Monergism

Ok if you didn't know, I'm currently in Dresden, Germany for a month of studies at the Goethe-Institut. Accomodation plus tuition and everything cost only 1,350 Euro. Look at the amazing housing they gave me--brand new apartment with a bathroom, a kitchen (with a fridge and, upon request, a microwave), a pretty big bedroom, high-speed internet, and a big window with a really nice view. There is also a basketball court downstairs. The accomodation is only about 10 minutes away from beautiful Dresden Old City. There's also a huge shopping mall and movie theatre nearby. This part of Dresden is the perfect combination of modern and centries-old cultures. This city impresses me even more than New York. Well... the impressive part isn't in these videos. I'll post up photos of Dresden Old City later.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

  
Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

The Triumph of Joy 

 

What is joy? I believe in propositional revelation, but certain things are difficult to define by means of propositions. Joy seems to be one of those things. Can you really understand the meaning of joy by reading a dictionary entry? Joy seems to be better defined by a narrative, a poem, or perhaps a symphony. Schiller's Ode to Joy begins by defying the tones of depression: "O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” And through this poetic experience, we learn that joy affirms all that is good in life not in spite of, but in the face of evil. The final movement of Beethoven’s 7^th is better characterized as jubilance; the final movement of Beethoven’s 9^th is closer to joy. The choral movement begins with nothing pleasant or harmonious, but sheer dissonance and turmoil. Yet that is precisely what sets joy apart from mere jubilance. Joy does not exclude or deny but defies, nay, transcends chaos, evil, contradictions, and every source of grief. One thus finds joy more as a state of being than a state of emotion. Yet, to be in that state of being one has to choose joy over all “that-which-is-not.” This choice is a sublimination—Aufhebung—the negation of a negation, so to say. Joy negates all that which negates all that which is good. (Yes, a double negation). But who is in the place to negate every “that-which-is-not,” and how can the paradox and estrangement between choice and being be reconciled? It almost seems that if something is intrinsic to your being, then you can hardly choose to be otherwise; if you can choose to be otherwise, then it is probably not intrinsic to your being. In whom but God can we find a perfect correspondence between choice and being? And who but God is in the sovereign place, free from all "estrangement" and "viscosity of life," to negate all that which negates the good of the Creator and of His creation? But how can this transcendent God communicate the joy of His being to the being of His creature, who is spearated from Him not only by an ontological divide, but also a gulf of sin and death? How can He choose to accomplish this without violating the holiness of His being except by becoming human without ceasing to be God? Therefore, who but Christ, the perfect union of full and true humanity and deity, can bring God’s negation of the negation from eternity down to this present life?

"Good minus God is zero." Joy embraces all that which is good, so joy must apprehend God, and that entails faith in Jesus Christ. The cross negates the sin of humanity; the Resurrection negates all threats against human life. But be careful: The Resurrection does not negate the Crucifixion. These are not two events but stages of one Event, the former perfecting the latter. The joy of Easter transcends and presupposes the grief of Good Friday. Better yet: the joy trascends the grief because Easter uplifts Good Friday. The cross becomes a symbol of glory and source of most profound joy in light of the Resurrection, but the glory of the Risen and Ascended One remains forever the glory of the Lamb that was slain. In the New Jerusalem we shall joyfully join Handel in singing "Hallelujah" and "Glory is the Lamb," not to God-without-flesh (God asarkos), but to the one God whose Second Person has once taken on true and perfect humanity and forever bears the scars of crucifixion, the eternal surety of our salvation and thus source of our truest and most profound joy. His joy which has become ours presupposes His grief which was taken from us. It seems that in the realm of fallen creation there is no joy without grief. The salvific suffering—salvifici doloris—of Christ is a precondition to the joy of all who are in Him. The Wonderful Exchange involves not only the transaction of sin and righteousness, but also grief and joy: Jesus healed the sicked and said, "Your sins are forgiven." Did He merely cancel sin and suffering, or did He take them unto Himself? God’s joy is made ours as our grief is wondrously communicated to Him who is impassible. “And can it be?”—that was Charles Wesley’s expression of amazement at the unspeakable mystery of the death of the Immortal, the passion of the Impassible. It is a profound expression of joy—certainly not sheer jubilance. There is no joy save for joy in Christ. In this light, Beethoven almost got it right, but not quite. The Ode to Joy conveys only a groundless joy, a pseudo-joy affirming the good of creation and even the Creator, albeit apart from Christ. And because it is so groundless, it had to be exaggerated with an over-expression of jubilance, the most fitting climax for German post-war celebration at the 1951 Bayreuth Festival. It shall be Bach’s Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring instead that accompanies me at the service when I cross the river, if I may thus wish.

