ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 begins with a philosophical meditation on the between place of Part II of the Ordo, owing to Anima’s removal from the narrative until Part III. Borrowing the Platonic notion of the khora [receptacle], a zone outside of the polis in the dialogue of the Timeaus, the chapter develops an interpretation of Part II as form of “between-space,” the site for the taking-place of prayer. Prayer, much like the Virtues, functions as a mode of passage and transfer for the soul in its operation as a form of non-discursive thought. The musical design of Part II reveals the Virtues to be not only steps [scala], or stages of spiritual growth, but also musical, or more precisely, registral steps. It is here that the musical space of the work reaches its apex, preparing the modal and registral space that victory will later inhabit. But in addition to the registral steps, there are also growing registral disjunctions that emerge between the ranges of successive chants in Part II, disjunctions that will intensify as the form progresses, giving rise to what is called “second-order oscillations,” a more radical outgrowth of the D/E nodal shifts heard throughout Part I of the drama.
