Abstract
This concluding chapter introduces further horizons for the thesis that all sounds instantiate the generosity of God. In particular, it reimagines interdisciplinary conversations related to music and theology; ethnomusicology; proclamation and worship conceived beyond ecclesial contexts; and theological modularity, where essentialist ideas and absolute adequations about the theological meaning of music become inconceivable. In revelatory instances of sound that overwhelm logical and theological precision, a paradoxical sharing in the din of the sacred occurs. Only the One who gives eternally—from an immemorial past, an incomprehensible present, and an inevitable future—authorizes and reliably comprehends sonic encounters of charity like these. Humanity can only receive them in wonder.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Jankélévitch and Abbate 2003, pg. 128.
- 2.
Kandinsky as quoted by Michel Henry. See Henry 2008, pg. 134.
- 3.
Zagajewski and Cavanagh 2012, pg. 66.
- 4.
Begbie 2007, pp. 246, 50.
- 5.
“What a musician is” in Boethius et al. 1989, pp. 50–51. Boethius (b. 475-7 – 526?) was a Roman aristocrat and philosopher recognized as a Christian martyr.
- 6.
“Introduction: Music forms a part of us through nature, and can ennoble or debase character” in Ibid., 8.
- 7.
See, for example, the problematic arguments of Wolterstorff in Wolterstorff 1980, pg. 92. See also where Wolterstorff mischaracterizes Cage as chiefly composing with regard to Zen Buddhism, 195.
- 8.
For Begbie writing about musical diversity, see his discussions about popular musicians like Elvis Costello and his reflection upon Balinese gamelan music and singing the South African national anthem in South Africa in Begbie 2007, pp. 13–15, 29–31, 289–93. For his explanation of focusing upon Western tonality as a measure of prevention against hegemony and conceit, see pg. 29.
- 9.
See, for example, Catherine Pickstock, “God and Meaning in Music: Messiaen, Deleuze, and the Musico-Theological Critique of Modernism and Postmodernism,” Sacred Music 134, no. 4 (2007). But also see Benson 2003. Benson’s phenomenology of music does not contest the use of “classical music,” but rather questions privilege given to the genius of composers instead of theological concentration upon the virtuosity and dialogue of performers. Benson requests that his readers “look back” to Western music of the 1800s for theological rediscovery in the performance practice of music. See pg. 16. Musical others become vital in musical conversation, but primarily as interpreters post-performance. See “Being Musical with the Other,” 163–191.
- 10.
For more explication regarding transaction and gift, see chapter 7.
- 11.
Marion 2007, pp. 404–05.
- 12.
For more on musical communication unrelated to theology, especially concerning cognitive and physiological experimentation as well as research into educational and commercial contexts, see Miell et al. 2005.
- 13.
Ballan 2010, pg. 205.
- 14.
English translation modified by the author. For the French, see Merleau-Ponty 1945, pp. 296–97.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
Zsolt Ilyés 2008, pg. 143.
- 18.
Tanner 1997, pp. 1–24.
- 19.
- 20.
Coomaraswamy 1935, pg. 110.
Coomaraswamy captions a chapter VI with the phrase from Aquinas in its entirety, “Art is the imitation of Nature in the manner of her operation, Art is the principle manufacture.”
See also Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 117, Article I (Vol. 5, 177). Original Aquinas reference provided by Gann 2010, 93.
- 21.
Cage 1961, pg. 62.
For another Eckhartian reference in Silence especially apt for the current discussion that predates 4’33”, see Cage’s March 1949 contribution to the journal, The Tiger’s Eye in Cage 1961, pg. 64.
But one must achieve this unselfconsciousness by means of transformed knowledge. This ignorance does not come from lack of knowledge but rather it is from knowledge that one may achieve this ignorance. Then we shall be informed by the divine unconsciousness and in that our ignorance will be ennobled and adorned with supernatural knowledge. It is by reason of this fact that we are made perfect by what happens to us rather than by what we do.
- 22.
Investigating the Eckhartian and Thomist references in Cage has remained undeveloped here to avoid any likelihood of associating his uses of such figures as a postwar version of ventriloquy.
- 23.
Christopher Farley, “Tupac Hologram Performs at Coachella,” Wall Street Journal, 4/16/12 2012.
- 24.
Further discussion of how sonic ubiquity bestows the judgment of God will not occur here.
- 25.
