# Ducks In A Row and Sacridity: Mozart and Haydn as Spiritual Tools



## millionrainbows

When I hear a good performance of Mozart or Haydn, it induces in me a balanced feeling of having "all my ducks in a row," which is a state of being without desire for anything, with no strife. 

Classicism is detached, like a good meditation puts one in a detached, relaxed state; there is no distracting bombast or surging of the emotions.

In this sense, even the simplest, earliest work by Mozart can induce a sense of the sacred; in this sense, music of this sort is sacred music in its best sense.


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## Vesteralen

All this, and a nephelibate, too?


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## science

Well, if that's what "sacred" means to you, fine and good. 

To other people, "sacred" means a trance-vision of another world. That usually takes hours of drumming and dancing to achieve, and has nothing to do with relaxation.


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Well, if that's what "sacred" means to you, fine and good.
> 
> To other people, "sacred" means a trance-vision of another world. That usually takes hours of drumming and dancing to achieve, and has nothing to do with relaxation.


Oh, you must be talking about those "raves' with electro-pop trance music, with the incessant rhythms.


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## science

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, you must be talking about those "raves' with electro-pop trance music, with the incessant rhythms.


Closer to most of the "sacred music" of most cultures in the world - particularly cultures that are free from the dominion of a hereditary elite - than anything "relaxing."


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Closer to most of the "sacred music" of most cultures in the world - particularly cultures that are free from the dominion of a hereditary elite - than anything "relaxing."


So, Heaven will be rhythmic? It sounds like the Joujouka music of Morocco?

Rhythm is work, movement, horses and machines running, crowds moving en masse; rhythm is the twentieth century. Deliver us from the _tyranny of the beat._ Amen.


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## Alfacharger

science said:


> Well, if that's what "sacred" means to you, fine and good.
> 
> To other people, "sacred" means a trance-vision of another world. That usually takes hours of drumming and dancing to achieve, and has nothing to do with relaxation.


How about both in one!


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## Xaltotun

MR, your threads (that are some of the best stuff on TC) so often make me want to bring up Jacques Lacan. I don't have the time to do it now, but, have you ever read Lacan? I'm guessing you might enjoy it!


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## hpowders

millionrainbows said:


> When I hear a good performance of Mozart or Haydn, it induces in me a balanced feeling of having "all my ducks in a row," which is a state of being without desire for anything, with no strife.
> 
> Classicism is detached, like a good meditation puts one in a detached, relaxed state; there is no distracting bombast or surging of the emotions.
> 
> In this sense, even the simplest, earliest work by Mozart can induce a sense of the sacred; in this sense, music of this sort is sacred music in its best sense.


Instrumental Bach does the same for me.

The Sarabandes from the keyboard partitas, the chaconne from the second unaccompanied violin sonata, the fuga from the third sonata for unaccompanied violin and the WTC Book One, impart the same feeling in me. The most spiritual music I know.

Yes. The most spiritual music is not always labeled as "masses" or "requiems".


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## Ingélou

Vesteralen said:


> All this, and a nephelibate, too?


'*Nephelibate - someone who lives in the clouds; said of an excessively idealistic person, who flees reality, also of a writer who doesn't follow literary rules. From Greek nephelê ('cloud') and batein ('walk'), the term seems to have been invented by Rabelais in the fourth book of Pantagruel.'* - quoted from someone who found the word in a book but couldn't find what it meant in any dictionary.

I just googled 'sacridity' with a similar result: the only references are a Tamil dictionary, and the OP! (Regrettably, I do not speak Tamil.)

But MR defines it as being a state of having no desires and no strife - presumably a sense of deep peace and effortless satisfaction which includes a feeling that the universe 'makes sense', as in 'all your ducks in a row'. That Mozart & Haydn should induce such a state is not surprising. But it seems to me that this is a philosophic state rather than a sacred one (if that's what 'sacridity' means).

Pace *science* :tiphat:, I don't think this feeling is the same as the state of ecstasy drummed up by, for example, 'whirling dervishes'. This feeling is too hectic - the ducks would be in order, all right, but with their feet waggling in the air!

I can imagine that some religious music will arouse the feeling described by the OP, but not most - the state seems too detached for that.

So to answer the question *as I understand it*, yes, I sometimes have felt this & the sort of music that induces it *for me* is of the ordered renaissance type, such as Byrd or Dowland. 




And I once felt something akin to it when I used to play the Brahms waltz from Suzuki Book 2 - 



 - but it differed in that my ducks were not only in order, but they had a happy gleam in their eyes.


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## Giordano

A cat in sacridity:


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## Blake

Recently this has been happening with Indian Classical. Particularly the sitar... Banerjee, Shankar, Kahn, etc. I put it on and my mind goes to emptiness. I've found that a lot of other music, pop/rock in particular, encourages a certain mental noise in me.


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## millionrainbows

I'm working on my piano playing, an ongoing lifetime task, and right now I'm working on my first Baptist Hymn: "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." I must admit, this is very effective music to play. On the words "in Jesus" the left hand hits a deep B flat, and it seem to convey this power...and other parts of the music have beautifully resonant voicings, which the composer seems to put in just the right place, or rather, the words were placed that way. It all seems so beautifully simple and meaninful, just like the message. There is a rustic simplicity which comes through, a glimpse of a past simpler life, of human values. I'm playing this through two 15" PA cabinets on stands, with a Yamaha P-90 88-note weighted keyboard, using various sound modules. There is an E-Mu module which has an authentic harmonium sound, and it sound like an old pump organ, complete with "off" tuning. When I crank this system up, it can get pretty transcendent...that reminds me of this song.


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## millionrainbows




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## science

millionrainbows said:


> So, Heaven will be rhythmic? It sounds like the Joujouka music of Morocco?
> 
> Rhythm is work, movement, horses and machines running, crowds moving en masse; rhythm is the twentieth century. Deliver us from the _tyranny of the beat._ Amen.


Into the tyranny of the autocratic state?

Suit yourself.

Free peoples dance themselves into possession/trance. Only the ruled are not allowed to do so.


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Into the tyranny of the autocratic state?
> 
> Suit yourself.
> 
> Free peoples dance themselves into possession/trance. Only the ruled are not allowed to do so.


In other words, "You have the right to remain silent."

_"What the hell kind of right is that?" _as Ice-T said.


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## science

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, "You have the right to remain silent."
> 
> _"What the hell kind of right is that?" _as Ice-T said.


That's right. Is that the kind of religion and the kind of religious music you want to promote?


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## science

To be fair to the modern state, as opposed to its forerunners from the Bronze Age through the Enlightenment, the modern state has learned to incorporate a lot of elements formerly characteristic of religion. 

One of those is the old style hymns, the kind that were permissible for religions in agricultural states. Many of the national anthems are like that. 

But another is rhythm and dance: drill and marching are important ways that modern states increase the loyalty of their soldiers in particular. The parade is the secular-modern-state's version of the old religious processions. 

Another thing many post-modern states have managed to do is allow people their strongly rhythmic music, for people have chosen to make it almost exclusively about romantic love. It has, however, inevitably had political content, but that has proven to be ok because the postmodern state has been able to commodify political rebelliousness, so that it is a marketing tool ("Work in retail, pay rent and taxes, but stick it to the many by buying a Che t-shirt and a Rage Against the Machine CD") rather than an actual threat to power. Once free speech was proven safe for the state, rhythm could flourish.


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> To be fair to the modern state, as opposed to its forerunners from the Bronze Age through the Enlightenment, the modern state has learned to incorporate a lot of elements formerly characteristic of religion.
> 
> One of those is the old style hymns, the kind that were permissible for religions in agricultural states. Many of the national anthems are like that.


