Oliver's transcendental musical diary

[Korpo]

I guess about two years ago I read Kurt Leland's "Music and the Soul," and it made me aware of the fact that music can induce all kinds of mystical experiences.

Strewn all over this site I've mentioned messages that I believe came to me from Spirit through the means of song lyrics. The link seems to happen because music relaxes my mind and my attention is a bit more flexible. I often perceive some part of the lyrics as significant, I know that these words mean something. Sometimes circumstances and music match as well.

But in this thread I want to post about another kind of experience, Kurt calls it "Transcendental Musical Experience (TME)." Through the means of the music something is communicated, triggered or understood without requiring words, just the music itself. Sometimes it comes to me as a vision. Sometimes it is a state of consciousness, hard to describe.

I wanted to collect some of these experiences and post it here. Updates can be very irregular, because I do not will these things.

Oliver

[Korpo]

Two Pink Floyd songs gave me a bit of a TME each, "Learning To Fly" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

The first one gave me a vision of a fighter or spyplane pilot (think U2) high in the stratosphere, spinning along the plane's axis, where the skies turn up and down and then there's space above, a feeling of freedom and being removed. This was related to its lyrics:

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

(Pink Floyd, "Learning To Fly")

The intro of the second one gave me the feeling of looking down on Earth, this shining blue diamond, with the darkness of space as background. (Not the topic of the song.)

The lyrics are beautiful, by the way:

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

(Pink Floyd, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond")

[Korpo]

Today I relistened to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and for a moment I felt deep love for all of it - a very majestic sensation.

[Korpo]

I reread the paraph about the crisis point between the 7th and 8th center in "Music and the Soul", "Disillusionment." Mentioned as a prime example for this was Tchaikovsky's last symphony, "Pathetique". I noted that I had already downloaded this one under my subscription because Abbado had conducted it. Kurt credits him for being able to bring out the qualities of many pieces he choses to stage.

Kurt's description is aimed specifically at the final movement, but I listened to the whole piece. I was left with several impressions. The more upbeat parts seemed to have a flat quality to them, as if life may have offered joys, but they may have been experienced as fickle, sometimes superficial and certainly not satisfactory or lasting. There was no sense of investment, of being really enjoying it, but more like amusements.

Inevitably every of these parts would be interrupted, sometimes even violently and dramatically. I had the impression of ship being suddenly clashed against the rocks. The joys seemed not to outweigh what seemed to be drastic assaults, a feeling of deep crisis. It seems like the interchange of these qualities seems to prepare for the final movement, the one where disillusionment is most apparent. Scored as "Adagio lamentoso" this finale seems to ask for rest. Not lacking in beauty it seems to carry that edge that says "Too much!" and a feeling of wanting to give up. And when being bitter-sweet it carries also some self-pity I would guess.

All of this adds up to a big feeling of "It shouldn't have been like that." but magnified as if written under the script of one's own life. Unlike Bruckner who always rescues us by passing into higher consciousness, transcending the human condition, Tchaikovsky wanders on without this final breakthrough. His symphony rather subsides into nothing rather than going anywhere. Kurt relates that Tchaikovsky died weeks after the premiere of this work.

[Korpo]

I listened to the music of Star Wars again, especially the first one. I compared "Imperial Attack" (the boarding of Princess Leia's frigate) with "The Imperial March" (Darth Vader's theme from "The Empire Strikes Back") and there's many continuous elements. Many of the elements are stomping and driving in "Imperial Attack", it is, if listened to with headphones in the dark, an onslaught of driving rhythms and tension-building elements. It even would produce flashes in my vision on especially impacting parts.

Without intending for such a conscious comparison I then put on Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" from his work "The Planets". It's clearly related as Williams, the composer of the Star Wars music, drew on elements from Holst's music (amongst others) when composing his epic soundtrack. What surprised me, however, is that Holst portrayed war with more facets than Williams did the Empire, and maybe a bit more than we are used to when thinking of war. Holst mixes the onslaught of war with the fanfare - a link to older times when the sound of horns called the troops into battle. Yes, there are tension-building elements, loudness and intensity, but also there are elements that seem to speak of idealism and patriotism, and how they end up to become the road to war, maybe even paving that road.

