A Book Review… Promoting Truth, Beauty, And Goodness
By DONALD DeMARCO
The Sound of Beauty: A Classical Composer on Music in the Spiritual Life by Michael Kurek.
Ignatius Press, 2019, 229 pages; available in e-book and paperback. Visit Ignatius.com or call 1-800-651-1531 to order or for more information.
Catholics can welcome The Sound of Beauty with justifiable pride and reassurance for it is a marvelous tribute to the Church. The author has established a reputation in the world of symphonic and chamber music throughout the United States and in 61 countries. His chart-topping 2017 classical album, The Sea Knows, and other works of his, can be readily found on the Internet.
In addition to being an important composer, Kurek is a certified catechist for the Catholic Church and, as a philosopher/theologian, an ardent promoter of truth, beauty, and goodness in the arts. His exceptional comprehensiveness is witness to the exceptional richness of the Catholic tradition. His book is a tonic for so much in our culture that is decidedly unbeautiful.
Kurek returned to the Catholic faith after many years as an evangelical Protestant. What he found especially attractive in the faith was the harmony between immanence and transcendence. The parallel between these two terms and Catholic theology illuminates his point.
Immanence refers to what is around us, the world that God created, in a word — nature. Transcendence lifts the mind to a higher plane, one that is supernatural. Pantheists believe in nature but in nothing higher. Deists believe in a remote God who has nothing to do with the world. Kurek found that the Catholic appreciation of nature as well as the spiritual — the integration of the imminent with the transcendent — was most helpful in his work as a composer. Music appeals to the ear. It is grounded in the sensuous.
At the same time, it opens the way to the supernatural. God and nature co-reside in music, as well as in all things beautiful. At long last, he writes, “I understood that God’s kingdom includes both the spiritual and the physical and that Catholic worship reflects that continuity, providing places where heaven and earth, so to speak, can meet.” As a Catholic, he began to explore music in a new way, in terms of a “metaphor-in-sound,” as he called it.
It is Michael Kurek’s hope that he can share with his reader what he has gleaned from Catholic teaching, but in a language that does not require any of them to have an iota of musical training. Analytic as this book is, the author is careful not to compromise music’s mystery. Music can be moving, profound, inspiration, elevating, and so on, but only when its mystery remains unexplained. It is most appropriate that music retain its mystery since God, Himself, is a mystery.
Kurek sheds important light on music for the liturgy. The Eucharist is the perfect example of the synthesis between the transcendent and the immanent. He also takes us on a journey through the scientific basis of music. “Music,” he writes, “is an ordinary substance (sound waves) imbued with an extraordinary ability to symbolize or mimic traits of human personality.”
This brief review hardly scratches the surface of Kurek’s outstanding work. It treats psychology, culture, literature, morality, spirituality, and even suggestions for making good music more accessible for and better appreciated by children.
The Sound of Beauty is a rare book written by an unusually gifted man. Throughout the book, the discerning reader appreciates the humility of the author together with his reverence for the power of music.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. He is the author of 37 books. His latest five books, How to Navigate through Life, Apostles of the Culture of Life, Why I Am Pro-Life and Not Politically Correct, A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion, and Reflections on the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Search for Understanding, are all available through amazon.com.)