Press Conference with Archbishop Carlson about the election of Pope Francis.

The Archbishop of Saint Louis, the Most Rev. Robert Carlson, with the V. Rev. Douglas W. Marcouiller, Provincial of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

Taken last night before the start of midnight Mass at Saint Francis de Sales Oratory, in Saint Louis.



A video taken at that time by Nicole Marchant Merlo, featuring Christmas carols sung by the choir of the Oratory.

“The true meaning of Christmas”

...if you do not like what is sentimental and ceremonial, do not celebrate Christmas at all. — G.K. Chesterton

The commercial and tangential aspects of Christmas — those aspects which have nothing to do with the Incarnation of God in Bethlehem — are as criticized in our culture as they are celebrated, as we see in the well known television program A Charlie Brown Christmas, based on the characters from Charles Schultz's Peanuts comic strip, from 1965:



The animation and audio quality are rather poor, and the creative decision to use children for the voices (several of whom were too young to read the script) gives this a rather choppy quality. CBS executives thought that the Jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi was unsuitable for a children's program. The executives believed that the show would be a flop; rather, it turned out to be one of the most successful television programs of all time.

The show starts with the protagonist, Charlie Brown, being depressed over the commercialism of Christmas, and even his dog Snoopy falls into this, decorating his doghouse in order to win a contest.  Brown asks “What is the true meaning of Christmas?” and he is answered by his friend Linus:

‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.’

...That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

The studio executives thought that quoting sacred scripture was unsuited for television, but Schultz fought to keep it in. As far as I can remember, this is one of the few popular mainstream Christmas programs that actually mentions Christ.

Thanksgiving Humor

From the television series WKRP in Cincinnati, dating from 1978. Skip to 18:00 for the famous part.

Benedictine Monks Making Beer

A VIDEO TOUR of a new brewery, operated by the Benedictine Monks of Norcia, located in Umbria, Italy:



Built above the birthplace of Saint Benedict and his twin sister Saint Scholastica — the founders of men's and women's monasticism in the Latin west — the original monastery was dissolved by Napoleon, but was re-populated by monks in December of 2000. The monks follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, and so their life is signified by both extensive prayer and by work:

...we pray the full monastic Office as laid out in the Rule. We observe the monastic fast and we have retained the patrimony of Gregorian chant. In addition, the Holy See has entrusted us with the special apostolate of celebrating the Eucharist in both forms (in utroque usu), that is, the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. We do all kinds of work (manual, clerical and intellectual) including some limited apostolic work. Monastic formation in Norcia focuses heavily on the interior life: conversion, self-knowledge, the rooting out of vices and the acquiring of virtues – all this to create the necessary conditions for contemplative prayer. We are a young international community, eager to love and serve Our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart.

Generally, Benedictine monasteries are self-supporting, and in this monastery, by the making of beer. A description of their beer can be found here. They explain:

In complete harmony with the centuries old tradition, the monks of Norcia have sought to share with the world a product which came about in the very heart of the monastic life, one which reminds us of the goodness of creation and the potential that it contains. For the monks of Norcia, beer has always been a beverage reserved for special occasions, such as Sundays and Feast days. The project of the monastic brewery was conceived with the hope of sharing with others the joy arising from the labor of our own hands, so that in all things the Lord and Creator of all may be sanctified.

Having once worked as an industrial engineer at the beermaker Anheuser-Busch, I enjoyed viewing the monks' contemporary (albeit very low-volume) brewing machinery in the video.

Also of interest is the monks' list of books that they have read during meals, which can be seen here.

"I got it!"

THERE IS A gentleman whose hobby is catching home run baseballs.



While that isn't uncommon, he also takes videos while doing it: with a baseball glove in one hand, and a video camera in the other.

Aeolian Harps

‟MUSIC PLAYED WITHOUT human hands”: this is how the ancients described the sound of the aeolian harp — a musical instrument that sings its unearthly notes when the wind blows over its strings, making sounds that are melancholy, or soothing, or eerie, or distressing.



Here is an unusual aeolian harp from Italy:

Aeolian harps and the Romantics

The Aeolian harp is known for its influence on the Romantic poets. A popular home musical instrument by the turn of the 19^th century, small wind harps were made to fit in windows; one such harp or lute is poetically described by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

— from The Eolian Harp, 1795.

