So why did a self-professed lover of
music, amateurish though he may be, abandon this particular commitment? Initially, I looked forward to the chance to learn
another classical masterpiece, and even before rehearsals began, I purchased a
CD of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus production, eager to get a jump
on the music. But sitting down and
listening to the CD the first time left me underwhelmed. Yes, there were moments of music at its finest,
particularly with the arias, but something about some of the choral portions
sounded too triumphalist, bombastic or pounding for my tastes. So, now I must struggle with the guilt of
being a quitter. (Not to worry, I’m old
enough to get over it.)
My initial Orff “turn-off” persisted,
and subsequent reflection has provided some possible clues as to why. An immediate cause was my incapacity with the
lyrics. Rather than Latin and German typically sung in
major musical works, these 25 songs from a collection of 250 poems, written around
the 11th or 12th century, are set in Medieval Latin and
Low German, and sometimes both languages are intermingled along with some
French words thrown in for good measure.[i] Getting all of the syllables pronounced and
right where they belong in the complex rhythms of the music proved overwhelming
for this 72-year-old. It felt as if the music
meant to impose impossible tongue-twisters of nonsense syllables with no point. And that may have been the point.
The lyrics, according to on-line
sources, were penned by defrocked monks and minstrels known for rioting,
gambling and excessive self-indulgence.[ii] One might conjecture that these formerly
religious turned rebels traded their monastic and celibate habits for lives of
reveling and carousing. Having received
exceptional academic learning, they possessed ample skill to express their more
profligate proclivities in the literature of satire and sacrilege. If their radical departure from religion to
irreverence is what happened, it wouldn’t be the first time, nor will it be the
last, that stringent, repressed indoctrination has erupted into contemptuous
excesses.
Did Orff succeed in his musical setting
of capturing “over-the-top” reverberations of wildly excessive self-indulgence,
and is that what jarred my sensibilities?
Possibly, but if so, then it’s no wonder that Carmina is experiencing a
revival. It accurately depicts our own
time and may be a more apt description now than it was then, and for that
reason a valid musical reflection. Even
so, something is nudging me away.
So again, why? One insight emerged from the deep mystery of
repressed memories during a telephone conversation with a friend, a trained and
gifted tenor and fellow music aficionado, who listened as I talked about my
Carmina dilemma. Suddenly memories of my
Dad surfaced. He was profoundly deaf
since the age of three from Scarlet Fever.
(My Mom also was deaf, but hers was from birth due to genetic
causation.) Unlike persons born deaf who
usually do not develop a comprehension of what hearing is, since they have
never sensed it, my father was acutely aware of what he had lost, and his
method for coping involved accommodating behavior in which he often pretended
to “hear” what people said to him, and would even respond using guttural
nonsense syllables he imagined were intelligible. His hearing co-workers and friends mostly
joined in the pretense, rarely questioning assumptions of what was being
communicated. Given the dynamics of such
a situation, one can easily imagine how confusion could result in
misunderstanding and anger. Dad was
usually in a foul mood at home, and the least provocation could unleash a
rage-filled torrent of thunderous gibberish that emanated from the apartment
where we lived and rattled the walls and windows of neighboring units. Often the mindless bellowing, mingled with
sign language, was directed at me. My
sister had the good sense to run and hide in her room at the first sign of an
eruption. But I usually was not
permitted that luxury.
The resurfacing of a memory about my
father during a telephone conversation about my frustration with Carmina
carries a significant connection.
Somehow at an unconscious level, I was associating the wild, seemingly
nonsensical exuberance of Orff’s music with the wild, out-of-control howling of
my father. Obviously, the two are not
the same thing, but the emotional brain cannot distinguish between differences
(in this case) of seemingly boisterous blather, but rather, lumps them together
as if they are the same. And if the original
source of the emotion is experienced negatively, that same sensation will
transfer to all phenomena that inadvertently hooks it. That may be a clue as to my less than excited
reception of Carmina. Unfortunately,
further on-line research revealed that Orff’s only child, a daughter (born to
the first of his four wives), was rejected by Orff and that her harsh
estimation of her father was, “He had his life and that was that.”[iii] (Sound self-absorbed?)
There is another connection that
emerged. As a three-year-old, speech
was “developmentally delayed.” Why
should I talk? Communication was achieved
through hand gestures. A neighboring family realized I could hear,
and through their efforts, I entered kindergarten a year early (there were no
preschool programs back then), and received speech therapy before there ever was
such a thing. My sister was born about
the same time, and her introduction into the hearing world was aided by my
growing language skills.
I was lucky that a neighboring family
took an interest in me, right? Well,
partially. They were very devout
Christians, the husband and father a baker by trade but also credentialed as an
Assembly of God Pentecostal Pastor. They
were a very loving family, and often I was with them when they went to their
church several times a week. Their
services were very “lively” in a kind of crushing way. That’s where I witnessed “speaking in tongues,”
a phenomenon where uncontrolled nonsense syllables spew out of mouths in every
conceivable pitch the human ear can hear while undulating bodies and flinging
arms fill the space in a gigantic, unrelenting, shrieking ecstasy. (Subliminal orgiastic carousing?)
One memory from that time stands
out. I was six or seven. We were returning in their maroon Kaiser-
Frazer car one dark night, from another of their church services, and the
conversation turned to my parents and their deafness. The well-meaning Pentecostal Pastor and his
wife communicated their message in words any child could understand: if my
parents would get saved, get right with God, they could be healed and hear like
normal people. Not aware then, but only
much later after years of psychotherapy, did I realize the damage that
conversation (and probably others like it) did in terms of my perception of my
parents. The doorway that opened my
entrance into the hearing world brought with it confusion not unlike the raving
gobbledygook of my neighboring family’s religion. It may be that my initial hearing of Carmina
hooked the emotional repulsion I feel toward a religion gone wild with
senseless, unintelligible craziness.
It is never possible to ferret out all
the reasons for emotional blocks and/or resistance to things happening in the
present. But recalling some of the
memories may help to make partial sense of what is essentially determinative
nonsense. That first hearing of Carmina triggered
hidden emotional concomitants that spawned an “ugh” response, and subsequent
inquiry did little to keep that response in check. Life is an endless web of convergences, some
of which we realize, most of which we don’t.
To the extent that we know, however little, we are empowered to choose
what to do. For me, right now, out of deference
for both positive and negative gleanings from the past, I choose to opt out and
not sing in tongues.
