Lux aeterna

It’s been a stretching, and musical, couple of weeks.

Preparing for my mum’s funeral, and in the days afterwards, I listened to a wide range of music which both prepared me to celebrate her life and to console my soul.

On more than a few occasions, I popped on my ear pods and escaped to a variety of playlists, one of which was sacred choral music. I was particularly lifted up by Edward Elgar’s setting of Lux aeterna , from the Requiem Mass liturgy well known to the Western church and many of its composers through the centuries – Mozart , Fauré (complementary to his Agnus Dei, which is also worth embracing as you drift into another world), Duruflé , and John Rutter (his blending of Negro spiritual and Latin text is one of the most stunning “mash-ups” in the choral repertoire, and the resolution of “they rest...” before the Lux aeterna is stunning), to name but a few of my favourites. There’s even a setting of Lux aeterna to Dvo?ák’s Largo movement from his Symphony No. 9!

Elgar’s haunting setting invokes beauty, simplicity, light and lightness (also a key feature of Fauré’s setting). In its a cappella version, it is sublime! It transports us away from the mundane, the temporal, to that which has come to us through Latin theology as “in saecula saeculorum” – that which is without end (and here’s where some of you might bid #the40project “good day” for the time being). It invites us to contemplate the transcendent, the eternal, the existential, regardless of any particular religious persuasion we may, or may not, embrace. Indeed, many composers who set these texts to exquisite music were not necessarily exemplary custodians of faith (might that make their contributions and lives, ironically, even more important?).

Here's the full text (and translation), if you’re not familiar with it either musically or ecclesially.

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Lux aeterna luceat eis,

Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,

quia pius es.

Requiem aeternam dona eis,

Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

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May light eternal shine on them,

Lord, with your saints in eternity,

You who are merciful.

Rest eternal grant them,

Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them.

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Rest.

We could all do with more, I suspect, and we’re only a few weeks into term (coincidently, #the40project also reflected on rest at the end of Term 1 last year , invoking Rutter’s same piece, but for very different reasons at the time – perhaps a further evidence of the beauty and relevance of music). Listening to these invocations of eternal rest brings into sharp relief that our educational efforts, as important and valuable as they are, will fade into history. That’s not a reason not to keep striving, but an acknowledgement that the preciousness of our temporal life is transitory. It’s why poets over the centuries have looked to the decay of nature to remind us that like leaves, like grass, like insects, like flowers, like birds of the air, we will all run our course eventually.

Yet what also struck me as I lost myself in playlist after playlist was what an extraordinary human endeavour is music itself. Yes, nature has plenty of examples of musicality – birdsong, whale singing, dogs howling, the sounds of a forest wind or of lapping water on the shore. Yet, there is something more in the human quest to create and perform music.

This weekend’s Garma festival in Australia’s Northern Territory celebrated, through music and dance (so often entwined), some of the oldest continuous living cultures on the planet. With voice, sticks, and drums, they sang stories of country, of kin, of life. Cultures across time have done the same, morphing, changing, developing, experimenting, honouring and transcending the past, forging new and unknown paths, all in the quest to express something deeply and profoundly human. Music communicates to us, and about us, in ways that touch us at the core of our being, even if we don’t all connect with the same type of music. What we do connect with, though, is something precious, rich, emotional, and existential.

And so our contemporary world finds space for such extraordinary diversity as Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium , Taylor Swift’s global behemoth, The Tortured Poets Department , the blending of Mongolian folk music, throat singing and guitar-heavy metal music in The HU’s Black Thunder Part 1 , or Oneohtrix Point Never’s avantgarde Again , and everywhere in between. Despite stylistic differences, what unites them is the power of musical connection between artist and listener(s).

?Making music is something quintessentially human that connects us deeply with one another, even across time. The quirky photo above is me, as a child, playing our family piano. My mum was also an accomplished pianist, and she both played our piano frequently and supported me to learn to play, too. One of my sons also learned to play the piano, and another of my sons now has this same piano in his home; his wife, also an accomplished pianist, continues to play the same instrument I tinkered away about 50 years ago (at least according to this picture!). As her daughter listens to her mother make music, those aged keys and strings sing out across four generations of our family, touching each generation with musical joy, tension, romance, frivolity, sadness, and, like Elgar, hope and comfort.

Perhaps this is why I’m grateful to be on a journey of human creativity with a cavalcade of extraordinary arts educators: Kathleen McGuire , Martin Davison , JoAnne Harris , Timothy Norman , Associate Professor Tracey Sanders (SFHEA) , John Kachoyan , John Nicholas Saunders, PhD , Dr Kirsten Macaulay , Lewis Kidson , Grace Shalders , Michael Anderson , Paul Gardiner , Adam Jarman , Andrew Tredinnick .

It’s also great to see that fresh questions about the place of music in primary education have resurfaced . Something that so deeply connects us to a greater sense of self and community like instrumental and vocal music should surely be supported. While there might be a decline in communal singing through religious communities, the popularity of Pub Choir , With One Voice Community Choirs , and Big Sing for a Big Cause (which will also raise money for the homeless) demonstrates that the power of music, and its value to many communities, remains. Perhaps it even crescendos!

Finally, and on a completely different note, I am grateful for the patience and forbearance of the now more than 2500 fellow travellers who are #the40project community. The detours and delays of the past couple of months have limited my output, but not my resolve. As urgencies recede, the more accustomed weekly reflections will return. Thanks for your collective grace.