The Romantic poets saw these instruments as playing nature's — or God's — own music, and so they thought that the harps were sources of natural or divine inspiration. These harps were first seen as being passive instruments, but the Romantics later understood that due to their design, they actively shape and transform the wind into music, and so became a symbol of the inspired poets themselves. ‟Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is,” wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley, in his poem Ode to the West Wind, where he is asking to become an instrument of the forces of societal change, as symbolized by a fierce west wind blowing through a forest. Shelley thought that the role of the poet, like a wind harp, is to shape and transform the tempestuous forces of nature, or mysterious spiritual impulses, into something more ordered and harmonious. Shelly explains in this manner:

We live and move and think; but we are not the creators of our own origin and existence. We are not the arbiters of every motion of our own complicated nature; we are not the masters of our own imaginations and moods of mental being. There is a Power by which we are surrounded, like the atmosphere in which some motionless lyre is suspended, which visits with its breath our silent chords at will.

Our most imperial and stupendous qualities — those on which the majesty and the power of humanity is erected — are, relatively to the inferior portion of its mechanism, active and imperial; but they are the passive slaves of some higher and more omnipotent Power. This Power is God; and those who have seen God have, in the period of their purer and more perfect nature, been harmonized by their own will to so exquisite consentaneity of power as to give forth divinest melody, when the breath of universal being sweeps over their frame. That those who are pure in heart shall see God, and that virtue is its own reward, may be considered as equivalent assertions.

Whereas the English saw the aeolian harp as a source of inspiration, the Germans found it a melancholy instrument, giving the listener a longing for heaven and the things beyond this world. Americans instead found themselves attracted for more practical and optimistic reasons. Henry David Thoreau wrote a poem where an aeolian harp itself speaks:

There is a vale which none hath seen,
Where foot of man has never been,
Such as here lives with toil and strife,
An anxious and a sinful life.

There every virtue has its birth,
Ere it descends upon the earth,
And thither every deed returns,
Which in the generous bosom burns.

There love is warm, and youth is young,
And poetry is yet unsung.
For Virtue still adventures there,
And freely breathes her native air.

And ever, if you hearken well,
You still may hear its vesper bell,
And tread of high-souled men go by,
Their thoughts conversing with the sky.

 The sound produced by a wind harp is mysterious, ethereal, disembodied, and otherwordly: it almost sounds composed, it almost has order, it almost has harmony, it is almost human music.

The Romantic composer Frédéric François Chopin composed a number of pieces which were partly inspired by the sound of the aeolian harp, including those here and here, as well as his Aeolian Harp Étude. The piano piece Aeolian Harp by Henry Cowell is unique in that the strings of the piano are plucked by hand, rather than sounded by striking the keys. Also of interest is Sergei Lyapunov's Harpes éoliennes (Op. 11 No. 9) which can be heard here.

The aeoline, éolienne, or äoline stop on pipe organs was invented in Germany in the 1820s to imitate the sound of an aeolian harp, and these are usually the softest notes that can be produced by those otherwise magnificent instruments. These are either string stops, sounded with low pressure air, usually at an 8' pitch, or are reed stops which may lack a resonator. A harpe éolienne can be heard in the final chord of the piece here; also listen to this.

Aeolian harps fell out of favor sometime in the early 20^th century, as music became less personal and more of an industry, but the 1970s saw a revival of interest in these instruments.

The error of the Romantics

The Romantics wrote during a period before the divorce between art and science (indeed, a virtuous person ought to be equally adept at both, and not simply a narrow specialist), but after the divorce between the passions and the intellect. As Christ tells us, divorce is due to the hardness of our hearts, and the Romantic movement was a heartfelt reaction to cold and heartless Enlightenment rationalism, which gave the world slavery, urban poverty, the absolutist State, and the “dark Satanic Mills” which blighted the formerly beautiful English countryside. The Romantics instead thought that feelings and passion ought to be of primary importance, and they took their main inspiration from nature. The Romantic music of the aeolian harp, discordant, unpredictable, and made by nature, is a fitting symbol of the movement, in contrast to the heavily composed and rational Classical music of the Enlightenment.

But are we to go by our feelings alone, without reason? The Romantic movement led to a mystical nationalism, unrestrained by reason, and which eventually led to the widespread slaughter of the Holocaust. Strains of Romanticism are still found today in horror films and in the irrational, nationalistic — and sometimes violent — reconstructed nature religions which are popular primarily with alienated young women.

