It doesn't do anything, yet it has such a clear and at times even physical impact. Music has the ability to give solace, to stir the heart, to speak on a spiritual level where our words usually fail us. These are difficult things to describe, even for a great writer like Burgess. But we know, instinctively, that music has these powers. And for whatever reason, the impending end of the millennium has sparked an increasing awareness of music that tries to do more than just entertain.
Invocation is a collection of such music.
That's how much of the world's great music has come about. Not necessarily as a religious expression, but as a spiritual one. The unusual combination of Gregorian chant by the Coro Novum Gaudium with the Sufi mysticism of singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan cleverly shows how such different sounds can have such a similar effect. You may not understand Latin or Urdu, but the message is clear. In fact, much of the music on Invocation is not religious at all, but simply aims at something larger than ourselves.