Music and Faith in the Time of Covid-19

Essays by
Elena Rivera Mirano

Writing in 1930, Sigfried Nadel hypothesized that the phenomenon of music arises from a universal human need to communicate with the supernatural using a medium similar to the ordinary process of speech yet somehow differentiated from it.[1]  In March of 2020, as the entire world confronted the dislocation and disruption arising from the global disaster that is Covid-19, I found myself in a hastily set up isolation ward of a nearby hospital, completely separated from my family and friends for the first time in my life. Five days later, having been cleared of the disease with a “negative” test result, I was sent home to recuperate. Shaken in body, mind and spirit, I turned to the divine gift of music as source of consolation and hope – listening to it, playing it, thinking about it and praying through it. In the months that have followed, I have been both blessed and compelled to write about the musical experience and its unique communicative power, in an effort to both understand its effects and share my thoughts with others. It is in this spirit that I send these thoughts through the ether and pray that they serve as a source of both salt and light.    

[1] Siegfried Nadel, “The Origins of Music,” Musical Quarterly, 16: 531-46.