A better way is orthodoxy: we let reason judge feelings, while understanding that the heart has its own reasons. Both rationalism and romanticism are half-true, they both have their proper place when joined to a well-formed human will. Likewise, the aeolian harp has its place alongside instruments played by human hands, although it sits not at the center, but at the fringe of art.

Aeolian harps in history

The aeolian harp extends much further back into history than the Romantic period. Aeolus [or in the Greek, Αἴολος, Aiolos] is a character in Greek mythology, whose harp was played by the spirits of the winds, and it is from Aeolus that wind harps are named.



Thomson's Aeolian Harp, 1809, by J.M.W. Turner, Manchester Art Gallery, shows Aeolus with his harp, played by the four winds.

This painting was inspired by James Thomson's poem, Ode on Æolus's Harp:

ETHEREAL race, inhabitants of air,
  Who hymn your God amid the secret grove ;
Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,
  And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid !
  With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart !
Sure, from the hand of some unhappy maid,
  Who died of love, these sweet complainings part !

But hark ! that strain was of a graver tone :
  On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws ;
Or he, the sacred bard, who sat alone
  In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.

Such was the song which Zion's children sung,
  When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint ;
And to such sadly solemn notes are strung
  Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint.

Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,
  Through heaven's high dome their awful anthem raise ;
Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire
  To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,
  Who, as wild Fancy, prompts you touch the string,
Smit with your theme be, in your chorus join'd ;
  For, till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.

One of the Muses in Greek mythology, Terpsichore [Τερψιχόρη], is sometimes portrayed carrying an aeolian harp. Sculpture by John Walsh, 1771, Somerset County Museum in Taunton. [source]

According to the Talmud, the ancient rabbinical commentaries on sacred scripture, King David would hang his lyre in his bedroom window upon retiring for the night. The north wind, blowing across the harp and sounding the aeolian melodies, would wake David around midnight so that he could pray Matins.

The Psalms in the Bible are largely attributed to King David, who sang them while playing on his harp. The aeolian harp thereby can be seen as a symbol of divine inspiration, uniting David's harp with the wind, which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

The great English saint, Saint Dunstan, was a harp player, and according to the Golden Legend, his harp once made music played without human hands:

And another time he was in his meditations, he had hanging on the wall in his chamber an harp, on which otherwhile he would harp anthems of our Lady, and of other saints, and holy hymns, and it was so that the harp sounded full melodiously without touching of any hand that he could see, this anthem was, Gaudent in celis animæ sanctorum, wherein this holy saint Dunstan had great joy.

Harps, lyres, zithers, and similar instruments have been found throughout antiquity, and the phenomenon of the wind playing them was well known — and ancient mythologies posit that these musical instruments themselves were inspired by the sounds made when the wind blew through strings found in nature: in one case, a cord attached to a tortoise shell, with the shell acting as resonator.  According to Giambattista Della Porta, from his book Magiae Naturalis, 1558, (a book of popular science, household tips, and practical jokes):

Do thus, when the wind is very tempestuous set your instruments just against it as Harps, Flutes, Dulcimers, Pipes. The wind will run violently into them, and play low upon them, and will run into the holes of the Reeds. Whence if you stand near and listen, you will hear most pleasant Music by consent of them all, and will rejoice.

Inspired by Della Porta's book, the first modern aeolian harp was invented by the remarkable Jesuit polymath, Athanasius Kircher, in about 1650. He was famed for his cabinet of curiosities — an early museum — including his collection of the artifacts sent by the Jesuits serving in Asia, as well as for his broad range of interests that is rarely found today. Kircher describes his invention in the book, Musurgia Universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni in X. libros digesta [volume 2]:

As the instrument is new, so it is also easy to construct and very pleasant. It is the admiration of every one. It is made exactly to fit a window, in which it is placed ; and the harp, while the window remains shut, is silent : but as soon as it is opened, an harmonious sound, though somewhat melancholy, coming from the passing wind, astonishes the hearers; for they are not able to perceive from whence the sound proceeds, nor yet what kind of instrument it is, for it resembles neither the sound of a stringed nor yet of pneumatic instrument, but partakes of both. The instrument should be made of pine wood, five palms long, two broad, and one deep ; It may contain fifteen or more chords, all equal and composed of the intestines of animals. It should be situated in a close place, yet so that the air may on either side have free access to it, in order which, it may be observed, that the wind may be collected by various methods; first, by canals, that are made the form of cones or shells, or else by valves; these valves should be placed on the out side, and parallel boards in the inside of the room ; its sound very much resembles that of pipes and flutes playing in unison. [source]

Here are illustrations of Kircher's harp from his book [images scanned by Google]:

The strings are attached to a sounding-box, which is placed in a box fitted with vanes to concentrate the wind:

Based on Kircher's invention, the anemocorde was an attempt to create a reliable aeolian harp that was played via a keyboard, with air blowing across the strings powered by bellows. I'm unaware if any such design was successful.

