Golden Interlude
I've recently started singing folk songs, which has rekindled my interest in the idea of the 'golden moment' in music.
I remember once hearing the ancient song King Orfeo sung by an elderly man whose old, thin voice would have had you believe he was a close relative of the Sibyl of Cumae. The song itself is incredible - full of rich imagery: here is a powerful myth seen through the lens of Celtic culture via the medieval English poem Sir Orfeo. Notably, Pluto is replaced by the king of fairies and the story has a happy ending! The opening lines “There lived a king into the east […] there lived a lady in the west” resonate deeply with me and I'm sure many a Hermetic interpretation could be made along these lines (for example: in the correspondence systems popularised by Agrippa east being associated with sunrise and Mars, the west with Venus).
However, what I loved most about hearing this song was the rhythm: very consistent, until the moment that Orpheus plays the magic song: “the good old gabber reel.” The additional syllables in this line seem to make it stand out like a jewel, and the delivery in the recording I heard powerfully suggested that something otherworldly or magical had occurred: a magic act momentarily transcended the temporal world of the song.
Photo by Layla Bert Smith
This takes me back to what I find moving in the tintinnabuli-style music of Arvo Part, to whom this blog seems to return to again and again. There are often long periods of rhythmic and tonal stasis and then something happens that gloriously transcends it: a many-syllabled word ascends toward heaven; or something occurs outside the prescribed tonality that touches the heart in some unknown way as in the example below from Alinale (1976), where the left hand plays a single note outside the B-minor triad that comprises all the other material in that voice (marked by a flower in the score).
While on holiday in the village of Littlebeck in the early days of summer 2009 I met the golden moment again. I wrote a piece of string music entitled Funeral Music for John D., both as a tribute to John Dowland (the piece was structured like one of his Lachrimae pavans), and to John Dee (the tonalities used in the piece derived from his Hieroglyphic Monad). While Funeral Music was generally not the most interesting or harmonious composition, three quarters of the way through a sustained, highly harmonic chord suddenly appears after a moment of silence. To my ears the effect was magical, as though the vault of heaven was suddenly cast wide, flooding the earth with celestial light. I've recently taken the chord in question and used it as the basis for a set of recordings called Elicona, more of which later: I hope to finish them before Christmas.
The promised post about horses, toads and bones will follow presently!
I remember once hearing the ancient song King Orfeo sung by an elderly man whose old, thin voice would have had you believe he was a close relative of the Sibyl of Cumae. The song itself is incredible - full of rich imagery: here is a powerful myth seen through the lens of Celtic culture via the medieval English poem Sir Orfeo. Notably, Pluto is replaced by the king of fairies and the story has a happy ending! The opening lines “There lived a king into the east […] there lived a lady in the west” resonate deeply with me and I'm sure many a Hermetic interpretation could be made along these lines (for example: in the correspondence systems popularised by Agrippa east being associated with sunrise and Mars, the west with Venus).
However, what I loved most about hearing this song was the rhythm: very consistent, until the moment that Orpheus plays the magic song: “the good old gabber reel.” The additional syllables in this line seem to make it stand out like a jewel, and the delivery in the recording I heard powerfully suggested that something otherworldly or magical had occurred: a magic act momentarily transcended the temporal world of the song.
Photo by Layla Bert Smith
This takes me back to what I find moving in the tintinnabuli-style music of Arvo Part, to whom this blog seems to return to again and again. There are often long periods of rhythmic and tonal stasis and then something happens that gloriously transcends it: a many-syllabled word ascends toward heaven; or something occurs outside the prescribed tonality that touches the heart in some unknown way as in the example below from Alinale (1976), where the left hand plays a single note outside the B-minor triad that comprises all the other material in that voice (marked by a flower in the score).
While on holiday in the village of Littlebeck in the early days of summer 2009 I met the golden moment again. I wrote a piece of string music entitled Funeral Music for John D., both as a tribute to John Dowland (the piece was structured like one of his Lachrimae pavans), and to John Dee (the tonalities used in the piece derived from his Hieroglyphic Monad). While Funeral Music was generally not the most interesting or harmonious composition, three quarters of the way through a sustained, highly harmonic chord suddenly appears after a moment of silence. To my ears the effect was magical, as though the vault of heaven was suddenly cast wide, flooding the earth with celestial light. I've recently taken the chord in question and used it as the basis for a set of recordings called Elicona, more of which later: I hope to finish them before Christmas.
The promised post about horses, toads and bones will follow presently!