Too Fast

Listening to Bach's sublime A minor violin concerto.  The tempos are so ludicrously fast that it forces one to ask many questions.  It's no wonder the esteem of classical music has suffered so much.  Why the obsession with rushing through this incredibly complex sublime music?  It evinces a kind of contempt for the music, its composer, its significance, its import.  Bach's music is about as fancy as music gets from the fanciest era of music.  It was the era of the doctrine of the affections.  It can't possibly work at these tempos.  Please, players of baroque music, stop trying to "get through" this or any music.  If playing it is such an unpleasant chore (like disposing of a dead animal, or something similar that is done quickly), then maybe do something else that you actually enjoy.  But please don't destroy this music for the rest of us.

The Anointed One--Program Notes

Here are program notes for The Anointed One, a song cycle to be performed Tuesday night, 10/17/17, Madsen Recital Hall, Provo, Utah.

The Anointed One

Bach’s Passions have been among my favorite works of art since I was quite young, the only drawback being that they end with the burial and don’t include anything about the resurrection.  I always aspired to write something like them but have realized over the years that there is little scope in my own situation for pieces of that scale.  In 2015 I decided to compose a “micropassion”, a stripped down piece using only the account from the shortest gospel, that included the resurrection account.  The passion portion was performed on Good Friday evening and the resurrection portion on Easter Sunday morning, both in my home.  In 2017 I arranged another performance, but this time added hymns from the L.D.S. canon and reflective songs that I have assembled into a cycle.  The poems below are preceded by scriptural texts that accompanied them.

Jesus, the Anointed One

She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

(Mark 14:8)

Jesus, the Anointed One

You need not my anointing

Yet how I wish I could touch you

To kiss you and bathe your feet with my tears

As I cannot touch you now

May I anoint you with my life, my love

As I anoint your other brothers and sisters

May I anoint the poor in spirit, the poor in substance, the poor in body, the poor in time…

With my food, my shelter, my clothing, my touch, my words, my prayers, my tears,

May the perfume of this anointing ascend to your nostrils as the sweet savor of primeval offerings.

May I remember the woman, the women who anoint and bathe your feet with tears.

naked

And they all forsook him, and fled.  And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:  And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.  (Mark 14:50-52)

naked came i hither

and naked i go forth

sin and death, your enemies

 strip me

as naked without the covering

of your presence, of your forgiveness

i flee, not knowing where to go

may i be one of those who overcome

may i be clothed in white raiment

as a bride

that I may join you

eternally

tears

“Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” And when he thought thereon, he wept. (Mark 14:72)

would that my tears could

signify

my deepest desire

and not betray

my animal fear

would that i could

rest in thy safety

and not wander

far

would that i could

speak my witness

boldly

not regarding the outcome

instead i curse,

fearful,

glimpsing (guiltily) from a safe distance

doubt

And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

(Mark 16:11)

never will i

ignore your witnesses

on earth

when you left

i refused to be comforted

when i heard you had returned

i believed not for joy

how i longed to hear your word

to feel your embrace

but i wouldn’t listen

ineffable

They trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man. (Mark 16:8)

i’m trembling with fear

with love

with light

i’m amazed

i cannot speak

when i think on the despair i felt

before i knew you lived

when i realized my life

would never be the same

i couldn’t find words

how can i speak

what can i say

is it really possible

are you really alive

i dare not imagine

an end to my sadness

i dare not imagine

to see your face again

yet trembling and speechless

i look up

filled with hope

that i will see you again

Death Drive

-The Book of Mormon describes two civilizations in two different time periods becoming possessed with hatred and obsessed with weapons, death, and killing, ultimately resulting in genocide in one case, and mutual destruction in the other.

-Freud talks about a Death Drive, the instinct to kill and destroy.

-The Book of Mormon talks about the natural man (sometimes called the carnal man), in opposition to the divine within.

-The Book of Mormon also proposes that its detailed accounts of wanton hatred and violence are included to be instructive to people of our era.

-The Bible and Book of Mormon repeatedly talk about beating swords into ploughshares.

-At it’s darkest, I see our society as one obsessed (in its fantasy world (media), its preaching and pronouncements, its politics) with violence and death.  I see an ever accelerating addiction to button-actuated weapons, essentially killing with remote controls.

-The completely unreasoned, bizarre, drunken resistance to any kind of limitations on remote killing devices can only be explained with the Death Drive, or the natural man, coupled with the Mahan principle, also of ancient origin, described by Hugh Nibley as the ease with which one can “get gain” by exploiting human suffering and death.

Poison

If we can't collectively see Harvey, and the crumbling of everything built and fought for us in the 20th century as the direct failure of conservatism...I dunno, I just don't know.

Inspiration, Comprovisation and Creativity

What I do/why I do it:

I create music in three genres: classical music, jazz, free improvisation

-none of these genres has much/any mass/commercial appeal

-why do I do it?

3 reasons:

-calling

-when it’s good, it’s incredibly enjoyable

-microcosm of spirituality

Inspiration and Comprovisation:

-inspiration sometimes gives everything, sometimes very little—very often in unpredictable/new formats

-sometimes hard to tell where inspiration starts and ends (good to be ok with this)

-sometimes hard to distinguish fake from real inspiration

-easy to use skill/experience to fake inspiration, sometimes easier than seeking/following inspiration

-have to nurture the gift

-forget how hard it is and where it came from, or to believe in it (when beginning new project)

-each new composition is a new problem

-never know when, what, with whom the magic is going to come

-be willing to create a plan

-be willing to significantly revise or scrap that plan

-be willing to accept tasks that are hard

-be willing to accept tasks that are easy

-be willing to throw things out

-sometimes use up all your licks – can be good or bad

-scary, taxing, existential

-never know what pieces are going to move people and when

These are attributes of spirituality

There’s a reason for this: music is divine

-creativity is divine

-all human activity is/can be creative

What is creativity?

-principal attribute of God

-collaboration with God

-raison d’etre

-key to joy and success in any endeavor

-wholeness, organicism: organization of intelligences

-preparation for godhood

-creativity synonymous with courage – not knowing the outcome

-opposite: compulsivity: doing something ineffective just because you know the outcome

-understandable: we’re strangers here

-we all have trauma – the unknown/unexpected

Creativity is also vulnerability (wind bloweth where it listeth)

-Jesus made himself vulnerable – other holy men also

-recognition that we are dependent

-response to dependence can either be trying to control as much as possible or accepting providential unpredictability

Scriptures:

Moroni 7:16-19

D&C 93:2, 29-30, 33-34, 36-39

D&C 88:6-13