Kurek's Aesthetic Philosophy in a Nutshell

MICHAEL KUREK, COMPOSER

MY AESTHETIC PHILOSOPHY

https://michaelkurek.com/

Excerpt

We are on life’s journey and seem to be wired to desire a series of goals, even a spiritual purpose. Likewise, we are endlessly engaged by the elements of drama in a narrative: Exposition, Inciting incidents, Rising action, Climax, Falling action, and Resolution. Storytelling has always been, and will arguably always be, universal in all cultures. Conversely, music that sounds random, unpredictable, with little or no feeling of narrative or goal, for me, symbolizes aimlessness and purposelessness or even nihilism in life.

However, I am not talking about doing a skillful forgery of Bach or Chopin, which would of course sound derivative. I am talking about the same process used by the great composers, an assimilation and synthesis of many influences to create a uniquely personal voice. I believe you do have to somehow tell your story in your own “uniquely personal voice,” that is, through your own eyes, just as you must allow yourself in life to be the unique person you are, as each of us is. That still allows you to work within a traditional style, but in your own way.

I can explain it this way: Many people speak the same language in conversation, and it is possible for someone of lesser talent and skill to write a novel in that language that is formulaic, derivative, and generic or lacking in a personal voice. This is not the fault of the language but of the writer, nor has the language itself been “exhausted”. Indeed, it is also still possible for someone with talent and true literary craft, using that very same language, to write a fresh, unique, and original novel, and to do so without needing to create a bizarre new language that few others know or like. The same things are true of music.

J. R. R. Tolkien more concisely and elegantly made the point this way:

“We are heirs of many generations of ancestors in the arts. In this inheritance there may be a danger of boredom or anxiety to be original. But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found in the willfully misshapen, nor in making all things dark or unremittingly violent, nor in fantastical complications. Before we reach such states, we need recovery. We should look at green again, and be startled anew. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold anew sheep, dogs, and horses – and wolves.”

FYI

https://www.amazon.ca/Sound-Beauty-Classical-Composer-Spiritual/dp/1621642712

"Moving from music and the individual to music in the culture and the Church, the author addresses numerous issues in the context of Catholic thought, including:

• immanence and transcendence in music
• the Real Presence and music
• Moral Theology, Natural Law and music
• ordered and disordered understandings of music as it relates to the emotions
• understanding the authentic meanings of "beauty" and "creativity"
• the real function of music in Catholic liturgy
• the role of music in evangelization

"This is a kind of 'layman's handbook,' a comprehensive theology of all things music, which anyone can understand, written by an internationally respected classical composer and music professor at a top secular university who is also a faithful Catholic."