“Music exists when rhythmic, melodic or harmonic order is deliberately created, and consciously listened to, and it is only language-using, self-conscious creatures … who are capable of organizing sounds in this way, either when uttering them or when perceiving them. We can hear music in the song of the nightingale, but it is music…
And all God’s people said… “All of God’s promises, you see, find their yes in Jesus; and that’s why we say the yes, the “Amen,” through Jesus when we pray to God and give him glory.” II Corinthians 1:20
Musicals, and especially the lyrics and melodies of certain songs, have, since my earliest childhood days, enriched my life with the harmony of playful idealization and “swooning” romanticism. I will post more on this later. For now, here is one incredible piece sung by America’s leading baritone. From Oscar and Hammerstein’s Carousel, Act I –…
The following quotes are sourced from J. S. Bach in Japan: ”What people need in this situation is hope in the Christian sense of the word, but hope is an alien idea here,” says the renowned organist Masaaki Suzuki, founder and conductor of the Bach Collegium Japan. He is the driving force behind the “Bach…
Italian Text Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o, Principessa, nella tua fredda stanza, guardi le stelle che tremano d’amore e di speranza. Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me, il nome mio nessun saprà! No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò quando la luce splenderà! Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio che ti fa mia! (Il nome suo nessun saprà!… e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!) Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!…
Psalm 51, a Psalm of penitence “Have mercy upon me, O God “ “…blot out my transgressions.” “Renew a right spirit in me” “Behold, you desire truth in the inward being” Here, background involving a pope and Mozart and a performance of Miserere Mei Deus – Gregorio Allegri (1630):
At a time of great crisis in our world we need more than ever to embrace the sacred. In the garden of prayer there are sacred sounds and there is holy silence. As St. Teresa of Avila, I come to the garden to meet with Him. There I find water from the well and the fountain and the stream. Water…
Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages offers couples and people in general a means to communicate with each other at the deepest of levels – at the level where a person’s need is discovered and then met through the action of another. When this occurs, Chapman contends, love was the intent and the result…
Esurientes implevit bonis: et divites dimisit inanes. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent away empty “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The Messiah-King Jesus
John Tavener ”Svyati” Holy God, Holy and Strong, Holy and Immortal, Have Mercy Upon us. John Tavener Svyati (1995) I began to write Svyati in early 1995: while sketching it, Iearned that John Williams, father of Jane, my dear friend and publisher, was dying. I could not refrain from dedicating it to Jane and to the…
Kingdom Venturers 