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The story of the Epiphany (Matthew 2:1-12) tells of a group of Magi who read in the stars a mysterious sign, touching something deep inside them, moving them to journey toward Jerusalem in search of a newborn king. These Magi enter the story abruptly and then, just as quickly, go out again by another way never to be heard from again. We do not know their names or their origin.

The best historical evidence we have comes from Roman Herodotus who said that the magi were part of a Median tribe in the empire of the Persians. An attempt by the Medes to take power from the Persians failed. The magi gave up their ambitions for political power and became a tribe of priests. They studied philosophy, natural science and religion. Many were holy men and women who saw life as a continual quest for meaning and truth.

I think it is this attitude, this quest for meaning and truth that give the magi their unique place in the Christmas story and why they have such a strong appeal for us. They represent that part of us that longs for something more, for confidence and hope, for a life of fullness and possibility.  The novelist George Eliot wrote,

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.” —George Eliot

What journey or quest do we find ourselves on in the present season of our lives?  There are a myriad of ways to approach this question depending on age, culture, religious formation, and our own individual convictions. But I wonder if there is not some perennial wisdom that can summarize the human quest no matter our religious or non-religious background. Philosophers and mystics, and we could add magi, have expressed a summary of the quest that points to a universal recognition:

  • There is a Transcendent Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things;
  • There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Transcendent Reality;
  • Humanity flourishes when it seeks union with this Transcendent Reality.

My hope is that we will nourish and give room for this “Epiphany Adventure,” throughout the days of the coming year.  May we honor the importance of caring for our minds and our hearts as much as any other critical responsibility laid upon us. May we recognize the quest unfolding in those we do not normally or only occasionally encounter and discover more common ground than we ever thought possible.

“Once this spirit becomes part of a person’s life, every day is Christmas and every night is freighted with the dawning of fresh, and perhaps holy, adventure.” —Howard Thurman

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Over the last year I have been working on a masterpiece of romantic music by the Austrian Composer Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828). This inventive and exquisite arrangement of Schubert’s Lob der Tränen is from the hand of the 19th century guitar virtuoso, J.K. Mertz.

Mertz’s guitar music, unlike that of most of his contemporaries, followed the pianistic models of Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann, rather than the classical models of Mozart and Haydn. He was active in Vienna (c.1840-1856). As virtuoso, he established a solid reputation as a performer. He toured Moravia, Poland, and Russia, and gave performances in Berlin and Dresden.

In 1846 Mertz nearly died of an overdose of strychnine that had been prescribed to him as a treatment for neuralgia. Over the following year he was nursed back to health in the presence of his wife, the concert pianist Josephine Plantin whom he married in 1842. Some speculation may lead one to the conclusion that listening to his wife performing the romantic piano pieces of the day during his period of recovery may have had an influence on the sound and unusual right hand technique he adopted in his pianistic arrangements such Lob der Tränen (In Praise of Tears).

Schubert produced a vast catalogue during his short life, composing more the 600 vocal works (largely Lieder), and well as several symphonies, operas, and a large body of piano music. J.K Mertz has given us Lob der Tränen among other Schubert songs, to play on the guitar and capture their extraordinary beauty. There are a myriad of outstanding recordings of this virtuosic guitar arrangement on YouTube. This is my humble addition.

I’ve included Schubert’s original text in English below.

In Praise of Tears
English translation by Richard Wigmore

Warm breezes,
fragrant flowers,
all the pleasures of spring and youth;
sipping kisses
from fresh lips,
lulled gently on a tender breast;
then stealing nectar
from the grapes,
dancing, games and banter:
what the senses alone
can obtain:
ah, does it ever satisfy the heart?

When moist eyes
glisten
with the gentle dew of sadness,
then, reflected in them,
the fields of heaven
are revealed to the gaze.

How refreshingly,
how swiftly
every fierce passion is quelled;
as flowers are revived
by the rain,
so do our weary spirits revive.

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Some of you may know that I regularly offer music for the classical guitar at the Wednesday Eucharist with Healing Rite at St. Paul’s, Ivy.  Finding appropriate, prayerful/contemplative music to play has led me to the meditative space of ambient piano, such as “Sunday Morning” from Elliot Jack Sansom’s album, “Finding Beauty.” I created a midi string arrangement for this performance to help create a more expansive and sustained sound.