We should emphasize the hymn as individual expression, not as an assimilated commodity. As you will read in my latest posts and blog, "man-made" hymns sprang directly from the people, in dissent against the rigid Church of England. Folk-derived music has been perceived as a threat by The State as recently as the 1950s in Amerika, where Pete Seeger's anthem "This Land Is Your Land" was considered communist, and "If I Had a Hammer" was thought to refer to the Soviet hammer and sickle.



science said:


> But another is rhythm and dance: drill and marching are important ways that modern states increase the loyalty of their soldiers in particular. The parade is the secular-modern-state's version of the old religious processions.


Uhh, I prefer to emphasize the _differences_ between marching and dancing. Western music is based on divisions of two (eighth note, quarter note, half note, etc) and there is no way to write a "3" division note into a simple time signature; we must use a "compound" signature such as 12/8.
African-derived music (jazz and blues) is based on divisions of the beat into 3. Western notation does not have a simple, normal way of writing this, unless you specify "shuffle feel" (vague), write in 12/8 (who counts to 12 in blues?) or clutter up the page with tedious triplet brackets.


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## science

millionrainbows said:


> We should emphasize the hymn as individual expression, not as an assimilated commodity. As you will read in my latest posts and blog, "man-made" hymns sprang directly from the people, in dissent against the rigid Church of England. Folk-derived music has been perceived as a threat by The State as recently as the 1950s in Amerika, where Pete Seeger's anthem "This Land Is Your Land" was considered communist, and "If I Had a Hammer" was thought to refer to the Soviet hammer and sickle.
> 
> Uhh, I prefer to emphasize the _differences_ between marching and dancing. Western music is based on divisions of two (eighth note, quarter note, half note, etc) and there is no way to write a "3" division note into a simple time signature; we must use a "compound" signature such as 12/8.
> African-derived music (jazz and blues) is based on divisions of the beat into 3. Western notation does not have a simple, normal way of writing this, unless you specify "shuffle feel" (vague), write in 12/8 (who counts to 12 in blues?) or clutter up the page with tedious triplet brackets.


The differences between marching and dancing are minor compared to the similarity both of form (people moving together) and of effect (people bonding together). Not all dances are triple time, and if I cared to watch many hours of the rituals of North Korea's mass games I'd probably find one in 3/4 time. The details of the meter are less important that the fact of movement together.

When folk music has been perceived as threatening, it has tended (especially before the modern state) to be more rhythmic than the state's official music. You can compare folk music to religious chant; shamanistic drumming to state music in societies like China, Korea, or Burma.

Edit: I should've made clear that the shamanistic traditions were always viewed with suspicion by those states, and generally suppressed. It is enormously instructive to compare and contrast Confucian state ritual with shamanism in China or Korea. Here are some samples from Korea:

Confucian ritual:






Shamanism:






Perhaps you can get a feel for why the state wanted to suppress shamanism - why the state, like "millionrainbows" recently, wanted to define things like "sacred" in ways that included only the safe, calm, institutional music and excluded the dangerous, exciting music of charisma. (Both of these videos are performances for tourists by people whose feelings about the religious traditions they're preserving must be complicated by modernity. But I think we can get a first approximation sense of the difference between the official music and religion of a premodern state and the music and religion that such a state would want to suppress.)

Moving on -

Once the state assimilated marching - a development that goes back to the 17th century, to some degree to Cromwell's hymn singing New Model Army but even more to Maurice of Orange - then the state had rhythmic music of its own. But the people's rhythm could only be considered safe when free speech could be considered safe.

For a feeling of the power of rhythm and why the state feared it, check out this from our own times:






That is no call to prayer issued with approved dignity from a minaret! No surprise that the state had him killed.

Closer to home in our own time the most feared music is of course hip-hop. And back in the old, old days, remember what the parents objected to in rock & roll? That satanic jungle beat! The freedom. Once you let the kids move their own bodies together to a beat, there's no telling what will happen.


