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Evolving Mystics : Stockhausen & Rautavaara

349-83

p. 349

"The achieved mystics are composers who are not only deeply committed to developing the mystical ... aspects of their music, but ... They're open to inspiration from the soul ..., which guides their compositional process. ...

p. 350

Scriabin, Messiaen, and Bruckner are all higher mind composers of this type."

"In the present chapter, I introduce the ... evolving mystics. ... Like Wagner, such composers are evolving toward oneness with the source of all life, passing through the levels of higher, illumined, and intuitive mind, on their way to composing from the overmind. Their music is a record of that journey, a series of progressive initiations that can guide us on our own spiritual paths. ... When we meditate upon the works of such composers, in the words of David Tame [1994, p. 76], "the energies and states of consciousness necessary for spiritual attainment and initiation are transferred to us.""

p. 350

"I've always been deeply moved by the music of Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) ... . Some of his instrumental music, such as the Petite Symphonie Concertante, end in a blaze of radiance." [M:"PSC"]

"American composer George Crumb ... produced a series of mystical masterworks in the 1970s, including Black Angels [GC:BA], Vox Balanae, the two volumes ... called Makrocosmos [GC:M] ... ."

"Joseph Schwantner ... another American composer ... produced a series of mystical masterpieces, including ... Magabunda (Witchnomad), and Aftertones of Infinity". {JSch]

p. 351

"The Estonian composer A:rvo Pa:rt, whose Cantus ... I mentioned in chapter 1, is another".

"An American composer named Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943) has also come to my attention ... for ... Les Chansons de Roses (Songs of Roses) [ML:ChR], based on the French poems by ... Rainer Maria Rilke."

"two living composers that I consider ... are Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1929), from Germany, and Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1929), from Finland."

p. 352

"Stockhausen claims [Tannenbaum 1987, pp. 34-5] to have come from a more advanced technological and musical civilization connected with the star Sirius {"Jakob Lorber describing Sirius as the sun at the center of our universe" ("SPS")} {"the visionary mystic Jakob Lorber that described Sirius as the star around which the Solar System itself orbits ("MS")}" ... .

Stockhausen ... was ... attracted to Buddhism, the Mayan and Aztec cultures, and the musical and theatrical performances of the Indonesian island of Bali. The Hindu and Moslem religions have also influenced his work, as well as ...

The Urantia Book , a ... scripture channeled from extraterrestrials between 1928 and 1935.

{Perhaps Stockhausen was attracted to /URANtia/ on account of the resemblance of its name to the name /URANion/, mentioned in the channeled book Household of God (HG 2:16) by his favorite music-composer mystic Jakob Lorber.}

Sri Aurobindo and Hazrat Inayat Khan were also important influences.

Stockhausen believes in reincarnation and claims that

his interest in the different cultures reflects his past lives. ...

{One's past lives (and future ones) are likely to be on much the same level (technologically) as the current one; so that than antient cultures (with their relative crudity in lacking basic health practices, lacking ready access to world literature, etc.) are unlikely to have been lives of any person now living in advanced modern society -- although lifetimes in "a more advanced technological and musical civilization" are more probable. [written Mar 15 2014]}

Stockhausen, like Scriabin, believes that his music contains "new vibrations" that may transmit "laws of the universe." ...

{Any major transmission of spiritual power, and well as emanating of spirit-power-vibrations, would need to occur only on or from higher higher planes-of-existence than the merely material plane -- such higher planes necessarily being dreams, trances, etc.}

His dream {! expectation?} is that some some aspects of his music might [Marconie 1990, pp. v-vi] "transport us to worlds far removed from our planet."

