Yesterday I listened to my last day of music juries as a member of the University of Richmond faculty. One student who was in my theory class this semester played the first movement of Brahms E minor Cello Sonata. This student, Heather Stebbins, is very bright, and in addition to being a budding cellist, is also a gifted composer.
As I listened to her consistent tone, her variety of vibrato, her unfolding of the details of the score, and noted her grasp of the function of each line she played, I realized that her instrument was singing.
As I am quite accustomed to instrumental music, I often miss the miracle of a performer causing inanimate material stuff to sing. In this performance, wood and strings, metal and bow hair, lifted up their voices in a way that was mysterious, poignant, and longing. I thought of the strangeness of the musical saw - a pedestrian tool that emits an ethereal tone - and I realized that the same extraordinary dynamic exists whenever instruments sing.
Perhaps this is a good part of the creativity of the performer - breathing elegant speech into soul-less materials, much like God breathing life into soil and making humanity.
Maybe instrumental music is inherently worshipful as musicians and instrument makers ornament God's creative work through their endeavors. They cause wood and metal to cry out, just like the stones Jesus said would praise him if the people didn't sing.