The Romantic interest in the aeolian harp, or even the Romantic movement itself, is said to have been inspired by Thomson's poem The Castle of Indolence of 1748:

...

Each Sound too here to Languishment inclin'd,
Lull'd the weak Bosom, and induced Ease.
Aereal Music in the warbling Wind,
At Distance rising oft, by small Degrees,
Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the Trees
It hung, and breath'd such Soul-dissolving Airs,
As did, alas! with soft Perdition please:
Entangled deep in its enchanting Snares,
The listening Heart forgot all Duties and all Cares.

A certain Music, never known before,
Here lull'd the pensive melancholy Mind;
Full easily obtain'd. Behoves no more,
But sidelong, to the gently-waving Wind,
To lay the well-tun'd Instrument reclin'd;
From which, with airy flying Fingers light,
Beyond each mortal Touch the most refin'd,
The God of Winds drew Sounds of deep Delight:
Whence, with just Cause, The Harp of Aeolus it hight.

Ah me! what Hand can touch the Strings so fine?
Who up the lofty Diapasan roll
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn Airs divine,
Then let them down again into the Soul?
Now rising Love they fan'd; now pleasing Dole
They breath'd, in tender Musings, through the Heart;
And now a graver sacred Strain they stole,
As when Seraphic Hands an Hymn impart:
Wild warbling Nature all, above the Reach of Art!
....

As implied by the poem, the aeolian harp was seen to be a plaything of the idle and indolent wealthy, but soon these instruments became commonplace. In a footnote to a poem, Thompson states that these kinds of harps were manufactured by James Oswald, a Scotsman living in London; Oswald later would achieve great fame, including his appointment as composer for King George III, and his Harp of Aeolus became popular.

This popularity led prominent scientists to investigate how the notes were sounded, since the aeolian harp's tones did not correspond well to human-played music. This research on the fringes of music led to the science of acoustics and well as contributing to fluid mechanics. An unfortunate side-effect of this was the divorce between music and mathematics into unrelated disciplines, which were long joined together in the quadrivium of the classical liberal arts.

Designing an aeolian harp

Constructing an aeolian harp is simple, for all you need is a strong wind and a string. Nylon strings work well, as does steel. However, the sound made will be extremely weak (even more so for steel strings), and for the purpose of amplifying the sound, you need to construct a sound-board for the strings. That is a complicated art: please consider the complexity and effort that goes into constructing and tuning the body of a violin, as well as the great expense that a fine instrument can demand. Modern harp-builders, however, can use magnetic transducers, commonly used in electric guitars, to capture the sound which then can be electronically amplified. Designing a good electrical pickup is an art in itself, and there are many variations and room for improvement.

To design a musical instrument well, you need to have a Pythagorean or Platonic understanding of mathematics, the understanding that was found in the Middle Ages but which fell out of favor in modern times. According to this understanding, mathematics is poetic and harmonious, with its own truth and beauty, and it is at the center of all art. Modernity, however, killed the beauty and the joy of mathematics, and even sometimes its truth, and made it a dreadfully dull subject, perhaps only interesting to specialists. Mathematics has now become the enemy of artists, although it was not yet so in the days of the Romantics. But I ask my dear readers to try to understand the mathematical discourse following, and try to see the beauty in the numbers and their harmonies.

The sound that an aeolian harp makes is caused by a phenomenon called the von Kármán vortex street effect. A fluid flowing over a cylinder (such as a string), under certain conditions, will lead to an alternating series of vortexes that periodically shed from the cylinder, forcing it sideways in one direction and then the other. The equation governing this motion is:

Re = V × d / ν

Where Re is the Reynolds number, V is the velocity of the wind, d is the diameter of the cylinder or string, and ν [Greek letter nu] is the kinematic viscosity of the air. Generally speaking, we can get string vibrations if the Reynolds number is greater than about 90. From the equation we can see that double the diameter of a harp string gives us the same Reynolds number in half the wind speed. The kinematic viscosity of dry air at sea level and 70° F. is about 0.000164 ft²/second, and it gets smaller as the temperature drops, which tells us that these instruments ought to perform better in colder air; also lower altitudes are better.

