What does the sound of the universe look like?

Tejas is the sixth part of Wim Hendrick's Tantric cycle. In a sleeve note interview for the recording by the Royal Flemish Philarmonie conducted by Martin Brabbins the composer explains that Tejas - which is sub-titled What does the sound of the universe look like? - is inspired by the vibrations and pulsations present throughout the cosmos. The whole cycle explores aspects of Tantrism, a practice usually connected with esotericism and the non-Western view of reality. 

However recent research by sub-atomic physicists has revealed that the Western view of a stable reality is erroneous, and that our whole universe - Western, Eastern, and beyond - is defined by vibrations, pulsations, non-locality and impermanence. These concepts have been an integral part of Tantrism and other non-Western practices such as Sufism for millennia. 

Other visionary composers have explored these alternative views of reality. The fourth part of Wim Hendrickx's Tantric cycle is titled Sunyata (Void), and sharing my CD player recently with Tejas have been the ambient-electronic compositions Sunyata from Robert Rich, and The Magnificent Void from Steve Roach. Then of course there is the mysterious phenomenon of synesthesia - seeing sounds as colours - which has touched musicians from Messiaen to the Moody Blues. Just as there is more than one reality, there is more than one classical music.....

Wim Hendrickx died of a stroke at the tragically early age of 60 on 18th December 2022; he is succeeded by his wife and three children. As unloved 2022 draws to a close I offer this note by D.H. Lawrence for his essay The Crown.

The whole great form of our era will have to go. And nothing will really send it down but the new shoots of life springing up and slowly bursting the foundations. And one can do nothing but fight tooth and nail to defend the new shoots of life from being crushed out, and let them grow. We can't make life. We can but fight for the life that grows in us.

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