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> The differences between marching and dancing are minor compared to the similarity both of form (people moving together) and of effect (people bonding together). Not all dances are triple time, and if I cared to watch many hours of the rituals of North Korea's mass games I'd probably find one in 3/4 time. The details of the meter are less important that the fact of movement together.


Again, marching is not dancing. Humans have two legs, and they go "stomp stomp" when they march. Dancing is fluid, and involves the hips.



science said:


> When folk music has been perceived as threatening, it has tended (especially before the modern state) to be more rhythmic than the state's official music. You can compare folk music to religious chant; shamanistic drumming to state music in societies like China, Korea, or Burma.


Masses of people "moving together" has always sounded like trouble to me. Some of the worst human behaviors seem to surface in "mob" scenes and groups of people. The sacred is tied to the individual.

If there is anything more anti-state, it is an individual with free will.


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## Cosmos

Eh, I don't think I'd consider an early Mozart sonata "sacred" in any sense, but to each his own I suppose.

Both Mozart's Requiem and Haydn's Creation _do_ give off a transcendent, spiritual quality in a way (for me at least)


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> To be fair to the modern state, as opposed to its forerunners from the Bronze Age through the Enlightenment, the modern state has learned to incorporate a lot of elements formerly characteristic of religion.
> 
> One of those is the old style hymns, the kind that were permissible for religions in agricultural states. Many of the national anthems are like that.
> 
> But another is rhythm and dance: drill and marching are important ways that modern states increase the loyalty of their soldiers in particular. The parade is the secular-modern-state's version of the old religious processions.
> 
> Another thing many post-modern states have managed to do is allow people their strongly rhythmic music, for people have chosen to make it almost exclusively about romantic love. It has, however, inevitably had political content, but that has proven to be ok because the postmodern state has been able to commodify political rebelliousness, so that it is a marketing tool ("Work in retail, pay rent and taxes, but stick it to the many by buying a Che t-shirt and a Rage Against the Machine CD") rather than an actual threat to power. Once free speech was proven safe for the state, rhythm could flourish.


I can definitely see your point, religion as "opiate of the people," and the ways that any form of music can be assimilated and commodified by the Capitalist system.

But it is worth noting that, although all things can be assimilated by the capitalist marketplace, the source of an expression cannot. If an artistic expression is sincere, and comes forth from the roots of the people, or is a sincere bonafide expression of the human soul, this cannot be faked. Assimilation by the system does not invalidate a sincere art form.


 


 Sort by

 
 




1.


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## harryz

*Amen*



hpowders said:


> Instrumental Bach does the same for me.
> 
> The Sarabandes from the keyboard partitas, the chaconne from the second unaccompanied violin sonata, the fuga from the third sonata for unaccompanied violin and the WTC Book One, impart the same feeling in me. The most spiritual music I know.
> 
> Yes. The most spiritual music is not always labeled as "masses" or "requiems".


I could not agree more. The inner movements of the 4th Partita, for me, are utterly transcendent.

Harry


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## Woodduck

I suppose we all have our personal ideas of what "spirituality" feels like, but for me the Classical period produced the most consistently unspiritual music of any era. Mozart and Haydn can be marvelously beautiful and even moving, but in general the Classical avoidance of emotional extremes for fear of upsetting the balance eliminates too much of life. Avoidance is not the path to transcendence, which must embrace both the heights and the depths.


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## tdc

Woodduck said:


> I suppose we all have our personal ideas of what "spirituality" feels like, but for me the Classical period produced the most consistently unspiritual music of any era. Mozart and Haydn can be marvelously beautiful and even moving, but in general the Classical avoidance of emotional extremes for fear of upsetting the balance eliminates too much of life. Avoidance is not the path to transcendence, which must embrace both the heights and the depths.


In terms of the Classical era in general I agree with this, but I think the exception is Mozart who in is best works I think embraced the "heights and depths" and "transcended" so to speak. Admittedly the external elements of a lot of his works can seem fairly shallow, however I think there is plenty of light and shade in many of those later works and I consider them as having a strong element of spirituality to them - more so than most composers.