Did you know that joy in Christ defies even the powers of hell? Sure you do. Since the Early Church, we have confessed that for us and for our salvation, Christ descended into hell. That was Christ's vicarious going-to-hell for all whom God, by an unchangeable decision ("decretum absolutum"), has chosen to be His children, such that by the Holy Spirit who unites us to Christ and makes Christ ours, we may joyfully boast victory not only over sin and death, but the very depths of hell. Joy in Christ therefore does not depend on circumstances. Christ is ours both in life and in death—our joy in Him does not even distinguish between heaven and hell (were hell a possibility for us)! As Billy Bray puts it so triumphantly:

“If I were to go down to Hell I would shout, ‘Glory! Glory!’ unto my blessed Jesus, until I made the bottomless pit ring again, and that miserable old Satan would say, ‘Billy, Billy, this is no place for you; get you back.’  Then up to Heaven I would go, shouting, ‘Glory, glory, praise the Lord!’”

 

Wilhelm Furtwängler

To me, he is the greatest conductor since the dawn of recording history. I’ll recommend two of his recordings.

àBeethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (EMI), recorded in 1951 at the Bayreuth Festival. WWII was just over. Germany was facing her guilt, rediscovering her humanity, and determined to embrace the future with hope. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra was a “dream team,” so to say, and the soloists were all among the greatest of all time, including my favorite German soprano Elisabeth Swarzkopf. I have several recordings of Furtwängler’s Beethoven 9. The ones from the 1940s were executed with greater precision, while the 1953 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic was also more elegant than the Bayreuth rendition. Yet, precision and elegance are not what Beethoven 9 is all about. Most critics agree that the 1951 Bayreuth recording might be the greatest of all time for this symphony.

àBrahms’ Symphony No. 4 (EMI). Incredible. Before the orchestra even made any sound, the music has already started, and you can sense it. The silent music takes your breath away, and then the strings come in to break your heart. No one executes Brahms 4 like Furtwängler--not even Carlos Kleiber. I like Sergiu Celibidache’s recording, too, but Furtwängler’s is simply incredible.

I also like Furtwängler’s Wagner and Bruckner.

 

Carlos Kleiber

Son of the great Erich Kleiber, this legendary conductor grew up under the shadow of his father through a somewhat dark childhood. His father told him that he was a musical idiot and did not allow him to study music. After obtaining a degree in chemistry, C. Kleiber secretly began his career as a conductor and finally became famous. What’s the status of this legendary conductor in the highly hierarchical world of music? Well, Carlo Maria Giulini served as Kleiber’s replacement—that’s how great Kleiber was. He loved his children when they were growing up. He never liked to be on stage much. Only when his fridge was empty, he once remarked, was he forced to perform on stage to feed his family. To me, Kleiber ranks as two of the greatest conductor since the dawn of recording history, alongside Furtwängler.

àBeethoven’s Symphonies No. 5 & 7 with the Vienna Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammaphon): Legendary recording. The Penguin Guide gave it three stars and a flower. The first movement of the Beethoven 5 just pounds your breath and heart away. In the last movement of the Beethoven 7, Kleiber is like the incarnation of Dionysus (the passionate drunken deity in Greek mythology), bringing the music to the highest point of ecstasy and yet executing single detail with perfect precision. Otto Klemperer’s Beethoven 5 comes close to Kleiber’s account, but still not quite. Kleiber’s Beethoven 7 is of no comparison to my mind. Kleiber makes Karajan sound flat and boring.

 

Otto Klemperer:

This conductor’s fame and status competes with Furtwängler, and is also among my favorite.

àBach’s St. Matthew’s Passion (EMI) and Mass in B min (EMI). In both these recordings Klemperer assembled “dream teams” with members like Herman Prey, Nicolai Gedda, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Peter Pears, Walter Berry, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, etc., performing with, of course, Klemperer’s very own creation, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Choir.

àBeethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (many renditions, all good; I haven’t decided which one stands out most). Nobody else does Beethoven 3 like Klemperer, except perhaps Celibidache. Klemperer’s Beethoven 5 comes close to C. Kleiber's according to many critics, though I would say that Kleiber’s Beethoven 5 is untouchable. Nevertheless, Klemperer’s Beethoven 5 is still outstanding. His Beethoven 9 is also among my favorite.

 

Evgeny Mravinsky: Tchaikovsky’s 6^th Symphony (DG). The best interpretation ever. The cello at the beginning brings you into the depth of depression. I seldom listen to the first movement of this recording, except when I feel too irrationally happy and want to depress myself for no good reason. The “three-legged waltz” movement is beautiful and elegant. Very few conductors understand how to bring this movement to life, and Mravinsky is one of those few exceptions. Mravinsky’s Shostakovich is also incomparable.

 

Günter Wand: Bruckner’s 9 Symphonies (RCA). Wand is my favorite interpreter of Bruckner. Furtwängler is good at Bruckner, too, but I think Wand surpasses Furtwängler as “Bruckner’s apostle.” Wand’s Beethoven is also great.

 

Karl Böhm: Mozart’s symphonies and operas (DG), especially the Magic Flute. Böhm is recognized by many critics as the greatest interpreter of Mozart since recording technology came into being. Karajan once compared Böhm to a Zen master and Taoist philosopher, saying that Böhm had reached a level where he was able to reign over everything by doing nothing (無為而治). There will never be a Magic Flute recording like the one Böhm made with the Berlin Philharmonic. He assembled a dream cast that included the legendary Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Böhm originally planned to record all of Mozart’s operas, but after the untimely death of the great tenor Fritz Wunderlich, Böhm decided not to record any more of Mozart’s operas, believing that no one in the world could replace Wunderlich and do justice to Mozart’s tenor roles. The Chinese would say that this recording of the Magic Flute is a 絕響.

 

Bruno Walter: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Columbia). I have several complete sets of Beethoven's nine symphonies, including those of Furtwängler, Klemperer, Toscanini, Karajan, Walter, Zinman, Blomstedt, etc. Furtwängler’s 9^th stands out. Klemperer’s 3^rd and 5^th are remarkable. Kleiber’s 5^th and 7^th surpass everyone else’s. Zinman is interesting and his complete set has received a flower from the Penguin Guide, but I don’t really like his musicological approach. Karajan is boring. Toscanini does not live up to his fame. The set that I listen to most is that of Bruno Walter. All his Beethoven recordings consistently rank at the very top, though probably a little distance away from Furtwängler, except his 6^th. Walter’s Beethoven 6 is deemed by many critics as the greatest recording of that symphony ever, and I agree wholeheartedly. Walter's account of the Pastorale really brings you into the countryside to experience the nature, the festive country folks, the storm, and the peace. Walter’s Beethoven 9 is also among my favorite, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Fritz Reiner's.

 

My Favorite Conductors of Beethoven 9: Wilhelm Furtwängler (the greatest), Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Sergiu Celibidache, Günter Wand and Fritz Reiner. Famous ones that I dislike are: Karajan, Toscanini, Solti and Zinman. Two conductors are often downplayed by critics as “better off being pianists,” but I really like their accounts of Beethoven 9. They are: Vladimir Ashkenazy and Daniel Barenboim.

Simply ecstitic!! By far the greatest recording of Beethoven 7 ever:

Carlos Kleiber conducts the Royal Concergebouw of Amsterdam

Coming back to Taiwan feels weird. This is supposed to be my home, but I feel like a foreigner. The thought of going back to Vancouver is tantamount to the thought of a homeward bound journey, but I know that when I go back to Vancouver, I'll still feel like a foreigner. I will spend most of my time on the East Coast in the next few years, and I'm sure that this complex will become even more perplexing. Yet, because I have an eternal home, it seems that every foreign land I go to becomes my home. "Homeless sometimes means home everywhere," as my friend Dr. Tsai said to me. Here's a beautiful quote from a 2nd-century Christian document:

 

“For the Christians are distinguished from other people neither by land, nor language, nor customs; for they do not inhabit cities of their own, nor use a particular language, nor lead a life that is unusual… But inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according to each person’s lot… they display to us their wonderful and admittedly paradoxical way of life. They inhabit their homelands, but as strangers… Every foreign land is their homeland, and every homeland is a foreign land.”

 

=)