Fratres, a few references to music in my recent reading worth reflecting upon . . .
From Robert Cardinal Sarah's The Power of Silence -
24. The wonders of creation are silent and we can admire them only in silence. Art, too, is the fruit of silence... Great music is listened to in silence. Wonder, admiration, and silence function in tandem. Popular, tasteless music is performed in an uproar, a pandemonium of shouting, a diabolical, exhausting commotion. It is not something one can listen to; it deafens man and makes him drunk with emptiness, confusion, and despair.
We do not experience the same feeling, the same purity, the same elegance, the same elevation of mind and soul that we experience when we listen silently to Mozart, Berlioz, Beethoven, or Gregorian chant. Man enters then into a sacred dimension, into a celestial liturgy, at the threshold of purity itself. Here music, by its expressive character, by its ability to convert souls, causes the human heart to vibrate in unison with God's heart. Here music rediscovers its sacredness and divine origin.
According to Dom Mocquereau, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Solesmes:
Plato has given us an excellent definition of music. "It is," he says, "art so ordering sound as to reach the soul, inspiring a love of virtue." He would have the best music to be that which most perfectly expresses the soul's good qualities. "It is the serve no idle pleasures," he says in another place, "that the Muses have given us harmony, whose movements accord with those of the soul, but rather to enable us thereby to order the ill-regulated motions of the soul, even as rhythm is given us to reform our manners, which in most men are so wanting in balance and in grace." This was the high ideal which the Greeks had of music.
25. The sentiments that emerge from a silent heart are expressed in harmony and silence. The great things in human life are experienced in silence, under God's watchful eye.
From St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians -
It is proper for you to act in agreement with the mind of the bishop; and this you do. Certain it is that your presbytery, which is a credit to its name, is a credit to God; for it harmonizes with the bishop as completely as the strings with a harp. This is why in the symphony of your concord and love the praises of Jesus Christ are sung. But you, the rank and file, should also form a choir, so that, joining the symphony of your concord, and by your unity taking your key note from God, you may with one voice through Jesus Christ sing a song to the Father. Thus He will both listen to you and by reason of your good life recognize in you the melodies of His Son. It profits you, therefore, to continue in your flawless unity, that you may at all times have a share in God.
From Robert Cardinal Sarah's The Power of Silence -
24. The wonders of creation are silent and we can admire them only in silence. Art, too, is the fruit of silence... Great music is listened to in silence. Wonder, admiration, and silence function in tandem. Popular, tasteless music is performed in an uproar, a pandemonium of shouting, a diabolical, exhausting commotion. It is not something one can listen to; it deafens man and makes him drunk with emptiness, confusion, and despair.
We do not experience the same feeling, the same purity, the same elegance, the same elevation of mind and soul that we experience when we listen silently to Mozart, Berlioz, Beethoven, or Gregorian chant. Man enters then into a sacred dimension, into a celestial liturgy, at the threshold of purity itself. Here music, by its expressive character, by its ability to convert souls, causes the human heart to vibrate in unison with God's heart. Here music rediscovers its sacredness and divine origin.
According to Dom Mocquereau, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Solesmes:
Plato has given us an excellent definition of music. "It is," he says, "art so ordering sound as to reach the soul, inspiring a love of virtue." He would have the best music to be that which most perfectly expresses the soul's good qualities. "It is the serve no idle pleasures," he says in another place, "that the Muses have given us harmony, whose movements accord with those of the soul, but rather to enable us thereby to order the ill-regulated motions of the soul, even as rhythm is given us to reform our manners, which in most men are so wanting in balance and in grace." This was the high ideal which the Greeks had of music.
25. The sentiments that emerge from a silent heart are expressed in harmony and silence. The great things in human life are experienced in silence, under God's watchful eye.
From St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians -
It is proper for you to act in agreement with the mind of the bishop; and this you do. Certain it is that your presbytery, which is a credit to its name, is a credit to God; for it harmonizes with the bishop as completely as the strings with a harp. This is why in the symphony of your concord and love the praises of Jesus Christ are sung. But you, the rank and file, should also form a choir, so that, joining the symphony of your concord, and by your unity taking your key note from God, you may with one voice through Jesus Christ sing a song to the Father. Thus He will both listen to you and by reason of your good life recognize in you the melodies of His Son. It profits you, therefore, to continue in your flawless unity, that you may at all times have a share in God.