I love sacred choral music – both singing it and listening to it. For me, it’s an integral part of Christmas and Holy Week. I realise that is a bit of a niche choice, but if that’s not your cup of tea (mine’s redbush, by the way) just humour me for a few moments.
Handel’s Messiah is often performed around this time of year, especially in Wales where I spent some of my childhood. My family used to put the record on during dinner and we’d belt out the main choruses. My grandmother, who lived in Aberdare, told me that she always imagined the sheep running on the hills behind her home when she heard “All we like sheep”.
The section of The Messiah that covers the events of Holy Week ends with a huge climax in the Hallelujah chorus. Another of my Welsh grandmother’s anecdotes was about her friend who was known as Mrs Jones Hallelujah, because she sang an extra hallelujah during the electric silence just before the end of the chorus.
Back in 2016 I went to hear the first performance of Stabat Mater by James Macmillan at the Barbican. The Stabat Mater is an ancient poem in Latin about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she stands watching her son suffering and dying on the cross. It has been set to music by many composers. I must admit it doesn’t usually attract me because, in any version, it is inevitably full of anguish, though often touched with moments of tenderness.
However I was at the Barbican on that occasion because my niece was playing violin with the Britten Sinfonia. I have been to many concerts given by that chamber orchestra simply to support her, and I have heard a number of works that I would otherwise not have considered – some astonishing, some hilarious and some indecipherable. On this occasion they were joined by The Sixteen, probably my favourite choir of all time.
So I was open to a new experience but with no specific expectations. By the end of the performance I was in tears. I can’t ever remember being so moved by a piece of music on hearing it for the first time, apart from Elgar’s Cello Concerto. It was quite extraordinary, and I was convinced I had heard a new masterpiece. Others agreed with me; the composer and performers were given a lengthy standing ovation.
In April 2018 something unprecedented happened. The Britten Sinfonia and The Sixteen were asked to perform the work in the Sistine Chapel. The performance was to be live streamed around the world and many thousands tuned in to watch it. Disappointingly the site crashed and the live feed didn’t work, but we were able to catch up with it afterwards.
James Macmillan wrote about that amazing event.
When the musicians began their final rehearsal, there was a palpable sense of delight among them at the incredibly intense acoustic in the chapel. Not for the first time I felt myself in the embrace of something beyond us. Composers and clergy, saints and sinners, ordinary and extraordinary men and women had passed through this space. The performance later was powerful and unrelenting. Under the Michelangelo frescos, including his gigantic painting of the Last Judgment, my Stabat Mater unfolded as one of the most significant spiritual moments of my life.
So, in my niche way, I was very excited to get an email from the orchestra saying that they would be streaming that historic performance again this evening.
Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:
It will be viewable via The Sixteen’s Facebook page at 7.30pm today. For me it will be the most perfect way to commemorate Good Friday.
Update
It should be viewable here from 7.30pm.
Please note
We have been in full self-isolation since 16th March to protect my husband whose immune system is compromised.
If you are in self-isolation then join the Lib Dems in self-isolation Facebook group.
You can find my previous Isolation diaries here.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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28 Comments
I too am a massive fan of choral music! MacMillan, not so much…
What a combination of music and setting !
Thank you, Mary, for this very interesting Good Friday reflection. I like what I have heard of MacMillan’s music, and look forward to listening to his Stabat Mater for the first time.
Hope you enjoy the clip below, Mary. If you ever get the chance get to Hudders in your itinerary and see the Messiah in the Town Hall : tickets are like gold-dust. Very proud of the music tradition in the place of my youth and early politics. Happy Easter.
Elsie Morison:I Know That.Messiah 1959.J … – YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch
Video for elsie morrison huddersfield you tube▶ 19:58
In 1959 Sir Malcolm Sargent recorded his third of four Messiahs in Huddersfield Town Hall with Elsie Morison ..
You might be interested in a recent piece on Jonathan Calder’s website, in which James Mason returns home and looked at the town’s musical life.
James Mason returns to Huddersfield – Liberal Englandliberalengland.blogspot.com › 2020/04 › james-mason-returns-to-hud…
James Mason returns to Huddersfield … This is Home James, a Yorkshire Television documentary from 1972.
Mason made it with help from Alderman Clifford Stephenson, leader of the Liberals on the Town Council at that time.
I have a Music for Pleasure vinyl record of excerpts from the Messiah. I play it every Christmas Eve. “I know that my Redeemer” liveth sung by Annon Lee Silver is absolute magic. Tragic that she died from breast cancer when she was only 32.
David Raw – could you please follow the advice I emailed you about posting links so we can all enjoy them?
Afraid deleted, Mary. Could you please resend ?
Mary, if you go onto the Facebook page of The Academy if Ancient Music and scroll back to the happy days of 3rd December 2019 the Messiah concert from Trinity College Cambridge was lived streamed. You can enjoy the performance of David Blackadder in the Trumpet Shall Sound.
Grand to read your piece, Mary, thank you, and to listen to part of that historic recording of the beautiful Pergolesi Stabat Mater, at the end of this strange Good Friday without any Walk of Witness or three pm meditation in church. Gospel reading and singing In Christ Alone by myself didn’t make much of a substitute. But your Messiah reminiscences brought back many happy memories for me. First of all, singing choruses at home in my family as in yours, both my mother and father and Granny who lived with us being good singers, usually over the washing-up after a Christmas meal! Then, much later, though I sadly missed the Huddersfield experience, going to take part with my Milton Keynes church choir in Sir David Willcock’s Scratch Messiahs in the Albert Hall. And finally, back in Cumbria, having a new tradition of singing the Hallelujah Chorus in the Easter Sunday service with my church choir in Keswick, people from the congregation coming up to join us in a rousing though imperfect performance. Not to be, this Easter Sunday, but we shall have a service filtered through the new magic of Zoom, and I guess join in with joyous hymns. You have at least one advantage of your London residency, access to great live concerts in happier times as well as singing in first-class choirs. Keep safe though in that dangerous city.
