Interview:

Music has a plethora of spiritual significance because like all the fine arts which move people aesthetically, it contains a flood of reason shaping tone, rhythm, melody, harmony, silences or rests, and pitches of different instruments, into a profound moving unity. This in turn allows the intellect to understand, delight, and experience the glory or splendor within the moving parts, whether of a symphony of Beethoven or a work of jazz by Louis Armstrong or Dave Brubeck. After all, music is a series of accidental beings that exist momentarily and come to an end unlike a painting which remains. Now, human virtue is also the effect of the flood of reason, and to the believer faith as well, on the intellect (prudence), the will (justice), and the feelings (fortitude and temperance). Music then can dispose someone to desire the excellence of virtue. Likewise, since beauty shines forth in great music, it hints at the infinite beauty of God and aids in the desire to meet him, if not seek union with him in prayer and love. Finally, St. Thomas Aquinas warns us that if we do not have enough spiritual pleasures in our lives, the aesthetic experience being one of them, we will turn to false carnal ones. Instead of being led by reason and principles, feelings alone raw and unshaped will enslave us to its own ends.

“Music has a plethora of spiritual significance because like all the fine arts which move people aesthetically, it contains a flood of reason shaping tone, rhythm, melody, harmony, silences or rests, and pitches of different instruments, into a profound moving unity.”
– Fr. Basil Cole, O.P., author of “Music And Morals: A Theological Appraisal Of The Moral And Psychological Effects Of Music”