I Respectfully Disagree
From the Classics Today review of Water Night:
“The only problem is, at nine and one-half minutes, Alleluia… simply demands more text (Randall Thompson’s famous setting of the word, at four and one-half minutes, stretched the idea about as far as it should go)—or perhaps less music (the piece actually sounds as if it should end just around the six-minute mark, which would be just right).”
Critics can think and write whatever they like; that’s what critics do. But I couldn’t disagree more with this particular premise. For me, there is a moment when a word or phrase, repeated over and over, becomes something greater than a word – it becomes TRUTH. Its meaning begins to evolve, then dissolve, and only once that threshold is crossed can the deeper meaning of the concept be understood. Much like a mantra, the ‘word-machine’ in the brain is lulled to twilight and the big-mind is liberated, allowing sensations of compassion and empathy.