{"id":18179,"date":"2015-02-15T13:58:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T18:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=18179"},"modified":"2015-02-15T13:58:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T18:58:36","slug":"messiaen-and-eliot-music-and-poetry-in-wartime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/02\/messiaen-and-eliot-music-and-poetry-in-wartime.html","title":{"rendered":"Messiaen and Eliot: Music and Poetry in Wartime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"wartime\"<\/a>This week\u2019s article for the Imaginative Conservative explores two remarkable pieces of art: T.S.Eliot\u2019s\u00a0Four Quartets\u00a0<\/em>and Olivier Messiaen\u2019s\u00a0Quartet for the\u00a0End of Time<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Messiaen\u2019s music, like Eliot\u2019s poetry, requires hard work. At first it is disturbingly modern, distasteful, and difficult. On second and third listening things come clear, and a beauty that was hidden in harshness comes into focus. Both works force us to struggle for meaning and beauty as we struggle to find truth, beauty and goodness in the midst of a harsh, modern, secular and mechanical age.<\/p>\n

Though modernists, both Messiaen and Eliot reveal the strength of conservative principles. Both men were rooted in the great tradition of European Catholic civilization, and their work emerges from their immersion in the Great Tradition. The modernity of their method was their attempt to communicate the timeless truths in a modern world to a modern sensibility. Their wartime quartets show that to be conservative is not to be mindlessly reactionary or ignorantly antiquarian.<\/p>\n

To listen to Messiaen\u2019s quartet is, like Eliot\u2019s work, to be taken into the heart of the darkness of total war. Out of this desert of despair these two works bloom with hope and faith. The inner, poignant beauty and the pain too sweet and tender to bear rings through. It is as if Messiaen and Eliot are brothers in arms: one wringing beauty out of war with words, the other forging hope out of the fires of suffering with music. In doing so they echo the eternal hope of all men that the \u201cLight has come into the world and the darkness cannot overcome it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Go here<\/a> to read the whole article.<\/p>\n

image<\/a> via Bing<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s article for the Imaginative Conservative explores two remarkable pieces of art: T.S.Eliot\u2019s\u00a0Four Quartets\u00a0and Olivier Messiaen\u2019s\u00a0Quartet for the\u00a0End of Time Messiaen\u2019s music, like Eliot\u2019s poetry, requires hard work. At first it is disturbingly modern, distasteful, and difficult. On second and third listening things come clear, and a beauty that was hidden in harshness comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":18180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMessiaen and Eliot: Music and Poetry in Wartime<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week's article for the Imaginative Conservative explores two remarkable pieces of art: T.S.Eliot's\u00a0Four Quartets\u00a0and Olivier Messiaen's\u00a0Quartet for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/02\/messiaen-and-eliot-music-and-poetry-in-wartime.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Messiaen and Eliot: Music and Poetry in Wartime\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week's article for the Imaginative Conservative explores two remarkable pieces of art: T.S.Eliot's\u00a0Four Quartets\u00a0and Olivier Messiaen's\u00a0Quartet for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/02\/messiaen-and-eliot-music-and-poetry-in-wartime.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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