December 30th, 2009
As the curtain draws on the holiday season I find myself reflecting on the world’s fastest growing faith – atheism. The tenets of this faith are not unusual. Adherents express a devotion to a deity, in this case ‘Science,’ and believe firmly in its omnipotence and infallibility - in spite of significant evidence to the contrary. They quite typically believe that their doctrine is the truth, to the exclusion of all others.
They share the implicit and sometimes hostile criticism of other faiths, particularly ones that are more popular, such as Islam and especially Christianity. A favorite weapon of the atheist is to criticize the Christian for not knowing his own text. A clever Christian might do well to test their assailant’s scientific knowledge. For instance, most atheists would assert that science deals exclusively in provable facts, thereby betraying a lack of even a basic understanding of science and how it functions.
A thoughtful atheist might say that they are not particularly opposed to Christianity or Islam but to the ignorance of organized religion. They charge that these faiths paint outsiders with the same brush, and seek to impose their doctrines on them. It seems that atheism is like the other religions in that it has the same trouble discouraging hypocrisy. Some make so bold as to contend that religious difference is the cause of war, yet the formula for napalm is not found in the libraries of the Vatican; Baha’ullah is not credited with the invention of the atomic bomb.
Christians don’t need to read the Bible; the Bible is mostly a bunch of horse hockey. What they do need is to engage their imaginations with metaphors of elevated consciousness, to participate in the collective dream of humanity, which is to craft an earthly paradise. The other choice, which we are free to make, is to reject these metaphors, and wait for death on this lonely rock as it tumbles through the void.
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December 24th, 2009
The opening lines of the fourth and final movement trickled like a merry little rivulet that wended its way through the land of dream. The melody swelled with tributaries until it flowed as thick and sweet as the river Lethe.
The better part of the audience had been lulled to sleep. And while the maestro watched them from the corner of his eye as a mother watches a mischievous child, he continued to lead the quartet undismayed. The subscribers continued to succumb, as though it were the music of moths flitting through the shadows.
The last to slouch in their seats were our fellow musicians: those more inclined to the craftsmanship, the nuances of the composition’s formal character. Nevertheless, as the last repeating figures dwindled down to nothing, even they were overcome, and these last, nodding their appreciation, now nodded off to sleep. The coda died at the sigh of midnight.
The maestro indicated that we should remove our earplugs. The sounds of light snoring and heavy breathing surrounded us as we tiptoed out through the stage entrance. Just outside we were met by a gang of poor and ragged folk, each one carrying an empty sack. It appeared as though the maestro was expecting them, “Merry Christmas,” he whispered to the eldest, to which the old fellow replied graciously: “bless you.”
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December 16th, 2009
As the balconies filled with patrons in their Christmas best, the thought emerged, unbidden, that this would be my master’s swan song. He directed us to install our ear plugs and carefully inspected them after. Through our most interminable efforts we had learned to play this new composition faithfully without the advantage of hearing fully the upper registers.
We made our bows before a wall of light applause, and found our chairs amid sighs and clearing throats. There was a very long, very pointed pause, then a twinkle shone in the maestro’s eye, and we began in earnest. The melody commenced, and lit upon my shoulder like a winter starling, and fluttered up to the ceiling where it sang out to the gallery.
I wondered if anyone could forswear the dulcet beatitudes of the maestro’s violin: the magus with his gestures was conjuring the sirens. So sweetly the music fell, like a rain of rosewater, that many of the ladies closed their eyes and inhaled sharply as though wounded. And yet, I could not help but observe that here and there a head would dip.
I feared that the piece, so full of grace, bearing such elegant contrapuntal complexity, might be lost on some. Indeed, I saw the nodding begin to spread about the house as though the Sandman was visiting each guest, and one by one sprinkling his dust upon their eyes. If the maestro noticed, he made no sign, for his brow was bent, happy to be saddened by his own music. I nearly fell asleep myself, but it was late and I was tired.
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December 9th, 2009
Of the maestro’s first quartet, the critical consensus was generally favorable, but there was a whiff of condescension in the praise. “Fine entertainment,” and “hints of genius to come,” stung my master, like brambles on the broadsheets. He charged the critics were “a choir of soloists who sing together out of hesitancy.”
They seemed to want audacity, and the maestro deigned to oblige them with his second work. While his experiment stifled the public, academicians began to bubble about the piece: the “mesmeric repeating figures”, “the use of dissonance and drone.” They deemed the composition a “terrific leap forward” from the composer’s earlier work.
For the third outing he made a most meticulous effort: a gorgeous hybrid of the first and second quartets, marrying staid conventions with the wiles of his most outrageous experiments, and while I nearly wept at the quartet’s grace and majesty, the more well-to-do subscribers nodded in the balconies.
Rumor of the impresario’s daring had drawn many musicians, conductors, and the like from around the region. They, by contrast, payed rapt attention, but afterward could only dismiss the work. I failed to understand: I had been quite enthralled by all my master’s compositions, each transcendent to the last – but I suppose I am biased.
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December 2nd, 2009
The concert hall had a peculiar odor, distinct like mothballs but not particularly mothballs. Preparations were underway for the Christmas Eve performance, the debut of the latest string quartet. The ushers scurried about, seeing to this and that in the musty but otherwise lovely house.
The hall was crowned by a magnificent dome vault from which hung an extravagant chandelier, comprised of a thousand glimmering teardrop crystals, and circumscribed by a bucolic mural depicting a procession of Christian saints beneath a flaking sky. Marble seraphs flanked the balconies, polished to a shimmer in the refracted candlelight.
The maestro arrived with an undignified amount of snow on his coat, clutching a valise that no doubt contained his fourth and final plea for immortality. “Third times the charm!” he excitedly whispered; he must have lost track.
He was first, and I second violin; the maestro found to his satisfaction that the other players in the quartet, the cello and viola, were adequately prepared, particularly on the point of having wax earplugs. Concert subscribers began to fill the balconies, full of expectations that were not to be.
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