Monday, January 31, 2011

Music Without Words, Words Without Music

 by Joan Larsen

    When I was in high school, our class had an excellent English-Literature teacher.  How we managed to get such a good teacher in our small hamlet is beyond me as we were not known as "The Big Apple"----POPULATION 503
     For every line that Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Blake and Coleridge wrote, my teacher had six or seven lines of explanation. She made the poetry so exciting that we just could not get enough of it.This teacher started me on my lifelong love of poetry
     Poetry and music are very similar. They both have a sense of RHYTHM, EXPRESSION and EMOTION.  Songs have to be rhythmic, and poetry flows in the same manner.  Music without words is poetry.  Felix Mendelssohn composed eight volumes of Songs Without Words. Poetry uses words to express feeling, and music uses notes. All in all, music is poetry and expression of the soul.
     Our class had to memorize many poems and one of my favorites is THE DAFFODILS by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The book of Psalms in the old testament of "THE HOLY BIBLE" is both poetry and prayer, poetry to be set to music, and prayed in worship. Some of the examples of psalms set to music are"Unto the hills'---Ps121, "The Lord 's my Shepherd"----Ps23, "O come and let us sing unto the Lord" ---Ps95 and there are many others.
The psalms are the prayers and praises of Gods people, preserved by the community of faith.

God Bless
Joan.

Joan Larsen is the former accompanist for the Living Flame (Children's Choir),and often played for your blogmistress in recital.  Her love of music shines through her worship and her contribution to our weekly Bible Study.  

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