The Mystery of Music

"O great mystery
and wonderful sacrament
that even the animals saw the new-born Lord
lying in a manger.
We saw the new-born, and a chorus of angels
Praising the Lord. Alleluia.

Whom did you see, shepherds, say,
Tell us, who appeared?
We saw the new-born, and choruses of angels
Praising the Lord. Alleluia."

In the spring of 1970, when at seventeen years old I decided to give my life to music, I had no way of knowing where that decision was going to take me.

The significant music in my life keeps going in circles, Well really in a spiral.  Then again, not a spiral more but more like a helix.  A helix is a spiral on a 3-d plane. A spiral  simply goes in circles, whereas a helix is gradually ascending. Every loop is connected but is higher than the previous one.

This morning I was listening to a musical work of Samuel Barber of which I am very familiar, The Prayers of Kierkegaard. Often when I listen, I Google and read about the composer and the piece. This morning I read about another composer.

There was a short passage in the Prayers that reminded me of music from somewhere else.  I realized that it sounded very much like a passage from The Testament of Life by Halsey Stevens. In the spring of 1979, which was my last semester in graduate school,  I recruited and conducted a choir of 33 singers and performed The Testament of Life. I had the flu during the last few rehearsals and was still recovering during the performance. I don't listen to that recording very often because with my own music I am very critical.  I tend to hear the flaws instead of the beauty. That discussion is for another time.

So this morning while listening to Barber I was reading about Halsey Stevens.  I learned that his major music influences were Bach, Copland, Stravinsky and Bartok.  All of these composers have been a significant part of my own music history.  But more importantly I learned that one of his students was Morten Lauridsen. Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium ( o mahnhoom meestehreum) touched me to my core the first time  I heard it and continues to be a musical touchstone when I need to be moved.

In the spring of 2005 I was in my chorus room alone when I realized that my soul was being warmed and changed.  It was a few seconds later before I realized that the band down the hall was playing O Magnum Mysterium. The sound sucked the air out of my lungs.  A few weeks later when the band director  was going to be out of town, he asked me to fill in for him at his rehearsal.  Although I had directed many choirs  over the years, I had only conducted a band once or twice and never one this large and  this good. The student he left in charge told them to get out  O Magnum Mysterium. This was something I was very glad to do.  

When I raised my baton, the band became completely silent and all of my music ability, training and appreciation were suspended in the quiet air for a few seconds.  When I gave the downbeat and the band started playing, I thought my heart would break from the beauty.

I have done pretty well as a singer, conductor, performer and composer, but I don't think any of these are my best musical ability.  I think my expertise is in my ability to listen, to comprehend and to connect. When those composers put pen to paper they felt something, they were trying to say something. My head may not always understand, but my heart does.  To think that when I'm listening to Lauridsen, I'm also listening to J.S. Bach. I find that to be quite incredible.

It's now the spring of 2016. forty-six years after that kid chose music.  His heart knew things that his head had no way of knowing.  His decision has been my life. He did good. We did good.

In the late 1800s, my great grandfather Wayland Dick Helms taught Sacred Harp singing schools all over southeast Alabama.  Helix.  Double Helix.  Little wonder I enjoy music so much.  It's in my DNA.