There are only a few musicians whose works can move my inner emotions in a unique way: Johann Sebastian Bach and some of the visually stunning songs of Bob Dylan.
IIn particular, Bach’s organ Sonata No 4 in E Minor (BWV 528) and the Toccata-Adagio-Fugue reminds one of long forgotten Bach’s organ pieces which I used to listen in my thirties.
“Listen here,” Bach seems to say, “Look over here, my fellow man, when our beloved Creator made up his mind to create the world. The horizon is totally dark for some time and then suddenly the Creator lifted his hands slowly to the horizon with these words: “Let there be light.” And this primeval time was way before man was created.”
With the creation of man, the trouble in the Heavens started. It was said that the archangel Luciel was so jealous about God’s new creation that he tried to stage a coup against the Father and was naturally evicted from Heaven.
Even since, Lucifer (his more well-known name) has been plotting and creating havoc on earth, agitating man to fulfil his tireless hunger to kill, steal and destroy.
And here we are in 2020, the first year of a new decade. Before the year could even get going, an epidemic in China quietly morphed into a pandemic across the hemispheres within four harrowing months.
Rarely has any year started with a heavy sense of foreboding. By April, the new IMF chief declared that the world economy will enter an unprecedented recession not experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Nearly 3 million virus-related deaths and 203,922 infected cases, rising each day so says the worldometer.
This brings one to the music of JS Bach. One evening in lockdown at home, I came across by accident, a piece that hailed from my childhood in Paris: the organ version of the Adagio in D minor which Bach transcribed from Allesandro Marcello’s Oboe Concerto. This one speaks of the human emotions of sadness, love and the passage of time.
Why does the lockdown in our nation and across the silent cities of the world bring so many memories & thoughts as if they were locked up in time?
When I drive through the deserted streets of KL with only one or two passer-by wearing face masks, anxiously rushing into a building or a corner, it reminds me of the sepia-colored paintings of surrealist Giorgio de Chirico.
The melancholia induced from looking at these city streets and listening to Bach is strangely beautiful. As if the world has came to a stop, not from governmental edict or royal decree but from the powers of Providence.
These deserted streets have the look of a city bereft of all residents or one where people are sheltered in their homes to escape from the coronavirus.
There is such a thing in music called a prelude. It is usually a short composition that precedes another composition that is broader in scope and of higher importance.
So the coronavirus pandemic, in all its mysterious origins and associated conspiracy narratives, could well be a prelude to a more major event.
In these months of lockdown, we are given time to ponder, reflect, pray and take stock of a new way of life.
The whole crisis and official health warnings are giving one clear message to every citizen: the world is no longer safe to gather together. Every stranger, every door knob and foreigner is a potential source of infection.
All these thoughts and images resonate for me in Dylan’s 1989 classic “Ring Them Bells”, a song so filled with Biblical imagery that many verses probably sailed pass me when I was not a Christian yet in my late 20s.
Dylan says time is running backwards and so is the bride, which is symbolic of the church ( bride of Christ in scripture). We will be taken to Heaven and reign with Christ "who will judge the many when the game is through.”
Jesus is coming soon to judge this world, which in the last verse is one of total chaos similar to the current situation: people waiting in long lines, wars and rumors of wars among nations and the distance between right and wrong being broken down.
The last verse is so ironical and prophetic as we are now told to keep social distances.
From the city that dreams,
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
Cross the valleys and streams,
For they're deep and they're wide
And the world's on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride.
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
Cross the valleys and streams,
For they're deep and they're wide
And the world's on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride.
Where the four winds blow,
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know.
Oh it's rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow.
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know.
Oh it's rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow.
For the poor man's son,
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one.
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep.
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one.
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep.
Ring them bells for all of us who are left,
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through.
Ring them bells, for the time that flies,
For the child that cries
When innocence dies.
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through.
Ring them bells, for the time that flies,
For the child that cries
When innocence dies.
Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room,
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom.
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment