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John the Revelator
Nov. 11th, 2006 09:59 pmWent to an interesting free concert last night held in the Winter Garden of the remaining portion of the World Trade Center. There's a few skyscrapers along Battery City Park that are still considered part of the WTC. You get to them by marching over the Ground Zero platforms or on the sidestreets around them. The Winter Garden is enclosed atrium, huge enough to house six live palm trees at full height. There's a stage at the front. And the ceiling is glass. Looks a bit like a catherdrale, albeit one inside an office building. My friend, W had invited me to see it with her after she got out of work.
The concert was the world premiere of an ecletic classical music piece entitled John The Revelator by composer Phil Kline, who was in attendance, and performed by Lionheart and Ethel (a string quartet). It was set up as a "mass" - with music compositions to blues spirituals, latin mass chants such as the Credo, Agnus Dei, Sanctus & Benedictus, Hebrew Lamentations, and poems by David Shapiro and Samuel Becket. Before it started, Kline explained that the concert was not a mass for the end of days, or the apocalypse - that apocalypse really didn't initially mean the end of days anyhow, so much as new vision or new horizon, another word for change. Odd never heard that definition of apocalypse before. And that prior to writting the composition, he studied the Bible in depth blathering about how it was a fascinating text - filled with violent history, poetry, moral and cautionary tales. He spent the most time on Revelations and determined Revelations wasn't about the end of the world either, so much as visions on how things may evolve. In short he read it metaphorically as opposed to literally. [Most disagreements regarding the Bible, actually regarding all literary/media/art/movie analysis, tends to be over metaphorical vs. literal interpretations. ]
Of the songs presented, it was Beckett's poem - put to music, in a striking way, that sticks in my memory the most. I reproduce the poem here:
Prayer: The Unnamable - by Samuel Becket.
Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.
(Can it be that one day, off it goes on, that one day I simply stayed in, in where, instead of going out, in the old way, out to spend a day and night as far away as possible, it wasn't far. You think you are simply resting, the better to act when the time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever to do anything again. No matter how it happened. It, say it, not knowing what...)
...I shall not be alone, in the beginning. I am of course alone. Alone. That is soon said. Things have to be soon said. And how can one be sure, in such darkness?
To provide a bit of context: ( Read more... )
After the concert, came home and watched BSG of all things. ( Vague Spoilers - so vague in fact that you don't have to even watch the series to figure out what I'm discussing. I'm only discussing the theme of the episode, which intrigued me. Nothing else. Because well nothing else about it intrigued me - it was more of an episode about an issue not so much about character. )
The concert was the world premiere of an ecletic classical music piece entitled John The Revelator by composer Phil Kline, who was in attendance, and performed by Lionheart and Ethel (a string quartet). It was set up as a "mass" - with music compositions to blues spirituals, latin mass chants such as the Credo, Agnus Dei, Sanctus & Benedictus, Hebrew Lamentations, and poems by David Shapiro and Samuel Becket. Before it started, Kline explained that the concert was not a mass for the end of days, or the apocalypse - that apocalypse really didn't initially mean the end of days anyhow, so much as new vision or new horizon, another word for change. Odd never heard that definition of apocalypse before. And that prior to writting the composition, he studied the Bible in depth blathering about how it was a fascinating text - filled with violent history, poetry, moral and cautionary tales. He spent the most time on Revelations and determined Revelations wasn't about the end of the world either, so much as visions on how things may evolve. In short he read it metaphorically as opposed to literally. [Most disagreements regarding the Bible, actually regarding all literary/media/art/movie analysis, tends to be over metaphorical vs. literal interpretations. ]
Of the songs presented, it was Beckett's poem - put to music, in a striking way, that sticks in my memory the most. I reproduce the poem here:
Prayer: The Unnamable - by Samuel Becket.
Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.
(Can it be that one day, off it goes on, that one day I simply stayed in, in where, instead of going out, in the old way, out to spend a day and night as far away as possible, it wasn't far. You think you are simply resting, the better to act when the time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever to do anything again. No matter how it happened. It, say it, not knowing what...)
...I shall not be alone, in the beginning. I am of course alone. Alone. That is soon said. Things have to be soon said. And how can one be sure, in such darkness?
To provide a bit of context: ( Read more... )
After the concert, came home and watched BSG of all things. ( Vague Spoilers - so vague in fact that you don't have to even watch the series to figure out what I'm discussing. I'm only discussing the theme of the episode, which intrigued me. Nothing else. Because well nothing else about it intrigued me - it was more of an episode about an issue not so much about character. )
