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| The last look of John Donne by Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943) - Brooklyn Museum |
It was a great pleasure to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook on Wednesday 25th January 2023. My script is below. You can watch the recording below (the video will not appear in ‘mobile view’ – please click “view web version” at the bottom of the home page if reading on a tablet or phone) or watch on YouTube at this link.
Programme
Sweet stay a while - John
Dowland
Bring us O Lord God -
William Harris
Reading : “On a Good Day”
- Alicia Ostriker
A Hymn to Christ - Imogen
Holst
Reading : “The Plexiglass
Wall” by Molly Peacock
At the round earth’s
imagined corners - Charles Hubert Hastings Parry
Hear us, O hear us Lord -
Jonathan Dove
Script
Choir : Sweet stay a while - Dowland (3m)
Thank you for joining us
for Choral Classics from St Stephen Walbrook performed by our talented Choral
Scholars under the direction of Dr Andrew Earis and accompanied by Phoebe Tak Man
Chow. I’m Phillip Dawson.
Today our Choral Classics
set to music the words of John Donne, born this week in 1572. Sometime Dean of
St Paul’s - his bust stands to the south of the present cathedral - Donne is
considered the preeminent ‘metaphysical’ poet. His writing characterized by
semantic structures and analogies that defy ordinary logic, moving the mind
towards truths that lie beyond objective proof in the physical realm (they are
“meta” “physical”). Donne leads us to space where reason and imagination
intermingle.
In life he embodied
paradox, straddling apparently opposing worlds; pirate and politician, party
animal and Roman Catholic turned Anglican priest. Perhaps no surprise that his
writing did the same - holding together truths from faith, tradition and those
emerging from new astronomical discoveries.
Our celebration today is
not simply a nod to the past - but food for the present.
In an age when science and
faith both point to the profound relationality in the fabric of the universe
and the temporal nature of reality - we are - slowly - becoming more
comfortable with fluidity; understanding truth as a ‘process of becoming’
rather than ‘static being.’
Donne has much to teach us
in this regard.
As in the text of our next
piece - a popular funeral prayer adapted from a sermon on the martyrdom of St
Stephen. Death is envisioned not as our falling asleep - but our last
awakening.
Choir : Bring us O Lord
God - Harris (4m)
On paper, twice winner of
the Jewish National Book Award, the American poet Alicia Ostriker has little in
common with John Donne. But, she explains, his work is foundational to her own.
Rooted in the scriptures and full of spiritual wrestling, in her poem “On a
Good Day” the Hebrew word ‘Ha-makom’ means “the place” but is also one of the names
for God.
Reading : “On a Good Day”
by Alicia Ostriker
there is a bridge that
spans the flood
of spacetime pouring
between
your imperial palace and
our poor tenements
your domain, ha-makom, of purest
illumination
and our humble lives
to what can we compare
your word
beloved it is like flying
sparks
running through the four
worlds
towards us, the reality
cascades
to intellect
to feeling to flesh
like a long distance
call
then we send the return
message
blessed be you
blessed be you
what delight between you
and us
*
the rest of the time
what
gnashing of teeth
what slamming doors
*
It is in Donne’s “Hymnes”
that we see most clearly his struggle to reconcile his love of God with his
earthly loves (which he fully explored in his youth). In ‘A Hymne to Christ’
Donne prepares to surrender all his loves; human and material - these “fainter
beames” - the scaffolding for his early life - in return for the true light of
God’s love and mercy. The text is set to music by Imogen Holst.
Choir : A Hymn to Christ -
Holst (3m)
Conteporary poet Molly Peacock describes Donne as her "literary uncle". Inspired by his use of personal illness as a creative resource, she uses the image of a plexiglass wall to convey the separation between states of illness and health, as observed while caring for her husband - a nine-time cancer survivor. Unlike a glass wall, plexiglass is see-through but not as lucid - and is unshatterable. On the one side everyday domestic life. On the other, a cold, outdoor, makeshift place.
Reading : “The Plexiglass
Wall” by Molly Peacock
After the Plexiglass wall
slams down: Rain.
Rain in the mind. Thinking
feels like camping out.
At least I grabbed matches
and plastic sheets
to pad the wet sod where
I’ll pitch our tent.
How far are we from our
digital stove?
Just a few feet away from
the wall this time:
I see right into our
kitchen from this wilderness
where nothing makes sense
but the urge to lift
the lid on my brainpan and
plunge my hands
into the gravy juice curds
- got to think
for both of us now! Over
there, my laptop glows
on our granite counter,
and the dishwasher
sloshes till the red
“SANITIZED” is lit.
But out here I throw slop
beneath the pines.
as you lie on your camp
cot, usurped by
bacteria - more drug trial
side effects.
Fix lid back on skull.
Make us a fire. Strike
match after match. My
brain breathes and seeks
it’s secret child
maneuver: Divide! Go
back through the wall,
then type, syncopating with microwave beeps, messages with plans
in thrall to a future,
brief, quick, forbidden
as love letters - all the
while keeping one
eye on you trying to sleep
as the rain turns
to freezing pellets. So I
grab my guilt,
zap it into a quilt, find
the spot to slip
back through the glass,
then tuck it on your cot:
a blanket for a shivering
man in the wild.
In Holy Sonnett VII,
Donne’s literary skill circles the square. A contemporary of Galileo, Donne
lived in an era when, in spite of scientific evidence, the church maintained
that the earth was flat. Donne holds both truths together by making the corners
of the earth symbolic.
The text is heard next in
the longest of Parry’s wartime inspired “Songs of Farewell” - a reminder of the
rising popularity of Donne’s work at times when the horrors of life on earth
have driven man’s search for meaning into the metaphysical realm.
Choir : At the round
earth’s imagined corners - Parry (8m)
Help us to square the
circle of our finances by giving generously to maintain our music ministry
here. Choral Classics returns at 12.30pm next Wednesday lunchtime - do stay for
rehearsals with our Community Choir which follows.
On his deathbed Donne came
perhaps as close as he ever did to succinctly summarising what life is all
about. He said: “it is an astonishment to be alive, and it behoves you to be
astonished.”
Prepare to be astonished
once more as our choir sing the text Donne’s ‘Litanie, Nr 23,’ set to music by
Jonathan Dove.
Choir : Hear us, O hear us
Lord - Dove (3m)
Image : The last look of John Donne by Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943) - Brooklyn Museum
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