Strings and words

The latest albums by the British violinist Rachel Podger and the American performance artist Laurie Anderson are illuminating and enjoyable on their own. Juxtaposed, they dramatize important similarities and differences between Christian contemplative prayer and Buddhist meditation.

Podger’s album is Rosary Sonatas (Channel Classics), a recording of the 17th-century composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s sonata cycle based on 15 focal points of the Roman Catholic prayer beads. Anderson’s album is Heart of a Dog (Nonesuch), the eponymous, mostly spoken-word soundtrack to her latest film.

Podger’s album is word-free, requiring her audience to listen for the connections between her interpretation of Biber and the biblical episodes that inspired him (“The Annunciation,” “The Crowning with Thorns,” “The Resurrection,” etc.). The CD booklet is especially helpful in this regard, containing essays by Podger and her fellow violinist Mark Seow that explain how Biber’s imaginative uses of scordatura (alternate string tunings) enable, and at times practically force, the melodies to incarnate the agonies and ecstasies of Jesus and Mary.

Anderson, on the other hand, uses words almost exclusively, requiring listeners to attend to her meticulously enunciated stories (mostly about her late rat terrier Lolabelle, her late mother, and post-9/11 New York City) and to ponder what those stories have to do with each other and with Anderson’s practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Her libretto is helpful too, as are the numerous interviews that she has given to explain what inspired the project. (Most useful of all, presumably, would be the accompanying film, but theatrical showings have so far been limited. The trailer, meanwhile, is online. And HBO plans a full-length broadcast in April.)

What Podger and Anderson have in common is that they both seek to recreate heightened states of spiritual awareness resulting in deep understandings of love and that they’re both good at masking the effort required to do so.

Non-violinists would never guess from Podger’s agile playing, for instance, how difficult Biber’s music is, let alone appreciate the relationship of its difficulties to the beauty that results when they’re overcome. And Anderson is such a skillfully deadpan blender of observation, pathos, and humor that one can easily interpret her failure to arrive at a meaning any deeper than “that the purpose of death is the release of love” as a kind of victory.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate Heart of a Dog is to imagine Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as a one-woman show. Anderson shares Beckett’s ear for capturing the telling nuances of the way people talk. And her sparse, electronic musical settings are as evocatively barren as Beckett’s blasted heath.

Where Beckett and Anderson diverge most sharply is their Christian allusions. Beckett’s blink out like dying but once-real stars. Anderson’s often sag like lynched effigies. Her latest straw man is the late, rapture-obsessed radio preacher Harold Camping. (About Kierkegaard and a Catholic priest named Fr. Pierre, both of whom make cameos, she’s more sanguine.)

Where Podger and Anderson diverge is their goals. Podger’s Biber embodies the desire to have life and life more abundantly. Anderson’s narratives amount to one large act of emotional divestiture.

“Buddhism,” writes Frederick Buechner, “says, ‘Those who love a hundred have a hundred woes. Those who love ten have ten woes. Those who love one have one woe. Those who love none have no woe.’ Christianity says, ‘Whoever does not love abides in death’ (1 John 3:14). The trouble is that each speaks a different kind of truth.”

Ultimately, Podger’s Rosary Sonatas and Anderson’s Heart of a Dog do as well.