{Every person is already transported "to worlds far removed from our planet" every night in dreams during sleep. Music (and singing) heard in dreams may (as believed by most AmerIndians) be of praeternatural benefit to mortals, however.}

In the mid-1970s, Stockhausen embarked on an ambitious project called Licht (Light) that dwarfs {emulates} ... Scriabin's plan for a seven-night Mysterium ... . Licht is a series of seven operas, each of which takes its name from a day of the week. ... . ... Stockhausen wrote his own texts for Licht. His hope was that his use of wordplay, archetypal situations,

p. 353

and transcendental characters would act directly on the consciousness of his audience and alter it. ... .

{All personages who appear in dreams are actually divine "transcendental characters", who already in dreams employ divine "wordplay, archetypal situations". If a dreamer's own dreams are of little avail, then mere waking-world-performed music-and-singing can only be of still lesser avail.}

... Stockhausen has established a summer music program ... in ... the Bavarian village of Ku:rten -- where he lives in a hexagonal house of his own design in the forest ... . This is Stockhausen's version of Wagner's Bayreuth Festival, where the world premieres of new works are often undertaken".

{Perhaps it was on account of similarity of the name /BaYReUTH/ to the name /BeYRoUTH/ (Beirut/Berutos) of the capital of Lubnan (Liban, Lebanon), that Stockhausen selected the name /Ku:RTen/ as resembling the Phoinikian city-name /QaRTa-hadas^t/ (Carthago/Karkhedon).} {The "hexagonal house" would be intended as a cell of a bee-hive (which may be deified as "Hobnil", BChBCh, p. 171).}

p. 354

"One piece by Stockhausen that perhaps could facilitate the spiritual evolution of willing listeners is Stimmung, composed in 1968. [Stimmung, Singcircle (Hyperion 66115)] [KS:S] The German title has ... meanings ... tuning, mood, frame of mind ... . ... The text is a collage of ... words from many languages, including

the names of the days of the week in German and English,

{This list of Germanic weekday-names names is of recent origin, being supposed aequivalents to Latin names which are supposed aequivalents to Hellenic names which are supposed aequivalents to Akkadian names which are substituted for Sumerian names. [Small benefit can derive from a list so many steps removed from any authentic (divine-revelation) source.] The true European weeks (which could well be of benefit to recite) are of 10 days (prae-Hellenistic Hellenic), and of 8 days (Etruscan and, thence, Latin).}

and of gods from many of the world's religious traditions,

{so that it would be necessary, in order to accrue benefits from them, to cite the name of the specific tradition (and perhaps its paramapara) in any such litany}

including ancient Egyptian and Greek, Aztec, Hindu, Native American, and Australian Aboriginal.

There are also two erotic poems in German by Stockhausen himself.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about Stimmung is the singing technique. ... As you move from the first vowel to the second, this halo of what are called harmonics will gradually change, creating the illusion of a melody hovering over the pitch you're singing, which is called the fundamental. Stimmung is the first fully annotated piece in the history of Western music to be based on this technique, which is found throughout the world in certain kinds of chanting. Listening to the melodies ... created by the harmonics shifting above their fundamentals is ... mesmerizing. In the yoga of listening, ...

p. 355

Stimmung can help ... bringing the focus of the mind back to ... the constant repetition of words, syllables, and vowel sounds ... similar to the chanting practices of mantra yoga. The "magic names" of the gods {such as, /Viracocha/, /Tlaloc/, and /Vis.n.u/}, as Stockhausen calls them, serve to reinforce the sacred or mantric intentions of the piece.

The first time I listened to Stimmung ..., I went into a deep state of meditation that lasted about twenty minutes. I was unaware of my body, and found myself continually pulled deeper and deeper into the peculiar sonic universe {dragged by the surat s`abda 'current of sound' (of RadhaSwami-)} of the piece. Certain sound combinations vibrated ... in ways that seemed ... ecstatic, even luminous. Gradually, I became more and more aware of the subtle melodies created by the harmonics."

p. 355

"Rautavaara began his career composing in the 1950s['] neoclassical style that prevailed in Finland ... . ... His Third Symphony, completed in 1960, ... harks back to Bruckner. Rautavaara even quotes ... the latter's Fourth Symphony. ... In 1968 ..., Rautavaara was planning a new piece ... based on James Joyce's experimental novel Finnegans Wake, in which all of the characters are asleep and dreaming, and the story is told in ... only partially intelligible, dream language. The

p. 356

work would be ... in structure ... musico-literary references to ... Joyce's novel. According to the composer, something strange happened :

The music ... was emancipated. It refused to obey ... Joyce ... .

