The Fine Art of Listening

It was 1750. For nearly a century, Baroque piety and gravity weighed heavily on European aristocrats. “Hey, enough of this square, complex music that makes me think about death and stuff. Don’t you know anything, you know, hummable? Something light and upbeat? We just want to party.” Poor aristocrats. What was there to do? The colonies were colonial, the soldiers were soldiering, the peasants were peasanting. They desperately needed a new entertainment – something their parents and grandparents would despise.

Thankfully, the tides were about to change, and the classical era was about to explode. Complex musical patterns gave way to simple, transparent forms. Rich harmony gave way to (essentially) three or four chord functions. Serious, “what is the meaning of life” oratorio gave way to light “let’s see how many people I can sleep with in three hours” opera. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (quite literally, too.) And, generally speaking, it didn’t end well for those poor aristocrats.

Perhaps it was more “worst of times” than “best of times”. Even so, plenty of real treasures of astounding beauty remain from the classical era, including this well-loved dance from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph von Gluck.

I was introduced to the music of living American composer Daniel Dorff by my (young) children, of all people.

If you have kids, and you have a car, you’ve probably been there. A long car ride (and by “long” I mean “more than 30 seconds”), and the whining begins: bathroom, bored, s/he touched me, hungry, s/he wiped boogers on me. So as the parent, you learn important skills in distraction, and put together a literal bag of tricks in an attempt to retain not only a sliver of sanity, but also your will to live. In my trick-bag are many CD’s of music; many of them are just slightly less annoying than the sound of whining children, but hey, the lesser of two evils, right?

Then there was a Daniel Dorff CD: a handful of children’s tales set for narrator and orchestra. How wonderful to find something that the kids and parents could enjoy together?

While I don’t really know him personally, I admire Dorff because, while his music has been played by major orchestras and ensembles (thinks global), he’s a guy who clearly does not suffer from a big head (acts local.) Besides composing, is vice president of music publisher, gives lectures, plays clarinet, volunteers for professional guilds, helps to develop music software, among (I imagine) many other things. And his list of compositions shows that he is writing for people he knows, rather than untouchable superstars (though his pieces have been played by them as well.) So, it turns out that famous composers can be normal, nice, people!

Here’s a short movement of a different piece that I believe captures Dorff’s sound and writing style.

Many Christians celebrate Trinity Sunday on the first Sunday after Pentecost. What is interesting about this is that it is the only Christian feast that celebrates a doctrine as opposed to an event or person. This doctrine – the Holy Trinity: One God in three Persons – has been discussed and argued throughout history and is regarded as a holy mystery. And like many mysteries, people have tried to wrap their brains around it and explain it using our limited, logical speech.

This is where, perhaps, a mind like Johann Sebastian Bach could help out the philosophers and theologians. His Clavierubung III is a marvelous piece of music, but it’s practically a work of theology as well. It will be impossible to unpack this volume in one blog post. In this book of music, one of the few that Bach managed to publish in his lifetime, Bach shows his heartfelt devotion to God and gives an homage to Martin Luther, who was seen as the liberator of Protestant Christians and in many ways, the founder of modern Germany.

The Prelude & Fugue in Eb are the first and last pieces in the Clavierubung III. Besides the less subtle use of Eb – a key with three flats – the prelude can be divided into three distinct themes. Each theme, however, can not stand alone; they require the other two themes to complete the work. The fugue is actually three different fugues. Despite the uniqueness of each fugue, the subject of the first fugue finds its way (unsurprisingly) into the second and third; so, what seems like three fugues is actually one.