Nocturne

    Nocturne.  

   There's something uniquely beautiful about that word.  Nocturne.  It rolls off the tongue and leaves a mysterious fragrance in the air.  

   Nocturne (music): "A short composition of a romantic or dreamy character suggestive of night, typically for piano." 

   Have you ever listened to a nocturne by the composer Frederic Chopin?  There's something special about their lilting rhythm that depicts moonlight on water, or of trees sighing in a soft night breeze.  Usually they're in minor keys, which I suspect is what gives them that suggestion of night-time.  They're haunting melodies, but calming and gentle.  

   I intended to make this post about lullabies.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my idea of lullabies was not what they strictly are.  I don't love too many of the lullabies I grew up with, just to be honest with you.  I never liked "Rock-a-Bye Baby," or "Hush Little Baby," all that much.  The lyrics are...weird.  And a little disturbing.  I have some good memories associated with them, but when I think of lullabies, very different sorts of things come to mind.  

   Lullabies are meant to have memorable, easy-to-sing melodies that stick in your mind.  They're written to be familiar.  Not too many crazy intervals; doesn't go too high or too low.  It's meant to be something that you hum slowly while holding a child.  Something you can rock back and forth or sway side-to-side in time with it.  My theory is that humming it can actually be more effective than singing it.  If you're holding a baby, they'll feel the vibrations of your humming through your body, and it helps soothe them. 

   Which of course are not the kinds of lullabies I like best.  I love choral lullabies, for instance, ones composed by Eric Whittacre.  The complex, changing chords, the almost indiscernible melody hidden within layers upon layers of harmony.  I find that more than soothing, I find it soul-expanding.  

   Eric Whittacre's "Seal Lullaby," is a sweet little lullaby, but it doesn't work too well with babies.  Believe me, I've tried.  But I like to listen to it when I'm in bed at night.  

   Another I love is "Sleep," also arranged by Eric Whittacre.  Or his haunting, "Water Night."  Recently I discovered a song called, "Earth Song," sung by a group called "Seraphic Fire."  All these work best with lots of voices singing harmonies, and a tired mama just doesn't have that available at 2:17 am with a fussy little one!  Hymns usually work better for that situation.  Or maybe Enya songs.  I once took care of a little one who liked me to sing "Into the West," from "The Return of the King," when I tucked her into bed each night.

   The only real reason I'm writing this post is simply to say that all the lullabies I like, instrumental or lyrical, classical, folk, or modern; they all have one thing in common.  They were all written primarily for beauty.

   In most kinds of music written today, there are many factors the composers are keeping in mind.  "Is it catchy?" is a big one.  On the radio, new songs catch our ear with an engaging "hook," that is, "a musical idea, or a short riff, passage, or phrase designed to catch the ear of the listener." 
 

   Take "Bad Romance," by Lady Gaga.  What you first hear on the radio is usually the part where the beat first drops: 

   "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!  Rom-a-ro-mama!  Ga-ga-ooh-la-laa!  Want your bad romance!" 

    I can't believe I just typed that out.  But you're hearing it right now in your head, aren't you?  That's because it's the hook.  It's designed to catch your attention and be memorable.  And now that I've got that stuck in your head, I'm going to go back to my subject of lullabies, haha! 

   A choral lullaby, a rippling nocturne, or a dreamy movement in the middle of a symphony...the entire goal of the piece is to be beautiful.  It doesn't demand your attention, like a pop song does.  It just--lives.  It breathes, it sings.  It lifts you out of your troubles and sends you sailing out into calm waters.  There's something so refreshing, no, so healing to the human heart to be immersed in pure, unmitigated beauty.

   I can't help but feel that that is how the Night ought to be experienced.  Most children are afraid of the dark, or at least have a stretch of time when they are.  I know I certainly was.  In my mind, Darkness equaled Fear.  I had a vivid imagination, and whenever I had to walk in the dark, I kept expecting to see the glowing eyes of some demonic monster that would pounce on me and eat me.  

   I remember one night when I was about nine or ten, I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.  I wasn't scared to go down the hall anymore, since my parents kept a night-light plugged in that let me see my way.  Also the picture of a strong guardian angel watching over a little boy in bed always made me feel a little better.  

   But this particular night, I saw a light on the stairs.  Usually I never looked down the stairs, but for some reason, this night I did.  I side-stepped to my left to glance down.  

   An icy chill made my body temperature drop two degrees.  I saw a white gleam of light near the bottom of the stairs, standing perfectly still.  I thought I could see a vague shape of a girl in a long nightgown looking off into the distance.  I was terrified that she'd turn around and look at me.  

   As with all my greatest terrors, I found myself frozen, voiceless, unable to move a finger.  I was old enough to think, "I cannot be seeing what I think I'm seeing.  This cannot be real.  I'm too old to think this is what I think it is."  But I didn't know what I was seeing, and that was just too uncanny.  

   I don't know how long I stood there before I realized what I was seeing.  It was the white light of streetlamp outside coming through our living room window and falling on the last three stairs to just about the right height to be mistaken for a shape.  

   A wave of relief swept over me, unfreezing me.  I blinked once or twice and wondered how I could have seen a form in it.  There were the lines from the windowpane in it.  Of course, the longer I looked at it, knowing what it was, the less it looked like anything else.  I shook myself with a shuddering sigh and went back to bed.  

   The next morning I tried to convey the horror I'd felt from the night before.  Maybe I was hoping for praise for figuring it out myself?  But in the light of common day it was a pitiful and unconvincing story.  My mother asked me blankly, "Do you believe in ghosts?"  and I felt so stupid that I never brought it up again.  

   I wish the little girl me could have experienced the Night the way I do now.  I love the glamorous trickery of moonlight, and the glinting stars in heaven are my friends.  Even when I can't see them on cloudy, windy nights, I don't mind.  It makes me want to run into it, letting the winds sweep me away.  Then the stormy ones!  The thunder that sounds like the voice of the Almighty, and the dangerous lashes of lightning across the skies, the pouring rain and the smell it releases from the earth.  And in the winter, who doesn't love a snowy night?  But, oh, the misty ones!  When the whole world is wrapped in a mysterious mantle, and all of Nature is transformed into the land of the Fae.  

   Psalm 88 is called the "Black Psalm," because of its particular bleakness.  Instead of ending in hopeful trust in the God of Israel, it ends with, "The darkness has become my intimate companion."  I think you have to walk through grief before you can make friends with the night.

   I just love Keith and Kristyn Getty's newest album, "Evensong."  It's a whole album of lullabies.  It's my go-to thing to listen to when my soul is in turmoil within me.  It just calms the storm in my heart and helps me be still.  They describe their work as an attempt to "sanctify the night."  I love that.  The idea that the Night can be washed clean of its fears, or at least looking forward to the day when it will be forevermore.  

 

~Cadenza