Music and the Imagination

Master Chorus Eastside’s March concert is called Sound Imaginarium(italics), and it has set me pondering the link between music and the imagination.

An imaginarium is a place, perhaps a museum or a toy store, designed to stimulate and cultivate the imagination.  Encarta defines imagination as “the ability to form images and ideas in the mind, especially of things never seen or experienced directly.”  My ancient Webster’s uses similar language as it calls imagination “the act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present, or has never been actually experienced.”  So how does music, itself unseen, stimulate images and ideas of the never-seen in the mind’s eye and ear?

Part of the answer lies in the connection between text and music.  And none was better at marrying both than J. S. Bach.  His own imagination was stirred by text to a remarkable degree, both in musically imaging a word and in the musical flights of fancy inspired by words, and his music stirs my imagination in all sorts of ways.

For example, in his motet Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden(italics), the first third of the piece tumbles along in vigorous eighth and quarter notes as the chorus sings “Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden, und preiset ihn alle Völker” (Psalm 117), “Praise the Lord, all nations, and praise him, all people.”  The notes almost bounce off the page in energetic depictions of “praise.”  Then the character suddenly changes, lengthens and smooths into graceful half- and quarter-note curves as the text moves into “denn seine Gnade und Wahrheit waltet über uns in Ewigkeit.”  Why the difference?  Bach is imaging the word “Gnade,” God’s “grace” in choosing to watch over us “in Ewigkeit,” for eternity.  His handling of “Ewigkeit” is my favorite imaginative stimulus, for nearly every time the word is repeated, it is sung to loong notes and phrases, sometimes very looooong notes…sometimes a single, unmoving loooooooooooooong note that appears first in one part, then another, then another!  It’s delightful, a perfect musical doorway into an image of eternity.

And then comes the concluding “Alleluia,” that evocative utterance of joy, and the only word that appears in the finale.  But Bach can create musical magic with just one word, and he does so here by turning it into a triple-time dance that revels and leaps in exultation.  Somehow, on some mysterious level, it makes my soul take flight.

Imagination is a two-way street, and everyone’s street is a little bit different.  You may “see” different things as you listen.  MCE will perform this brilliant work in Sound Imaginarium(italics).  But that’s not until March 10!  In the meantime, enjoy this fine performance by Concentus Musicus Wien.

Do you “see” anything?

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic Director and Conductor

Master Chorus Eastside