It's Thursday night and I'm not sleepy, although I'll pay the price tomorrow morning.  It's 12:20pm and after I write this post I'm hieing to bed ( you know - like "hie thee to a nunnery")

I love music.  All kinds of music.  Tonight - the most powerful pieces of music that "called" to me were Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs" written shortly before his death, and they are very lovely, even though they are about death.  The words are not rebellious, "fighting against the dying of the light",  but embracing, beautiful, peaceful.  However, Richard Strauss's words don't necessarily bring me closer to God.  

Next is Leonard Bernstein.  What a genius he was!  And handsome?  When he was a young man, he was leonine looking, striking, charismatic.  Here are my two favorite pieces by him.  They are both part of larger productions, but I can't pull myself away from just them to listen to the entirety of either.
"Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide:

The male singer is Jerry Hadley who, it appears, killed himself in 2007.  His wife left him and he seems to have never gotten over it.  What a tragedy!  The voice of the female singer is rich and full, beautiful.  The music is - I cannot think of any more appropriate word - orgasmic.  It is like standing at the edge of heaven, ready to enter in.  I love the cutaways in the video to Leonard Bernstein - he is so emotional that he puts his hands over his face several times. This video happens to be the performance to honor Bernstein's 70th birthday.

I imagine what Bernstein was feeling when he wrote this.  He lived through the Holocaust, although he lived in the US, so he did not directly experience it.  However, the sheer horror of what occurred to Jews in Europe must have influenced him.  This particular song reminds me of the Jews that survived WWII.  They went to Israel, those that could, and they could have sung this song while they built up the land:  

"CANDIDE
You've been a fool
And so have I,
But come and be my wife.
And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

CUNEGONDE
I thought the world
Was sugar cake
For so our master said.
But, now I'll teach
My hands to bake
Our loaf of daily bread.

CANDIDE AND CUNEGONDE
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

(ensemble enters in gardening gear and a cow walks on)

CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, MAXIMILLIAN, PAQUETTE, OLD LADY, DR. PANGLOSS
Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

ENSEMBLE (a cappella)
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!"

The words above are written by someone, by people, who have lost God, who believe that they must do the best they can and then die.  Granted, there is no Eden on earth now, and we are neither pure nor wise nor good - that is all true - but to make sense of life, we need the Lord Jesus Christ.  In any case, the music is so beautiful it hurts.

Next is Bernstein's "Mass" - the "Simple Song" from the Mass to be specific:

Now we're talking.  I could be easily convinced that David, from beyond the grave, inspired Bernstein to write the music and the lyrics just as he did.  Perhaps the guitar isn't the instrument that David would have used in ancient Israel, but the music, the lyrics, the beauty of the singer, his youth and vigor are David as I might imagine him.  The lyrics are beautiful, I believe taken in part from an Old Testament Psalm.  

"Sing God a simple song, lauda laude
Make it up as you go along, lauda laude
Sing like you like to sing, God loves all simple things.
For God is the simplest of all, For God is the simplest of all.

I will sing the Lord a new song, to praise him, to bless him, to bless the Lord.
I will sing his praises while I live, all of my days.

Blessed is the man who loves the Lord,
Blessed is the man who praises him.
Lauda, lauda, laude, and walks in his ways.

I will lift up my eyes, to the hills from which comes my help.
I will lift up my voice to the Lord, singing lauda, laude.

For the Lord is my shade, is the shade upon my right hand.
And the sun shall not smite me by day, or the moon by night.

Blessed is the man who loves the Lord lauda, lauda, laude,
and walks in his ways.

Lauda, lauda, laude, lauda, lauda di da di day
All of my days………"

How true these lyrics are - "blessed is the man who loves the Lord and walks in His ways" - so true.  I first heard of Bernstein's "Mass" when I was in my late teens.  My sister introduced me to this particular song and I've loved it ever since.  It doesn't seem so many years ago that I would wait until my parents weren't home, put my album of the "Mass" on our record player at home and sing along at the top of my lungs to the "Simple Song".  Although these days I don't sing at the top of my lungs, I still manage to sing along.....

"For the Lord is my shade..." - that part of the song is my favorite.  He is our protection and our hedge.  He takes care of His children.  I don't know whether Bernstein ever believed in Jesus Christ, but I sure hope so.  His music, along with, of course, West Side Story, lives on and comforts and inspires me.

And now - to bed.