Saturday, October 22, 2005

Gloucester Cathedral Choir

Earlier in the evening (ok, Friday evening i.e.), I ended up with a friend at Ebenezer Lutheran downtown, for their fall concert series, this one featuring the Gloucester Cathedral Choir. The beautiful sanctuary (why can’t modern churches be, well, beautiful? Ok, that’s a separate rant …) was packed. The Choir didn’t disappoint at all – selections from Byrd, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schütz and Elgar, with some piano pieces interspersed to give the choir a rest (thanks Bill, for that explanation … ). I hadn’t heard Haydn’s Little Organ Mass before, and it was a bit surreal the way the Gloria and Credo were shortened by having the different voices sing the lines simultaneously! Elgar’s Te Deum was just magnificent.

As is my wont, I scanned the crowd for other “people of color” (as the phrase goes. Yes, I do this reflexively). There were precious few. The conductor, however, looked suspiciously dusky – well, duh. Andrew Nethsingha; he’s of Sri Lankan descent!

I noticed, at the back wall, behind the choir, on the altar (set into the wall itself. “Oh, so pre-Conciliar, one would say in a Catholic context”), right next to the large cross, a little microphone, and next to it, a ritual book lying open, facing the church. Hey, guess what, at some point, the minister is facing away from the people! Imagine that! (More enlightened, post-Conciliar gasps follow. Ok, I’ll stop.)

At some point, I wondered if there were any other culture, other than the modern West, where religious music is performed simply as an aesthetic exercise, divorced from its ritual context. Maybe that’s part of modernity itself. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you.

Fruitless mental wanderings aside, my favorite was easily Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. Byrd remained a closet Catholic in Elizabeth’s England, and (as the program suggested), the pain of persecution colors the piece. There’s something about the nature of boys’ voices lifted in song that is ethereal, and suggests a celestial purity. At one point, it seemed that the choir against the far side of the nave was but a canvas, the voices floating down directly from heaven. When it ended, the applause was jarring, such was the power of the hymn to inspire prayer. The words themselves are as beautiful as they are true, in proclaiming the Real Presence of the Christ in the Eucharist.

Ave Verum Corpus
Natum de Maria Virgine:
Vere passum, immolatum
In cruce pro homine:
Cuius latus perforatum
Fluxit aqua et sanguine:
Esto nobis praegustatum
Mortis in examine.

Hail, true Body, truly born Of the Virgin Mary mild.
Truly offered, wracked and torn,
On the Cross for all defiled,
From Whose love-pierced, sacred side
Flowed Thy true Blood's saving tide:
Be a foretaste sweet to me in my death's great agony.
 Posted by Picasa

3 comments:

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Heya keyser -- you're absolutely correct. I must have messed that up while copying and pasting. Thanks for pointing it out, and for stopping by! I'll change it when I get a chance in the main post. :)

assiniboine said...

Ahem. "Sanctuary"? You mean the nave? Surely the sanctuary in a sacramental denomination like the Lutheran Church is the area behind the altar rail, n'est-ce pas?

Pedantic, I appreciate, but it seems to me that a recent article in Slate.com discusses RC discomfiture with the recent practice of handholding during the Lord's Prayer in American Catholic churches as an unnecessary nod to the practices of suburban "evangelical" megachurches, so why not.

(Reminds me of my own dear mother's indignation at adolescent girls chitchatting en route from the altar rail back to their pews. I referred her to Samuel Pepys's account of his visit to the Portuguese Synagogue in the mid-1660s -- not that it's especially relevant, but it does indicate that her perplexity is hardly a new thing.)

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

You are absolutely correct. I meant nave. How could I lapse into such latitudinous usage? :)

I did note Saletan's article. I found it to be thoroughly confused on many issues, but didn't bother to deal with it. Hand-holding is very common. There are those who read all kinds of ecclesiological positions into the practice. I do think there is a distinct generational preference here -- youngsters accept it. The vast majority of Catholics don't give a dang. And the few make a huge issue out of it.