The History of the Universe (really!)

Modern science tells us that most of the universe is inhospitable to organic life. And so the advent of life itself as we know it is a political act, a rebellion against the eons-long dominion of non-life. Thoreau in his journals compared the coming of spring to a revolution – the absurdity that flowers should take over the world – flowers! Why do we only notice revolutions in the human world? Every springtime is a revolution, harking back to the first spring of life on earth. The first of random molecules organizing themselves into some semblance of order in the midst of gigantic chaos. Life forms from the dregs of the universe, and yet at some point it organizes itself into a marching band. 

Richard Strauss was disturbed by the march sequences in the first movement of Mahler's 3rd Symphony. He said they reminded him of the workers’ parties parading on May Day. The marches are an eruption of the vulgar into the erudite world of Classical Music. A ragtag army, beating cracked drums and blowing on leaky fifes, storming the citadels of power. Life, far from being natural, is portrayed here as something unnatural, persisting against the odds, against Nature. From a thousand different directions, whimsical toots and whistles coalesce together into an army of the lowly and insignificant. Life turns the tables on the rest of Nature, but only temporarily. The momentum of the march doesn't know when to stop - Mahler has always been criticized on account of his excess. Life pushes itself beyond the planet’s ability to sustain it, leading to mass extinctions and the return of the oppression of non-life. "Balance" does exist in nature but there is nothing tranquil or comforting in the actual way it works. 

Yet, the omnivorous massive first movement of the Third Symphony does not exclude the possibility of reconciliation, even if it only occurs in brief intervals of the struggle of Life against Nature. Near the end of the development section there is an episode of almost unbearable sweetness, a kind of sub-tropical afternoon languor that gives the illusion of eternity. The struggle to survive abates and there is time to dream. But the cellos rumble from down below, and with two subversive flourishes on the woodwinds, we are thrown into chaos again. 

The Third Symphony may be Mahler's most ambitious music, but is also his silliest. He seems well aware of the ridiculousness of trying to write a symphony about the history of the universe. There is something cartoonish about the marches of insect soldiers, like the cosmic aspirations of Disney's Fantasia, or Woody Allen speculating about the Big Bang and male erectile dysfunction to the camera... and because of this self-conscious silliness, Mahler succeeds where so many grand late Romantic symphonies failed. This really is the History of the Universe. (LOL)

Brass Liberation Orchestra

Brass Liberation Orchestra

My friend and I heard them coming down Valencia St. yesterday. Quite a motley crew, blaring on trumpets and beating on drums. The sound pierced the lazy Sunday afternoon, broke a hole in the invisible ceiling above the street of shops, as people went about their business shopping, begging or stealing. And we suddenly realized: we were outdoors, with nothing between us and the sky. This annoyed some people and delighted others. Of two strollers that passed by, I saw one baby wiggling to the music and the other covering its ears: politics begins earlier than we imagine! As for me, my first urge was to march behind the band, no matter what their political affiliations. So my friend and I did that, along with two touristy guys in cowboy hats made from Coors beer cartons. As we marched I felt like I was in some Eastern European village, on my way to the Shrovetide festivities. It also made me think of the marches in Mahler's 3^rd Symphony... more on that later.

Art of Fugue

The complete work on organ

My friend quipped, “Whenever I put this on, it makes whatever I'm doing instantly more meaningful.” You could play this music while you're washing dishes, and you would be washing dishes with the whole universe. The music trains you to hear everything as a fugue – as strands of sound weaving around each other. It is the way everything works – the way roots grow under the soil, the way veins thread through a leaf or through a human body, the way planets and constellations revolve in the night sky.

This is the profundity of Bach's music – the same principle is at work on the smallest and largest scale. The voices speaking simultaneously depend on each other. They illuminate and support each other and derive their meaning from each other. Though written mostly in a religious context, the fugue has nothing inherently religious about it. This is especially clear in Bach's last, unfinished work, The Art of Fugue: written without words, even without instruments! The score gives only four "voices" and no indication of what is to give voice to them. It has been played on everything from harpsichord to organ to saxophone quartet to electronic instruments.

The timbre of the instruments makes a big difference. My favorite is the versions for string quartet. Though anachronistic, the sound of four strings, sensuous yet bare, take the music to a purely human level. It is the voice of the body - physical, social or cosmic, whereas the organ version is a voice speaking from above, dominating the body. The organ seems to embody religious authority.



Bach: Two pieces from The Art of Fugue, played by Keller Quartet