#2

University of Utah radio presents music and other four

letter words.

Here is your host associate professor of music at the University of Utah Paul

Batum.

I think we must. Clarify something from the last time and that

is that this program seems to be. A statement about special

kinds of music not just music in general but a particular kind of music which aims to be more

than it seems. Music another four letter words. We are called

friend which implies I suppose that most people assume that music is actually less than it

is. That means that there is a music which sometimes can be used as

therapy and there is a music which sometimes can be used as entertainment.

And that kind of music is necessary indeed to us but is not the kind of music which is

especially vital or interesting to me in respect to this

program. And Beethoven was the man you remember who said that music was a

good deal more than people give it credit for at least his music. Music is the one

incorporeal entrance said Beethoven a little way to lead.

You into that world of reality which comprehends us. But

which we cannot comprehend. I suppose I ought to say that

again. But since you are now extremely attentive listeners and that may

have passed you by. Music is the one incorporeal

entrance into that world of reality which comprehends us

but which we cannot comprehend.

Listening to it therefore is not the point. Being pleased by it

is not the point. Intellect in any sense is not the

point. Yielding. I suppose it is something

like.

The point being caught away. Being

transported. Being taken to places which are

otherwise inaccessible to us in ordinary experience.

That is using music in some kind of extraordinary experience which leads us finally to a

sense of reality that may be the point. And if that

is the point then strangely enough there are lots of people who have lesser sounding names than

Beethoven but whose views are quite similar.

Those of you who listen to the animals will probably remember Eric Burdon saying that.

Finally after having passed through the drug experience rock

generally and trying to work out some way of saying things.

That he reckoned all of the serious rock musicians were in search of

something like the summit the ultimate by moons of sound. That

sounds like a world of reality which comprehends us but which is not readily accessible to

us by the by our ordinary exploitation of the sense of it's

George Harrison of the Beatles who says that rock finally is

intended to locate somehow the gun

in each of us. However difficult that me that

may seem. To many of us when we listen to some rock groups

it doesn't necessarily deny the possibility of the experience.

I suppose the serious rock musicians as Beethoven would say that the first

problem with listening to any of this music which pretends

to so much is just that. Listening. That somehow

we must we must get out of our usual pattern of response to music.

And try something else and that means that the music which

talks about ultimate reality as Gustav Mahler's music tends to

do for example is not nearly as important as the music

which makes something happen which is

visionary reveller Tory or otherwise

actually illuminating.

And one might even say soul changing.

That means that whoever is is about this has to find a technique of

metamorphosis I suppose and that the listener. To music or the reader of

poetry has to let himself be swept away by that technique until

finally he has actually changed and transported from his ordinary

circumstances. Eliot talks about things like that

and I suppose that's how more's the pity.

Some English scholars or readers of poetry might say

that to communicate with Mars converse with spirits to report the behavior of the Sea

Monster describe the horoscope or scribe as Mr Elliot.

Observe disease in signatures evoke biography from the wrinkles of the palm and

tragedy from fingers release Omens by sort of the joy of tea leaves riddled the

inevitable with playing cards fiddle with pentagrams or barbiturate acids.

What a sect the recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors to explore the

womb or to or dream is all these are

usual pastime and drugs and features of the

press and always will be. Some of them especially when

there is distress of nations and perplexity whether on the shores of

Asia or in the Edgware Road. Men's curiosity searches

past and future and clings to that dimension but it.

To apprehend the point of intersection of the

timeless with time is an occupation for the

sane. No occupation either but

something given and taken in a life times death in love

ardor and selflessness and self

surrender. For most of us there is only the

unattended moment. The moment in and out of time.

The distractions that lost in the shaft of sunlight the wild time

unseen or the winter lightning or the waterfall or music heard so deeply that it

is not heard at all but you are the music while the music lasts. These are only hints

and guesses hints followed by guesses and the rest is prayer

observance disciplined thought and action.

They didn't have to guess the gifted half understood his incarnation.

Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual.

Here the past and future are conquered and reconciled

where action were otherwise the movement of that which is only moved

and has in it no source of movement.

Now that. Is about an experience.

Seems to me there is nothing in the quality of Eliot's poetry which actually

achieves that experience but then maybe that isn't what his poetry is meant to

do. He tries to say something which is the fruit of a lifetime of

experience and and he manages to say it pretty well but he is still talking

about and not making it happen. There have been other times which were less interested in talking

about the experience than actually achieving it.

That is Mr Elliot may say the reconciliation of time with the

timeless or the point of intersection of time with the timeless is an occupation for the

saint as a saintly activity and probably ultimately a saintly achievement.

There are some people who have written music and some people who have written poetry who are not necessarily

saintly either in aspect or disposition who would like to

make the temporal. Transcendent

self and reach some point of contact with the infinite.

It seems to me that this is in terms of art

history say a great preoccupation with late

composers and poets in that period which we are pleased to call

by Roque.

Whatever else you may take by Roque to be and however you may relate it to say

the centuries preceding or following and whatever the steps may have been to

the final achievement of the final achievement is something like a

special phenomenon in history which finally discovers ways in poetry and

ways in music of transporting people. The transport is

meant not to be hypnotic.

Not merely.

Passing out for a moment in a kind of consciousness

but actually metamorphosing it is a genuine

transcending experience. That means it transcends the art

which makes the route back from Art is always a sad one. As

though we had escaped temporarily and then we must return with a degree of pathos to

the actuality of the every day and so we keep turning again and again the to

music and to poetry and to dance and then to painting into a variety of things

in order to be temporarily changed or reminded of

something which is more important. It seems to me that the by Roque a master.

