RSCM Report: I was glad when they said unto me

Part Three: Liturgy, and Concluding Thoughts

I was glad when they said unto me
Let us go into the house of the LORD.

Some years ago, one of our music directors, it may have been Simon Lole, introduced the choristers to the acoustics of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis by having the trebles sing a simple triad: Sol, Mi, Do, release. The tones blended into a chord, which hung in the air for many seconds.

Mr. Neswick chose a different approach; we launched immediately into our “big” piece for the Basilica, a setting by Leo Sowerby of Psalm 122. The organ begins with majesty, growing ever greater; the choir sings the opening words; we feel what it is like to make Music together in such a space.

It was overwhelming.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” This experience of majesty, something Music can open, is a part of it. The Roman Catholics can do this very well in their liturgies, when they take a notion. Which they did on Sunday morning: Solemn Pontifical Mass with the Cardinal Archbishop as Celebrant and Preacher. As the procession came down the aisle, incense floating in a cloud through the huge space, Neswick played the opening hymn: “Christ is made the sure foundation,” to the tune Westminster Abbey. We sang, the trebles and tenors soaring into a descant (which I think was composed for this occasion by Mr. Neswick). The clergy ascended to the High Altar, censed it, kissed it, the incense filling the church. Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Behold, our feet are standing
Within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

My favorite service of most RSCM Courses is not the one at the Basilica, nor the Evensong the night before at the Presbyterian church. It is the Thursday night Choral Evensong at the Chapel of Saint Cecilia, on the grounds of the Todd Hall Retreat Center.

We have worked together this week. We have sung, laughed, played, perhaps wept, eaten, sung some more, prayed, worshipped in community, rested (not enough, for most of us), and (again) sung some more. It was a lot; I wish it were more. I wish we could keep having these daily rehearsals, keep improving, keep singing together.

We have come far. On Monday, it was clear that we would have to step it up. I was thinking then of my own choristers, and not sufficiently of myself, for as an alto, I had to step it up quite a bit to keep up with the group as they developed through the week. The adult and teen tenors and basses were excellent from the outset; some of these men have considerable experience as Choirmen in top-notch cathedral and parish choirs.

I could not be more proud of the two young men who sang beside me, Charles and Charlie, and the other young altos. But most of all, I admire the trebles. Without any one or two choristers taking the lead, the entire section grew from a group that sounded like young children to a strong, confident team that could, I think, do anything. By Thursday night, they sing with rich, vibrant tone, and more than that, intelligence and connection. Mr. Neswick certainly helped, by prodding us up the path and showing us how it could be done, but it was in the end the trebles themselves that did it.

[Edited to add: here is a link to a recording from the Saturday evensong, on Dropbox, with grateful thanks to Brian Hunt, who made the recording. There are other tracks from the evensong on the main page, here.]

The penultimate anthem at the Evensong is a setting of “Sing ye faithful, sing with gladness” by Richard Wayne Dirksen. It is for the most part a rollicking dancelike piece, enjoyable to sing. Even the two middle stanzas about the Crucifixion retain a sense of fun in the background.

The hymn text completed, Dirksen reduces the texture for a coda. A solo group of four, which includes Lucy and Caleigh from our Iowa choir, sings a repeated Alleluia based on the “Queen’s Change.” The rest of the trebles and altos sustain these notes as if it were a carillon playing them; the lower voices sing one last bit of the head motive and text.

It is very much as if we were in heaven.

For me, hearing Caleigh’s and Lucy’s voices in the solo, clear and strong, made it even more powerful. I have known these girls since they were quite small and they are important to me, as are all of our choristers (the ones at home as well as the ones at the Course). When we repeated the anthem in Saturday’s evensong, I was quite overcome, unable to sing my part of it for a while.

But I have already done my part. I have been one of many who have taught these girls and boys, and brought them to this day. I hope that I was useful in the alto section; I think that I was for the first part of the week. By the end of the week, especially when the altos were joined by Kristin and Debbie, the section was fine without me. Of this I am glad.