The Reynolds number is important because it tells us something about the quality of flow:

• Less than 5, the flow of air around a string is smooth, and no vibration is possible.
• Between 5 and 44, stable vortices form behind the string, but strings do not vibrate.
• Between 44 and 49, a transition range, von Kármán vortices may or may not occur.
• Between 49 and 90, von Kármán vortices occur, but supposedly, this range does not seem to activate aeolian harps.
• At 90, there is a slight change in the quality of the vortices.
• Between 90 and 150, aeolian harps start to sing, and the vortices are very regular.
• Between 150 and 300, transition range where flow becomes unsteady.
• At 300, flow beyond the string is turbulent. 
• At 400, flow is completely turbulent, higher overtones become much more prominent.
• As the Reynolds number increases, the aeolian harp makes sounds that are increasingly screeching and distressful.

Would-be aeolian harp makers are often disappointed that their creations don't work at all except under strong winds. An examination of the Reynolds numbers indicate that thicker strings may be needed.

By the way, von Kármán was inspired to develop his theory upon viewing a Gothic painting of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ child across a river. He was fascinated that the 14^th century painting showed alternating swirls of water in the flow behind the Saint's legs, and he wanted to know why.

If the frequency of the vortex shedding is harmonious with the tuning of a string, then resonance develops and the string sings. The vortex shedding frequency has the equation:

f = St × V / d

Where f is the frequency of vortex shedding, V is the velocity of the air, d is the diameter of the string, and St is the Strouhal number, a dimensionless factor which characterizes the air flow. The Strouhal number has a complicated nonlinear relationship with the Reynolds number, as is seen here. But as it so happens, the Strouhal number does not vary much at all in the range of the Reynolds numbers associated with typical aeolian harps — those that use guitar strings in moderate breezes — at say, a range of Reynolds numbers of 400 and higher, and so faster winds will give us proportionally higher notes. At these Reynolds numbers, the Strouhal number is about 0.21.

However, the Strouhal number gets smaller for the Reynolds numbers associated with slow winds and large string diameters, and so we would expect that aeolian harps strings meant to operate under these conditions would require special tuning. It is from a Reynolds number range of between 90 and 400 that we would get the lower, more soothing notes from the instrument, which are often the notes most preferred by listeners. This sound might be compared to the sound of a bagpipe drone.

The fundamental tone or frequency of a string is given by the equation:

f = (1/2L) × √(T/μ)

where f is the frequency of vibration, L is the length of the sting, T is the tension in the string, and μ [Greek letter mu] is the linear density of the string — the mass per unit length of string. The string can also vibrate with frequencies that are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency given by this equation: 2, 3, 4, 5 times and so forth; these frequencies are called overtones or harmonics. If you pluck a stretched string, the tone you get will be the fundamental frequency along with a combination of the various overtones, and similarly, an aeolian harp will intone a rather different combination of these harmonics.

We see how the Strouhal number in the second equation above causes a vibration in the air around a string at a particular frequency: whenever this frequency comes close to one of the harmonic frequencies of an aeolian harp string, the string will resonate strongly at that frequency, giving us an audible tone. Since wind velocities fluctuate, the particular tone voiced on a string will change frequently, gliding from one overtone though silence to another overtone.

All aeolian harps more or less sound the same, although a good amplifier design — either a sounding board or electronic pickup — can increase the quantity of sound, as well as perhaps its quality. For this reason, there is little point in attempting to tune an aeolian harp much beyond tuning the strings to resonate with their sounding board. These harps always sound dissonant, and builders will typically tune all of the strings to the same pitch, although they will typically use various diameters of string within the same instrument to allow it to work under a range of wind speeds.

An important property of aeolian harps is that the fundamental harmonics of the strings is not heard: instead we only hear overtones, with the predominant frequency (according to various authorities) being as high as the fifth, eleventh, or 22^nd overtone. Faster winds excite higher overtones, while suppressing the fundamental and lower overtones. Because of this phenomenon, slight mistunings of the fundamental note of a string become highly mistuned at high overtones, contributing to the dissonant sound of the instrument.

