I discover things, maybe only little things, about truth by writing. It tells me more about God Readers who have discovered Gregorian chant and the paintings of Cecil Collins will not be disappointed by Tavener's work. In contrast to the individualism, the alienating atonality and complex abstraction of much contemporary Western art, his music is largely meditative, ritualistic and devotionally serene. There is a spacious sense of glorification, an unchanging timelessness and an economy more characteristic of the icon than the symphony. Icons are mirrors into the eternal world.
Cleverness abounds in Western music.
It's one of the things with which I have a problem, even with Bach. The lack of humility before God. The music of his Magnificat is so wonderful, and I hate to say it, but the great double fugue seems to have lost connection with this humble Jewish girl who's terrified out of her wits with the Archangel's appearance. I've heard on the streets of Damascus music of such humility, some of it sung by beggars who are probably just repeating the word Allah. The humility in Bach comes out, I believe, less in his so-called religious works than in his unaccompanied cello suites .