A Brief Musical Aside

Mass was very interesting today, musically speaking. We started out with “The Glory of These Forty Days” (not a favorite, but not one I loathe) and everything went swimmingly from there on, response-wise, until the offeratory. I still have the occasional lapse back to old translation’s responses, primarily when I’m toddler wrangling. But today, GeekBaby was very good, and I could concentrate properly.

But the offeratory was I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light” (again, neither favorite nor loathed) and afterwards, I could not get a response right to save my life. GeekBaby required no wrangling at all, and actually fell asleep during this period, so my usual cause of distraction wasn’t to blame. The best I can come us with is it was the music.

The opening hymn was rather somber, but easily singable. I mentally marked it out as a good one for the Liturgy of the Hours, easy to sing without accompaniment. And that was it. The offeratory hymn was a bit singsong, and while that always feels a bit out of place it wasn’t really obnoxious.

Yet after the sing song hymn, my kneejerk reaction was the old responses.

I have a similar problem with the Gloria. We started with the new ICEL chant setting for the Gloria, and it was wonderful. Then they transitioned back to their old setting of the Gloria, once it had been reworked for the new translation. (I think it’s Mass of Creation? Not sure.) And because the music is the same, I keep getting mixed up and seguing into the old translation of the Gloria. It drives me bonkers.

So there you have it. Does the selection of music really affect the Mass all that much? Absolutely.

Beauty

Well, I found out the answer to this question. And I was right, it was no.

Today was the retirement party of one of my coworkers. He’s been sick for a while, and has ended up taking early retirement. Since it was a day off for me, I had the truly unenviable task of toting GeekBaby off to the medical school, so I could at least say goodbye even if the presence of the raging toddler forbid me staying for the food and speeches.

So, as we walked back out through the hospital atrium, there’s a hospital volunteer standing on a second floor walkway singing opera.

And I went “huh” and kept walking.

GeekBaby was tired and cranky. I had groceries shopping still to do, and chores around the housemate and an animal protocol change request to write up, and a million other things to do. So I kept walking. Then I remembered Joshua Bell busking with his Stradivarius.

So I turned around, regardless of my child’s whines, and went back to listen. A girl was singing now. I listened. Then we rode the escalator up, so I could thank them and ask what they had sung. We had a nice little chat, and then the second young man sang. And only when the were done, did we head home.

What is it about beauty that makes it hurt so?

I can’t say for certain I would have stopped either.

(From The Washington Post)

One morning during rush hour, one of the best classical musicians in the world stood in a D.C. Metro arcade and played some of the most beautiful classical music ever composed on a Stradivari violin almost 300 years old worth 3.5 million dollars. Over one thousand people passed him that morning, but under 10 stopped to listen. The violin case lay open on the street like any other street musician. Twenty seven people tossed in some change, most on the go, and he garnered a total of $32.17. One listener who recognized the quality of the performance but not the artist tossed in a ten, the remaining twenty six people gave an average of 85 cents. Some people tossed pennies.

I told this to Christina, who played the violin in high school, and she can’t believe he risked a Stradivarius on the streets like that. She tells me there are only 100 left in the world.

What bothers me so strongly is that I can’t say whether I would have stopped either. In the morning, on my way to work, well, I’m looking I’m not hit by cars on my walk. I’m in my own little world, thinking about the day’s experiments and all the other triffling thing to get done, with my iPod’s volume cranked to overpower the traffic, I very well could have never noticed.

It just makes me feel a triffle ashamed.