Winkett 2010, pg. 8.
- 26.
Thaut 2008.
- 27.
Labelle 2010, Voeglin 2010, Landy 2007.
Sound artists sometimes contest their work being classified as music. Yet perhaps the rehabilitated and radicalized description of music we have been using immunizes any colonizing side effects such classification may cause. For a concise argument outlining support for sound art as “non-musical sound-art,” see Hamilton 2007, pp. 44–45.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
Jones 2014.
- 31.
See also Landy 2012.
References
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 117, Article I (Vol. 5, 177).
Ballan, Joseph. 2010. Between Call and Voice: The Antiphonal Thought of Jean-Louis Chrétien. In Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology, ed. Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, 1st ed., Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press.
Benson, Bruce Ellis. 2003. The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Boutin, Aimee. 2015. City of Noise: Sound and Nineteenth-Century Paris. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Begbie, Jeremy. 2007. Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music, Engaging Culture. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Boethius, A.M.S., Calvin M. Bower, and Claude V. Palisca. 1989. Fundamentals of Music. New York: Yale University Press.
Cage, John. 1961. Silence: Lectures and Writings. 1st ed. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Cage, John, and Richard Kostelanetz. 1993. John Cage, Writer: Previously Uncollected Pieces. 1st ed. New York: Limelight Editions.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. 1935. The Transformation of Nature in Art. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Farley, Christopher. 2012. Tupac Hologram Performs at Coachella. Wall Street Journal, 4/16/12, 2012.
Gann, Kyle. 2010. No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4'33". New Haven: Yale University Press.
Goldsmith, Mike. 2016. Sound: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Guillebaud, Christine, ed. 2017. Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound. New York: Routledge.
Hamilton, Andy. 2007. Aesthetics and Music, Continuum Aesthetics. London/New York: Continuum.
Harrison, Carol. 2015. The Art of Listening in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press.
Henry, Michel. 2008. Material Phenomenology, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. 1st ed. New York: Fordham University Press.
Ilyés, Zsolt. 2008. The Human Person at Play: A Model for Contemporary Liturgical Understanding. In The Liturgical Subject: Subject, Subjectivity and the Human Person in Contemporary Liturgical Discussion and Critique, ed. James G. Leachman OSB. London: SCM Press.
Jankélévitch, Vladimir, and Carolyn Abbate. 2003. Music and the Ineffable. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jones, Bill T. 2014. Story/Time: The Life of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kim, Sabine. 2015. Acoustic Entanglements: Sound and Aesthetic Practice. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag.
Labelle, Brandon. 2010. Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life. New York: Continuum.
Landy, Leigh. 2012. Making Music with Sounds. New York/London: Routledge.
———. 2007. Understanding the Art of Sound Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2007. The Banality of Saturation. In Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion, ed. Kevin Hart. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M 1945. Maurice. Phénoménologie De La Perception, Bibliothèque Des Idées. Paris: Gallimard.
Miell, Dorothy, Raymond A.R. MacDonald, and David J. Hargreaves. 2005. Musical Communication. Oxford/New York: Oxford Univrsity Press.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2007. Listening. New York: Fordham University Press.
O’Callaghan, Casey. 2007. Sounds: A Philosophical Theory. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Pinch, Trevor, and Karin Bijsterveld, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pickstock, Catherine. 2007. God and Meaning in Music: Messiaen, Deleuze, and the Musico-Theological Critique of Modernism and Postmodernism. Sacred Music 134 (4): 40–62.
Sterne, Jonathan. 2012. A Sound Studies Reader. New York: Routledge.
Tanner, Kathryn. 1997. Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Taylor, Mark L. 2001. Executed God: Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress.
———. 2015. Executed God: Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Thaut, Michael H. 2008. Rhythm, Music, and the Brain: Scientific Foundations and Clinical Applications. 1st pbk. ed. New York: Routledge.
Voeglin, Salome. 2010. Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art. New York: Continuum.
Winkett, Lucy. 2010. Our Sound Is Our Wound: Contemplative Listening to a Noisy World. London: Continuum.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1980. Art in Action : Toward a Christian Aesthetic. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Zagajewski, Adam, and Clare Cavanagh. 2012. Unseen Hand. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Liu, G.C. (2017). Conclusion. In: Music and the Generosity of God. Radical Theologies and Philosophies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69493-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69493-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69492-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69493-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)