The last time I turned on my radio was about seven or eight years ago. I hope the batteries still function! I have found that I cannot read anything that has any depth if I am listening to music that has lyrics. Instead of concentrating on what I am reading, I begin to concentrate on the lyrics.
The words of Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, Alan Jay Lerner, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Stephen Sondheim seduce me. Often, their lyrics seem like poetry. At this time in my life, I am trying to experience beauty in as many ways as I can.
Right now, I am focusing on classical music and trying to appreciate it as deeply as possible. I am not equating my search for beauty with prayer, but I also do not see my search as totally unrelated to prayer. Any creature that is good mirrors the goodness of God. I believe that all beauty mirrors the beauty of God. I am a little annoyed that, in my life, I have long neglected classical music as a special revelation of God’s beauty.
I am hoping that, even though it is late in the game, I will persevere in my resolution to experience the beauty of music in as many ways as I can. I am determined to persevere!
When I am trying to judge the value of a novel, film, or play, I rely on the philosophy of art embraced by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, as reported by John Haught in his excellent book “What Is God? How to Think About the Divine (New York: Paulist Press, 1986, $14.95, PP. 143). This particular philosophy of art also works for me. Haught wrote the following:
“Alfred North Whitehead, whose philosophy is permeated by aesthetic considerations, tells us that beauty is the ‘harmony of contrasts.’ What makes us appreciate the beauty of things is that they bring together nuance, richness, complexity and novelty on the one side, and harmony, pattern or order on the other.
“The more ‘intense’ the synthesis of harmony and contrast, the more we appreciate their union. Nuance without harmony is chaos, and harmony without nuance is monotony. Beauty involves the transformation of potentially clashing elements into pleasing contrasts harmonized by the overarching aesthetic pattern of the beautiful object or experience.” (p. 72)
I find that Whitehead’s description of beauty works very well for me when I am analyzing a play, film, or novel. Still, I don’t know enough about music to use Whitehead’s theory in relation to music.
In analyzing a play, film, or novel, I would be looking for a kind of integrity. Does the piece of art “work” in the way that a work of art should work? Do all its parts fit together? Are parts of the work boring? Are there sections of it that just don’t fit? Do there seem to be many loose ends? Can the work be tightened so that it would have a greater impact or power? Does it have what philosopher Jacques Maritain called a creative intuition, some insight that animates the entire work and gives the work its ultimate identity? Is the work objectively beautiful, or am I reading into it?
Right now, I could ask all those questions about some piece of music, but I could not answer any of them. I am hoping that by listening to works of classical music, allowing music to serve as the background when I am reading or writing or reflecting on some philosophical truth or an especially interesting insight, I will be able to grow in my appreciation of music as a special source of beauty. I suppose that what I am hoping for is to develop a taste for classical music that will permit me to be more receptive to it while allowing this exceptional channel of beauty to enrich my experience.
Every day that I hold class at St. John’s University, I start with a prayer. Often, the prayer is asking God to help the students at the University take advantage of all the opportunities that St. John’s offers them to help them grow and develop as people. My plan concerning classical music will be my attempt to allow beauty to enter my life in a new way and perhaps at least indirectly help me to appreciate God’s beauty in a new and perhaps unique way.
Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was expressing a profound truth when he wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
I have come to suspect that great music is charged with the grandeur of God. I want to experience the beauty of great music as a unique expression of God’s grandeur.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.
