συναιστησις

A piece our choir (UChicago Motet Choir) is singing, to the words:

O magnum mysterium,           O great mystery,
et admirabile sacramentum,        and wonderful sacrament,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,         that animals should see the Lord born
jacentem in praesepio!             lying in a manger!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera      Blessed Virgin, whose womb
meruerunt portare            was worthy of bearing
Dominum Christum.       Christ the Lord
Alleluia.         Alleluia

This is something Caravaggio would listen to in Rome...

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On a more terrestrial (or not) note - animists, and shaman(ists). To what extent are anthropologists, post-industrial, "dis-illusioned" metropolitans, really, willing to throw aside their own cultural presumptions when approaching these peoples? Or does our New Age sentiment warm up to them? Is it culturally permitted for us, and if so, when, can we deem people 'wrong', or 'psychotic', 'infantile', 'hallucinatory', if at all? Are we willing to accept as academically sound scholars who, being animists themselves, write about person-trees and the consequences of improper of placenta burial with a tone of empirical certainty? Are peoples, who accuse and punish fellow human beings of committing witchcraft on the basis of cock-divination, unjust? Is female genital 'mutilation' really a crime against humanity in non-paternalistic and aesthetic contexts? Are we to take Barbara Tedlock seriously when she spends half her book accounting for shamanistic séances, her personal experiences with dreams, shamanistic healing, and talking blood?

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That aside, yes, I realize I haven't blogged for a couple of months and, actually, haven't even visited this blog for a couple of months... In brevity, sì, I'm in Chicago, and in a state of general well-being and happiness.

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This afternoon I played in a masterclass conducted by maestra Judit Jaimes... o, would that there are more musicians like her in the world! 

The 4 pieces we presented (except for my more earth-bound Liszt piece) confirmed the existence of an immaterial and transcendent realm of beauty and aesthetic understanding. The Schumann-Liszt Widmung, the heart-melting Brahms Rhapsody in b minor, and alas, Beethoven's Op 27 No.1. 

My rational self caved in when Veronica played (in her pre-masterclass warm-up) the following passage from the 1st mvmt (~0:42 to ~1:25 below, especially the modulation to C major at 1:18....)

I was reminded again why I should set my heart to the pursual of music not as a profession but as a way of life.