“Breath in a Ram’s Horn” is the title of CD album solo arts songs composed by Daniel Asia (b.1953) The title is taken from the poetry of Paul Pines (c.1940?) author of most of the poetry on the album. The last works of the CD are Asia’s musical settings of E.E. Cummings “Songbook.”
The Pines collection in “Breath in a ram’s horn” are these:
1. What do we know that we shall keep?
2. Old medals, prayer shawls, letters from Warsaw
3. Job longed for the grave
4. Yom Kippur
5. My father’s name was Bernard
BadEagle.com has undertaken a review of but the first work on the album, “Breath in a Ram’s Horn.” This a collection of Pines’ five poems pertaining to profoundly Jewish sentiments, and to particularly religious sentiments.
Paul Pines, poet.
Beginning with the title of the poetry and the album, “Breath in a Ram’s Horn,” it seems we are called to an immediately Talmudic approach, or at least a phenomenological approach. Breath (נשמה neshamah), or perhaps wind, or moving air, (רוּה ruwach) is quite intimate, personal, and vital. It is the evidence of life, especially of mammalian life. (There is no breath of life in the botanical realm.) Breath is what was “breathed” into the nostrils of Adam, by the Creator, and the man became a living (i.e., breathing) breather.
Then a ram’s horn? How does human breath get inside a horn of an animal? The horn must obviously be removed from the animal. That implies a world of culture right there. Must the animal be killed or otherwise dead, first? Where on earth did the idea come from that you could blow on the small end of the horn, if hollowed out, and produce a musical pitch of some kind? This is light years beyond evolutionary theory.
“Breath in a ram’s horn” implies exceedingly advanced civilization, actually. It implies mass communication, organization (of action) and even something beyond arts and crafts. This is to say nothing of the multitudinous Jewish (i.e., Mosaic) specificities regarding the use of the ram as an offering. “Breath in a ram’s horn” implies age-old tradition, ancient, in fact. Of course, in any Jewish mind, the ram’s horn is associated with the Yomim Noraim (Days of Awe), or, the High Holidays.
In fact, Yom Kippur is the subject of the fourth poem in the collection, but the very first poem “What do we know that we shall keep?” is about breached male relationships in the family line (of the poet, presumably). All the poems look into the past. This in itself is epitomically Jewish. Interestingly, Asia’s musical (piano) accompaniment comprises gently descending arpeggiated figures, rather than the usual, expected upward, ascending figures for keyboard. So the first work is a lamentation over lost identities, and perhaps a protest that the ever-so-important Jewish patriarchal line should be thus obfuscated. Perhaps the work smacks of rebellion off the bat. The mood is sad, with a touch of the tragic. It is really as though the poet is saddened by the fact that his own personal identity seems overridden by other family (male) identities.
The second poem, “Old medals, prayer shawls” is the poet’s reflection of his father’s personal history and religion. The music is not calming or flowing, as for the first poem, but abrupt, inconsistent, and alarming. It is more of a agonizing complaint. The poem ends with a outright rejection of the father’s religion and the father’s God. It is a more violent sentiment.
The third poem, “Job longed for the grave” is an even more direct complaint about the Almighty’s way in this life, of requiring praise from us, though we are suffering. The music is a churning, whirling, anxious and fearful mood, perfectly suited for the blasphemous-styled complaint. It is a murmuring, indeed, and most definitely not praise. There is a continuum of consistent, obligatory, almost mechanical rambling, as though it forms a kind of implied self-defense against any anticipated divine displeasure for such a profound insult to personal Providence.
“Yom Kippur” (The Day of Atonement), the fourth poem, is more classically dramatic, that is to say, musically a bit more conventional, though still intensely creative. Only in this poem alone does the poet have some sentiment for his father. If Yom Kippur is about reconciliation, the poet seeks in, inevitably, in memory for and of his father. If Yom Kippur is about putting “all other things aside” so as to remember origins, the poet focuses on his father, yet in a generic, impersonal sort of way, a phenomenological way. Every man has a father, though not every father a son. It seems the poet’s chief and consistent complaint is that he had not the relationship with his father that he feels he should have.
Finally, “My father’s name was Bernard” is the poet’s assessment of both his father and mother, his parents. Musically, it is somewhere between a Yiddish folksong and a Vaudeville melodrama. It has a bit of a beat to it, unlike the other four. In other words, it is has the flavor of the humoresque, as does the poetry. And yet, the poet continues to the end to complain of the strained relationship between he and his parents. He is their tomb (his memory of them), and yet they laugh (he imagines) when he declares his inevitable independence. The constant tension between parent and child then is the overwhelming theme of “Breath of a Ram’s Horn.”
Obviously, the living breath through a dead (the horn) is the inescapable setting and modus operandi of any such lamentation as Pines’ poetry. This is, of course, consciously articulated nowhere more perfectly than in Judaism. It is Mosaic. It is the Fifth Commandment proclaimed on Sinai (Exodus 20:12). Though parents have the right to execute rebellious off-spring (Deuteronomy 21:18), and in some cases the children their siblings (Deuteronomy 13:6-9), in no case were children given the freedom to rebel, with hatred, against their parents. The Command is to honor the parents (Exodus 20:12). No, it does not say love them. The question on Judgment Day is not, Did you love your parents, but only, Did you honor them. Major difference. You are not asked for a psychoanalysis of your parents. You are asked, Did you honor them? Even Sigmund Freud noted the wisdom in the way the Command is stated. It was to protect the parent from the natural resentments of the child, ever impatient of restraint, and ever ready to declare “independence.”
And so Paul Pines spells it all out, as naturally as possible. The relation of parent and child is of course universal. Every person has parents (at least biologically), but not ever person is a parent. Therefore, all may easily and immediately identify with the struggle of Pines to relate to his parents.
Dan Asia’s remarkable piano accompaniment is so perfectly matching the poetry in mood, even sentence by sentence, word by word, that one hardly even hears it. The fact that Asia wrote the melodies, as well as the piano accompaniment, is an astounding musical realization. Pines’ poetry is so very captious that anything less than true art in the way of musical setting would detract from the refined sentiments of the poetry. Asia deserves the finest grade for his effort. Only a true artist could accomplish such a perfect “marriage” of music and word.
“Breath in a Ram’s Horn” is available on CD, and there is also a YouTube presentation of it.
In the end, remember to “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12. It may not be a dishonor to try and understand the strained relationships. However, this seems an impossible task. Perhaps it is more pleasurable, and live-lengthening, to simply honor them, regardless.