The numinous in music

[kernelbogey]

Jonathan Swain quoting Alfred Einstein on the second movement of Mozart’s Violin Sonata in A K526 yesterday morning on TTN: ‘As if God the Father had brought all motion everywhere to a halt for a moment so that man might savour the bitter-sweetness of existence’.

What moments of music represent the numinous (as opposed to the religious) in music for boarders?

For me, four representative examples: Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, slow movement; closing chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion; Der Leiermann at the end of Winterreise; the closing pages of the Eroica Symphony.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Too many to list, Kernel; 'tho' I'd totally agree with your chosen representatives. The definition of "Great" Art for me is if it gives me a sense of being a part of something much greater than myself: a work that (re-)opens the fullest experience of being alive and being grateful for being alive to experience that moment.

[Richard Tarleton]

What moments of music represent the numinous (as opposed to the religious) in music for boarders?

Not in isolation of course, but coming after what has gone before, variation 25 of the Goldberg. Schubert Nacht und Traume (Schubert again - he probably twitches the curtain aside more than any other composer other than Bach). 2nd movement, Beethoven Op.111. Adagio, Bruckner 8.

[jayne lee wilson]

Most often, it's a moment, a brief passage, within a work; easy to say "Mahler 9" but more keenly perceived it's the trio of the Rondo Burleske which cuts you to the heart, untranslatable into words; in the finale, it's those breath-held, quieter interludes; threads of sound, dark and low in the basses, thin and high in the violins; a bassoon solo against hushed strings.

In the Missa Solemnis, it's the opening of the Sanctus or that of the Agnus Dei; the moment when the Agnus Dei modulates, pastorally, into the Dona Nobis pacem; the strangeness of the almost angry, repeated, "paa...cem, pa-cem, paa...cem, pa-cem!"

Not the closing chorus of Matthew passion for me, but the last aria, "mache dich, mein herze, rein" and probably only if it's the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Richard Standen, and Hermann Scherchen. It's there in the very sound of the strings.

I've found it, most recently, in some minimalist works: Adams' Common Tones in Simple Time, or Soledades from El Dorado. I was mourning the passing of my beloved Tabby Cat, I had played nothing for two weeks when he died, and no music seemed right until I tried these.

And then Kancheli, those distant bells in the Symphony In Memoriam Michelangelo, or the 3rd movement of Mourned by the Wind, "like clouds drifting across a lowland plain" as Schnittke describes it....

[cloughie]

Jonathan Swain quoting Alfred Einstein on the second movement of Mozart’s Violin Sonata in A K526 yesterday morning on TTN: ‘As if God the Father had brought all motion everywhere to a halt for a moment so that man might savour the bitter-sweetness of existence’.

What moments of music represent the numinous (as opposed to the religious) in music for boarders?

For me, four representative examples: Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, slow movement; closing chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion; Der Leiermann at the end of Winterreise; the closing pages of the Eroica Symphony.

Please can you say what you're on about in plain English? Is it the tingle factor or should I be seeking something else morev meaningful?

[kernelbogey]

Please can you say what you're on about in plain English? Is it the tingle factor or should I be seeking something else morev meaningful?

Well, I can try, Cloughie, but, as Jayne says, what I'm on about may be 'untranslatable into words'. Post 2 above puts it very well (thanks ferneyhoughgeliebte).

As Richard says, Schubert and Bach 'pull the curtain aside': I think revealing 'the bitter-sweetness of existence'.

Moments in music that are numinous, transcendental, briefly transformative - I can't be more precise. Maybe you get what I'm saying or you don't...!

BW, kb

[salymap]

Too many to list but I'll try a few. Parts of Chopin's Ballade no 4, parts of Mozart Quintet for piano and winds, Strauss last of Four Last Songs, 'I went to sleep' from Gerontius, Wagner opening of Mastersingers overture.

[Richard Tarleton]

Well, I can try, Cloughie, but, as Jayne says, what I'm on about may be 'untranslatable into words'. Post 2 above puts it very well (thanks ferneyhoughgeliebte).

As Richard says, Schubert and Bach 'pull the curtain aside': I think revealing 'the bitter-sweetness of existence'.

Moments in music that are numinous, transcendental, briefly transformative - I can't be more precise. Maybe you get what I'm saying or you don't...!

