The Musik of LUBOMYR MELNYK :
IT WAS REVEALED UNTO US
THAT MAN IS THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE
... BUT FEW CAN NOW REMEMBER
for Piano and String Trio
The music is dedicated to the grandeur and beauty of God´s gift in giving us this earth upon which to dwell ….. hence the hymn-like leitmotif.
It is also a commentary on the foolishness of science in trespassing the bounds of our natural realms, and the decay of science as it loses contact with reality and the metaphysical, by delving into the non-existent worlds of the hyper-Micro and the hyper-Macro --- lying to mankind, and pretending that their "photographs" are more than just a logarithmic splotch forced into their machinery by the masterful existence of Mathematics.
Like Icarus, science has flown too close to the Sun, and is falling,
Yet long ago, man was focused on this his world. Everything that was important happened here. Love, art, beauty, imagination, emotions, morality, -- and above all, love of God --- all happened here around the miraculous and spaceless (!) human soul. And all mankind understood this, that we live in a physical universe that is mostly meta-physical ... a glass dream fuelled by the 4th dimension.
And because beauty is within the soul of the beholder, this music ends with the section titled "THE FACE OF YOUR WIFE " ... in gratitude to God for the miracle of this glorious Beauty. For when God decides that this world and all space shall cease, the angels will still keep on singing .. the music that never ends.
Cover Art: ”IDentity” by KOVAL , Artist-Architect, ref: www.thedrive.net/koval
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Note: The following text is slightly more expanded near the end, compared to the shorter version found in the CD jacket .....
Lubomyr MELNYK:
"It Was Revealed Unto Us That Man Is The Centre
Of The Universe ... But Few Can Now Remember"
Marie Berard : Violin Douglas Perry: Viola
Margaret Gay: Cello Lubomyr Melnyk: Piano
This piece was commissioned by CBC Radio in Canada, in 1995. It was completed in January, 1996, and first performed in Toronto on Feb. 25, 1996. This is the recording of the Premiere performance.
The music is dedicated to the grandeur and beauty of God´s gift in creating mankind and giving us this earth upon which to dwell … hence the hymn-like leitmotif. It is also a commentary on the foolishness of science in trespassing the bounds of our natural realms, and the decay of science as it loses contact with reality and the metaphysical, by delving into the non-existent worlds of the hyper-Micro and the hyper-Macro --- lying to mankind, and pretending that their "photographs" are more than just a logarithmic splotch created within their machinery by the masterful existence of Mathematics. Like Icarus, science has flown too close to the Sun, and is falling, -- and in denying God, they silence their cries as they fall into their own special pit of ignorance.
Once long ago, man was focused on this his world.
Everything that was i mportant happened here. Love, art, beauty, imagination, emotions, justice, injustice, ... and above all, love of God, all happened here around the miraculous and spaceless (!) human soul.
And all mankind understood this, that we live in a physical universe that is mostly metaphysical ... a glass dream fuelled by mathematics and the 4th dimension.
Now, in our current time, man has been duped and deluded by science and technology --- men and women have become crazed by the thrill of searching into dimensions so far away from us, that they act like a virus, eating up the fibres of our mental body --- a virus whose fundamental factor is one immense lie.
Once, long ago, science made us wise. Now, science makes us foolish --- and fills our lives with lies and nonsense. For science has gone beyond the realms of our world, into the Super-Macro and the Super-Micro, where it loses touch with ”reality”. Now, having said all they can say about our world, scientists begin to babble on and on, about worlds that to our universe are non-existent …long after they have nothing to say.
Once long ago, science helped man grow …. until our time now. For, like all things, science grows from a small beginning, then peaks and flowers at its fullest grandeur, and then. -- begins to decay. Science decays more and more as it passes farther beyond the bounds of our -- OUR ! --- dimensions .
Mankind has begun to worship science and technology, and worse than that, to believe practically all that science will say. Man has forgotten the Intelligent, the Aesthetic, man has forgotten the Beautiful. We have allowed scientists to drive a wedge between our true selves and the Metaphysical --- between ourselves and reality.
Once man understood that he was the centre of the universe. Now, we have humiliated ourselves, turning ourselves into chattering monkeys, waiting for some strange monkey-beings to appear in rocket ships. Man has forgotten that God created this universe and this world for us, that the sky, the trees, the earth, the rain, the mystery of colour, the mystery of sound, the mystery of mathematics and the staggering mystery of music, art, morality … are all gifts given by God into our soul to glorify this world that has no space.
But instead, we chose to believe science, more than anything else. Perhaps this is understandable, since for hundreds of years, science served mankind, and helped us in this our world around us. But science was never satisfied, and drove farther and farther away from our world. Its appetite is insatiable Science abandoned our world, and has now begun to reach too far beyond our relative dimensions, and gone searching like Icarus … into realms beyond our mental reach.
( Mankind has forgotten --- or chosen to ignore --- the beautiful truth in Zeno´s Paradox! )
And here, science begins to lie, to give us false numbers, insane values, disintegrated colours, from a world that does not exist. As science reaches farther and farther away from the dimensions of our real bodies and life, it lies more and more Not understanding that man is the centre, science reaches into the realms where mathematics and the 4th dimension begin to melt into the facts and photographs that science pretends to bring us from far away … Past the bounds of our world, their machines of discovery become twisted in transcendent images of numbers and the gorging of all dimension --- there where scientists call it the Macro and the Micro space.
The scientists and their cohorts the Darwinians, began to tell us that science and technology were on a solid and unbroken course straight up and ahead ... that mankind was moving forward on an unlimited road that would lead us to super-knowledge and Factual Truth ! ... that mankind was just an animal that had developed through time into a superior intelligence ....
But they lied .... the road they travel is a mirage, and mankind is not one bit smarter than the animals, nor one bit superior to them .... we are simply DIFFERENT. Anyone who cares to look can easily see that the worm and the bear , the mouse and the lobster, all possess the same intelligence ---- they are just as smart as Darwin's developed biped ... the real difference is that mankind has been given the gift of Speech, the gift of Beauty, and the gift of Mathematics --- none of which have anything to do with intelligence.
We lost the powers of our intelligence when we began to kneel before that great fool Darwin and his half-truths and partial-logic, forgetting the difference between animals and man. – forgetting that Beauty and Mathematics are mystically invisible to the animals! By his idiocy, he denied us all art, all beauty… and even our soul! It was foolish Darwin who tried to bury us in a world made harder than it really is, more real than it really is ... more measurable than it really is. He brutalised mankind with his simple ”rack-n´roll”: that Man and Time move onward in a forward direction. This was his greatest sin. –--- That no one really questioned him is our great sin !
And because beauty is within the soul of the beholder and the beloved, this music ends with the section titled "THE FACE OF YOUR WIFE ". .-. in gratitude for God's miracle of this, woman´s beauty.
For when God decides that this world and all space shall cease, the angels will keep on singing --- the music that never ends
Lubomyr Melnyk, January/96
The entire piece last ca. 75 minutes. After many painful rehearsals, excerpts were selected for this premiere performance --- with its many timing flaws and inconsistencies … (Melnyk, coming on stage with the wrong glasses, had great difficulty reading his own hand-written notation) … but the end result is worth preserving. Melnyk has pointed out that he included, as a motif of love and woman´s beauty, a fragmentary reference to Jack Nietze´s theme for the film ”Revenge” (appearing one last time just prior to ”The Face Of Your Wife”).
Copyright 1996 by Lubomyr Melnyk. All Rights Reserved.
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