Cantare amantis est.

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. (Revelation 5:11-14a)

Worthy is the Lamb: this is what we sang on Sunday.

Writing is a solitary vocation. Lois McMaster Bujold (probably my favorite living author of fiction) has said (more or less) “You can have me, or you can have my books. You cannot have both,” when she is pressed to attend more science fiction conventions. She understands that the author’s work is to show up every day in front of her computer and put words on the screen.

It takes a different form for a musician.

Much of our work is likewise solitary. Even when I am preparing something that will ultimately be done in ensemble (an anthem accompaniment, or most of all, a hymntune), most of the work must be done alone on the organ bench.

But, unlike the author’s work, much of the musician’s task, and often the most important parts of it, are done in community. The choral rehearsal. The sacred Liturgy, especially Choral Evensong. The concert, in any form beyond a solo recital. Most of all, the conductor’s work. Score study and rehearsal planning are part of it, and these are solitary. But for the conductor, without an ensemble there is no music.

During this Sunday’s sermon, I looked over the choir and congregation. Starting with the teen altos right in front of me - Issay, Evan, Lily - I prayed for each of them, and worked my way on through the adults. Across the way and through the trebles, one by one. The instrumentalists: continuo players, trumpeters, the organist, sitting there with her son. And then through the congregation. It surprises me at such times that I know most of them by name, and sometimes know a bit of what struggles they are facing.

Long ago in a preaching workshop at the Montreat conference, the speaker, a Presbyterian senior minister at a prestigious and wealthy Manhattan church, told of the temptation to farm out the pastoral work to an assistant on his large staff. He said that he tried this briefly, but found that he could no longer preach. “How can I preach, when I don’t know what the people are going through?”

Cantare amantis est. This comes from St. Augustine, and is taped to my office window. Singing is about love, or springs from love, or is tied inseparably to love.

When it comes time to check the tuning and then step into place, there is Work to do. The conductor’s work is simpler and much easier than that of the singers or players; I need only give them what they need to sing and play together. Tempo. Cues. Cutoffs. In this case, the initial Breath is as important, perhaps, as it is in any piece of music, and we rehearsed it twice. Upbeat so that the continuo players can enter on the downbeat, then (as they enter), strong beat with deep centered rhythmic Breath so that trumpets and singers as one can proclaim: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”

But I cannot do it for them. I can only help them do it together in the manner and spirit in which they all want to do it.

Some of this challenges my limited conducting skills to the utmost and scares me to death, and I have worked hard to be ready, to find my way through the Genuine Conductor’s Score and not get lost in it -- as I did in the Wednesday youth choir rehearsal, at one critical point in the Amen confusing the soprano line with the viola part above it. I made additional markings so that I would not repeat the mistake, for the sopranos very much needed me there to get their entrance in the middle of the fugue.

So, I do the Work that is given me, and it goes well. It is exhilarating. I feel as if I am at the center of vast energies, a “portal for the Eternal,” as I quoted from Mr. Pressfield the other day.

But the energies are not so much about the Music as the People.

Cantare amantis est.

I am in contact with the altos, adults and teens, directly to my right, singing with such skill and energy. And the tenors, next to them, singing with fierce devotion, with Connection that would break down a wall of brass. And the basses, beyond them, and the instrumental bass and cello behind them, high school players for whom I think this day is a Big Thing. And the sopranos, strong and confident. And the organist, my friend Jean, whose eye contact with me is through a small mirror, but no less real and strong. And across the way, the trumpeters, graduate students, doing their Work with care, watching me for their cues. Beside and around them, the trebles. As I have written, some of these girls and boys have developed into leaders: Lucy, and Charlie, and Claire, and Greta, and YiYing. They can do this enormous piece and lead the younger ones through it; they have at times challenged me in rehearsals to teach them in better ways so that they can more fully grasp hold of this piece and Get It Right. They care; I see it in their eyes, I hear it in their sound.

Some of the youngest ones are a bit overwhelmed. They ought to be. I want this day’s Music to sink deep into their hearts - the treble choristers, the teens, adults, the congregation. I want it to be part of their connection with that Rock that will give them refuge all their journey long.

I do not know when we can do such a thing again. We have run through all of the funds available for instrumentalists, going into the red for this day’s trumpeters. We must tighten the belt. Good music can be made with a tight belt, and Lord willing we will do so. Next Sunday, the adult choir has a setting of Resignation, “My Shepherd will supply my need,” and they are likely to sing it well. Choir and piano, most of the choir part in unison or two parts. Scores that have been in our library for years. Cost: Zero, excepting my salary. We can do a lot of this.

But there is something about concerted music as we did on Sunday, choirs and instruments and organ together. It was enough to entice Bach to Leipzig, where he could do this every Sunday in the Hauptmusik -- the Cantata, and the larger works in their season - the Passion settings, the Christmas Oratorio, later on the music which became the B Minor Mass. No longer would he be writing much of the secular music he had done before, great as it was - the Brandenberg concerti, the music for solo violin and cello, the sonatas for harpsichord and single instrument, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Nor the organ preludes and fugues that he had done before that in Weimar. At Leipzig, his duties would not include playing the organ at all - though he eventually in that place would write his greatest music for the instrument. The concerted sacred music, every Sunday, was what he desired: the “well-ordered church music” to the glory of God and the edification of the people.

All of us who take church music seriously likewise desire a “well-ordered church music” and strive to bring it about, in the manner appropriate to our time and place.

This past Sunday, the Handel, was a part of that. Every Sunday, every Wednesday rehearsal, is likewise a part of that.


On second thought, it is not just the People. If it were, this would be no different from a social gathering or an entertainment. It is our gathering into the Music that binds us together into something larger and stronger than anything we could do individually, and opens a window into the spiritual reality that is ever with us, but not always sensed.

The Work that we did this week and in the rehearsals that led to it is a part of that greater Music. Even the words we sang and their context tell us of it: on this day, it was our little choir. On that day, it will be “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in them,” no longer seeing (and hearing) "through a glass darkly,” but face to face.

Soli Deo gloria.