To achieve singing, it is noted that laminar winds — such as those found blowing off a large lake or the ocean — are preferred to turbulent ones, as is found in cities. Kircher installed his harp in a  box in order to smooth, direct, and amplify the wind. Authorities state that solid strings are preferable to wound ones, as these respond better to the vortex effect.

Conclusion

You can purchase your own monumental aeolian harp here. Although I don't care for the overall design, I do like the concept. Here is an audio recording of this harp:



The creator of this aeolian harp writes that some architecture of the past — on purpose or by happenstance — would create music-like sound in the wind. Would this be a good thing for new architecture, I wonder? Consider the old Catholic tradition of integrating all of the senses into her architecture and liturgy. Would something like this be good for a cloister or church garden? Many people do think that these sounds can be soothing and inspire meditation.

But judging from the reviews of this harp, as well as comments on audio recordings of aeolian harps, I find that many people either ignore or reject the sounds they make, calling the whole endeavor ‘stupid,’ or an intrusion because it doesn't fit their taste in music. Others find them irritating or depressing or a waste of money better spent elsewhere. Considering the types of people who were drawn to aeolian harp in the first place, clearly they would not appeal to those who don't share those traits. On the other hand, other kinds of people may read too much into the sounds that the harps make, turning them into a false mystical experience; clearly there is a New Agey feel to aeolian harps, and this is often due to eccentric design.

I think they could be more successful if their wild and romantic qualities could be rationalized a bit, bringing the emotions and the intellect closer together. Better design of the harps, with significantly better control over the higher harmonics, perhaps through clever damping, could retain the soothing qualities of its sound while eliminating the harsh irritating sounds. A certain classical or medieval influence would help, especially in the designs of the sculptures in which these harps usually reside.

Video of 1964 Mass at the Benedictine Monastery in Saint Louis

This hour-long video, produced by KMOX-TV and dating from 1964, shows the Benedictine monastery, located in Saint Louis County, Missouri. The bulk of the video shows a Solemn High Mass of the Holy Spirit, celebrated in the monastery’s distinctive circular church. Included are brief histories of Saint Louis, of the Benedictine Order, and of the monastery along with its church building and school. The Mass itself includes a running commentary on the rites by a Benedictine.

"Curiosity"

One of my most exciting memories from my college years was paying a visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home of the unmanned space exploration program for the United States. There I watched a live feed of images of the Saturn system photographed during the flyby of Voyager 1 spacecraft. Exciting times! The spontaneous cheers which arose from the crowd — students and scientists alike —  expressed a great joy.

The animation of the landing of the Mars rover "Curiosity,"seen above, is quite dramatic and exciting in itself, and I'm sure that most of us hope that it goes well.

There are some who think that the space program is expensive and wasteful, spending money that is better spent elsewhere, such as on social services — this despite the fact that many Ph.D.s would be homeless were it not for the space program. While the space program often has been wasteful, there have also been crowning moments of awe, like the Apollo 11 moon landing. But what the critics may not realize is that an even greater virtue than liberality is the virtue of magnificence, which exhibits great courage and great honor, found in the best achievements of the space program. I wrote more about magnificence and the space program here.

Epic

TAKE A LOOK at this video; this is the trailer for an upcoming film, due out in May 2012:


TimeScapes 4K from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

Photography is difficult. Photography at night is more difficult. Time lapse photography — where you take a photo every second or so, and join them together into a video — has its own difficulties. Adding smooth camera motion during the time lapse adds layers of complications. Likewise, videography or filmmaking is a difficult endeavor, while, slow-motion videography — where you shoot many more frames per second than standard to slow down motion — requires a certain vision and specialized equipment. But putting all of these together into a stunning, epic video such as this, is a great work of art that transcends mere technique.

One of the striking effects used by videographer Tom Lowe is his use of camera motion during time lapse sequences of the night sky. As the heavenly orb rotates overhead, the camera itself moves, showing us the three-dimensional quality of the foreground objects such as rocks and trees. It is so obvious, it seems — why hasn’t anyone done that before? And I must admit to a tinge of envy — which is not a capital sin that I usually succumb to — but ultimately this sublimated to finding inspiration in the art.

I find myself envious of the camera gear that Lowe uses, and his innovative technique. But ask a photographer “what camera do you use?” and if you are unlucky, you may get one of these answers:

• “Why I have a Cannikon D8x Mark V, with a 10-300 mm f/0.95 zoom lens, which has a maximum frame rate of 100 fps, maximum ISO 10 million….”He’ll then go on and talk about his  camera gear for the next hour.
• “I am an artist. What camera I use doesn’t matter all.” He’ll then go on and talk about himself for the next hour.

