The Sweet Power of Music

Somewhere it says that man is “made a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned…with glory and honor.” If this be the case, then it is no wonder that man needs “the sweet sounds of music” to calm his troubled soul. How sterile and desolate life would seems without music. In the Book of Job we hear that music was present at the creation: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?...On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

The absence of music suggests a void, a godless place where “the man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.”

But Shakespeare also says that music transforms all of nature into an all inclusive symphony that notes the harmonious presence of God if only we have ears to hear. Even wild animals respond: “For do but note a wild and wanton herd, or race of youthful and unhandled colts, fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, which is the hot condition of their blood; if they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, or any air of music touch their ears, you shall perceive them make a mutual stand, their savage eyes turn’d to modest gaze by the sweet power of music.”

It is hard not to conclude that music on at least one level opens the heart to a deeply submerged memory of the original state of harmony that existed between God and the creature He loved above everything else. It is as if music lifts the heart up into the company of angels choiring in heaven. Holy music speaks to us about the presence of God in all dimensions of creation, both at the beginning and even now at this very moment.

Johann Sebastian Bach said this: "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging."

So be still, and with Shakespeare “let the sounds of music creep in (your) ears. Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony.”