7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Carl Olson posted his favorite jazz and non-jazz albums at the Spirit of Cecilia blog here and here. His tastes in music and mine don’t seem to coincide at a lot of points, but I did find some new albums to explore and even a couple I liked. I think my tastes are more plonky, jangly and dissonant than his, in general. To be technical about it.

— 2 —

As I mentioned earlier, we watched Goodfellas this week, which means I finally understand this meme image.

I always thought it was from the Great Gatsby, for some reason?

Good to be culturally caught up, at long last.

— 3 —

Speaking of music: Terror and transcendance in the late masterpieces of Schubert, who died at 31:

Schubert contracted syphilis in 1822 and would thereafter have been aware that he was not to live out a normal span. It is not difficult to discern in his music the presumed effects of this knowledge; Tom Service has even written an article about an 1824 piano work (D784) entitled “Schubert’s syphilitic sonata”. Once infected, he had to cope with severe pain and visible, socially embarrassing symptoms, though these were interspersed with periods of remission. In a famous letter to the painter Leopold Kupelwieser in March 1824, he describes himself as “a man whose health will never be right again” and who is “the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world”. Whilst it is generally undesirable to map biographical elements onto abstract music in the absence of external evidence, in Schubert’s case the evidence is to hand. There is moreover a directness of utterance, an absence of artifice or gesture in his music, which make him for many the most lovable of all composers. His genius is to draw us in to the melancholy of his interior world, and at the same time to set before us a vision of unattainable beauty, albeit one suffused with the ineffable sadness of transience.

It is instructive to contrast the Requiem with Schubert’s own last religious work, the Mass D950 (June 1828). The Sanctus, which typically celebrates God’s holiness and majesty, is here a nightmare: Schubert’s music begins unexceptionably in E flat major, though the whispered piano is unusual, before building to a terrifying fortissimo outburst in the unforeseeable key of B minor. (A not dissimilar effect is to be found in the same movement of the Mass D678 from 1822). 

— 4 —

More on Schubert’s faith:

As one might deduce from this opera, Schubert was a deeply pious man. He wrote a significant number of religious works, including six Latin Masses. But Schubert’s faith was somewhat unorthodox. In each of the Masses he deleted “unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam” from the Credo. No one really knows why. Could it have been from a streak of anti-clericalism, such as is often found in all-Catholic countries? It is all the more puzzling since the deletion made the Masses unsuitable for church performance until the words were restored.

As one might imagine from his text deletions, Schubert’s approach to the Mass is not rigidly doctrinal. He seems more concerned with recreating the experiences the doctrines define: the awe, the mystery, the veneration, the devastating sorrow, the sublime elevation, and the ultimate joy. This is why his response to the words is so individual and vibrant. The last Masses seem more a personal response to the liturgical drama than a formal liturgy. As Schubert said of his religious compositions, “I never force devotion upon myself and, except when involuntarily overwhelmed by it, never compose hymns or prayers of this kind, but then it is usually the right and true devotion.” Right and true devotion is what one senses here in an overwhelming way.

— 5 —

Yet more music, via Micah Mattix:

Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence at 75: “A little more than two weeks before the first VE Day, on April 21, 1945, Olivier Messiaen’s Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence (Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine) had premiered. In the decades since then it has become difficult to hear this rarely performed work, but new online resources are changing this. Several performances are available on YouTube, including one recorded earlier this year (just prior to the pandemic) with Kent Nagano conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and women’s chorus. You can also listen to a recording synchronized with the published musical score. Finally, archived online performance notes from the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (2002) put an English translation within easy reach. At age seventy-five, the Three Small Liturgies has never been so readily accessible.”

— 6 —

Perusing the future Church calendar dates, I noticed that tomorrow, one of the many memorials is that of St. Andrew Corsini. His bio struck me as timely:

  During the 1348 general chapter at Metz, he was made Tuscan provincial and briefly lead the province through the ravages of the Black Death that was to claim over 100 Carmelites. This election was short-lived because in October 1349 Pope Clement VI nominated him to be bishop of Fiesole, a town about 5 miles north-east of Florence. Taking up his episcopal duties in March of the following year, Andrew was faced not only with the consequences of the Black Death, but also with a diocese that had been neglected by his predecessors. The diocesan bishops of Fiesole had not lived in the diocese for over a century leaving the cathedral and diocese to fall into ruin. Andrew moved swiftly to repair the material and spiritual damage to his diocese, working tirelessly to rebuild the cathedral, restore parish churches, and improve the moral life of his priests.  

Andrew went about establishing a small religious community around him, disbanding the large Episcopal entourage and reducing the number of house servants to six. He also invited two friars from the Carmine to live with him in community. He considered himself the “father and helper of the poor” and devoted special care to the sick in the wake of the devastation brought about by the plague. He was also an eloquent preacher of reconciliation, and a successful peacemaker in Fiesole, Florence, Prato and Pistoia.

There are, of course, any number of ways a religious leaders can “not live” where he or she is supposed to be living.

And what’s the key to reform? No matter what the specifics, it also comes down, it seems to the same thing: casting aside worldly comforts and honorifics and living a life of poverty and humility. It starts there. Of course it does.

— 7 —

Not what you expected? Not what you came here for, at the end of a crazy, even disturbing week?

Well, considering that I believe that one of the worst consequences of the Internet and social media is the amplification of the ego, and the ever-present suspicion that whenever something happens in our lives or our world, we must share it and say something and that the world needs our point of view in order to keep revolving….nope.

In fact, I stripped down my Facebook “friends” list even more this week, and am getting closer and closer to a bare-bones presence, I hope.

Just remember:

Making a difference, having an impact, bringing about change ≠ Posting a status

Not posting a status ≠ Unconcerned, unengaged or inactive

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!