December 17, 2013
In the West we have relegated this time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
The link (below) leads to an article (I stumbled across it about fifteen years ago) which forces us to reflect upon the nature of the Magi, those who bore gold and frankincense and myrrh to the Christ Child.
Were they Kings or Wise Men?
And insofar as Kings and Wise Men go: which of the two do we living today admire and follow?
I do forewarn any readers of this blog that the article might prove somewhat unsettling.
But as the poet Robert Browning writes in Andreo del Sarto: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp / or what’s a heaven for?”
KingsOrWiseMen
About Chris Meister
Christopher Meister holds a Bachelor’s of Music in Piano Performance as well as a Masters and Ph.D. in Music Composition.
In 1984 he orchestrated the "Brescia" version of Madame Butterfly for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and in 1986 was a nominee for the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award in Music Composition. He read an original paper “Towards a Correlation of Tonal Structure and Figural Behavior in the ‘Introduction’ to The Rite of Spring” at the New Hampshire Composers’ Conference (NHCC) in 1987; two years later his string quartet was chosen to be read through at the NHCC, and it was subsequently performed by the Apollo Quartet when they toured Ohio, Illinois and Missouri in 1991. His piano sonata was performed at the national convention of the Society of Composers International in 1992; and his paper “Convergence as a Mode of Musical Organization: Comparing Varése’s Hyperprism with Penderecki’s Polymorphia” appears online in the music theory journal ex tempore, volume VII/1 (1995).
Currently, Mr. Meister teaches class piano, music theory, and music appreciation at CPCC. He lives in Union county with his wife and daughter, both of whom have performed at Carnegie Hall. He is itching for his turn.
