Listening to the Infinite

I have become increasingly conscious of the deeper relationship between an artist as creator and the experience possible when one listens to the final product in a deep and uninterrupted sense.  Perhaps this is an experience only quantifiable as a composer, but I think it brings great hope to the dedicated listener.

I've been aware, at numerous times in my life, of establishing a near connection with the composer of a particular piece.  When I met Henryk Gorecki a few years back in his home, somehow very little about the composer's personality was surprising to me.  I felt a kinship with the man, and felt spiritually linked to him by several of his most contemplative works (which, incidentally, had become a permanent and intimate soundtrack in my life.)

Lest this sound all too strange and (unfortunately) hippy-ish to you, I think that there is a way to quantify the experience.  As a composer, our pieces grow out of specific places.  There is a seed of thought which births the initial feelings and intents behind a piece of music.  When the piece is particularly inspired, we feel particularly moved to be able to even begin to participate in the act of bringing it to life.  As a Catholic, I cannot help but feel that the Holy Spirit has a direct input on these matters, and that many such pieces spring from a place where the temporal and eternal worlds meet.

A thoughtful listener, therefore, can access this place.  Yet this is not an understanding that can be accessed through a technical or theoretical understanding of the music.  Neither a piercing harmonic analysis or an advanced biographical knowledge of the composer will lead you to the place of a work's genesis.  Quite contrary to what music education may imply, the deeper experience must come from a more humble experience of the music.  While technical knowledge is always helpful, it must eventually be left far behind when a person truly submits to a piece.  The journey to the genesis-point of a work is as unpretentious a spiritual experience we can have, because no intellectual discourse can describe or quantify the experience.  Yet when we arrive there, we meet the composer once again, hovering near the place of inspiration, gently awaiting a whisper of the infinite to issue forth...