Like the saint is the person who really believes that he finds

formulae. Which results in actual

purging illuminating changing experiences and that his

his art is equal to Revelation. And that's what Mr Elliot is talking

about in Four Quartets. This has been said about Richard CRASHAW

for example the British poet of the 17th century. The effect

of his poetry is often phantasmagoria the world of the senses is evidently

enticing but it was a world of appearances on shifting

restless appearances by temperament and conviction he was a believer in the

miraculous and his aesthetic method. It may be interpreted as a genuine

equivalent of his belief and it's translation into a rhetoric

of metamorphosis. Veiled antithesis. Strange

words are used about Cray shock chaotic s in the and Jemma nation

in the process of synesthesia

mixing metaphors placing strange words

next to other words so that the effect is a kind of merging of the senses

and ultimately an attempt to produce ecstasy

and famous Crawshaw poem on the flaming heart upon the book and picture of the

seraphic old Saint Teresa as she is usually expressed with a Sarah from beside her.

Indeed tries to do this.

Oh heart equal poise of love's both parts big alike with wind and

it's live in these conquering leaves live all the same and walk

through all tongues one triumphant flame live here great heart and live and

die and kill and bleed and wound and yield and conquer still

let this immortal life wherever it comes walk in a crowd of loves and March of Dimes like

Mystic death's wait on wise souls be slain witnesses of this

life the. It was sweet incendiaries show here thy art

upon this carcass of a hard cold heart let all live scattered shafts of light

to play among the leaves of my logic books of the day combined against this breast at

once break in then take away from me my self and to see in this

gracious robber a shall die bounty be on my best fortunes such

fare spoiled something.

Oh the undaunted daughter of desires by all the high dollar of lights and fires by

all the eagle in the all the day by all die lives and deaths of love by large

drafts of intellectual day and by that I thirst of love more large than day by

all lie brimmed bowls of fierce desire by the last morning's draft of liquid

fire by the full kingdom of that final kiss that seized my partings soul

and sealed to be his by all the heavens now has done the sister of the sorrow

of them by all of him we have in the nothing.

My eyes and me. Let me so read that

I live that high on to all life of

mine may die. And the reader of

that poem collapses from loss of breath because of the

great sort of rhythmic impetus which he falls

into and the words themselves and what they mean are less

important than the experience of being sort of swirled

around and up and through and an actual

loss of contact somehow with with whatever is

about him passing out of focus and a state which

borders on the ecstatic is meant to occur in that

kind of poetry. The same is true with music of Bach. This piece in nature

may seem to some people just to be lengthy but it is in fact technically and

musically equivalent to the poetry of Cray's shock technique of metamorphosis

a kind of continuity of silence which is meant utterly and

finally to trends for you.

And all together appropriate musical experience for Tony Perkins to go over a cliff too

if he wanted to die. Either to himself or to this world.

Well this is meant to be a music which does not entertain you

which doesn't sort of hypnotize you either but which tries

to pretend the point of intersection of the timeless with time.

It is a baroque experience to say some people and some to. Six books

which I suppose I would have to say is meant to blow the mind and that is to make you

die unto yourself. To destroy you in the flesh to

weaken you and all of your parts to create a spiritual

metamorphosis to negate time as any kind of binding or

unchaining the factor in your life. It posits the notion that the way

out is the way through and that only through time time is

conquered.

This happens this happens again and again not only in music

but also in poetry.

I think maybe what you ought to do some time is crawl in the bath tub or some other

appropriate Sonora splays give yourself maybe

three or four hours read in it send Tyra to a hard crane set of

poems called The Bridge which is a modern equivalent of that kind of experience at the end of which you will be

hoarse Of course you will be exhausted of course the water may have grown a little cold of

course but then if your add depth that's turning on the taps with your feet as

I and then you can sort of keep the temperature just right.

But he broke experiences happen again and again you find yourself

intoning in that wonderful place.

Things like steeled cognizance whose leap commits the agile

precincts of the locks return within whose lariat sweep in Sing Sing and single

chrysalis the many twain of stars the lot the stitching the stallion glowing like an organ dial

with sound of sight sound and flesh just from Time's

realm as Love strikes clear direction for the helm.

And although that may go very quickly past you at this moment has did. Probably

the Bach Toccata in the Major. Now that it's the bridge

across the East River which is the steel the cognizance it is a poet looking at an

ordinary moment of experience and being caught away who sees the bridge moving across the

dark river and says that at some moment of apprehension the time with the

timeless that like an organ that Brooklyn Bridge with a sound

of doom a wondrous also leads a

wave from time to sight and sound

and flesh and somehow has become equated with a final one

ultimate experience which he says is love striking a clear direction

for the help. When I saw there a mysterious. But then so is this series

all very mysterious. Beethoven

Leonard Cohen last time on Johann Sebastian Bach. Richard great shot. Hart

Crane. On a man who many people who all

see that art is insufficient.

But by means of it we may be led to something Bassler more important

something ultimately real something maybe Altamont.

This has been music and other four letter words

featuring Paul Bunn associate professor of music at the University of

Utah. Music and other four letter words is a production of the

University of Utah radio. Executive director Rex Campbell.

Series director Gene tak. This series is made possible

by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.