Choral Classics - Celebrating John Donne

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