373 - Matthew Wilkinson - Mystical Bach and the Breakdown of Music

The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For this interview I have a great discussion with organist, pianist, conductor, arranger, and recording artist Matthew Wilkinson, who also happened to put together the Symbolic World intro music. We delve into the symbolism of music, particularly focusing on Bach's organ works. The discussion also touches on the evolution of musical styles from the Baroque period to the Classical, modern and postmodern eras, the historical context of music, from the music of the spheres to modern dissonance, and how these concepts reflect broader ideas about hierarchy and opposites.

Support Matthew Wilkinson's wonderful work:
Check out his website and buy his CD: https://matthewwilkinson.net/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/24DSGAdbVt7by0JHEqTwMh?si=ZJlpdMkcSg6SfMvz7YbkFg
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@matthewwilkinson2276?si=m1gbZgTSpOALVdq5

Join us for Annie Crawford's course on C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, starting live on January 17th, 2025. Learn more here: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/till-we-have-faces-with-annie-crawford

Original YouTube version: https://youtu.be/d-9FRODiDKM

Timestamps:
00:00 - Coming up
00:56 - Intro music
01:21 - Introduction
02:18 - The album on Bach
05:38 - Trinitarian symbolism
14:49 - Meaning in structure vs outside it
20:15 - The hero's journey
22:05 - Signatures
25:06 - Subject and countersubject
26:19 - The organ
29:25 - Going through the entrances
32:39 - Various subjects
35:03 - Baroque
36:37 - Counterpoint
37:21 - Duality in music
40:14 - Music of the spheres
43:54 - Hierarchy in beats
47:15 - Glenn Gould
49:19 - The dialectic
51:04 - Hierarchy in music
55:16 - Music in the modern era
01:07:45 - Postmodernism

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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the whole reason that I wanted to use that image was precisely because this piece for Bach,
0:05.0	it's his longest organ work, it's his most mystical organ work, and it's the piece where he goes through all of the corrals that correspond to the essentials of what he perceived to be the Christian faith.
0:16.0	So it's his magnum opus for the organ. It's very spiritual and catechetical.
0:24.4	And precisely because of that, it's like, well, what image is going to correspond to that?
0:30.0	Because this piece literally covers everything.
0:31.8	Like the baptism, like the glory.
0:35.6	I mean, it's Christ's birth, his death, his resurrection, it's like the whole
0:39.2	life of the Christian, it's like all
0:41.3	put into music for Bach.
0:43.6	So the only fitting image
0:45.5	would be an image that's also an
0:47.3	all-encompassing image that then
0:49.5	also shows the fractal patterns
0:51.8	of the music of the spheres.
0:54.7	Your image is perfect for that.
1:07.4	This is Jonathan Pejot.
1:09.7	Welcome to the symbolic world.
1:11.6	Hello, everyone.
1:21.6	I am here with my friend Matthew Wilkinson.
1:25.6	For those who do not know, Matthew is the one who
1:29.3	arranged and composed and put together the symbolic world opening. And so he got some
1:36.8	people together and recorded the opening for us. He also did an outro for us, which we,
	...

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