‘That Tartarus may not Engulf them’
The world is full of time-honoured wonder, full of established brilliance overlooked in the blast of the new. I remember as a truculent teenager feeling out of step when friends were obsessed with latest suburban pop and I was discovering the joy of Revolver. How could George Michael ever compete with the sense of tumbling through alternate realities you got while listening to Tomorrow Never Knows? The latest band hyped to gills by NME usually seemed listless when compared to the classics. From God Save The Queen to Return of Django, I was time travelling when everyone else was hunting in the now.
Maybe it is a weakness, but I am still an occasional classicist. I can still find as much reward in the past as others grab from the frontlines of the fabled cutting edge. Until a few weeks ago, all I knew of Gabriel Fauré was he was French, dead and the composer of a cello piece I adore. Today I am discovering the glory of his harmonic structures and the gentle grace of his Requiem.
Listening to Fauré’s Requiem gives the intimate reaction to grandeur you get from walking into a cathedral. You hear an aspiration of bliss, the desire for a beyond. It a call for light in the abyss. You need no faith to respond to its beauty. It can be a hymn to the White Hot Room, a prayer to God or simply a work celebrating the power of love over entropy. For a man fighting the Black Dog, the phrase ‘that Tartarus may not engulf them’ is resonant, the splendour of its setting sustaining.
As I face my fears, turn my head to sharp wind of the future, I am stronger and my life richer for this music and all the other treasures living beyond their day in history.
Maybe it is a weakness, but I am still an occasional classicist. I can still find as much reward in the past as others grab from the frontlines of the fabled cutting edge. Until a few weeks ago, all I knew of Gabriel Fauré was he was French, dead and the composer of a cello piece I adore. Today I am discovering the glory of his harmonic structures and the gentle grace of his Requiem.
Listening to Fauré’s Requiem gives the intimate reaction to grandeur you get from walking into a cathedral. You hear an aspiration of bliss, the desire for a beyond. It a call for light in the abyss. You need no faith to respond to its beauty. It can be a hymn to the White Hot Room, a prayer to God or simply a work celebrating the power of love over entropy. For a man fighting the Black Dog, the phrase ‘that Tartarus may not engulf them’ is resonant, the splendour of its setting sustaining.
As I face my fears, turn my head to sharp wind of the future, I am stronger and my life richer for this music and all the other treasures living beyond their day in history.
Labels: Black Dog, Fauré, Music reviews
posted by David at 11:38 PM
8 Comments:
Well, I would not say that you will end up in Tartarus, that creepy Greek supposition below Hades.
I can relate to your depression, and the ability of the mind, is what will pull you through it into the land of the wonderful living.
You have Surreal Girl. God bless her. Lean on her strength. Together you will get through this dark period in your life.
And for me, I do not think a requiem would help, it would only delve me deeper into the abyss I am staying afloat of for now.
I have been to Tartarus. I never want to go back. This is just the Black Dog growl. It is nothing compared to where I was a couple of years back.
I think the level of support in the darkness depends on the requiem listened to. Some are lullabies to oblivion, some are promises of light. Faure’s Requiem is definitely a paean to lux, to hope.
On the one hand, the past can be affirming, a way of connecting with life at points of more certitude. But when in the grip of the Black Dog, I would urge caution. Like you, the 'cutting edge' has little appeal these days, a bunch of youngsters rading the past in the quest for originality, but the present needs to be owned, if only it shows us what is missing.
Feel better.
Puss
Thank you Puss. There is a lot of music of the past forever lost to me after my last journey across Tartarus – a Beatles’ song, some Pixie’s tracks – but when I make my raids into history, it is not my timeline I am exploring. For me, discovering it only recently, Fauré is the present.
Yes , ratehr than the timeline its the Omnidirectional Halo as life exceeds each fading yesterday only to be deliriously redeliverd tout de suite by something old resung-heard-attended to.
Whether I go back in GMs soulful songs for pub and disco and find glimpses of genius I know not but i see the point about the 'lack'.
True who knows Faure but the Cello will resonate. They have to stick GM and others names before your eyes via all media so that the brain just can't forget. Such is Superficiality.
Sound and soundsense kin again
YOu should see what's on my iPod, nothing past about 1994, except the Kings of Leon, which I am rapidly falling in love with. I have tons of things like Bob Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, Corelli, Elgar, etc.. Sorry, but that is the best there is, and much as I love Britney, and wish the media wouldn't give her a hard time, today's music just doesn't compare to Lark Ascending, or Albinoni's adagio, or Heart Full of Soul. Or even Audioslave or Nirvana. And NEVER comes close to my all time faves, the Nephilim.
Yes, music is the one thing that always lifts me out of it.
I enjoy requiems even though I'm not much of a classical music fan. I listen to a lot of 70's and 80's music. I bought an inexpensive mp3 player for Christmas and I'm enjoying blues, honkey tonk and southern rock these days. I keep remembering music I'd forgotten.
I hope the black dog doesn't bite too hard. I hate when he's at my door.
This warms my heart and brings a smile as I recall your words. Just the mention of a requiem can lead one to think of something ponderous and sad, heavy. But there is something about Fauré that can be very different. Lead you to a different place. May you enjoy every moment, and heal well in your immersion.
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