From Death to Resurrection

    The appreciation of good literature is a joyous by-product of its systematic study. Of course one can appreciate things without studying it, but the study reveals depths that make the appreciation more enjoyable still. One of my favourite ways of appreciating literature, especially when I studied for my Masters in English Language and Literature is in juxtaposition with classical music.

    I have been blessed with professors who have allowed the same in classes and exams, especially Dr. Samuel Rufus who pushed me to blog in the first place and whose guidance and mentorship have formed my passion for the organ into a more professional frame, but also Ms. Christina Dhanasekaran who even allowed me to present in class a humorous study on John Cage’s 4'33. I am sure it is not common for a professor to allow a student to present a study on silence in class. However, it was celebrated.

    Seeing the Pipe Organ everywhere in literature studies almost became my signature. Perhaps at this point you wonder what any of this has to with the title. Well I recently had the opportunity to find another of those connections. This time it is from the last short story in James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914), a collection prescribed for study during my Masters. 

James Joyce the musician

    It does not take a Masters in English to see the love for music in the writing of James Joyce. Musical reference abound within. This outpouring of personal passion into his literature can be appreciated of course, but when it is magnified by study, it becomes more intimately relatable to the reader. In this case, it is inspirational too. Today I had the joy of listening to a programme on death and resurrection. Dr Jonathan William Moyer, Associate Professor of Organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music played at the Methuen Memorial Music Hall his composition that was inspired by the final section of the final short story of Dubliners and by the Austrian Christmas carol Still, still, still. Having studied the literary text, I could easily imagine the passage below when listening to the second piece from the programme-

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

Excerpt from Dubliners (Oxford World's Classics) by James Joyce (This material may be protected by copyright)

For those desirous of hearing this work for themselves, regardless of whether you’ve read the short story or not, the concert was live-streamed on YouTube and is linked just below one of my older blogposts. That post describes the story of the organ on which the concert took place. Enjoy!

https://pipedreamsofalan.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-american-organ.html