Numinous, luminous, or merely voluminous?

I've begun reading The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis and have discovered an interesting word of which I had been previously unaware, numinous (I have not yet ascertained what Lewis' problem with pain is, but I do have an idea... it hurts).  Mr. Lewis employs several dense, wordy paragraphs to define and describe numinous, which is the sense of being in the presence of God.  Had I been there that day he penned this slender tome I could have explained it much more simply.  Listen to Bach, Mr. Lewis, listen to Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685.  He garnered great acclaim as an organist during his lifetime, but today is universally hailed as one of the greatest composers.  There are over 1100 known compositions by Bach, and while I've not heard them all, I've yet to hear a clinker.  Immaculately crafted, with sublime melodies soaring above or darting through layers of texture and sound, to hear this music is to acknowledge the divine.  Consider "Gott's Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," a cantata written for a funeral in Mülhausen.  The title means "God's time is the all-best time," a sentiment many would do well to internalize in this day of instant gratification.  Listen to the beautiful soprano aria, "Ja, komm, Herr Jesu, komm," a plea for Jesus to come now.  It is intimate and poignant in a way that can only come from experience.  Death was a too-frequent visitor in 17th century Europe. Bach lost his parents at age 9, would lose his first wife, and 10 of his 20 children.  These experiences did not unsettle his religious beliefs, however, and his faith is evident in every dot and dash on the page.  The music of Bach is the very definition of numinous.

Then I began to reflect upon the relationship between numinous and luminous, which means clear or enlightening.  I believe all numinous music is also luminous, but the opposite is not necessarily true.  Let's take a look at Alan Hovhaness.  Hovhaness was born in 1911 in Massachusetts to an Armenian father and a Scottish mother.  He traveled the world and became immersed in the art, religion, and music of many cultures, including Indian and Japanese.  His music is infused with mysticism and beauty.  Listen to the first movement of the Concerto for Two Pianos and note the lush orchestral opening sprinkled with dissonances from the two pianos. It is as if flecks of pure light and inspiration are breaking through the mundane.  I consider the music of Hovhaness to be luminous in the extreme, but I fail to find the numinous there.  I'm sure there are those who disagree, but that's one of the joys of life, that we can all find the numinous in our own time and place.

Now let's take just a moment to discuss the antithesis of all these beautiful things, voluminous.  It has been my experience that too much music relies on the voluminous to make itself felt.  It's very easy to manipulate the emotions through music, any composer worth their stubby pencil knows how (modulate up a third and cue the french horns!).  Bombast and bamboozle masquerade as spirit and soul while yet another audience member thinks they've encountered the divine because their heart is pounding (to which I reply, that was just the timpani, dear).  This permeates other aspects of our lives as well.  How often are push-up bras mistaken for beauty or news channel pundits passed off as sages?  Look to Elijah in the Old Testament, the voice of God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the still, small voice.  May we all forsake the fake.  No one should aspire to be merely voluminous.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Alan Hovhaness