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In
Memoriam: Derek Bell
Friday,
October 18, 2002
Derek Bell's
Preface to the book
Art as a Hidden Message by J. Donald Walters
(World-renowned
harpist of the five-time Grammy-Award winning group, The Chieftains,
Ireland's best-known interpreters of traditional Celtic music, and
on the Emerald Isle's foremost contemporary musicians.)
25th of July,
1997
I have known
J. Donald Walters in several contexts for many years. First, I've
known him as a gifted, and I will say inspired, composer. I recorded
The Mystic Harp, an album of his most poetic musical compositions,
in 1995.
What strikes
me above all about Donald is the all-embracing nature of his mind,
which is probably the result of his incredible capacity for concentration.
He has an ability to uncover countless unusual aspects of a subject,
and to reveal them in an unexpected and original light. When he
turns the spotlight of his concentration on any given subject, he
leaves no aspect of it uncovered.
I have known
Donald for many years as one of the few still-living direct, full-time
disciples of the great Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the now famous
Autobiography of a Yogi. I myself consider that Yogananda
was one of the most important beings to incarnate on this planet
in many centuries. I've been familiar with his book since 1962,
and have been aware of Donald, as his disciple, for most of that
time.
It was not until
1989, however, that I spotted Donald's masterly autobiography, The
Path, in a London bookshop. After reading it, I decided at last
to get in touch with him. We corresponded, and I subsequently read
a fair cross-section of his books, heard some of his tapes, and
watched a few of his videos. I also visited Ananda several times,
the beautiful village Walters himself founded in 1968. There I learned
from him and his followers as much about Yogananda as I could. In
1995 I offered to record some of Walters's music, both because I
loved it, and for the sake of completeness-of returning with gratitude
what I had gained.
In Donald's
books it has become obvious to me that he asked his master, Yogananda,
more interesting questions than anyone else, and that Yogananda,
consequently, gave out many of his most interesting ideas to this
disciple. The exchange between them has become, subsequently, a
gift to us all! Another thing has become obvious to me in reading
Donald's writings, and that is his unbiased discrimination. Unfailingly,
he makes it crystal clear, for example, as to when, on any given
subject, he is expressing his own ideas and when he is stating what
Yogananda said. Such perfect fairness is, I believe, not at all
usual.
What we have
in J. Donald Walters as an author, then, is an unusual and powerfully
magnetic mind, and also one whose judgment is always fair. To me,
Art as a Hidden Message is by far the most important book
of its kind since the publication of that work by the great impressionist
English composer Cyril Scott, Music-Its Secret Influence Through
the Ages.
Donald's work
is however, more comprehensive, for while Scott's is largely concerned
only with inspiration through music, Donald's masterpiece covers
all the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture-even dance, photography,
film, and the theater. And important point strikes me in the works
of both writers: Neither of them believes in that tired and fortunately
fading doctrine, "art for art's sake." Both are convinced
that Art holds a potential for both purpose and meaning. Scott and
Walters both emphasize also Art's potentials for healing, for effecting
beneficial changes in people's lives, and even for changing and
uplifting the environment.
Donald refers
to the general, lamentable, ignorance in these matters in the West,
but does not dwell on it. From his amusing Prefatory Note on the
masculine pronoun (now there's a vexed question!) to his grand finale,
the last chapter titled "Where Is Art Headed?"-from beginning
to end, in short-I found this book completely enthralling. To have
covered so many aspects of the subject so thoroughly, and in so
few pages, is in itself an amazing accomplishment. Just to run the
eye down over the chapter headings in the Table of Contents gives
an exciting preview of the erudition and of the sheer range covered
in this mighty opus.
Anecdotes and
examples abound. From the description of what deserves to go down
in song and legend as The Painted Pipes of Kauai, to his stories
of Handel and Mozart and of an ancient Indian manuscript foretelling
the lives of many people living today, to illustrations from Shakespeare,
da Vinci, Coleridge, P.G. Wodehouse, and many others, to his most
interesting comments for and against formal study, and his arguments
on the need for balancing reason with feeling, this book makes for
altogether fascinating reading.
Donald's predictions
for Art's future, also, are enlightening. They include a return
to simplicity, and a renascence of beautiful melodies. I cannot
but add that I, personally, would deeply regret the fulfillment
of one of his predictions: the eventual disappearance of the symphony
orchestra. For I love symphony music-as does Donald, for that matter-with
its grandiose but also extremely subtle nuances of expression. To
me, the symphony orchestra is like a great, living organ, an it
is my own favorite medium of composition. But honesty obliges me
to add, sadly, that Donald's prediction is already coming true.
I was greatly
intrigued by his idea, expressed in the last chapter, that printed
notes would again become more "skeletal," as they were
during the baroque times with figured bass, as they are today in
jazz, pop, and rock music. I applaud Donald's prediction of greater
cooperation between composers and performers, though at the same
time I worry that such cooperation might get taken too far, and
thereby destroy the composer's original intentions!
I salute Donald,
in conclusion, for what I consider a true masterpiece. Art as
a Hidden Message is a monumental work, and should be required
reading for everyone. Artists, especially, will benefit from it,
and should carefully read, study, and act on what is enshrined in
these pages. This book, is, I believe, the most important book of
our time on this vitally important subject. May it be well received,
and have far-reaching success in refining the way people approach
a subject so crucial to the emotional and spiritual health of society.
Derek Bell,
Bangor, Ireland
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