"Music is a basic need of human survival." - Karl Paulnack

   Listen to Samuel Barber's music (video below) while you are reading this and see if you agree with Paulnack. 

   When I add music to this photograph "Anna's Hair Cascading" it will bring new life to the image.

   Take music from a wren and he cannot speak. Songs are the words of his being.

   But, how about you? Do you really have to have music to live?

   Music lives at the center of our humanity. It brings meaning to Christmas, to Hanukkah to all of our sacred celebrations.

   Yet, when budget cuts strike our schools it is music and other arts that are often the first things to go. What is education without that which helps us understand our hearts?

   A friend shared with me Karl Paulnack's welcome address at The Boston Conservatory of Music. Paulnack reminds us that the ancient Greeks saw music as helping us understand "the invisible relationships between internal objects." He shares a story about the origin of Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time: 

   Messiaen was 31 years old, he writes, when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp. 

   He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

   Music in the middle of a concentration camp when all anyone thought was needed was food and shelter? From the depths of hell, music brought more important food: a reason to live. 

   Music is holy. Songs heal.

   Listen to Silent Night or play a clip from Samual Barber's soul-stirring Adagio for Strings (below.) Ask yourself why joy and tears may well up.

   It is because music not only matters, it is essential to Love's expression. 

-Erie Chapman 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g