The result was Anadyomene (Adoration of Aphrodite) [ER:A], a ... work that, in Rautavaara's words, had "wrenched itself free (and liberated me) ..." ... Also, as in Bruckner, the piece is macrorhythmically composed throughout, in great accumulating and dissipating waves of sound. The sudden shift in direction in Rautavaara's work that occurred while he was composing Anadyomene represents the beginning of his movement from thinking mind to higher mind composer. The needs of a deeper layer of ... being had asserted themselves : ... the

supermind. ...

In Rautavaara's next work, the First Piano Concerto of 1969, ... all the soul-based energy ... that had been repressed ... came rushing through him. I know of no other piece like it in the history of Western music. It's the musical equivalent of a kundalini awakening that has exuberantly ... opened each center on the continuum of human potential, ... through the ... ecstatic ... . ...

p. 357

The First Piano Concerto is a piece that I go back to again and again, constantly amazed by its brilliance and spiritual depth.

But it's not as well known as the 1972 work Cantus Arcticus ... . ... The third, and final. movement of Cantus Arcticus, "Swans Migrating," is my favorite. ... I always feel not merely uplifted by this music, but also lifted up,

as if I were flying with the swans. In the yoga of listening, this movement could serve as a focal point for those interested in developing astral projection skills. It invokes feelings similar to those I've experienced in astral flights over a physical landscape."

{"swans, like Dreamers, can fly through to heaven without dying and return to the same body." (WhHD, p. 24)}

p. 357

"Chief among Rautavaara's composiions are those in his Angel Series. This series began in 1978 with the composition of a ... tone

p. 358

poem called Angels and Visitations. [ER:A&V]

Other works in the series include a Concerto ... subtitled Angel of Dusk (1980) [ER:AD];

a work for brass ensemble entitled Playgrounds for Angels (1981) [ER:PA]; and

the Seventh Symphony, subtitled Angel of Light (1994-1995) [ER:AL]."

"From this alien reality, ... rise up ... angels. They bear some resemblance to the visions of William Blake, and are certainly related to Rainer Maria Rilke's awe-inspiring figures of holy dread. ... Rautavaara quotes the opening lines of the first of Rilke's Duino Elegies (see chapter 14, p. 186 for my translation of these lines). [p. 394, n. 14:10 : "Rainer Maria Rilke, "The First Elegy," Duino Elegies, trans. Kurt Leland, as first published in The Unanswered Question ... (Charlottesville, Va : Hampton Roads, 2002), p. 129."] Rilke's description of angels as both beautiful and terrifying {a description usual in the Qabbalah} brought back {recalled, reminded of} ... Rautavaara's ... :

[quoted] Again and again in my dreams,

an enormous, grey, powerful, silent creature would approach me and clasp me in its arms so that I feared its mighty presence would suffocate me. I struggled for dear life -- as one is supposed to struggle with an angel --

{The "angel" (mal>ak) wrestled by Ya<qob is not described (LB, pp. 185-7) as "enormous, grey, ... silent". Rautavaara was evidently wrestling something other than a mal>ak -- perhaps instead a variation of the "grey space-alien" so common in reports by flying-saucer contactees.}

until I awoke. The figure came back night after night ... . Finally, after dozens of these battles, I

learned to surrender, ... to become part of it ... .

