Saint Valentine’s Day & Ash Wednesday: Earthly Love and Divine Love Meet

2024 is one of those exceptional years when Saint Valentine's Day coincides with Ash Wednesday, an alignment that has invited me to explore the meaning of love more universally, that is, to reflect on the nature of both human and divine love on February 14 this year. In keeping with such meditations, my musical highlights for this month pay tribute to earthly romance as well as to the mystical imagery of the relationship between God and humankind as being like that of a spousal relationship, the Lover and the Beloved. Let us begin the journey with earthly love…

Earthly Love

Pauline Scanlon- Red Colour Sun

“And I Love You So” https://youtu.be/fqLXVzh9ED0?si=59rU5KCmZKkXe2ut

and “Valentine” https://youtu.be/ng8GFqkNIAc?si=MnmRrrWBvl7LquRu

Irish singer Pauline Scanlon's breathy vocals bring a warm, modern sensibility to traditional songs as well as to beloved covers from popular music, including "And I Love You So" by Don Maclean and "Valentine" by Willie Nelson. These tender reflections seem an especially appropriate way to begin the reflection on earthly love at its best: a comfort to the lonely, a sweet gift to bring lightness of heart.

Altan - “Citi na gCumman”

The beautiful mixolydian scale of this traditional Irish melody reflects the passion of its Gaelic lyrics even as it gently introduces darker aspects of earthly love: love must be faithful, or it is not love at all. Its lyrics and their English translation can be found here: Cití Na gCumann lyrics and chords - Moya Brennan - SongsInIrish.com

Heartfelt Solos from Enya

Enya is well-known for her layered choral new-age sound, but among her "deeper cuts" are some beautiful solo vocal performances that often reflect her roots in traditional Gaelic style singing (she started out with her family band known as Clannad, after all!) Many of these are easily among her most romantic pieces...

"Hope Has a Place" from The Memory of Trees

An encouragement to the guarded or broken heart that what is meant to be will be and that “hope has a place in a lover’s heart”… Apparently the lead vocals on this song were recorded in the Silent Valley in the Mourne Mountains in County Down valley, and it seems that the natural setting brought out the best in her art since these are some of her most expressive, spacious, and abandoned vocals since “Exile” from Watermark.

"Deora ar Mo Chroi" from A Day Without Rain

This piece is meant to be a quiet postlude to her intense Latin-language ode to the seasons “Tempus Vernum” (https://youtu.be/maJ9rx8ItK8?si=HMtatiextSU6CSmn), and its beauty really does stand out even more starkly when heard in contrast to it. While not a love song properly speaking, it is very much a song of the heart as the Gaelic title means “Tears on My Heart.”

"Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain

A tender song about an intimate love remembered. The loved one may be gone, but memories of previous times stand out like embers fallen upon the hearth (or upon the heart, as it may be!). Enya says this was her favorite and most emotional track from the album A Day Without Rain. Originally this track, too, was recorded as a multilayer vocal, but in the end, she and her creative team chose to present it as a solo, and I feel a single voice is most befitting a song so haunted by the word “once.”

Where the Worlds Meet...

“Notte” by Resonance

This stunning modern reinterpretation of an Italian art song has the distinctions of being one of the most romantically passionate songs I've ever heard in my life as well as one of the most listenable countertenor performances I have ever heard (which is no small feat!) I first learned of this album from a musical friend from Belgium who is no longer with us; she was a storyteller and eventually became a lutenist, and she taught me that my last name meant “Little Valley” in French! This one is for you, Thérèse! :-)

The Italian lyrics translated into English mean…

O night, o Goddess of mystery,

Sweet companion of love,

O night, it is in you alone that I hope!

Oh, chase away the brightness of the day.

O hope, cruel martyr,

O moment of joy and fear,

I fear, I tremble, and I desire,

And my heart sighs for love.