BW, kb

Two helpful links below - it is numinous rather than noumenon that the OP refers to - but it's to do with an awareness of something that is unknowable or undefinable by the senses (otherwise it would be "phenomenon"), that can't be put into words, as kernelbogey says. It's something I've experienced (if rarely) in live performance - Brendel playing Schubert, Hewitt playing the Goldberg, Haitink conducting Bruckner - sometimes it's just a moment, a glimpse into the abyss in the adagio of Bruckner 9 with Haitink and the Concertgebouw, that sort of thing. Spine-tingling definitely enters into it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon

[BBMmk2]

Goodnes, there a many!! How can one define such a truly defintive numinous momnent in all the great movements that have been written in that is classical music?

[kernelbogey]

Goodnes, there a many!! How can one define such a truly defintive numinous momnent in all the great movements that have been written in that is classical music?

Jonathan, quoting Einstein, singled out the slow movement of K526 (which, as it happened, didn't do it for me, at least at that time of the morning ) from what is undoubtedly a great work.

I think what I'm inviting you to consider is whether, within a work one knows to be great overall, there are particular movements or passages that take one deeper into some mystery shared with the composer and performer(s). Jayne picks this out from Mahler 9, and Richard offers several examples.

To take my example of Winterreise (haven't heard it in a while, but I'm going to hear it soon with Paul Lewis and Mark Padmore ) the slow decline of the protagonist into despondency ends with the confrontation with the Leiermann (hurdy-gurdy player) who, though frozen, keeps playing. It is a moment of profound despair in the words and the music, yet my experience of that final Lied is a perfect expression of how, as humans, we continue on our winter journey through despair - and often without knowing how the journey will end. It is this power to express that bitter-sweetness and profound uncertainty that comes through in so much of Schubert (as Richard says).

[Nick Armstrong]

'I went to sleep' from Gerontius

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Moments in music that are numinous, transcendental, briefly transformative - I can't be more precise. . . .

W. Temple, in his "Nature, Man and God," offers this succinct and accurate explanation: "What Otto speaks of as the 'Mysterium tremendum,' the quality in the object of religion which he describes as 'Numinous,' is just that before which we do not reason but bow."

And it is interesting that, for me at least, this revelatory quality is so well expressed by trills on a flute, both in the Missa Solemnis and in St. Matthew's jolly old Passion.

[BBMmk2]

Jonathan, quoting Einstein, singled out the slow movement of K526 (which, as it happened, didn't do it for me, at least at that time of the morning ) from what is undoubtedly a great work.

I think what I'm inviting you to consider is whether, within a work one knows to be great overall, there are particular movements or passages that take one deeper into some mystery shared with the composer and performer(s). Jayne picks this out from Mahler 9, and Richard offers several examples.

To take my example of Winterreise (haven't heard it in a while, but I'm going to hear it soon with Paul Lewis and Mark Padmore ) the slow decline of the protagonist into despondency ends with the confrontation with the Leiermann (hurdy-gurdy player) who, though frozen, keeps playing. It is a moment of profound despair in the words and the music, yet my experience of that final Lied is a perfect expression of how, as humans, we continue on our winter journey through despair - and often without knowing how the journey will end. It is this power to express that bitter-sweetness and profound uncertainty that comes through in so much of Schubert (as Richard says).

One thinks of these moments, as in Mahler's 9th and 5th, Debussy(in his Preludes), VW 5th Symphony and the 3rd, the slow movemnt of Elgar's 2nd, etc.

[MrGongGong]

Originally Posted by salymap
'I went to sleep' from Gerontius

There really is no accounting for taste is there ?
To me this is one of the most awful (and not in the sense of inspiring awe ) pieces on the planet

but I'm glad you like it

Feldman : Rothko Chapel
does it for me

[Pabmusic]

There really is no accounting for taste is there ?
To me this is one of the most awful (and not in the sense of inspiring awe ) pieces on the planet

but I'm glad you like it

Nice sentiment for the new year - because I loathe a piece of music there can be "no accounting for taste" if someone else finds it deeply moving. I thought this thread was about 'numinous' pieces - which must be, by their very nature, entirely subjective.

I'll add the opening of Part 2 of Gerontius, the end of the slow movement of Elgar 1, the end of Suk's 'Asrael', almost all of RVW 5, the slow movement of the Barber violin concerto, and the last section of Appalachian Spring as moments that can move me to tears. It's embarrassing if you're conducting.