*edit* - I'm not considering Beethoven a Classical era composer in this context.


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## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> I suppose we all have our personal ideas of what "spirituality" feels like, but for me the Classical period produced the most consistently unspiritual music of any era. Mozart and Haydn can be marvelously beautiful and even moving, but in general the Classical avoidance of emotional extremes for fear of upsetting the balance eliminates too much of life. Avoidance is not the path to transcendence, which must embrace both the heights and the depths.


"Without contraries there is no progress."

- William Blake, _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ (if memory serves)


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## Woodduck

tdc said:


> In terms of the Classical era in general I agree with this, but I think the exception is Mozart who in is best works I think embraced the "heights and depths" and "transcended" so to speak. Admittedly the external elements of a lot of his works can seem fairly shallow, however I think there is plenty of light and shade in many of those later works and I consider them as having a strong element of spirituality to them - more so than most composers.
> 
> *edit* - I'm not considering Beethoven a Classical era composer in this context.


I feel this too in Mozart's "late" works, much as I do in the late works of Beethoven and Schubert - and, for that matter, many composers. Age makes us aware of mortality, the greatest "depth" against which the heights can be seen and felt. The serenity we can attain in coming to terms with this fundamental antinomy of existence is something quite different from a sense of "balance" or "well-being," although those are implicit in it. Nothing else that goes by the name of "spirituality" impresses me. Life alone is sacred, but only fully so when death is real to us.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I feel this too in Mozart's "late" works, much as I do in the late works of Beethoven and Schubert - and, for that matter, many composers. Age makes us aware of mortality, the greatest "depth" against which the heights can be seen and felt. The serenity we can attain in coming to terms with this fundamental antinomy of existence is something quite different from a sense of "balance" or "well-being," although those are implicit in it. Nothing else that goes by the name of "spirituality" impresses me. Life alone is sacred, but only fully so when death is real to us.


I agree with this, except for the "nothing else that goes by the name of "spirituality" impresses me" part. Names don't matter; what is important to realize is that this sense of serenity and the sacredness of life are universal qualities, present in all men. Just because the label "spirituality" is used to identify it does not render it invalid.


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## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> I agree with this, except for the "nothing else that goes by the name of "spirituality" impresses me" part. Names don't matter; what is important to realize is that this sense of serenity and the sacredness of life are universal qualities, present in all men. Just because the label "spirituality" is used to identify it does not render it invalid.


It's all quite valid. The problem is we tend to separate ourselves from the totality of existence.

From the great philosopher Alan Watts - every now and again a planet peoples just as a tree apples.


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## isorhythm

At the risk of sounding like some kind of flaky hippie, I would say that serenity and ecstasy are _both_ aspects of the sacred.


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## hpowders

harryz said:


> I could not agree more. The inner movements of the 4th Partita, for me, are utterly transcendent.
> 
> Harry


Yes. All of the sarabandes of the six partitas are incredibly profound and moving. The allemande second movement of the fourth partita is astonishing, as if from another world.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

Woodduck said:


> I suppose we all have our personal ideas of what "spirituality" feels like, but for me the Classical period produced the most consistently unspiritual music of any era. Mozart and Haydn can be marvelously beautiful and even moving, but in general the Classical avoidance of emotional extremes for fear of upsetting the balance eliminates too much of life. Avoidance is not the path to transcendence, which must embrace both the heights and the depths.


Well, I think there are some very profound moments in Haydn's masses as well.


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## Blake

An over-saturation of emotion could also be considered "unspiritual." I certainly don't consider Haydn, nor Mozart, to be lacking in depth.


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## tdc

Blake said:


> An over-saturation of emotion could also be considered "unspiritual."


Also true, which may partially explain why for me no one has surpassed the music of J.S. Bach in this area.


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