drawers for different types of paper so I don't have to be bothered swapping.

Now surely you must be thinking that this incredible device carries a princely price tag, that only the wealthy can afford such speedy and accommodating copying. Nope. It costs but a few thousand dollars for the machine and a few pennies per page in supplies. If that sounds pricey ask yourself: how else are you going to get fifty copies of something? Try making one copy of that fifty page paper. Aside from doing it yourself your choices are a room of monks or one of these.

You don't want the machine, you say, but just the copies? Well I have good news for you because at office supply stores they have these very same machines. The store buys the machine and pays for paper, ink, and maintenance. You walk in and make your copies at five cents a page and you walk out. Some stores will even make the copies for you if you can believe that.

Now I would be remiss if I left out one crucial piece of information: these machines are fun to use. Trust me, trust me they are. You place your sheet or sheets in the tray at the top and slide the little guide rails into place. How perfectly shaped they are to hold the paper! Then you get to finger at this svelte, colorful touch screen for a while. Just poke at what you want. Back and front? Yep. Bloop! Stapled? Please. Bloop! Quantity? 25. Bloop! Bloop! Finally, Go! No sooner have you clicked than a thousand unique parts whirr into motion. You hear the fans humming, the drum spinning, and the stapler clanking. A symphony of specialization has begun to make you your copies, and you're conducting. That's why using a copier is such a satisfying experience, because it does precisely what you want. How great is that?

Crazy Ludwig, a meme

In which we get unusually pop-culturey in order to shed a little human light on this musical Olympian (and to have a little laugh.)

Short Books, Long on Wisdom: II

Your esteemed blogger Mr. Northcutt recently composed a short list which only someone with his erudite catholicity could have assembled. It's theme is "short and insightful" and soon I am sure you will be spurred on by the exciting contents of his admirable collection.

In the meanwhile please settle for my imitation. My brief captions are, I hope, the essence of each, but at least what I learned (or learned to ask.) I would add but one observation, one only apparent to me after grouping these books together: they all possess an aesthetic dimension. They all suggest that to think, or write, or be so, is not just good, but beautiful, and in being so, necessary.

1. Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations/Exhortations [To Myself]

• Work hard at who you are.

2. Moorman, George J. The Mass Explained

• The Mass in black and white. Period.

3. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Laelius: On Friendship

• You need a friend and you need to be one.

4. Clor, Harry. On Moderation

• See as much as you can and find you way through. 

5. Eliot, T.S. Selected Essays

• What is a poem? A poet?

6. Feynman, Richard. Character of Physical Law

• The world works. 

7. Hutchings, Arthur. A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos

1. How a great artist handles ideas.
2. You should expect that they do it well.

8. Lewis, C. S. Studies in Words

• Words matter. Use with caution, knowledge, and affection.

9. Newman, John Henry. Meditations and Devotions

• Pray!

10. Santayana, George. Three Philosophical Poets

• What does your world look like?

11. Tolkien, J. R. R. On Fairy-Stories

• Why tell a story?