Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay
I regret that I have not been privy to the beauty of mathematics in the way that Einstein may have been. I do, however, appreciate the simple beauty of arithmetic in that 3 + 5 is aways 8. If I think 8 is the right answer, I am not accused of being judgmental. Nor am I pressured into being tolerant of those who prefer a different answer.
There is a beauty in Sung-Bong’s voice that immediately resonates with the audience. One may think of John McCormack singing The Lost Chord, Debbie Boone’s You Light Up My Life, Susan Boyle’s debut on Britain’s Got Talent, the popularity of Il Divo, the way a beautiful rendition of the Lord’s Prayer or Shubert’s Ave Maria touches hearts. As in The Lost Chord, it reaches some inner responsive place and is called “beautiful”. Whatever it is that Lady Gaga does for her immense popularity, I have never heard it described as “beautiful.”
Listen to Sung-Bong Choi and tell me what it is in his voice that immediately touches others, that strikes that inner chord. His musical debut on Korea’s Got Talent has gone viral, as they say, and has already been heard by 7.5 million people. His life has been forever changed and he will need our prayers. Lord, please guide him through these perilous waters.
Bonus: An oldie, Deanna Durbin at age 18, thrown in for good measure, not because of the quality of the rendition but because she delighted me as a child. I much preferred her to Judy Garland! See my contemporaries, Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin, debut in Every Sunday (1936) here.
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Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us. — Blaise Pascal