The Aesthetics of Inversion: Cannon-Marshaling Neutralized by the Canon of the Life-Giving Spirit:
A New Year's Musical Parable of Church and State
Douglas Olds
December 30, 2024
Artistic genius ever toys with hegemons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5daFtxOcMc
"Johann Sebastian Bach created what may be the most celestial and profound body of music in history; Frederick the Great built the colossus we now know as Germany, and along with it a template for modern warfare. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and modern world, their fleeting encounter in 1747 signals a unique moment in history where belief collided with the cold certainty of reason." https://www.amazon.com/Evening-Palace-Reason-Frederick-Enlightenment/dp/0007156618
At that meeting, "Frederick the Great wrote an incredibly strange and difficult melody (first 20 seconds) then challenged Bach to write a 6 part fugue based on it. This [Bach's reworkings of what he titled "A Musical Offering"] was the result.
"To give an idea of the difficulty, Beethoven struggled to write...a 3 part fugue."--@ryjlocal
That lingering, magnificent, triumphant final chord in the organ version!
https://x.com/i/status/1873252867974582591
And in every version the hegemonic death theme is conquered by Bach through its very reversal!
https://x.com/ryjlocal/status/1867473614842605600
Bach's canon is the paradigm of life-affirming, grand art,
as sublime prophecy, embodied musical mathematics that thrill.--
I wrote a little poem of grace's potential energies to de-form the martial:
12262024 Aura Abouting
Today is our un-Boxing day,
which from now on is a dancing day.
Pugilism's posture inverting:
Switch out your spear's raising
your partner's arm now lifting
by Her lead and hand,
and drop your shield unwonted
to cradle her waist, to you press her gently.
And as your heels foursoming ventures unsquaring,
they trowel for where grace's seeds find root.
Perichoresis eternally (s)plays its
intendingflowering by us today.
