Contemporary Music and Spirituality
edited by robert sholl and sander van maas
routledge, 364 pages, $170
There was a time when the Church shaped Western high art, particularly art music, as distinct from folk or pop music. That era has been over for centuries, yet the impetus for composers to engage with spirituality has endured. There has been no shortage of scholars in recent decades endeavoring to describe the affinity between secular art music and religion, most typically Western Christianity. But few treat this interdisciplinary topic without shortchanging one of the respective disciplines of music, theology, and philosophy, each of which has become its own hyper-specialized pursuit. Re-engaging these disciplines on a serious level involves serious scholars doing serious work. Contemporary Music and Spirituality is a unique example of such interdisciplinary collaboration.
The volume is a collection of essays by fifteen leading scholars, in which each analyzes modern composers and their music in light of their philosophical, theological, liberal arts, and psychological contexts. Their essays discuss the music of György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, and so on with the writings of Augustine, Aquinas, Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Roger Scruton, Charles Taylor, and many others.
This book is recondite; experts in any one of the attending disciplines—music, theology, or philosophy—might struggle to understand the other topics, since each is handled with great technical fullness. In several instances, the authors seem to have mistaken obfuscation for insight (and one author seems to have forgone editing altogether). But its unflinching commitment to interdisciplinary work is precisely the book’s principal strength. Perhaps the greatest contribution is the editors’ introduction, which, building on their previous excellent writings on the topic, elucidates the current state of the problem by adequately addressing the connection between contemporary art music and the sacred. While this book is not for non-specialists, it is a welcome contribution for those specialists who wish to address this topic, a topic so often treated glibly or neglected altogether. Such work is a necessary first step in moving this discussion, God willing, back into the Church.
—Kevin O’Brien
Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence
by frances wilson
farrar, straus and giroux, 512 pages, $35
In this useful and colorful biography, Frances Wilson guides the reader on a whirlwind tour, modeled after Dante’s Divine Comedy, of the dramatic and conflagratory life of D. H. Lawrence. Since several notable biographies of Lawrence, written mostly by his (often former) friends, already existed at the time of Wilson’s writing, she follows a hitherto untrodden course, examining Lawrence through the lens of his “deep cuts” like Aaron’s Rod, Kangaroo, and The Plumed Serpent, forgoing his much-discussed household names. The man her examination reveals is in many ways an absurdity, who alternates periodically between vitriolic bitterness and contemplative sweetness.
The literary figures he meets along the way are also absurd, and include, to mention only three, a decadent pederastic travel writer, a wheedling deserter from the French Foreign Legion, and a washed-out New England dilettante enamored of a syphilitic Pueblo Indian. All of these are either mesmerized or offended (usually both, beginning with the former and ending in the latter) by Lawrence as he circumnavigates the literary globe. Wilson’s account is detailed but never tedious, revealing the people behind the literature in all their contradictions.
Though on the whole I enjoyed this book, I wish that Wilson had more thoroughly reviewed the events toward the end of Lawrence’s life. For instance, I had no idea that Lawrence was friends with Aldous Huxley before I read Wilson’s book. I would have enjoyed her detailed account of their friendship, even though, as she notes, numerous biographers have already examined it. For people more familiar with the history of literature in the twentieth century than I am, I expect that Wilson’s style would have breathed new life into those often-recounted events.
I recommend this book both to the expert in Lawrence’s life looking for a fresh, lively take on the material, and to the newcomer seeking the man behind the literary firebrand.
—James Paul Rogers
