Betjeman for Christmas

For Christmas

Catching the gaze

This is the latter part of a homily I gave at a Christmas service for the Brotherhood of St Laurence last week.

Here you can see the hipster nativity that has been doing the rounds lately. My pondering of this has gone from the initial shock of wise men bearing Amazon boxes on their segways and the shepherd with his iPad, to gradually realising what's going on at the centre of the picture. See Mary and Joseph posing for a photo around the manger. See their radiant look. It reminds me of nothing more than a photo of a friend of mine, a moment of meeting with the newborn baby of another friend: adoration, wonder, awe. This from eyes that are sometimes a bit world-weary, but in this photo those eyes are full of life and radiant gentleness. And the look from the baby to my friend: adoration, trust, wonder. That look is full of pure gift, flowing grace.

Looking at Mary and Joseph in this modern imagining of the nativity, a question comes to me. What is it like to look towards God? Is it like taking a selfie? There’s plenty of smug talk about how the selfie is just the latest indulgence of our basic narcissism, yet more evidence of our need to be the stars of our own long-running media show. I've seen people driving cars while taking pouting photos of themselves -- truly a scary spectacle! Some people seem so driven to seek the camera’s gaze that they cannot sit down to a meal without photographing their food. Surely you've seen it happen. But perhaps behind the camera there is a deeper hunger to be looked on and loved. Even when we are staring down the camera barrel we need someone to return our gaze and look back in love.

How does God's look towards us?

Have you ever sat in a busy cafe next to a baby in a high chair? Have you noticed how the baby will scan the room, looking for someone to return their gaze? Think of how they respond when their eyes meet yours: they smile back, or frown back, or give you that unmistakable quizzical look. A baby searches with unflagging zeal and ingenuity for someone to meet and return their gaze.

This is what God’s looking towards us is like. In Jesus, God with us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, God is looking at us because he cannot take his eyes off us. In the infant Jesus, God comes and looks towards us out of absolute vulnerability and helplessness. And those infant eyes are full of endless engrossing adoration, trust, wonder.

Can we hold the gaze and return with a look filled with adoration, wonder, and awe?

Shadows by the blaze

This is the longer version of the first part of a homily I gave at the Christmas services at the Brotherhood of St Laurence last week. This is the part of the homily that addressed the readings, which are included here, plus some other material that didn't make it to the final cut.

Over the past couple of months I've had the great joy and blessing of coming to the Brotherhood, and to get to know you here.

Just lately it's been a privilege to speak with some people about how Christmas can be a time of mixed feelings. Around all the light and parties perhaps there are those spots of grey, shadows and palpable gaps that remain with us as we travel through the whirl and bustle of the party season. Perhaps we each have people we carry in our hearts whose absence weighs around the edges of the joyful stuff of Christmas — our carols, our food, our beverage of choice, our merry-making. There are people I have loved — and who have loved me, often towards my better self, sometimes very much in spite of my lesser self — where the shadows and gaps of time, distance or death are all mixed in with the blaze of festivity. Perhaps this is true for you.

Our readings today have some striking images of light and dark that help us to hold the festivities and the grey moments together.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onwards and for evermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

(Isaiah 9.2-7) 

Isaiah speaks of people not simply walking in darkness, but deep darkness. Maybe we can imagine it to be like sleepwalking. The promise of light comes in the form of a baby — “a child is born for us, a son is given.” And what a wonderful sequence of names that really describe the gift of light in the present darkness: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. (Can anyone who knows Handel hear this passage without the following coming to mind?)

I think the Gospel of John echoes this very well — the light shines in the darkness, so powerfully that the darkness is itself swallowed up. It looses its power to consume. This blazing light is a person: a person whose very nature is to bridge the gaps in the way people relate to God, and to each other. I think Handel catches this contest between light and dark so well in his setting of the centre of this passage from Isaiah, with his constant walking bass (the people walking in darkness, to whom the child is given) and the radiant setting of the series of titles -- Wonderful Counsellor, etc.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. 

(Matthew 1.18-25)

When we turn to Matthew we see a complicated picture in Joseph’s desire to do the right thing by dismissing Mary quietly — seeking to spare her the pain of public shame. Joseph is a man of heavily mixed feelings: wanting to do right in a situation where he feels wronged when he discovers Mary's pregnancy. I wonder if the gospel writer is being ironic when he describes Joseph as a righteous man just when he is contemplating a very dark, quite unrighteous, action: abandoning a vulnerable woman and her child to a fate that would certainly have spelt homelessness and victimisation. It is very unlikely Mary could have returned to her family after the marriage contract was broken on account of her pregnancy.

