Preface

"There is a mysterious and deep kinship between music and hope, between song and eternal life: not for nothing does the Christian tradition portray the Blessed in the act of singing in a choir, in ecstasy and enraptured by the beauty of God."¹ Pope Benedict XVI offered this observation in response to a concert performed to celebrate the third anniversary of his pontificate in April 2008. Note that the emphasis here is on the profound affiliation between music and the life of faith rather than on music as an auxiliary expression that might somehow accompany or augment verbal expressions of theological truths. Recognition of this "mysterious and deep kinship" reaches back into both ancient pagan and patristic sources, as Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has reminded us recently, and Hart explains why this tradition has strong appeal: "The image of cosmic music is an especially happy way of describing the analogy of creation to the trinitarian life. Creation is . . . another expression or inflection of the music that eternally belongs to God, to the dance and difference, address and response, of the Trinity."² If the prevailing tendency in most modern cultures is to regard music as a kind of decorative art, or as an art form that is limited to the expression of emotional states, then such tendencies threaten to render us deaf to the deepest sources from which music emerges.

The modern Catholic composer who has reaffiliated music and the truth of Catholic theology most fully is surely Olivier Messiaen (1908–92), the centenary of whose birth continues to be celebrated throughout the world of music this year. Reviewers of Messiaen's distinctive compositions frequently consider whether it is necessary to share the intensity of Messiaen's Catholic faith to appreciate his music properly—and this question is sometimes asked with an air of exasperation by reviewers who find themselves uncomfortable with the intensity of Messiaen's theological convictions. While it is simplistic to speak of Messiaen's music as though it could appeal only to those who practice the faith tradition in which his music is rooted, it is nonetheless true that the fullness of beauty of this music blossoms especially when the listener remains receptive to the profound theological truths that are given musical expression by Messiaen. Andrew Shenton expresses a similar point in this way as he considers the attributes necessary to listen with comprehension to Messiaen's "Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité"; one should possess, he writes, "sympathy for Messiaen's theological beliefs. A good listener does not have to be a Catholic or even a Christian, but must at least have some understanding of the fundamental aims of Messiaen's music, as well as an acquaintance with the basic tenets of Catholic theology."³ Every great work of art and every art form offers a high invitation, but we are also called upon to expand our power of spiritual attentiveness as a prerequisite to accepting such an invitation.

Musicologist and pianist Siglind Bruhn has provided us with a comprehensive and insightful guide to what she calls the "metaphysical, theological, and sometimes mystical visions" offered by Messiaen's music.⁴ In a new book titled Messiaen's Contemplations of Covenant and Incarnation: Musical Symbols of Faith in the Two Great Piano Cycles of the 1940s (the opening volume of a trilogy with second and third volumes published in fall 2008), Bruhn explores the religious milieu and theological context of Messiaen's compositions and then leads us deep into Messiaen's musical language through which he gives symbolic expression to profound theological truths.⁵ Bruhn demonstrates the musical elements out of which Messiaen constructs "a miraculously ordered universe" (47). She then examines in depth the musical structures together with the extra-musical theological sources Messiaen associates with them through which a contemplative approach to theological truth is attained.

Bruhn consistently presses beyond Messiaen's assertions about his theological and musical sources to help us see his work in its full and proper context. For instance, she looks beyond the claim consistently made by Messiaen that he was "born a believer...