A Round Five

In western music, based on the chromatic scale, it is possible to move through harmonic changes that sound natural even to the untrained listener. This is because the harmonies that are natural to one key include some that have place in other keys. The most common pivot through the keys is called The Circle of Fifths. Just listen to some Vivaldi, you’ll hear it; it’s very nice.

In a completely different set of circles, the poet Dante depicts a world of hurt- of hurt self-induced, self-involved: nasty hurts. He creates several sets of circles: there is the Purgatorio, but the juicy one is the Inferno. In both places, people get to stop and explain their tortures and why they deserve them; but in Purgatory, they’re repentent, and comparatively cheerful. In Hell, they’re so immersed in the evil that brought them there, that the disgusting and terrifying things in which they are immersed almost make less impression. I have been revisiting the Fifth Circle (in my reading).

In the Fifth Circle of Hell Dante locates the enraged and the sullen. The sullen! They are submerged in foetid water, thick with murk. Bubbles stream up to the surface because they are eternally gagging on the sludge of their stubborn dissatisfactions.

Makes you want to read the whole thing, doesn’t it?

From Dante to Vivaldi is a tidy handful of centuries, so their shared Italian heritage is really only a slender connection. It’s just my taste for irrelevant similitudes that connects the Fifth Circle with the Circle of Fifths. In Dante’s time, that harmonic circle was not yet established as a standard. In my head, it all goes around.

In music, the Circle of Fifths will eventually take you back to where it began; that’s part of its beauty. In Dante, the Circles are really layers; we read our way from one to the next and point of the whole voyage is to get out and to the top of Paradise.

I am struggling with a number of apparent failures this spring, some of them musical; perhaps that is really why the two concepts are conjoining for me. My keyboard skills show some continued signs of improvement – but the more I practice, the more I encounter my limitations. It’s normal, but it’s painful. I’m still left with a fish-or-cut-bait choice – I may have bad practice times, but I’m not planning to stop.

It is a shock to be reminded that sullenness is a moral position. I may not share Dante’s entire theology, but if I’m going to appreciate his catalog of sins, I need to digest it. Is it sullenness to want attention for struggles? Surely that is wrong. I think sullenness is a cold refusal of joy; but that so easily leads to a sense of victimization. Aren’t I allowed to pout a little, for crying out loud, when I try and fail and mean to keep trying? I think I am, some.

I just need to avoid getting into a loop.