Joachim Carr - Numinosum: Works by Bach-Busoni, Liszt, Franck & Messiaen (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This album features works by composers for whom the conception and creation of music was intimately bound up with a religious attitude towards the world. Before the birth of aesthetics in the 18th century, the symbolic or “external” meanings of music resided in the music itself; neither its expressiveness nor its purpose as an integral part of social and religious rituals were separated from a larger context of moral and spiritual considerations. In this sense, although their tonal languages and forms differ greatly, later composers such as Liszt, Franck and Messiaen followed the spirit of Bach, reflecting a musical philosophy in which musical means and theological ends were deeply intertwined, if not one and the same.

What impact does a greater awareness of the symbolic realities of religious thought, which inspired the music in the first place, have on how we — the interpreter and the listener — hear the music, and what meanings we find within it? In the accompanying essay on the following pages, I offer some observations about the program and about art more generally from a philosophical and metaphysical perspective. I propose that the experience of art — which, like the religious experience, is an encounter with the world and the inexplicable — has the potential of challenging the boundaries between self and other.

In those instances where the pull towards something other is of such magnitude that it renders the self utterly powerless and will-less, we are in the presence of the numinosum. The numinous quality resides in the phenomenon itself and is a dynamic force that takes hold of and acts upon the subject. The word derives from the Latin numen, meaning ‘divine power’ or ‘spirit’, and was coined by Rudolf Otto in his book Das Heilige, which explores the non-rational elements underpinning personal belief, and the role that spontaneous, immediate experiences play in this respect. In its adjective form, the numinous evokes the words luminous and ominous; it hints at both emanating light and at the overwhelming sense of the unknown.

The recording of the album took place in the winter of 2020 in a church on the remote Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway. During the so-called mørketid — literally “dark-time” or dark season — the light which illuminates the skies from below the horizon for only a few hours a day holds a greater meaning. This atmosphere was, I believe, very appropriate to this particular music, and certainly had an impact on the sessions. In the North, the sense that light acquires its significance from its absence or negation is more visceral. If darkness is the great unknown, something without properties and beyond measurement, its meta-physical presence is often what inspires the more immediate qualities of experience. And as illumination stands forth in contrast with the obscure, it is also within the unknown that possibility and becoming lie.

Tracklist:
01. Bach: Chorale Preludes: Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 (Transcr. by Ferruccio Busoni, BV B 27)
02. Liszt: Deux légendes, S. 175: I. St. François d'Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux
03. Bach: Chorale Preludes : Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 (Transcr. by Ferruccio Busoni, BV B 27)
04. Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus: V. Regard du Fils sur le Fils
05. Bach: Chorale Preludes: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 (Transcr. by Ferruccio Busoni, BV B 27)
06. Liszt: Deux légendes, S. 175: II. St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots
07. Bach: Chorale Preludes: Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist, BWV 667 (Transcr. by Ferruccio Busoni, BV B 27)
08. Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus: XIV. Regard des Anges
09. Franck: Prelude, choral et fugue, FWV 21: I. Prelude. Moderato
10. Franck: Prelude, choral et fugue, FWV 21: II. Choral. Poco più lento - Poco allegro
11. Franck: Prelude, choral et fugue, FWV 21: III. Fugue. Tempo I°


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