The piece inspired by this recollection, Angels and Visitations, is one of my favorites. It runs ... to ... compassion and ... grace ... . ... Angels and Visitations also touches on ... music that ... represents the blind terror of the time- and space-bound ego at the alienness of ... any other nonphysical being that resides outside of {the limitations of particular} space and time, such as an angel."

p. 359

"I have yet to encounter in the music of any other living composer such a sense of closeness to the soul ... as I do in the best of Rautavaara.

For decades, composers and critics have been exposed to music that has stripped away ... the continuum of human potential. ... Rautavaara has been gradually adding back the sensuous, dramatic, emotional, joyful, and spiritual qualities of music ... .

p. 360

... I suspect that most conductors and orchestras don't yet know how to reveal the full glory of Rautavaara's music. ... There may come a time when more of Rautavaara's music becomes capable of producing life-changing transcendent musical experiences than is presently the case. Bringing out such musical revelations, as in the case of Bruckner's symphonies, will require conductors of great spiritual sensitivity."

"Rautavaara ... descended into the formalism ..., but once he shook off the "straitjacket" of serialism, Rautavaara's best music, like Bruckner's, began ... making him a higher mind composer. ... His Eighth Symphony, completed in 1999 and subtitled The Journey, is such a late masterpiece, spanning the continuum of human potential ... . ...

Another masterpiece by Rautavaara ... is True & False Unicorn [ER:T&FU], based on

p. 361

an English text by the California beat[nik] poet James Broughton. It's an allegory of the artist's role in society. The premise of the poem is that ... characters ... speak about the unicorn ... . ... The unicorn is ... aware of ... his own myth ..., as well as the projections of others, who want to see him as ... a spiritual savior ... . True unicorns are the artists who discover themselves through following their unique vision of the world. ... False unicorns are those who lose themselves in their own myths or [in] the projections of others. The music ranges from the energetic ... sublimity ... to an apotheosis ... . It's a wonderfully surreal ... work ... . I especially love the collage of ... completely ridiculous words ... .

Rautavaara has composed ... ethereal music ... . ... Rautavaara's music, such as Apotheosis, also contains moments of ... illumination that ... go beyond the devic plane, drawing upon ... the buddhic. ... Scott might have recognized in Rautavaara ... the next evolutionary step beyond Scriabin, who never got past composing from the higher mind. As noted, since the 1990s, Rautavaara seems to have been composing from the illumined mind.

p. 362

... For me, Rautavaara has become, like Bruckner, a spiritual teacher. But he's something more than ... Bruckner was : a fully realized ... being, for whom the process of musical composition has provided a means of self-actualization, and whose succession of works records the journey on that most spiritual of paths."

p. 362

"review (on Amazon.com) of Rautavaara's Seventh Symphony, Angel of Light ... :

My reaction to the third movement of this astounding work was unlike any I've ever had [before]. I could feel my mind growing {expanding} to perceive this wondrous music. I couldn't move -- I couldn't do anything save listen. ...

Clearly, this reviewer had a TME ...

A second reviewer, identifying himself ... as a professional conductor, ... went on to say, "The spiritual power of this symphony has completely changed my philosophy on the meaning of music, and music in our time." ...

The second movement, ... reminiscent of Prokoviev or Shostakovich, runs the the gamut from the humor ... to the quasi-Mahlerian sarcasm ... .

The radiant third movement, entitled in Italian "Come un sogno" ("Like a Dream"), ... lies

p. 363

between ... compassion and ... grace. The music exudes a serenity beyond all human feeling -- ... buddhic love. [p. 402, n. 25:23 : "Osmo Va:nska: and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (BIS 301038). I prefer the ... recording for its richness, depth, and cohesiveness."] ...

The first time I played this movement of Angel of Light for my composer friend Ruth, she remarked that it "sounds like ..." ...

the nonphysical home of the soul.

{Such being the "home" of the spirits known to her through her "hearing voices" (known to Christian theologians as "seduced by voices of devils' blandishments").}

In the yoga of listening, this ... exposure ... can put us in touch with the source of all life. I listen to it often, ... to stabilize my ... sense of oneness with the Source."