For a very long time, I was torn between these two opinions: they both seem to be true, yet they seem to be mutually exclusive, while yet both seem to be rather cold, naïve, or self-centered. Contemporary art theories tend to be partisan and lack universality. Only when I studied classical art theory, and then the artistic traditions of Holy Mother Church, did things become clearer. Well, you can’t take a photo with only a rock, and even the best artist would find it difficult to make a drawing if all he has is a piece of paper without any implement to draw on it. But give an unskilled person a slab of marble and Michaelangelo’s stone cutting tools, and they will be unable to make the Pietà; likewise give a Canon 5D Mark II camera to a novice, and they would not be able to duplicate Mr. Lowe’s work.

Aristotle explained that virtue — and art is the virtue of making things well — can only be gained with knowledge and with practice. Lowe has been making time lapse night photos for years now, but his work from only four years ago lack the polish of what we see above. Doing this kind of work full time for over a year, while living in an R.V., honed his skills tremendously, as is described here. Lowe also generously shares his expertise freely, as is seen here. If you would like to copy his technique, it’s easy: all you have to do is spend ten thousand hours of practice with tens of thousand dollars worth of equipment, along with thousands of hours of study, a thick enough skin to withstand criticism as well as the humility to realize that your work could always use improvement. Contrary to the two example photographers above, neither “being a genius” nor owning lots of equipment will make you good.

I think that a skilled artist will almost certainly advance the state of his art, out of necessity. As it happens, Lowe uses advanced camera technology, while manufacturers of this technology rely on Lowe to improve their equipment.

Questions that perplex Moderns — “what is art” and “how do you judge art” — have been answered in an explicitly Christian manner by Dorothy L. Sayers, in her book The Mind of the Maker. Following the three Creeds of the Church, Sayers explicitly lays out the divine Creation of the cosmos and human sub-creation in the arts in a Trinitarian manner, and how heresies about the Trinity are strongly paralleled by bad human art. According to Sayers, good art is trinitarian:

• The art has to be true, even (or especially) if it is fiction; not merely true to nature, but especially true to psychology and metaphysical truths. For examples, the characters in a play have to be real human beings, even if they are simultaneously allegories of higher things. In Lowe’s films, these images are straight from the camera: they were usually taken at night, carefully exposed to capture the stars, while the moon often illuminates the objects in the foreground. His images are not computer generated graphics, despite his extreme use of computer graphics technology. They show what they depict.
• The art must be done well, using excellent technique. Technique does include technology, such as the cameras and cranes Lowe uses, as well as the prodigious amount of computer processing that he must use afterwards to put the films together. Lowe invented some of the technique that he uses. Lowe does use expensive, specialized camera gear, but it serves the art and is not for its own sake.
• Viewers must have a lively spirited response to the art. Art is not made in a vacuum, and art fails if it does not elicit a good response from the audience, even if the audience is merely the artist alone. Regarding Lowe’s films, I’ll let you judge yourself whether or not they are successful.

In conceiving good art, all three of these must be taken together at once, not separated or divorced from each other. Giving emphasis to one Person of the Trinity at the expense of others is often found in the heresies, and so in art, giving emphasis to one of these at the expense of the others leads to bad works of art.

For his film, Lowe chooses epic locations, which well-illustrate what is called “the sublime,” things that are high, lofty, on a far greater scale than the individual human being. They are not merely pretty places, although they are usually beautiful, rather they overwhelm, in an instant, the person viewing them. The stars in the sky are especially sublime, because although we can see them, they are forever out of our natural human reach, despite what science fiction stories try to tell us. His slow-motion videography shows us more ordinary things, but in a manner that we normally cannot see, giving sharp emphasis on things that we would otherwise miss, such as a bird landing on water, sparks flying from a fire, or a girl wiping sweat from her forehead.


TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

http://timescapes.org

Vespro della Beata Vergine, by Monteverdi, 1610

Cicadas

Cicadas have made their periodic appearance in this part of the world. This video gives you a tiny glimpse at the huge numbers of these insects that are found now. Turn your volume up all the way for the best effect — these bugs are nearly deafening.

Exsultet

Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum exsultent divina mysteria et pro tanti Regis victoria, tuba insonet salutaris.

Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph!

Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.

Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lighting of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.