For me, one of the great joys of Easter is to go to a live performance of one of the great Bach Passions. Obviously this was not a possibility this year. But yesterday there was a live stream of a performance of the St. John Passion from Bach’s own church – The Thomaskirche in Leipzig. The rules of social distancing were strictly observed – a minimal set of singers and musicians in the church with choruses performing via Zoom. The stark simplicity of the arrangement, the imagination to produce such an innovative solution to the situation, and of course the power and beauty of the words and music – combined to produce one of the most memorable performances I have ever experienced.
My late aunt sang in a choir that performed Handel’s ‘Messiah’ in Leicester before WW2. It’s funny how some pieces stick in the memory, particularly the Hallelujah Chorus, with its refrain; “And he shall reign ……”. Another example might be the line; “And did those feet….” from ‘Jerusalem’. Wonderful, inspiring stuff, which we need in spades at the present time.
Thanks for all your inspirational comments. The link at the bottom of my post to James Macmillan’s Stabat Mater in the Sistine Chapel is still working, though it doesn’t say for how long it will be available. I watched it yesterday evening as planned and it was as stunning as ever.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+sixteen&filters=ufn%3a%22The+Sixteen%22+sid%3a%2225a97324-6a7a-6994-4bd7-dccbefcd49bd%22&form=WNSGPH&qs=MB&cvid=32f84ddf532a44489a8cee7f21142836&pq=The+Sixteen&cc=GB&setlang=en-US&nclid=D19A84F13F0AA22DEE7AE50DDCF460A0&ts=1586596223503&wsso=Off
I have often heard The Sixteen on BBC Radio 3,
but how many members do they have now?
In an office social club quiz I once asked
“What time is News at Ten tonight?”
The contestant was stunned and totally silent, the answer was of course Five past Ten, because of a party political broadcast.
I also asked “In which country was the first atomic bomb exploded?”
The entire audience knew that it was Japan,
whereas the correct answer was USA, it was tested before it was used in combat, and the Japanese Emperor did not know that al three bombs had been used.
There was a wartime cover story that an ammunition dump had exploded.
Conventional bombs had obliterated wooden buildings in Tokyo.
John Marriott 11th Apr ’20 – 9:46am
And did those feet….” from ‘Jerusalem’.
I met someone who believed this was true, although it is only phrased as a question.
Mary Reid:
How about something by Taverner at Easter?
The Orthodox church has much to commend it.
Richard
Popular legend has it that Jesus visited Fowey Cornwall as a child, along with Joseph of Arimathea who was a merchant visiting local tin mines in which he had a commercial interest.
QUEUE
3.Elsie Morison:I Know That.Messiah 1959.J Milligan:The Trumpet.Huddersfield Choral Soc.AMEN.Sargent
lochness11
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3.3K views
3 years ago
In 1959 Sir Malcolm Sargent recorded his third of four Messiahs in Huddersfield Town Hall with Elsie Morison soprano, Marjorie …
Manfarang,
Jesus showing up in a Cornwall tin mine sounds a bit far fetched. Malta, however, has a bay where Saint Paul is said to have been shipwrecked and is named after him. That one I can go along with as the event is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.
Saint Thomas is said, by local Indian Christians, to have landed in Kerala, India in 52 Ad and established a Christian mission in Southern India that remains to this day. This was some 1500 years before Portuguese and British missionaries arrived to bring the word of god to the heathens.
Joseph
The Chaldean Syrian Church of India. According to Syrian Christian tradition, Saint Thomas was allegedly martyred at St.Thomas Mount in Chennai on 3 July in AD 72, and his body was interred in Mylapore.
@Richard Underhill – I love Taverner’s music. What would you recommend for Easter?
@Richard Underhill
And don’t the Mormons believe that Jesus visited the USA before he appeared to his Disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane? I hope he didn’t bring any diseases with him from the Middle East as did Columbus and his crew. Mind you, he was the ‘Son of Gard’, as John Wayne’s centurion famously drawled in ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told”😇😇
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnoBqMDuNTk
At last, I hope.
@David Raw – that works, thank you!
@ Mary Hallelujah !!
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F-VX7L1WK3fg%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3wH4xavwfEInJ-UNtFGDqNJw7h9f9Jnqah3zlvdZi4cmCSgGavT1px8ns&h=AT3hMOhyBVRB1GmBzk2AZkqzXTCMNyDtK4HmR46F2ZoVchLxyE518FVBqj7gEAuiFnEUqWwUiIZ19KCFqlIeca8cxG0nteWHR3ajtJoRcYS5PR2UGkmtmymwXidy2gN-M4FsM_oD89W_whlSYQ
@Roger Roberts – loved your link. An isolation Messiah! People might find this link to it easier:
Joseph
Easter service
Mary:
With time on your hands, you could investigate Liszt’s oratorio Christus. It is remarkable music that I find hard to compare with anything else. The oratorio is very long, so, in these isolating times, I have been listening to it in three chunks. The whole version is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PteHCN8_fHk&t=4s however you can also find it already split into three as well. Different again is his Via Crucis that sounds as though it had been written a century ahead of its time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2-0000P_NI