When I read this passage I can't help wondering if it could be that the angel appearing in Joseph’s dream was a drastic last stand to change his mind when angelic approaches in his waking hours failed to break through? Looking through the prism of the gospel we would say Joseph was certainly chosen by God to be the protector of Mary and Jesus, and for this reason we revere him as the first protector of the Church. But it remains that the story could have ended very differently and entirely in line with the mores and conventions of the time. Looking through the prism of Matthew's telling of the story we can certainly say that God's choosing Joseph still required his all-to-human assent, his willingness to trust in what God was calling him to do and to join in.

Joseph’s change of heart is a move from darkness to light. And again, the transition is towards a light that comes in the form of a person.

Joseph goes from acting rightly by the worldly conventions of his time and place to doing good in helping God to be present to his people. The good is to protect a baby with a momentous name: Emmanuel, God with us. This is the reason we now revere Joseph as the first protector of the Church. As we read on in Matthew we encounter the magi, and Herod. Joseph's protection is both a means for people to come to Jesus, and a way of helping Jesus to withdraw to a more sheltered place when overwhelming danger comes calling. Joseph's action in taking Mary as his wife is divine because it steps outside the patterns of power and judgement that form so much of how people lived in his world, as much then as now. Joseph shows mercy and loving-kindness when he has the choice to act otherwise. In making the choice towards mercy and loving-kindness, Joseph is displaying the attributes of God in his own life. His life is his witness.

Hail! Bright Cecilia

Quote of the week

...the assumption [is] that religion is a private hobby, basically there to support believers in trouble. In stark contrast stands the world-view shaping, visionary impact of Christian faith...The idea in modern life that 'religion' is a private matter is itself a dangerous one. In failing to accept that everyone lives by faith, out of a vision of living grounded in a world-view -- i.e. is deeply 'religious' -- masks motives, and shuts out the wisdom of the ages, not least those incarnated in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Charles Sherlock, book review in The Spirit Monthly, October 2016, page 8

Train stations

John Silvester has an interesting piece up on The Age today about PSOs at railway stations. It is worth taking the time to read it.
About 20 years ago the state government started withdrawing station staff from the railway network. It was part of a general efficiency drive, trying to save resources in order to soften the operation up for the privatisation that followed. In the years that followed the major contribution of the private operators was the removal of station amenities from passengers -- toilets, most notably, and sheltered waiting areas.
I spend a lot of time on the trains, trams and busses. They are my main way of getting around Melbourne, and on the whole we have a very good transport system, just as long as you're not in a hurry after 7.00pm or trying to catch a bus on the weekend. One of the things I notice is the lack of amenity on all transport modes if you're waiting the 30-40 minutes between busses or trains at night. For example, along the South Morang line most of the older stations have had their waiting areas locked up behind barred gates. Stations such as Jolimont, West Richmond, Rushall, and Northcote offer no sheltered waiting areas, which gives theses stations a rather bleak and windswept feeling on a cold winter's night. They are the most unwelcoming places on the transport network.
This is some of what lies behind my underlying unease and resentment about the PSOs at these stations. They sit in purpose-built huts while the provision for passenger comfort of a century ago sit gathering dust and bird poo. I consider the expansion of 'law and order' policy to the staffing of railway stations to be a complete failure of government. Why can't we just have old-style station staff? Even, perhaps especially, the antisocial types that used to be such a feature of stations like Tooronga?
Another part of my unease comes from the experience of arriving at Birmingham (UK) in July 2007. In the heightened public panic of the days and weeks following attempted bombings in London and Glasgow the armed police presence around public transport was overwhelmingly visible. I remember being shocked at seeing heavily armed and armoured police wandering around the station concourse, and wondering what it meant for civic life to have people walking around with automatic weapons in a public place.
I am sympathetic with the quandary of PSOs having limited power: they have police-like status without being able to fulfil basic police functions. The latter part of John Silvester's article outlines this quite well, and begs the question of why we even need armed security on station platforms at all. It seems to me that improved passenger amenity -- you know, basic things like shelter and toilets -- would make a far greater difference to public perceptions about the transport system. You don't need police-like status to do that.

Rather good

From the Opera Australia 2011 season.

Michael Lapsley

Father Michael Lapsley at the UN speaking on Healing of Memories from Melvin MCCRAY on Vimeo.

Date Palms

There's a major level crossing removal project in progress down on the Frankston line, and one of the incidental works involved in this is the preservation of date palm trees. Here is a quick overview of how they're managing the removal and storage of the trees.

