As I say in my “About Me” page on this blog, I am a historian by vocation at present. I started in that work about eight and a half years ago. I came to it with my own ideas, but convinced that history mattered if we ever wanted to understand our present.
I was more right than I knew.
Eight and a half years later, I can say categorically that it is impossible to have a fully-formed identity with no history. There are a great many quotes and platitudes that tout the value of history and knowing it from the classic Baruch Spinoza quote, “those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it,” to a more recent quote from Winston Churchill: “…the longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.” These quotes have been so frequently employed to justify a knowledge of the past that they no longer have any power to incite many people to explore their history.
I am aware that we live in an era when many of our paradigms and ways of thinking are changing, and that words themselves may not have the power to incite some of us the way they once did. So, in this brief entry, I hope to convey a similar lesson through a very different medium: music.
I am no musician. What I know of music I learned from careful listening to a variety of kinds and a couple of general education classes during my undergraduate years. Mine is a layman’s knowledge. But I well aware that the opinions of layman can be (and often are) correct.
If you want to hear how the past influences the present and the future, I suggest you listen to these three pieces of music. They are all related, and the first sets the form for the two that follow, on a variety of fronts.
The first is part of the famous “Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi, written in 1723 (291 years ago). It remains among the most famous and beloved pieces of “classical” music ever written.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/Yu6Hr9kd-U0]
The second piece is by the contemporary musical group Bond. They are a group of classical musicians that have reinterpreted the classical music genre through another, more modern, genre. Careful listening to the first piece will alert you to the relationship between this piece and the first one. Pay attention to this video and the first one–you will quickly see how the second group is using the performance itself to demonstrate how they are choosing to musically interpret Vivaldi–it is an important part of the exercise! [youtube=http://youtu.be/8rFth5EsPuQ]
The final piece is by another contemporary musical group, The Piano Guys. This third group is similar to Bond in that they are reinterpreting classical music, but the medium they use to do it and the means by which they do it is different to Bond’s. Again, pay attention to the visual medium of this video as a comparison to the first (and the second!) [youtube=http://youtu.be/6Dakd7EIgBE]
The relationship between the second and third things with the first is clear: there would be neither the second piece, nor the third, if there had not been the first. The first is a necessary condition for the others–they would not exist without Vivaldi.
At the same time, though, the pieces are not the same. Each of the other pieces has taken bits and portions of Vivaldi’s piece and adapted them for their purposes. It is likely that Vivaldi would recognize some pieces of the works he helped to inspire, but not all of the pieces. The differences and similarities are in this case helpfully conveyed by the music videos that accompany them. The first piece is conveyed in the traditional setting for Vivaldi–a concert hall. The second and third both make use of a supposed nature scene, picking up on the thematic nature of the original. Both Bond and the Piano Guys take steps to show they appreciate the historic nature of their inspiration, though they interpret that history in very different ways.
In sum, I would say that Vivaldi haunts the later two pieces. Portions of his work are present, but the soul of the original work is not–it has been disfigured to suit contemporary audiences. It is possible to enjoy all three pieces, but if you have a strong feeling about one or the other, it will likely influence how you feel about the other two. Likewise, the one you encountered first is likely to influence your opinion. Your other experiences (read: your own history) will likewise influence you.
What themes seem to reappear in your life? Do you have themes in your life that keep repeating and you do not know why? It may be that you too have a past event that is influencing your current experience.
If you know what those themes are, what are you doing with that information?
Is your past making your present interpretations of the symphony that is your life more hopeful, or is it inciting you to play the same sad song over and over?
My advice to you today is that you spend some time thinking about the repeating themes in your life: they likely have more influence than you know! Nothing in our past can keep us from having our lives play out the hopeful notes of God’s great mercy, grace, forgiveness and wholeness, but sometimes we must discover ourselves through the themes we play. My prayer for you is that your life in Christ is increasingly empowering you to take the tragic notes of your past and present and recast them in a song of praise to His glory, and that the triumphant notes of your past and present build to a crescendo of praise to the One who made you.