The creative constituents of Western music have a choice to make: continue manifesting hell on earth, or begin magnifying redemption through their art.
Music is a balance of tension and resolution. A mentor once told me that the greatest composers are those who demonstrate mastery of this basic tenet. Dissonance, one form of musical tension, empowers harmony and resolution when used well. However, with few exceptions, today’s composers reject the natural order of tension and resolution. They opt instead to create sonic nightmares, soundscapes smeared upon a postmodern canvas in which tonality is subjective. There is never a true resolution, only growing ugliness.
That is why the celebration of the work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who turned 90 on Sept. 11, offers more than a glimmer of hope. Pärt, whose style of composing is indelibly intertwined with his Orthodox Christian faith, is being celebrated at Carnegie Hall and around the world for creating music that is beautiful in a time when ugliness is preferred. //
Pärt’s musical legacy is one that very few composers, of this century or others, will hold a candle to. Still, a handful of other current composers are breathing life into the landscape. In the choral world, it is no wonder that composer Eric Whitacre has attained cult-status. His music, while reputably redundant, is beautiful; choirs enjoy singing his work, and audiences love hearing it. His piece “Lux Aurumque” has been streamed more than 9 million times on Spotify alone. Yet Whitacre is largely dismissed by the same art composers and academic superiors whose own music suffers from terminal unlikability. //
Great suffering can produce a person who resembles the devil, but it can also produce a person who resembles God. The difference is how one suffers; suffering can be sanctifying.
Contemporary art music embodies suffering without sanctification, and thus, it has fallen from beauty to ugliness. Art embodies ugliness only when suffering is glorified for its own sake, rather than as a means to an end: sanctification and ultimately, redemption.