Florence Foster Jenkins

Organ music for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Prelude
An Wasserflüssen Babylon [BWV 653b]– J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

Postlude
Aus Teifer Noth [BWV 686] – J.S. Bach

In the final decade of his life, Bach prepared a collection of eighteen chorale preludes from a body of material originally composed in the years 1710-1714. It is thought by a number of Bach's modern biographers that this was part of a wider project in which Bach created an encyclopaedic body of the chorale preludes in the form of publications (Clavierübung III, published 1739, and the six 'Schubler' chorales, published 1748) and collections in manuscript (Orgelbüchlein, the eighteen 'Leipzig' chorales) which together represented Bach's mastery of the full diversity of styles and compositional techniques for this genre of organ music. In these chorales Bach was engaging in a double retrospective view. First, he was looking back to the compositional methods of previous generations while demonstrating his awareness of newer ideas. Second, he was looking back at his own development as an acknowledged master of his art and selecting what he understood to be his best work.
Today we will hear two chorale settings from this late-life project. Both chorales have a retrospective character by calling for double-pedalling, where each foot plays a fully-developed independent part, which evoked Bach's predecessors in the German virtuoso organ tradition. Each chorale is based on a Lutheran paraphrase from the Psalms, and it is worth noting that these seem to be the only chorales Bach set with a double-pedal part. Another features of these chorale settings is the use of imitative counterpoint, where the accompanying parts prefigure each phrase of the chorale melody before it is played on the solo stop.
An Wasserflüssen Babylon sets a chorale based on Psalm 137, By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Jerusalem. This chorale is an earlier version of the setting in the final copy of the Leipzig chorales, and differs very significantly from the final version included in modern editions. This psalm of exile and lament speaks of the inability of the Jewish exiles to sing the songs of Zion in Babylon, and in Luther's paraphrase it inspired settings from composers prior to Bach that made use of double pedalling: a famous example is a fantasia by Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722), which inspired Bach around the time he composed this chorale prelude. Each line of the chorale is anticipated before the entry of the solo stop, while the steady quaver movement of the accompaniment evokes the flowing water of the Euphrates.
Aus Teifer Noth is based on Luther's paraphrase of Psalm 130, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee. Bach published this setting as part of Clavierübung III in 1739, where it stands at the centre of a series of settings of liturgical and catechetical chorales. Aus Tiefer Noth is cast in six parts, two for each hand and two for the pedals, with the chorale melody placed in the upper pedal part. Each phrase of the chorale is anticipated by the accompanying parts, and leads to a wide variety of melodic shapes that convey the sense of lament, and the passage of the voice of prayer to God.

Organ music for the Third Sunday in Lent

Prelude
Ruhig Bewegt from Sonata II – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Attende, Domine – Jeanne Demessieux (1921-68)

Postlude
Lebhaft from Sonata II – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)


Paul Hindemith was a musician, composer and music educator who lived and worked in Germany, Turkey and the United States of America. Hindemith had an uneasy relationship with the Nazi government – his music was denounced in 1934, and Hindemith was concerned for the safety of his wife, who was Jewish – which led him to seek postings in Turkey (where he established the Ankara conservatorium) and ultimately to emigrate to the USA in 1940. Hindemith wrote three organ sonatas during the years 1937 and 1940, each one expressing his deep affinity with German music traditions. Sonata II explores classical sonata idiom, and has affinities with the style of the late-eighteenth century. The Sonata is cast in three movements, of which we will hear the first two today.
The second movement, Ruhig Bewegt (peaceful but with movement), is an aria. This piece alternates between the manuals, giving contrast between smaller and larger combinations.
The first movement, Lebhaft (lively), which we will hear as the postlude today, has a cyclical pattern where the main theme punctuates the musical rhetoric. While the form is conventional, the harmony is notable for containing numerous unexpected turns. There is a parallel in Hindemith's pattern of modulations in this piece with Bach's St Matthew Passion, where increasingly sharp key signatures mark Jesus' journey to the cross (in German the same word is used for both the musical and religious sign, kreuz).
Jeanne Demessieux was one of the most important organists of the mid-twentieth century in France. After studies with Marcel Dupré, Demessieux went on to hold academic posts in Paris, Nancy and Liège, and held organist posts in Paris at Saint-Esprit (in the 12th arrondissment) and La Madeleine. Demessieux was widely active as a recitalist and recording artist, and like her teacher she was able to play more than 1,000 pieces from memory. It is said that she was challenged to re-learn her entire repertoire in order to play the pedal parts wearing stiletto heels (ie: to play the pedal parts using only toes); Demessieux's technical pieces certainly bear witness to a dazzling technique.
Today we will hear a paraphrase on the Lent prose, Attende, Domine, for which you can find the melody and text in the New English Hymnal (507). In this piece, Demessieux explores the modal possibilities of the chant. The piece maintains a steady texture with five voices consistently present, and the highly contrapuntal compositional method produces surprising clashes that give a sense of tension and release in the inner voices. Demessieux specifies that the registration is the fonds, a combination of stops that has a rich flavour on the instruments she knew (the combination is made up of all the 8' stops, including stops with names such as Flute, Gamba, Diapason/Montre, and Bourdon). Fonds conveys a sense of expansiveness and calm. Here we find a world of surprising possibilities, an opening of the door of mercy.

