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2 Music Poems


Music

BY JUHAN LIIV

TRANSLATED FROM THE ESTONIAN BY H.L. HIX & JÜRI TALVET

 

It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse

the human soul,

that music?


                                                        ***


Music

 

Reading through Juhan Liiv

 

From where she comes -

the music and the soul

 

the immortal and the corruptible

through the geometry of song entangled

 

we are fallen post harmony

the original concordance

 

once we sang to the same chord progression

recall the symphony of stars (such stellar vibrations)

 

heavens above, harmonious wings

but when we're not looking, in the in-between

 

she is furious and cataclysmic

like her wrathful father Elohim

 

'I am that I am' he intoned

was this the first jarring melody, the paring back of the many

 

buried under the loathsome canker is the sweetest bud

bellow the skin, below the mud

 

clouds and eclipses may obscure the moon and sun

but the planets continue their endless run

 

the mother-song is strong

the idea behind the thing goes on and on

 

even your tear sings the blues

are you the most delicate tremble of the blue hue

 

- By FT-Lynch, January 2021


                                                    ***


Notes:

Soul and music – soul music, the soul of music

Music from Muse – Art of the Muse, the Art to a-muse

Music joins the mortal body and soul, and by extension, to the infinite (that which is not corruptible, not subject to space and time)

Man ‘touches’ (apprehends) the soul through vibration, through sound (not sight)

Geometric entanglement -

An entangled system is defined to be one whose quantum state cannot be factored as a product of states of its local constituents; that is to say, they are not individual particles but are an inseparable whole. ... As an example of entanglement: a subatomic particle decays into an entangled pair of other particles.

The geometric measure of entanglement is a means to quantify the entanglement in a multi-partite system. This implies the existence of entanglement between the subsystems. (Wiki)

‘Spooky action at a distance’

The original Fall of Adam and Eve

Science, Mathematics and Music – ‘music of spheres’

Ptolemy also wrote an influential work, Harmonics, on music theory and the mathematics of music.[43] After criticizing the approaches of his predecessors, Ptolemy argued for basing musical intervals on mathematical ratios (in contrast to the followers of Aristoxenus and in agreement with the followers of Pythagoras), backed up by empirical observation (in contrast to the overly theoretical approach of the Pythagoreans). Ptolemy wrote about how musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations and vice versa in Harmonics. This is called Pythagorean tuning because it was first discovered by Pythagoras. However, Pythagoras believed that the mathematics of music should be based on the specific ratio of 3:2, whereas Ptolemy merely believed that it should just generally involve tetrachords and octaves. He presented his own divisions of the tetrachord and the octave, which he derived with the help of a monochord. His Harmonics never had the influence of his Almagest or Planetary Hypotheses, but a part of it (Book III) did encourage Kepler in his own musings on the harmony of the world (Kepler, Harmonice Mundi, Appendix to Book V). Ptolemy's astronomical interests also appeared in a discussion of the "music of the spheres".

‘For there is music wherever there is harmony, order or proportion’

Sir Thomas Browne - "For there is a musicke where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus farre we may maintain the musick of the spheres; for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the eare, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatsoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony." (Wiki)

 

Heavens above, harmonious wings -

God spreads the heavens above us like great wings

- The Land Of Heart’s Desire by WB Yeats

Elohim – name of God in the Hebrew bible, also YHWH, or Yahweh. Where plural (deities) became singular – ‘the Israelites probably borrowed the Canaanite plural noun Elohim and made it singular in meaning in their cultic practices and theological reflections’ (Wiki); from harmony (multiplicity) to the singular melody

I am that I am, ehyeh ’ăšer ’ehyeh (Hebrew) – in time - I am, I was, I will be

… What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

- Exodus, 3:13-14

Idea behind the thing – Wallace Stevens’ poem ‘Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself’, confluence of ideas and materiality, from spark to text; also Plato’s theory of forms

(the beat) goes on and on, repetition in music

Tear as in a clear drop of salty liquid from the eye, or tearing us apart ; the silence of a tear drop, the tearing of fabric

Tremble because of the she-wolf (lupa) – embodiment of negative desire, lust, passion, cupidity, avarice, greed, covetousness (possession of wealth)

For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble

              - Dante

Blue – colour, mood, blues music

Hue – form, appearance, complexion

 


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