I’ve previously posted on this site two videos of similar piano compositions arranged for guitar: “Tomorrow’s Song,” and “Saman” by Ólafur Arnalds. I am moved by the simplicity of these compositions and the way they offer the performer a more contemplative form of expression.

Take a quiet moment,

Rick

P.S. If you would like a copy of my arrangement let me know.

 

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For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves
Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.
I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.
Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.

Steven Charleston, “Scholar of the Senses,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2023), 22.

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Earlier today, I listened to remarks that Secretary of State Antony Blinken made during a press conference in Israel. In those remarks he referenced a text written by his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, to be performed as part of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 more commonly known as the monumental “Kaddish Symphony.”

The Kaddish Symphony is a dramatic portrayal, through the powerful interaction of words and music of humanity’s crisis of faith and the disorientation it provokes in our contemporary world. Before Bernstein’s death, he turned to his friend, Samuel Pisar and asked him to write the definitive narrative for “Kaddish,” based on the Holocaust – one of the worst catastrophes perpetrated by one group of people over another under the eyes of a seemingly uncaring God. Having been a holocaust survivor himself, Pisar felt unable to produce a text equal to the grandeur of Bernstein’s music. It would also mean a revisiting of his own lifelong struggle with reason and faith. But soon after the horror s of September 11, 2001, Pisar was convinced it was time to fulfill Bernstein’s request and write his aching and eloquent “Dialogue with God.”

The section of the dialogue from which Secretary Blinken quoted today is worth reading in light of the overwhelming tragedies we are witnessing in Israel and Gaza and indeed in so many places within our world today. I admire Pisar’s  fierce honesty with God, his “Job-like” arguments, and the urgency of his warning to turn from depravity and cherish the sanctity of human life.

I have posted a link to the entire text and the “Kaddish Symphony” below.

Majestic deity:
Whoever You are, wherever You are,
Your omnipresence in our midst
Is so old, so immense, so ingrained,
That I dare not even ask myself
If You are reality or illusion.
Either way, for us mortals,
You are an indispensable source of hope.

Still, my Kaddish is not a confession
Of sudden religious reawakening.
Like most of my fellow-men,
I remain torn between belief and doubt,
Revelation and enlightenment
Tradition and modernity.

Since my return from the valleys of death,
A rage to live and learn has pushed me
Toward the summits of existence.
Yes, providence has smiled upon me,
And today my cup truly runneth over.

But in the end, what am I,
If not a humble messenger
From a world that once collapsed,
Alarmed to see our world headed
For another collapse?

And what entitles me
To claim Your attention,
If not a duty to bear witness
To the martyrdom and rebirth of my people;
Of all peoples exposed to
Existential danger?

And what is my message,
If not that man,
Though created in Your image,
And endowed with freedom to choose
Between good and evil,
Remains capable of the worst,
As of the best,
Of hatred as of love,
Of madness as of genius.

That unless we curb our predatory instincts,
Cherish the sanctity and dignity of human life,
And espouse the core moral values
Common to all great creeds
-Sacred and secular-
The horrors of the past will return
To darken our future.

Complete Text of “Dialogue with God” by Samuel Pisar
John Axelrod and Luzerner Orchestra on Spotify

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Sunset over Hydra – July 2023

Deb and I have been enjoying a good stretch of time on the enchanted Greek Island of Hydra on the Saronic Gulf. We are staying at “YaYa’s” House, a small villa on top of a cliff which looks over the port below. The house is a 15-minute walk from the port, with over 240 steps to climb (we’ve counted them), but the view is worth it.

Every morning I have been working on new repertoire while Debbie works on her drawing project based on various flowers of Hydra. On a recent evening on the porch, I recorded a run through of a piece by Carlo Domeniconi titled, “Rose in the Garden.”

This piece is the 9th movement from Carlo Domeniconi’s Hommage à A. de Saint-Exupéry – a set of sonic depictions of scenes from Saint-Exupéry’s children’s book, “The Little Prince.”  The Cicadas provide a shrill chorus in the background. I understand that the Cicadas in Greece are the largest in Europe!