The numinous in music

[Pabmusic]

I don't seek out such moments, [numinous moments] just happen and mostly in live performances. There are those times when something extraordinary happens and you can't sleep for a week afterwards.

How true. One that is still memorable for me came from a Boult/BBC SO performance of Elgar 1 in 1976 or 1977 (it was issued as a BBC MM disc). The point is that Sir A didn't relax the tension between the last two movements, so there was no shuffling, coughing or whatever after that gorgeous final clarinet note (slow mvt) before the last began. The tension was electric. The recording shows things were not quite as perfect as I (still) recall, but it remains one of the great highlights of my musical life.

[BBMmk2]

Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps, Ravel's D & C; Wagner Lohengrin; Rach: 2nd Symph Adagio.

[scottycelt]

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?.

I thought those were basically the same ... ie numinous and religious.

There are so many, as others have indicated. The music of Bruckner, Messiaen and Bach all contains passages that deeply affect me and which I would describe as 'other worldly'. For example, the Earth seems to completely stop spinning on its axis at that gloriously peaceful passage before the build-up to that mighty climax during the slow movement of Bruckner 8.

On the purely secular level Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto transports me to a completely different place, a sort of earthly paradise, for want of a better description.

[gradus]

Agnus Dei, Bach B Minor Mass.
'But thou knowest not my child what thou hast seen', Gerontius.
End of 2nd movt of Elgar 1
Zum Schluss, Schumann Arabeske
VW 5 Romanza
Beethoven op 111 second movt

[cloughie]

Agnus Dei, Bach B Minor Mass.
'But thou knowest not my child what thou hast seen', Gerontius.
End of 2nd movt of Elgar 1
Zum Schluss, Schumann Arabeske
VW 5 Romanza
Beethoven op 111 second movt

But surely its not just the end of Movt 2 but the beautiful transition to the third movement, particularly when beautifully paced as with Barbirolli or Thomson.

[salymap]

Another one Ilike is where the various instruments morph into the fugue at the end of Britten's YPG.

Must be done well though.

[Flay]

When seeing Rigoletto for the first time, towards the end of the last act I had a moment when I felt transfixed while watching Gilda: a beautiful voice and music. I felt as if floating, totally unaware of my surroundings.

Music often makes me tingle, but there are fewer times when it totally focuses attention, smothering other senses.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You have to know the piece - at least a little, don't you? Has anyone experienced this on a first encounter?

Yes, I have, Jayne - Nono's Quanno stando morendo caught me totally unawares when I first heard it in Huddersfield in 1995. At the time, I had no idea what his later Music sounded like and it was like encountering a new Art form. The applause at the end was a real shock to the system - I'd become unaware of everything other than the Music.

More recently, the CD of Feldman's Neither - so completely itself it demanded total attention.

At the other "end", I had known Mozart's Requiem for years (and had sung in two performances of it) without it really "moving" me. Then, one Saturday afternoon, I was in my local Library when they played it as "background" Music (!) - well, it hooked me: unexpected, unannounced the opening bars crept into being and I couldn't move. Never been the same since, but the memory of the experience is still vivid.

Best Wishes.

[Richard Tarleton]

When seeing Rigoletto for the first time, towards the end of the last act I had a moment when I felt transfixed while watching Gilda: a beautiful voice and music. I felt as if floating, totally unaware of my surroundings.

Music often makes me tingle, but there are fewer times when it totally focuses attention, smothering other senses.

Or, as Schopenhauer puts it,

This close relation that music has to the true nature of all things can also explain the fact that, when music suitable to any scene, action, event or environment is played, it seems to disclose to us its most secret meaning, and appears to be the most accurate and distinct commentary on it...

(quoted in Bryan Magee's The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, ch. 8). Schopenhauer has a great deal to say about music which chimes with what many of us are saying.

Several of us have mentioned Schubert songs. Magee says: "The ability of music to give us insight into the inner nature of emotions and moods in a way that eludes concepts is what makes songs so beautiful and moving - they integrate poetry with something that no words can express." The gulf between listening to the words to "Nacht und traume" or Der Leiermann" read out and to Schubert's setting of them is infinite.

[gradus]

Ref cloughie above, I don't know why the last few pages of Elgar 1 movt 2 are so special, hard to put into words. Its a wonderful work altogether.

[Chris Newman]

For me a truly uplifting moment is near the end of Janacek's Jenufa where a terrifying orchestral crash signifies the seeming end of Jenufa's and certainly the Kostelnicka's world, an unbearable silence and then Jenufa quietly tells Laca he must leave her to her own fate. At that point Laca passionately lets her know he will not abandon her and that they will face whatever fate brings together.

A place which puts the wind right up me with fear is at the end of the Agnus Dei of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis where the trumpets and drums announce that it may all end in tears.

I do agree about the Elgar 1. Sir Adrian did it so many times for me and Sir Colin did it in Prague in 2006.

[kernelbogey]

I thought those were basically the same ... ie numinous and religious[....]

I suggest that the experiences of music described in this thread share with the religious experience a common phenomenology: a perceived sense of a 'beyond' which may be quite independent of faith. In other words, that the 'peak experience' (c.f. Maslow) of transcendence in these moments conveys a dimension to human existence (which some might label 'spiritual') which is available to the believer and the non-believer alike.

[rauschwerk]

I suggest that the experiences of music described in this thread share with the religious experience a common phenomenology: a perceived sense of a 'beyond' which may be quite independent of faith. In other words, that the 'peak experience' (c.f. Maslow) of transcendence in these moments conveys a dimension to human existence (which some might label 'spiritual') which is available to the believer and the non-believer alike.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm surprised that so far nobody has mentioned the late quartets of Beethoven - not just the Heiliger Dankgesang (which doesn't 'do it' for me) but other movements too. How profound is the opening of Op.135/III, and indeed the whole movement! J W N Sullivan (a rather remarkable intellect to judge from his Wikipedia entry) discussed this quality at some length in his 1927 study of Beethoven.

[ahinton]

There are many so many, of course. I identify with some of Jayne's and with several others here (not least scotty's Szymanowski First Violin Concerto). Additional ones that I could mention which have not yet been cited by anyone else here include the closing passages of the 3rd and 4th movements of Elgar's Third Symphony, the end of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony and the end of Pettersson's Ninth Symphony.

[BBMmk2]

William Byrd!!