Anam Cara

EVEN WITHIN THE HIGH REFINEMENT OF CLASSICAL MUSIC THE human voice still creates the most touching and tender music of all. A beautiful voice raises our hearts and stirs something ancient in us, perhaps reminding us of our capacity for the eternal. Such a voice can claim you immediately even before you have time to think about it. I have often been at a music session where someone might be asked to sing and as soon as the beautiful voice rises up all noise and distraction cease and everyone becomes enraptured as the beauty of the voice brings out the music of the heart. When you hear a soprano like Joan Sutherland scale the highest mountains of Mozart, it takes your breath away, or Jessye Norman singing the Four Last Songs of Strauss. But why does exquisite song stir us deeply? Perhaps, more than any instrument, song can capture us because the human voice is our very own sound; the voice is the most intimate signature of human individuality and, of all the sounds in creation, comes from an utterly different place. Though there is earth in the voice, the voice is not of the earth. It is the voice of the in-between creature, the one in whom both earth and heaven become partially vocal. The voice is the sound of human consciousness being breathed out into the spaces. Unlike things of clay which contain themselves, the soul always strains beyond the body. A stone can dwell within itself for four hundred million years, take every sieve of wind and wash of rain, yet hold its Zen-like stillness. From the very moment of birth, consciousness is already leaking from our intense yet porous interiority. To be who we are, we need the consolation and companionship of the outside. Utter self-containment is either the gift of the mystic who has broken through to the divine within, or the burden of one who has become numbed and catatonic because the outside was too terrible. The human voice is a slender but vital bridge that takes us across the perilous distance to the others who are out there. The voice is always the outer sounding of the mind; it brings to expression the inner life that no-one else can lean over and look into.

Yet the voice is not merely an instrument, nor a vehicle for thought. The voice is almost a self; it is not simply or directly at the service of its owner; it has a life of its own. Its rhythm and tone are not always under the control of the conscious, strategic self. Each person has more than one voice. There is no such thing as the single, simple self; a diversity of selves dwells in each of us. In a certain sense, all art endeavours to attain the grace and depth of human mystery. There is wonderful complexity in nature and indeed in the world of artificial objects; yet no complexity can rival the complexity of the human mind and heart. Nowhere else does complexity have such fluency and seamless swiftness. Whole diverse regions within the heart can quicken in one fleeting thought or gesture. A glimpse of an expression in someone’s eyes can awaken a train of forgotten memories. The mystery of the voice lies in its timbre and rhythm. Often in the human voice things long lost in the valleys of the mind can unexpectedly surface. As the voice curves, rises and falls, it causes the listener to hearken to another presence that even the speaker might barely sense but cannot silence. Sometimes, without our knowing or wanting it, our lives speak out. In spite of ourselves, we end up saying things that the soul knows but the mind would prefer to leave unsaid.

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IT CAN BE QUITE SURPRISING TO DISCOVER THE ‘OWNER’ OF A VOICE to be someone totally different from what one expected from merely hearing their voice. People often have this experience with radio. For years they may have listened to their favourite radio presenter. The kingdom of that voice has conjured up a certain image of the person in their minds. When they meet the person in reality, the face does not fit the voice. It is as though our voices have a certain independence, a life of their own without us. Yet sometimes nothing represents us as accurately as our voices. When you know someone well, you can tell from the music of their voice what is happening in their heart. The lone voice always tells more than it intends.