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Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 2.2 (2002) 173-179



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Essay

Artistic Performance and Ascetic Practice

Francis Kline, OCSO


Back in 1997, between takes during a recording session late at night in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston, South Carolina, my friend and assistant for the recording, Richard Fleshren, asked me what I think about when I am playing a piece of music. 1 At first, I could not answer him for I had never reflected on myself making music—at least, not in the act of producing, reacting to, and molding sounds. But in the absorption of the music, I am told, the looks, the expressions and the body language that go into making music, seem to the onlooker to be the sure signs of someone in communication with someone else. With whom? A lover? The audience? What if there is no audience? What is music about? A serenade? A love song?

The possible answers to these questions are complex in the extreme. If we begin with the phenomenon of the performers' experience (beginning with stage fright), and end with the ecstasy of art, I think we can approach an answer to the question, "What do I think about when I play?" We might come up with a theory of art based on these experiences. By the very nature of its being a monk who reflects on them, we also might approximate a spirituality of art.

Stage Fright

When I begin to play a piece of music before an audience, inevitably I say to myself that I would rather be any other place but here, sitting before this instrument, having to play music that right now seems strange to me, and far from any message coming from my heart. I am nervous and frightened. No matter how often I have played, or how little time has elapsed since my last performance, the sense of dread and embarrassment crawls over me until I become cold and clammy, tight and inflexible. The more I marshal my resolutions to keep calm, to rationalize my nervousness, and to recall my security during solitary hours of practice, the more paralyzed to any ecstasy of art I become. It seems impossible to beat the fright that overcomes me as a celebrant in the liturgy of making music.

Even worse is the bargaining that often takes place within myself during this time of nervousness both before and during the playing. Suddenly uncomfortable with or lacking confidence in my interpretation, I begin to remake all of my plans for it. Subtlety and finer nuance give way to the desire to impress, to hide behind technique at the expense of the music. Alternatively, a drenching emotionalism [End Page 173] seems more plausible and possible than a more refined and cerebral approach that I now feel this audience would not appreciate. At other times, I want only to survive a performance, not to expand my sound as I am wont to do. I no longer want to listen as I play. I want merely to produce the notes as inexpensively as I can. I do not wish to respond to the music which is unfolding before me. I want to cover it and hide behind some caricature of myself that will cost me less and not be so revelatory. I do not wish to share my intimate self with an audience who wants nothing more than to share in my intimacy with the music. The audience, after all, makes an impossible demnd: that the performer should communicate himself and his way of life and love through the medium of music.

The great twentieth century musician, Marcel Dupré, said that music is communication. 2 Music, and art of any kind worthy of the name, communicates life. The challenge for art rests with being true to itself for the sake of a fuller artistic and human experience. For when the artist is honest, and has shared with the audience the deeper things about himself, then the communication is appreciated by the audience and is valid for them. Art...

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