RSCM Report: Love one another

Love one another with a pure heart fervently: see that ye love one another. (I Peter 1:22, from the Wesley anthem)

Thursday and Friday
By this time, we have established a routine: Matins, Breakfast, Rehearsals, More Rehearsals, Dinner, Rest Period, Yet More Rehearsal, Activities, Supper, One Last Rehearsal, Vespers. It is exhilarating to sing this much, and to frame the day with the major Offices prayed in community.

But it comes to an end at Friday noon. After dinner, we car-pooled to the two churches for onsite rehearsals, and a relaxed evening: pizza and a movie for the choristers, a dinner for the adults.

The Thursday evening choristers' activity is the event formerly known as the Gentlemen's Game, now the Game of Champions. On this night, to my complete surprise and delight, they named the playing area for the Game after me.

Saturday: The Feast of St. James, Apostle and Martyr

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world didst rest from all thy works and sanctify a day of rest for all thy creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of thy sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to thy people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (A Collect for Saturday: BCP p. 56)

After the work of the week, we had a Sabbath of rest. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, the morning's rehearsal was relaxed and less than an hour, and the afternoon was largely free until the evening choral service.

For the first time at any RSCM Course of my thirty-odd years' experience, the service was not Choral Evensong or Choral Vespers (following Roman Catholic or Lutheran usage). The majority of our choristers are not Episcopalians, and there has been a desire for the course repertoire to be more practical, instead of spending much of our rehearsal time on Preces and Responses, Psalmody, and the Evening Canticles.

Thus, we sang a service of Lessons and Carols, working through the liturgical year. For the continuing prosperity of this Course and the RSCM in America more generally, this might be for the best. But for me, it felt like a concert. Yes, there were readings; yes, there was spiritual content, and our choral music was related to the readings and the liturgical seasons. But I found my heart pretty well detached from it.

Still, there were three things that for me made it worthwhile, and taught me some lessons:

1. The Basics – Posture, Space, Breath, Attitude or Connection. It was a forceful lesson to me; when my heart is not in it, I can at least maintain technique and seek to do the best I can for the sake of God's glory, the music, and my fellow choristers. I did not want to let them down. That leads to:

2. The People – I have sought to describe my feelings about this in the sidebar to the left of this Music Box:

I look “for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). I hope to follow him as long as this life lasts, and be granted mercy when I see him face to face. I hope to sing his praises forever, alongside the choristers I have worked with in this life and alongside every creature in heaven and on earth.

On this day, I was surrounded by choirmen, some of them (such as Weezer and Michael) whom have been my friends over the years, others whom I have watched and heard mature in my own choir (Mike, Tom, Max), or the Course (Eddie, Manuel, Spencer), others who are newer to me (Andrew and Thomas, who were next to me).

I could look further to the right and see Alice, and two rows up from me, YiYing and Greta, all of them at their first Course from our parish. Across the way were Caleigh on the end of the row and Lucy a few seats in, the two of them flawless in their focused attention and musicianship all week, so much so that I am a little bit in awe of them. And in the back row, Jenna, whom I have watched grow from a small girl to an adult, and beside her three of my best friends: Nora, Judith, Debbie.

Singing together in the divine Presence is one of the chief activities of Heaven. When we rehearse intensively and sing as we have done this week, with the context of relationships built from this work binding us into one, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I did not on this day sense it in the choral music (excepting the two trebles-only pieces and the duet by Natalie and Bryn in the Wesley anthem), but I could see it in the faces of my friends and choristers, and hear it in the voices of the choirmen around me. There have been times when I hope that I have been able to assist and carry some of these men; now, they carried me.

3. The Postlude – I have always been emotional at the RSCM Choral Evensongs. Not this year – until Doug O'Neill, the course Organist, launched into the Final from the Symphonie Romane of Charles Marie Widor.

I play this piece. That gives me the credentials to state that Doug's performance was extraordinary. I was, at last, overwhelmed – which was perilous, for I was the page turner. But that allowed me to be at his side as he played – and, I suspect, played beyond himself as we all hope to do and rarely achieve.