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Music and Language Touching the Soul

by Traute Klein, biogardener

Music and language both touch the soul, but the combination of the two has the unsurpassed power to reach down into the most secret crevices of the heart.

Touching the Soul

Language and music have the ability to touch the soul in ways which are reminiscent of a warm embrace. I have written about the way that the choral music of Johann Sebastian Bach has impacted on me since my teens in "Music which Touches the Soul" (linked below). Not all of Bach's music has the same effect on me. His orchestral music may speak to my intellect, but not to my innermost being. It is the choral music which melts my heart, the music which is combined with the language with which I grew up, the language which speaks to me like no other language ever will.

The Sweet Sound of a Mother Tongue

I speak several languages fluently, and I probably write as well in English as in German. When I jabber away in French, I am frequently asked where in France I come from. Latin is not a dead language to me, because the junior high teacher who introduced me to it made it come alive by teaching it conversationally. But there is only one language which touches my innermost soul, and that is my mother tongue. When I am not feeling well, I don't want to speak or sing anything but German. When German hymns are sung in churches in English translation, guess who is the only one who insists on singing the German text? I don't need a book. I know the German words by heart. I am not trying to be ornery. I just want to get my special blessing, and it is hidden in the German text, the text which I have sung since I learned it at my mother's knee, the text which I sang to myself while walking through burning cities in World War II, when surrounded by threatening occupation soldiers, when lonely in the devastation of post-war ruins. For the last 30 years, I have been singing in one of the world's most renowned sacred choirs, the Mennonite Oratorio Choir. We have sung in many languages, including Hebrew. When we sing a German Oratorio, we have no problem filling the 2400 seats of the Centennial Concert Hall. Manitoba has no shortage of people whose native tongue is German. When we sing Handel's Messiah, we fill the concert hall two or three time in a row even though during the same month of December, a downtown church fills its equally large sanctuary five times in one week. Hundreds of Manitoba singers pay to participate in an annual Messiah sing-along just before Easter. When the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra puts on orchestral concerts by the same composers, the concert hall is half empty at best. Most North American symphony orchestras have been perched on the brink of bankruptcy for years, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra declared bankruptcy in 2001. Why? Orchestral music does not touch the heart as choral music does, especially choral music in our native tongue. Both language and music have the ability to touch hearts, but the combination of the two is unbeatable in its power to reach into the innermost crevices of the heart. Hearing the words is one thing. Being able to form those words in your own mouth has special powers. Nothing speaks to my heart as the words which I sing myself.

The Blessing of Song

I admit, that not everyone responds to music or even to language in the same way as I do. My mother tells me that I sang before I learned to speak. All through my preschool years, I daily spent hours on a swing which was suspended in a dormer of our apartment. As I was swinging, I sang continually, not the songs which my mother had taught me, but the words which I was thinking. You might say that I thought out loud in music, my own music. I had no reason to doubt my mother's account of my unusual gift, and in the summer of 1999, I finally was able to see a child with that same gift. A little Filipino boy was being pushed along the aisles of a grocery store in a stroller, singing away at the top of his voice, a most beautifully haunting voice. His mouth was unable to form words. He sang a "Song without Words." As he grows up, hopefully he will have a swing on which to think out loud in music as I did.

Articles on Music and Language

Music which Touches the Soul, J. S. Bach
The sacred music of the greatest master of harmonic progressions has deeply touched my soul since I first discovered it in my early teens.
And the glory . . .
The writing of Handel's Messiah transformed its composer as it is transforming the church which pioneered the dramatization of the oratorio.
Comfort ye . . .
Where do you derive comfort in perilous times when the rug is pulled out from under your feet. We all need an anchor which will hold us from drifting into the depth of despair.
The Healing Drum
The steady beat of the drum unites with our heartbeat to release tension and to bring peace and healing. This form of emotional healing has been practiced in many cultures and it is still effective today.
The Poetry of Language, Luther
A look at the innovative language of Martin Luther's Bible translation, the book which forms the basis of modern German, the language spoken by people around the world.
The Poetry of Language, Goethe
A discussion of the folkloric language of the greatest master of the German language, Johann Wolgang von Goethe.
The Poetry of Language, Heine
Goethe's legacy is seen in Heinrich Heine's folksong-style poetry.
The Poetry of Language, Hiebert
We skip over the ocean and centuries to examine Heine's influence as seen in the comedic translations of Manitoba's beloved Paul Hiebert.

German Music in America

Oregon Bach Festival with Helmuth Rilling of Stuttgart, artistic director and conductor. He is considered the world's foremost conductor of sacred oratorios. I had the privilege of singing Joseph Haydn's "Die Schöpfung" (The Creation) with him during an intensive week-long church music seminar in Winnipeg. Participants come to these seminars from all over the world once every four years. Singing under his baton held a special blessing for me because his mannerisms as a conductor reminded me of those or my late father. I felt as though my father had returned from heaven to allow me to sing with him one more time before I join his choir in glory.