Article October 28, 1996 Issue

Harmony that destroys pain

Elisabeth J. Pennings

One evening when I sat in the auditorium of a concert hall awaiting the program, I heard the musicians practicing and tuning their various instruments. When they are doing this, you hear all the tones on top of each other very discordantly, and you can't discern if there will actually be harmony from such an ensemble or not.

Sometimes life seems like this. One can experience discords and disharmonies, pain, sorrow, loneliness, and desperation.

But to return to the orchestra, at a given moment the oboist plays a crystal-clear note, an A that replaces all the cacophony. All the members of the orchestra tune their instruments to that single tone, and each one eventually blends with the pure, solitary A. Finally, when they are all in complete harmony with this pure tone, one ultimately hears only a concordant sound. This is the foundation upon which the orchestra plays and through which it senses the unity and harmony of the fundamental tone.

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