A reader writes

…in response to my latest piece (“Who Art in Heaven“) over at Inside Catholic:

There are many ways to experience a sense of Heaven. My own was a dream on a plane while listening to Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, in which I had died and gone to heaven. I awoke to angelic singing, so I thought, but it was the soprano in the fourth movement. It was months later before I looked up the translation of the lyrics:Das himmlische Leben
(aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden,
Drum tun wir das Irdische meiden.
Kein weltlich Getümmel
Hört man nicht im Himmel!
Lebt alles in sanftester Ruh.
Wir führen ein englisches Leben,
Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben.
Wir tanzen und springen,
Wir hüpfen und singen,
Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu.
Johannes das Lämmlein auslasset,
Der Metzger Herodes drauf passet,
Wir führen ein geduldig’s,
Unschuldig’s, geduldig’s,
Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod!
Sankt Lukas, der Ochsen tät schlachten
Ohn’ einig’s Andenken und Achten,
Der Wein kost’ kein’ Heller
Im himmlischen Keller,
Die Englein, die backen das Brot.
Gut Kräuter von allerhand Arten,
Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten,
Gut Spargel, Fisolen
Und was wir nur wollen!
Ganze Schüsseln voll sind uns bereit!
Gut Äpfel, gut Birn und gut Trauben,
Die Gärtner, die alles erlauben.
Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen,
Auf offenen Straßen
Sie laufen herbei!
Sollt’ ein Festtag etwa kommen,
Alle Fische gleich mit Freuden angeschwommen!
Dort läuft schon Sankt Peter
Mit Netz und mit Köder
Zum himmlischen Weiher hinein,
Sankt Martha die Köchin muß sein.
Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden.
Die unsrer verglichen kann werden,
Elftausend Jungfrauen
Zu tanzen sich trauen!
Sankt Ursula selbst dazu lacht!
Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden,
Die unsrer verglichen kann werden.
Cäcilie mit ihren Verwandten,
Sind treffliche Hofmusikanten.
Die englischen Stimmen
Ermuntern die Sinnen,
Daß alles für Freuden erwacht. Heaven’s Life
(From Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
We enjoy heavenly pleasures
and therefore avoid earthly ones.
No worldly tumult
is to be heard in heaven.
All live in greatest peace.
We lead angelic lives,
yet have a merry time of it besides.
We dance and we spring,
We skip and we sing.
Saint Peter in heaven looks on.
John lets the lambkin out,
and Herod the Butcher lies in wait for it.
We lead a patient,
an innocent, patient,
dear little lamb to its death.
Saint Luke slaughters the ox
without any thought or concern.
Wine doesn’t cost a penny
in the heavenly cellars;
The angels bake the bread.
Good greens of every sort
grow in the heavenly vegetable patch,
good asparagus, string beans,
and whatever we want.
Whole dishfuls are set for us!
Good apples, good pears and good grapes,
and gardeners who allow everything!
If you want roebuck or hare,
on the public streets
they come running right up.
Should a feast day come along,
all the fishes at once come swimming with joy.
There goes Saint Peter running
with his net and his bait
to the heavenly pond.
Saint Martha must be the cook.
There is just no music on earth
that can compare to ours.
Even the eleven thousand virgins
venture to dance,
and Saint Ursula herself has to laugh.
There is just no music on earth
that can compare to ours.
Cecilia and all her relations
make excellent court musicians.
The angelic voices
gladden our senses,
so that all awaken for joy.
I ‘ve recently read both Wagner and Belloc; I think the reason that music moves is that it is in accord with this heavenly conversation, a merger of ideas from those two. In any case, should you need to try to present the idea of heaven to someone, this symphony is as good a place to start as any. I prefer the version with Szell/Cleveland Orchestra/Judith Raskin.

Tolkien (a writer whose most beautiful passages are redolent of Heaven) would certainly agree about music being heavenly. His universe is created in Music and, in every case, music (or, in its less molten form, poetry) is the mark of Heaven in speech. The more heavenly a character is, the more they sing or speak in verse. It is interesting to note, for instance, that Tom Bombadil *always* speaks in the same meter, even when he is not singing. Peter Kreeft borrow this idea when he speculates that poetry is simply music that has cooled into language and that prose is but ossified poetry. I sometimes fancy that the first languages of the human race was not grunted but sung.