- Ephesians 5:18-20
One of my favorite holiday traditions for these last two decades has been attending the St. Olaf Christmas Festival concert. 
The music quiets my distracted heart. Beautiful sounds and sights gladden my eager senses. Words telling the story of Jesus’ birth soothe my soul and bring me again to deep gratitude: the divine takes on human form!
Music seems to me to be the sublime entering our everyday physical world, and in many ways music benefits us. In this December holiday season of muc
h music, might you consider with me some of the effects music has on our well-being?
Science Daily reports on some research: “Music and mood are closely interrelated -- listening to a sad or happy song on the radio can make you feel more sad or happy. However, such mood changes not only affect how you feel, they also chan
ge your perception. For example, people will recognize happy faces if they are feeling happy themselves. A new study by researcher Jacob Jolij and student Maaike Meurs of the Psychology Department of the University of Groningen shows that music has an even more dramatic effect on perception: even if there is nothing to see, people sometimes still see happy faces when they are listening to happy mu
sic and sad faces when they are listening to sad music.”
{Find more on the therapy of music as the P.S. segment of this email.}
The opening orchestral number of the Christmas Festival concert was especially mood-modulating. It invoked a desire to breathe and flow with the pulsing acoustical movement. The music felt inspiring, like a soundtrack to an epic story, like it belongs to all of us.
I wanted to hear the sounds again so I searched for the piece, Edward Elgar’s Adagio “Nimrod” (Enigma Variations), on youtube.
On one of the selections I read: “Elgar wrote this piece for his friend Augustus Jaeger, who encouraged him to continue when about to give up composing in a fit of depression...”
Wikipedia entry on Enigma Variations tells us that “Nimrod” is the best-known large-scale composition of composer Edward Elgar “for both the music itself and
the enigmas behind it. Elgar dedicated the piece to ‘my friends pictured within,’ each variation being an affectionate portrayal of one of his circle of close acquaintances.
” The friend, Augustus J. Jaeger, for whom Adagio “Nimrod” was written was a music editor and “…was a close friend of Elgar, giving him useful advice, but also severe criticism, something Elgar greatly appreciated. Remarkably, Elgar later related on several occasions how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks. The name of the variation refers to Nimrod, an Old Testament patriarch described as "a mighty hunter before the Lord" - the name Jäger being German for hunter.
In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny (“Dorabella”) that this variation is not really a portrait, but “the story of something that happened.”[6] Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. “And that is what you must do...”"
That story causes me to wonder: what are the things that I must do? And how about you? What are the gifts and passions we bring to our world? {which calls to mind Frederick Buechner's words, “God calls us to where our great joy meets the world’s great need.”}
How might we benefit each other? (as Elgar’s friend did for him by encouraging words? or as Elgar did for me by composing his moving music?)
How might listening to the music of this season (or whatever music is of your preference) lift your mood and bring you to rejoice, give thanks, and sing?
May you listen to music that delights, may you listen to your deepest heart (I appreciated this thought expressed in one of the songs of the St. Olaf concert, words provided immediately below), and may you be most attentive to your many gifts in this month of December.
I wish for you a Merry Christmas (or merry whatever holiday you celebrate), a grand new year, and all goodness and love.
Deepest Heart
Morning dawns, the moment of wonder,
The threshold of darkness and light.
The cardinals, the robins ask to “be.”
God answers, “Yes,” and opens their eyes.
The birds begin to dance and sing.
When Gabriel told Mary of God’s plan, she was filled with doubt and fear.
The angel assured her, “So it will be.”
She listened to her deepest heart.
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord.” “Here we are!”
Help us to see the sacred place in ev’ry heart,
Where God’s truth and glory meet our despair,
Where the angels say, “Do not be afraid,”
Where God has planted the seed of love.
God calls us to open our eyes,
To see the Divine in ourselves and each other,
To welcome the stranger, say “Yes” to the outcast.
May the loneliness and the darkness of this life
Vanish in love’s healing light.
Let us dance and sing with the first birds of morning.
God is with us, God of love.
God, our help, and God our light.
- David Bengtson
PS: If you're interested, here’s some research on the therapeutic benefits of music:
[Note: Some of these claims are well-substantiated with research, others are not as completely (based on my brief look at some of the literature). You might want to do your own research…]
*A scientific study by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London has found that patients who listen to live music need less drugs and recover more quickly than those who do not. According to Dr Rosalia Staricoff, who carried out the study, there is growing scientific evidence that music aids physical changes which can help heal the body. She said: "The physiological benefits have been measured. Music reduces blood pressure, the heart rate, and hormones related to stress." An Israeli study, presented to the British Psychological Society conference in Leeds, found live music was more effective than recorded.
* Mark Jude Tramo, with colleagues in the Harvard Program in Neuroscience, claim that music therapy may benefit patients in every phase of life, beginning with premature infants. “Babies in neonatal ICUs are isolated in incubators,” he says. “They can’t see well and are subjected to an acoustically stressful environment because of all the monitor alarms going off.” Some studies suggest, he adds, that music can help premature infants gain weight faster, avoid cardiopulmonary distress, and leave the ICU sooner…
Some studies have suggested that exposure to music can modify the widely fluctuating blood pressure that many coronary bypass patients experience postoperatively. Other studies indicate that music can help calm aggressive behavior, a common problem with Alzheimer’s patients.”
*Ralph Spintge, MD, PhD, Chairman of Algesiology/Interdisciplinary Pain Medicine and Executive Director of the International Society for Music and Medicine in Germany, states, “Music is a significant complementary tool in prevention, therapy, and rehabilitation providing medical and socioeconomic benefits.” A few examples of economic impacts: “… reduction of sedative usually used...such as regional anesthesia down to 50% of the usual dosage…shortening the duration of stay on an average of 3 days in an Intensive Care Unit for premature infants…earlier discharge of elderly patients after eye-surgery…”
*David Todres, M.D. Chief, Pediatric Ethics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, MA, asserts that “Music has been of beneficial effect on patients' experience of pain,1 allaying preoperative anxiety in children,2 acting on the autonomic nervous system by reducing heart rate, blood pressure and pain postoperatively,3 and having a positive effect after acute myocardial infarction.4 Music reduces anxiety and pain following open-heart surgery in adults.5 In a study of pain following abdominal surgery, the introduction of both relaxation and music was effective in reducing the degree of pain.6 Music's effect in blunting pain works through the gate-control theory of pain by acting as a competing stimulus that distracts the patient and directs the patient's attention away from the pain, thus modulating noxious stimuli. Imaging studies of the brain have shown activity in the auditory pathway, auditory cortex and limbic system in response to music. Music has been shown to lower increased stress levels and, with certain types of music, such as meditative or slow classical, to produce a reduction in neurohormonal markers of stress.” (Follow this article link for references and to learn of more therapeutic effects of music.)
P.P.S: If you're interested in hearing the St. Olaf concert: options are outlined on “Broadcast Information” page of the 2011 St. Olaf's website for ChristmasFest details. (You can also download the Festival Program there.)
And go here for online streaming of the concert via classical MPR.
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