Time, Eternity, and the Breathless Organ

Abstract The organ is an instrument that produces sound through a special interaction with wind. This gives it the ability to produce notes of seemingly unlimited duration. Wind here means much more than the physical element of air. Since the organ plays a prominent role as an instrument in a spiritual context, organ wind has a special relationship to biblical concepts such as pneuma or ruach. These open up a wide field of meanings and can be interpreted as the breath of life, spirit, soul, energy, or passion. The conceptual breadth opens up space for correspondences in individual time-related religiosity and human existence. Thus, the seemingly endless breath of the organ can correspond strongly with biblicalideas of eternity. However, such correspondences are not simply created by statically sustained sound. The interactions between objectively measurable and subjectively perceived times are more complex and much richer, both theologically and existentially, as a closer look at works by Cage and Messiaen shows.