Music of Authenticity
I was recently thinking about some of the music I enjoy listening too. Some of it I enjoy listening to simply because of the sound itself, whether it is the vocals or the instrumentation. Other pieces of music are just very intellectually stimulating while also being aesthetically pleasing. Arvo Part, Philip Glass, Vivaldi, Bach all fall into this category for me. Another category of music contains a theme or a message that I listen to the music to receive. A lot of Christian music falls into this category.
My favorite music, though, is that which expresses the deepest emotions of the author. Several great examples of this that I deeply enjoy are Mozart's Requiem, Steven Curtiis Chapman's album Beauty Will Rise, and the song When The Tigers Broke Free by Pink Floyd.
Mozart started the composition of his requiem in the final months of his life as his health was failing. Though he was able to complete a rough draft, he did not survive to complete the piece. However, the result is a powerful piece of music. I think much of the power of the piece comes from the authenticity of the emotion about death the author was experiencing. I have only heard a live performance of this piece once. It was wonderful, and reduced me to tears at one point. However, the elderly lady a row in front of me provided a source of distraction for those of us within 10 feet of her as her hearing aid would screech rather loudly when the music rapidly changed from loud to quiet.
The album Beauty Will Rise was recorded by Steven Curtis Chapman a year after the sudden, accidental death of his 5 year old daughter. He calls the album his "personal psalms." Like the Biblical psalmists, he very authentically describes his emotions of loss and the subsequent questions about God, yet always manages to come back to a trust in God's control and ultimate goodness. What could be tacky and sappy if written by someone else is something very powerful and moving when written by someone who experienced a pain so deep that he nearly retired from his career as a musician.
My final favorite example of authentic music is When The Tigers Broke Free by Pink Floyd. In it, Roger Waters describes the pointless death of his father in WW II when he himself was only 5 months old. When he talks of the pointlessness of the death, the lack of regard the military command had for the life of ordinary men, and the callous impersonal nature of a condolence letter signed by the king with a stamp rather than an actual signature, it transports you to the place of emotion that he experienced. The result is a poignant piece of music expressing the pain of loss and pointlessness of war that is only so within the context of the life experience of the author.
Wouldn't it have been easier for Mozart to just go ahead and die and forget about writing his Requiem? Wouldn't it have been easier for Chapman to mourn the loss of his daughter in private and retire after having already been one of the most successful Christian musical artists? Wouldn't it have been easier for Waters to keep his personal losses out of his music? Yet I suspect that each of these artists experienced healing at some level by turning their emotions into music. I for one am thankful they shared those emotions with us.
What are your areas of emotionally deep and sometimes painful life experiences? How might God plan to redeem them in a similar way? Though you may not be a musician and have the ability to express those things musically, let God use those things redemptively to bless others. Sometimes something of beauty results just as it did in the case of these musical pieces.
My favorite music, though, is that which expresses the deepest emotions of the author. Several great examples of this that I deeply enjoy are Mozart's Requiem, Steven Curtiis Chapman's album Beauty Will Rise, and the song When The Tigers Broke Free by Pink Floyd.
Mozart started the composition of his requiem in the final months of his life as his health was failing. Though he was able to complete a rough draft, he did not survive to complete the piece. However, the result is a powerful piece of music. I think much of the power of the piece comes from the authenticity of the emotion about death the author was experiencing. I have only heard a live performance of this piece once. It was wonderful, and reduced me to tears at one point. However, the elderly lady a row in front of me provided a source of distraction for those of us within 10 feet of her as her hearing aid would screech rather loudly when the music rapidly changed from loud to quiet.
The album Beauty Will Rise was recorded by Steven Curtis Chapman a year after the sudden, accidental death of his 5 year old daughter. He calls the album his "personal psalms." Like the Biblical psalmists, he very authentically describes his emotions of loss and the subsequent questions about God, yet always manages to come back to a trust in God's control and ultimate goodness. What could be tacky and sappy if written by someone else is something very powerful and moving when written by someone who experienced a pain so deep that he nearly retired from his career as a musician.
My final favorite example of authentic music is When The Tigers Broke Free by Pink Floyd. In it, Roger Waters describes the pointless death of his father in WW II when he himself was only 5 months old. When he talks of the pointlessness of the death, the lack of regard the military command had for the life of ordinary men, and the callous impersonal nature of a condolence letter signed by the king with a stamp rather than an actual signature, it transports you to the place of emotion that he experienced. The result is a poignant piece of music expressing the pain of loss and pointlessness of war that is only so within the context of the life experience of the author.
Wouldn't it have been easier for Mozart to just go ahead and die and forget about writing his Requiem? Wouldn't it have been easier for Chapman to mourn the loss of his daughter in private and retire after having already been one of the most successful Christian musical artists? Wouldn't it have been easier for Waters to keep his personal losses out of his music? Yet I suspect that each of these artists experienced healing at some level by turning their emotions into music. I for one am thankful they shared those emotions with us.
What are your areas of emotionally deep and sometimes painful life experiences? How might God plan to redeem them in a similar way? Though you may not be a musician and have the ability to express those things musically, let God use those things redemptively to bless others. Sometimes something of beauty results just as it did in the case of these musical pieces.
posted by The Mad Hatter at 2:35 PM
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