I was pretty surprised to find music sounding so "virtuous" in there. Not like heroism, but like noble virtues. And that is the thing - only by being surprised I made that connection. Holst wrote it after the First World War. With great enthusiasm the soldiers had left for the war that had turned into a cataclysmic onslaught and endless killer. Williams' depiction of the Empire sounds more ruthless than this, and I wonder if this could also mean that Holst wanted to say that it is people, after all, that conduct war. It's a different quality.

[CFTraveler]

I suspect that it has to do with it's historicity- even though post-modern times has seen war, it's just not the same, not so personal or human, unless he's been in the middle of it.
.02

[Korpo]

I had the great joy to watch Oliver Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony live, performed by the Munich Philharmonic. What an epic display. I would also think they seldom present such a selection of instruments - in addition to the grand orchestra there was also a Ondes Martinot (a precursor of the synthesizer from the 1940s, sounding like the wailing of a singing saw), and a huge selection of percussion - including an enormous gong, bells, xylophone, and whatever. Some arrangements I could not spot.

Just watching the music move through the orchestra, sometimes opposing some parts with the other, the patterns, the climaxes, the multitude of impressions in this piece... the resolutions, the tensions upon tensions, the unexpected, the dynamic, the drive, the wild piano... what a ride.

With about 80 minutes a bit long in its intensity. But most of the time it had my rapt attention. I felt like a kid in a toy store - so much to see, so much to experience in one evening!

(I just identified one instrument I did see yesterday - it was a celesta. Thanks, Wikipedia! )

The title of the work, and those of its movements, were a late addition to the project. They were first described by Messiaen in a diary entry in early 1948. He derived the title from two Sanskrit words, turanga and lîla, which roughly translate into English as "love song and hymn of joy, time, movement, rhythm, life, and death", and described the joy of Turangalîla as "superhuman, overflowing, dazzling and abandoned".

Messiaen revised the work in 1990.

Instrumentation

The piece is scored for:

Solo piano and ondes Martenot;
Woodwind: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons;
Brass: 4 horns, 3 ♥♥♥♥♥ets, 1 ♥♥♥♥♥et in D, cornet, 3 trombones, 1 tuba;
At least 8 and up to 11 percussionists, playing: vibraphone, keyed or mallet glockenspiels, triangle, temple blocks and wood block, cymbals (crash and three types of suspended), tam tam, tambourine, maracas, snare drum, Provençal tabor, bass drum, and tubular bells;
celesta, and strings (32 violins, 14 violas, 12 cellos and 10 double basses)

(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangal%C3%AEla-Symphonie)

(Turanga is also the first name of the cartoon character Leela in Futurama. )

[Korpo]

I recently had the great joy of listening to Bruckner with a beloved being over Skype. We share music this way - starting at the same time the same piece, listening together, sharing our impressions.

It was the Adagio of Bruckner's 8th, conducted by Sergiu Celibidache. He was known for having his own interpretation of the timing of pieces, and his interpretation of the piece was mostly of a contemplative slowness that exceeded each other version I know by a third. Minute details were audible, sometimes the piece seemed almost to fall apart.

From the energetic part, wonderful images arose in us that I have not perceived before when listening to this piece. It was a joyful, blessed experience to share it like this, to anticipate and wonder at what happens in the piece. It was like a new piece to me.

Celibidache frequently refused to release his performances on commercial recordings during his lifetime claiming that a listener could not obtain a "transcendental experience" outside of the concert hall. Many of the recordings of his performances were released posthumously. Nonetheless, he earned international acclaim for celebrated interpretations of classical music repertoire and was known for a spirited performance style informed by his study and experiences in Zen Buddhism.

(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibidache)

[Korpo]

I had another TME while listening with the same partner to one of her favorites - "The Dreams Made of Sand" by Arcana. I had visions of space and geometric shapes during this piece, seeing wheels turning, the confines of the mind's eye move and a pyramid with an eye.

I think they really deserve their name.

[Korpo]

Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony is on my mind a lot since I visited that concert. I got different recordings of it now. Before it was an onslaught on my senses to me. The more I get to know it the deeper it becomes. During the concert it was a buffet of new experiences, like sampling something new all the time. Now some other qualities have emerged. The beautiful melodies and other parts haunt me. Originally when I listened to it first I scoffed a bit at the titles - "Chant d'amour" (2 movements, "Song of love") seemed to match the piece little. Now I find gentle qualities, an inner richness, within. Sometimes the piece seems to portray the richness of the human experience, the seeming chaos of parallel voice with different themes, the quickness with which our minds jump onto new things, and the beauty that can emerge at other moments.