Jessica Comeau- “I Will Never Forget: The Elf King's Lament"

"Rose of My Morning"

Lest the inclusion of my own work in this collection should seem like shameless self-promotion... I confess to having occasional fits of hopeless romanticism as well, so I hope you will find their presence justified this time! ;-) The two of the most romantic songs I have ever composed are included on my album Faerie Memories: Fantasy Music with an Acoustic Heart, and they both happen to be inspired by the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien. The first is my exploration of the character of the Elvenking Thranduil and his love for his lost queen, who was also Prince Legolas’ mother. For this song, I was inspired to create a lyrics video with some of the artwork that fueled my imagination in creating the song. The second of my songs, “Rose of My Morning,” is inspired by the hobbit Samwise Gamgee and his love for the girl back home, Rosie Cotton. In the time since my release of these songs, listeners have told me that they have found spiritual meaning in both these songs (as I have in my own way, too!), so hence their placement in the betwixt-and-between…

Jan Duindam- Viajando
"I See You" https://youtu.be/lUliNRSblic?si=KeY60ZjwKVh2PRRh
and "The Archer" https://youtu.be/IsBbUnXrxtg?si=VUrQTIjZKyN8gV8v

I am honored to share two of my favorite tracks from a deeply spiritual album by Jan Duindam, Viajando. Jan is a Dutch musician whose career began in the folk movement of the 1970's but which only continued to deepen and mature through the influences of his spiritual studies and his dedication to Portuguese-style guitar playing. His profoundly meditative music and highly skilled musicianship deserve a much wider audience! I seem to be drawn to this particular at this time of year (around Lent and Easter), especially because of "I See You,” the lyrics of which pair a bushman expression meaning "I know who you are"/"I see your soul" as well as a Latin text from Psalm 130: "De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine" ("Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord"), making the song a kind of dialogue between God and a longing soul. “The Archer” is a reflection on how relationships of all kinds, especially close ones, have a way of revealing our strengths and weaknesses, the light and darkness of our being, and how embracing and learning from these contrasts brings us growth and wholeness.

Ofra Haza- "Mystery, Faith, and Love"

“Mystery, Faith, and Love” is a spiritual love song from the late Ofra Haza, an Israeli songstress with an utterly unique and beautiful vocal timbre. On this song and others, she has some of the most powerful vocals I have ever heard in my life, both with natural technique and with the ability to move the heart… The accompaniment is sometimes quite noticeably a product of its time, but at others it rises above along with the vocals to a place beyond time. It’s just BEGGING for a remix and, in the meantime, for reverent and attentive listening…

Divine Love

The following songs move into the territory of mystical love stories, embracing the traditional imagery of God” relationship to humanity as that as that of “the Lover and the Beloved.” This music embodies a spiritual love that transcends the veil of earthly existence, with songs that speak of the loving touch of God himself. It is almost frightening to me how moving these songs can be and have been to me over the years; I think this is because they do more than weave a “spell”: they, without any exaggeration, weave a “vision” of Heaven itself, a hope and beauty that makes life in all its vicissitude worth living.

“I Found My Beloved” by John Michael Talbot

I never cease to marvel at the intensity of a single voice and classical guitar in this, John Michael Talbot’s recitative setting of a poem by the mystic Saint John of the Cross. Though the lyrics speak of a lover finding and pursuing his beloved in solitude, what he speaks of is a monastic brother’s or sister’s pursuit of God in the quiet places of the soul. In places, the text reminds me of the famous poem “Footprints”:
“And I found Your footprints
In the sands by the sea
And like Your maiden
I ran along the way to a secret chamber.”

"Canticle of the Bride" by John Michael Talbot

Based on excerpts from “The Song of Songs” from the Old Testament, this song’s tender poetry and music break my heart, for they speak so eloquently of the desires of the heart that earthly love merely mirrors but which are fulfilled in God alone. Again, the Bride here refers to humanity and the Bridegroom refers to God. This entire album, in fact, For the Bride, is dedicated to the same beautiful metaphor…

“The Dark Night of the Soul” by Loreena McKennitt

This highlight from Loreena McKennitt’s The Mask and Mirror is based on Saint John of the Cross’s poem of the same name, a spiritual classic that compares the spiritual journey toward illumination to a secret night meeting of lovers. The light of God is the lantern that guides the Beloved’s way to the Lover; “O night, thou wast my guide, O night more loving than the rising Sun!” A fitting sequel, I think, to the earthly raptures of “Notte”! Though a rather lengthy song, her voice has at turns such immense tenderness and power that one remains rapt until the final note… and the ending, with its transcendent and ethereal improvisations is certainly worth waiting for!