Exploring trends in all the arts
If you are going to house the ultimate ideal…you are going to build something beautiful …
Jordan Peterson
IN THIS ISSUE…
Media: Jordan Peterson on ‘beauty’
Music: Franz Joseph Haydn by Calvin Stapert
Writing: Marilynne Robinson
Reader resources and subscriber premiums
MEDIA
Jordan Peterson
“If you are going to house the ultimate ideal, you are going to build something beautiful to
represent its dwelling place. Beauty is the proper dwelling place for an enlightened consciousness”.
This answer in a Q and A session in 2017 was in response to a questioner as to the power and presence of beauty in the arts, as a vehicle for divine or spiritual experience. Peterson has since explored biblical creation, theology of Exodus, and interviewed evangelicals and orthodox priests on his podcast. Many of us in the arts vocations are asking, "where is he coming from?" Peterson is one of the few voices consistently calling out Woke philosophy as it careens into current culture.
MUSIC
Playing Before the Lord: The Life and Work of Joseph Haydn
by Calvin Stapert, reviewed by Mark Nabholz
Part biography, part cultural critique, part listeners guide, Playing Before the Lord: The Life and Work of Joseph Haydn is a well-crafted primer for the music lover who wants to dig deeper into a pivotal composer of the first Viennese School.
It might be argued that this small volume is little more than a Reader’s Digest abridgment of H. C. Robbins Landon’s magisterial five-volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works; and it could be claimed that the author relies too heavily on information easily accessible in Landon and other widely available biographies. But while Playing Before the Lord brings to light no newly discovered or translated sources, Haydn’s life and creative output are concisely integrated to introduce the reader to the complexities of Haydn the man: the benevolent, lovable, mildly scandalous, pious, sometimes self-serving father of the symphony and the string quartet.
Calvin Stapert, Professor emeritus at Calvin College, deftly shatters the myth of Haydn as a simple, cheerful, somewhat naïve, composer. Yes, Papa Haydn was predisposed to a sunny disposition by his own admission, and his music is characterized by accessible, folk-like tunes. But Haydn’s depth of character, as revealed through the author’s insights, exceeds the expectations of a concertgoer who knows him only as the composer of The Surprise Symphony (No. 94) or the ever-popular Creation. In these pages we find a portrait of Haydn with all the imperfections of the human condition, redeemed or otherwise. Did Haydn at some point have a mistress? Likely. Was he always honest in his dealings with publishers and fellow composers? Clearly not. Did he openly speak and write of his commitment to serving the Lord? Yes.
Dr. Stapert’s pithy summaries of historical detail provide context without going down rabbit trails, giving sufficient detail and analysis to hold the attention of the already knowledgeable without drowning the casual reader in minutia. For instance, his introduction to the Esterházy family, Haydn’s employer through most of his creative life, is representative:
The Esterházys were the wealthiest and most powerful Hungarian noble family of the time. They were loyal supporters of the Habsburgs in the wars against the Turks, and like the Habsburgs, they were loyal supporters of the Catholic Church. Nicolaus I (1583-1645) established the tremendous wealth of the family from the spoils of war and through two financially advantageous marriages. Because of his military successes on their behalf, the Habsburgs gave him the title of count. Though born a Protestant, he was educated by Jesuits and converted to Catholicism (p. 4)
Stapert provides structural analysis of numerous representative works, making this book a useful resource for students of musical form and its development. Stapert’s analyses led me to pause, sometimes for an hour or more, to listen to the music.
A useful discussion of sturm und drang (chapter 8) and its presence in Haydn’s output in the late 1760s and early 70s provides all of the leads necessary to a thorough investigation but is constrained so as not to distract unduly from the main thrust of the book. A similarly clarifying and helpful exploration of the eighteenth century rise to primacy of “sensibility,” the emphasis upon personal experience, feeling, and the senses as opposed to objective truth, tradition, and custom, is found as part of the discussion of Haydn’s operatic output (chapter 10).
For those already conversant in the music and culture of late-eighteenth-century Vienna, this book offers negligible new scholarship. Its obvious strength is in its organization of Haydn’s life and genius into a highly readable and approachable narrative. I recommend it as a worthy starting point for those wanting to learn more about one of the most influential musicians of Western European history.
Mark Nabholz, MM (Eastman) and DMA (U South Carolina) in choral conducting, serves as Director of Music for Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Prior to that appointment he was concurrently Assoc. Prof. of Music at Mississippi College and Chief Editor of Publications for the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO).
WRITING
Marilynne Robinson
Aaron Renn, writing in his subscriber-based newsletter, said:
When conservative American Christians talk about literature, they are likely to pick explicitly Christian figure like C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, or Flannery O’Connor. These are fine figures, but ones of a previous era. The main novelist of today who might make the list is Marilynne Robinson.
Since I had not heard of her, I looked up Robinson and found a delightful woman in her late seventies who is unafraid. She seems passionate about life, relationships and even culture, but never polemicizes or attacks. A truth-teller, she has been interviewed frequently and quoted often.
The Iowa native, who has won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and continues to teach well into ‘retirement’ was interviewed by Joe Fassler in The Atlantic in 2012. Among her statements was:
I think that one major subject of sacred books is—beauty, actually. And the same is true of literary books. There's something about the aesthetic quality of existence that's a little bit uncanny, you know? And I think that's something that both kinds of literature exist to explore.
Resources for Further Exploration
JORDAN PETERSON - BEYOND ORDER : 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE (LECTURE)
Marilynne Robinson, Author of “Jack,” in Conversation with Héctor Tobar
A Word from Terry Yount
Executive Creator, Mere Beauty
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