It is truly right and just,
with ardent love of mind and heart,
and with devoted service of our voice,
to acclaim our God invisible, the almighty Father,
and Jesus Christ, our Lord, his Son, his Only Begotten....

And here is Victimae Paschali Laudes:

A Great and Mighty Wonder

AN ANCIENT Christmas Hymn, A Great and Mighty Wonder:

A great and mighty wonder, a full and holy cure:
The virgin bears the Infant with virgin honor pure!
Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!”

The Word becomes incarnate and yet remains on high,
And cherubim sing anthems to shepherds from the sky.
Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!”

While thus they sing your Monarch, those bright angelic bands,
Rejoice, ye vales and mountains, ye oceans, clap your hands.
Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!”

Since all He comes to ransom, by all be He adored,
The Infant born in Bethl’em, the Savior and the Lord.
Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!”

And idol forms shall perish, and error shall decay,
And Christ shall wield His scepter, our Lord and God for aye.
Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!”

— Saint Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (a.D. 634-734); translated by John M. Neale, 1818-1866



This has the same melody as an anonymous German Christmas carol Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, translated into English as Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, by Theodore Baker (1851–1934)

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse's lineage coming,
As men of old have sung;
It came, a flow'ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind;
To show God's love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When halfspent was the night.

O Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel with glorious splendour
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From Sin and death now save us,
And share our every load.

This harmonization of the melody is by Michael Praetorius (1571–1621).

Trebuchet

A trebuchet, a kind of catapult, which was demonstrated at last weekend's Fire Festival in New Haven, Missouri. I also uploaded a longer clip, which can be found here. They are hurling pumpkins into the Missouri River.

In modern French, the noun trébuchet is a bird trap or a small precision laboratory or assay balance, while the verb trébucher means ‘to stumble’ or ‘to trip’; these definitions don't seem too helpful. However, my modern English dictionary states that trébucher means ‘to overthrow’ in Medieval French.

Early variants of this device date back to China before Christ, and was widely used in the Byzantine Empire and during the Muslim conquests, as well as by the Viking invaders.  The most highly-developed form, called the counterweight trebuchet, as seen in the video, may have been developed under the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who introduced it at the Siege of Nicea during the Crusades.

This type of siege engine remained in use until the invention of artillery.

From All Thy Saints in Warfare, for All Thy Saints at Rest

Five New Saints

Video of the canonization ceremony last Sunday at the Vatican, from CatholicTV, which includes audio commentary in English. Included in the canonizations was Saint Damien, the Leper Priest of Hawaii.

Video of the Shrine of Saint Joseph

THE SHRINE of Saint Joseph is one of the most magnificent churches in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, and a documentary on the shrine is now available online.  It is 53 minutes long and professionally produced.



Click here for the full-length video on the Shrine.


Or watch a low-bandwidth version on YouTube:

Tu Es Petrus

TU ES PETRUS — Thou Art Peter, a new work of sacred music for organ and choir, from Saint Francis de Sales Oratory, by Mr. Nick Botkins, music director.



This work is in honor of the apostolic visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States.

Video of the Gloria at Saint Francis de Sales Oratory, Easter Vigil Mass

Gloria in Excelsis Deo starts at about 1:25.

(Click to watch the video of Psalm 150 from that Mass.)

Gloria in excélsis Deo
Et in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntátis.
Laudámus te.
Benedícimus te.
Adorámus te.
Glorificámus te.
Grátias ágimus tibi propter magnam glóriam tuam,
Dómine Deus, Rex cæléstis, Deus Pater omnípotens.
Dómine Fili unigénite, Jesu Christe.
Dómine Deus, Agnus Dei, Fílius Patris.
Qui tollis peccáta mundi, miserére nobis.
Qui tollis peccáta mundi, súscipe deprecatiónem nostram.
Qui sedes ad déxteram Patris, miserére nobis.
Quóniam tu solus Sanctus.
Tu solus Dóminus,
Tu solus Altíssimus, Jesu Christe,
Cum Sancto Spíritu in glória Dei Patris. Amen.

Glory to God in the highest.
And on earth peace to men of good will.
We praise Thee.
We bless Thee.
We adore Thee.
We glorify Thee.
We give thanks to Thee for Thy great Glory.
O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty.
O Lord the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father.
Thou who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Thou who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.
Thou who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For Thou only art Holy.
Thou only art the Lord.
Thou only, O Jesus Christ, art Most High.
With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.