For my days will soon be done. It is these young people, and those like them in every land, every culture, who must carry the Song forward into what may be dark and uncertain times.

On the fringes of our week: the Republican National Convention. Some of the adults (most decidedly not me) were following bits of it on Twitter and similar online sources, and it came up in the conversations at meals more often than I would have liked. The Democrats are this week, and in my opinion not one whit better or more virtuous than the Republicans.

The Song is never in a vacuum; the Light shines not in light, but darkness. Not just the Alleluias at the end of the Dirksen, but the whole week of the Course was in many respects a taste of heaven. It must not stop there; it must, somehow, ring outward into the world even as our sounds rang through the Basilica. It is given us as musicians to be a sign of Hope. And it is needed, desperately. What we have in our voices, our intelligence, our working together, our playing of instruments, our Song – this is part of what the world needs for its healing and reconciliation. This is an important part of what we can give to it.

The connection between the Course and “back home” is, I think, in the Daily Office. It pleased me that some of our choristers joined us for daily Morning Prayer in the chapel even when they did not have to. It may be that they “get it.” I hope so.

On the face of it, the Officium, especially as led by a Benedictine (that is, Brother Vincent Ignatius, OSB, my friend) has a certain pedestrian quality to it. There is no excitement. None. Especially in the middle of Ordinary Time. There are no external reasons to be carried up into the heavenly places, as I was in the Dirksen Alleluias.

What one finds instead is Stability. And over time, Conversion of Life. The psalms, the lessons, the prayers… day after day. A rhythm like that of the sun and moon, rising and setting. A river flowing, quiet and calm but irresistible: “On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

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When I returned to my parish church for this day (Tuesday, July 26: the Feast of Joachim and Anna, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary), somewhat in dread of the morning’s impending staff meeting, and what might lie in wait for me in the e-mail in-box, I began, as is my custom and duty, with Matins (Morning Prayer). Most days it is just me. I took my books into the church’s courtyard and began:

I was glad when they said to me: Let us go into the house of the Lord….

O Lord, open thou our lips:
And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise….

We sang these words back at Todd Hall. We rehearsed them with diligence, we sang them in the liturgy. It may appear that I was alone this morning in the courtyard, under a half moon in a clear blue sky, singing the Psalms, reading the Lessons, singing the Creed, the Suffrages, the Collects, in the company of a pair of goldfinches flurrying about, and a dove – a yearling, whose mother hatched him this spring from an egg in the tree right here, outside the Sacristy window.

When one sings or says the Officium, one is never alone. Not least, when I sing Matins and Evensong here in the parish courtyard or church, I renew my connection to the Evensongs at Todd Hall, from this Course and all the Courses of the last score (almost) of years – and all the Courses yet to come, and our monthly Evensongs here in the parish church. I renew my connection to those with whom I have sung, not a few of them now in that greater Light, where the Song is heard undimmed by mortal frailty.

To those of my young friends who may someday read these pages: I commend to you the daily practice of Morning and Evening Prayer. You already know how to do it; it is simply Choral Evensong without the choir. If you wish, you may speak it, as we did in the daily Morning Prayer at Todd Hall. I will observe that it is better if you sing it, and better still to do it outdoors when you can. And better still if you can find a community, however small, to do it with you. That makes the connection to the wider Church more readily visible, as it did last week at the Course. For a few of you, the Officium might become part of a life’s Vocation, as it has for Brother Vincent. But the path is open to all, whatever their state of life.

For the usage of the Episcopal Church, everything you need is in the Book of Common Prayer, a Bible, the Hymnal 1982, and perhaps a Psalter such as the big red Plainsong Psalters on the shelf in our choir room. You can also find most of this in various online sources. There is no special place or time to start; the river began to flow thousands of years ago. Or rather, there is a special place and time to start: Here. Now.

Remember that it will not be exciting. After a while, it will be quite ordinary, like breathing. But remember also before whom you stand, and with whom you are singing and praying. You may not see them or hear them, not in the way that is possible when we are in a Course, but they are there.

“On this rock I will build my Church…”