Organ music for the Third Sunday in Lent

Prelude
Agnus Dei – Frank Martin (1890-1974)

Postlude
Agnus Dei from Messe pour les Paroisses – François Couperin (1668-1733)

Today's organ music dwells on the theme of Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. We are familiar with this phrase in the Eucharist, where it is used as the prelude to our receiving communion: 'Jesus is the Lamb of God...' The pieces we will hear both come from music written for settings of the Agnus Dei movement in the Mass.

Frank Martin was born in Switzerland, the youngest son of a Calvinist pastor. Although he was interested in music from an early age, Martin did not come to formal music studies until he was in his early twenties. Martin's musical language has a mystical character, full of pulsing textures and dramatic power, which can be heard in his transcription for organ of the Agnus Dei from his Mass for Double-Choir. The Mass was composed between 1922 and 1926, during a time when Martin was looking back to the compositional methods of Josquin and Palestrina, and to the rhythmic influences of Indian music as well as contemporary jazz. The organ version of the Agnus Dei conveys this with the steady pulse of the accompaniment, which provides the ground for a melody that has a more jagged rhythmic shape. In many ways this is a musical counterpart to the stylised shape and line of a Byzantine icon, which offers a contemplative focus for the ear.

François Couperin, nicknamed le Grande, was the greatest of a dynasty of musicians who served as organist at the church of Saint-Gervais in the Marais district of Paris from 1656 to 1826. Couperin published his Livre d'Orgue in 1690, containing two sets of organ versets for the Mass, reflecting the different practices of celebrating the Mass in parishes and convents. Couperin’s organ music arose out of distinctive liturgical practices in France, where the plainchant of the Mass alternated each phrase between the choir and the organ. In practice, this meant that the choir would sing the first phrase of the chant and the organist would improvise a verset for the second phrase while the priest recited the text, and so on. This movement is a dialogue on the Grands Jeux, a combination of stops that emphasises the reed colours (stops with names such as trumpet or cromhorne) of the organ, and was intended to take the place of the third petition of the Agnus Dei. The music develops a simple theme to express the sentiment of the text – “Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world: grant us thy peace” – but in the dramatic effect of alternating episodes of quieter and stronger combinations of sound also reflects the influential fashions of music for the stage. With Couperin, we can enter the drama of the liturgy.

Organ music for the Second Sunday in Lent

Prelude
Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit [BWV 669] – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Christe, aller Welt Trost [BWV 670] – J.S. Bach

Postlude
Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist [BWV 671] – J.S. Bach

Today's organ music comes from the third of a series of volumes J.S. Bach published as Clavierübung (“Keyboard Practice”) in time for the Leipzig book fair at Michaelmas, 1739. The third volume is made up of a prelude and fugue, settings of the chorales for the Lutheran mass, and settings of chorales from the Catechism. One of the curiosities of this collection is that every chorale is set twice: once in a large-scale form using older techniques of counterpoint using two manuals and pedal, and then in a smaller setting using more modern idioms for manuals only. In the chorale settings we will hear today, Bach uses composition techniques such as cantus firmus, imitation, fugue, canon, and modal harmony, which look back to the music of Palestrina and Lassus. A further dimension of Clavierübung III is the constant use or evocation of the number three. We know that Bach was examined on the doctrine of the Trinity as part of the selection process that led to his appointment as Cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723.

The three settings of the Kyrie chorale are based on the plainsong Kyrie fons bonitatis (Mass II in the modern Kyriale Romanum). In Lutheran practice the Kyrie was sung as a trope, similar to the way the Kyrie is used as a form of confession today. These chorale settings addresses each person of the Trinity in turn, and this is represented musically through the migration of the cantus firmus through the texture. In Kyrie, Gott Vater the chorale can be heard in the uppermost voice, depicting the transcendent nature of God the Father as the first person of the Trinity. In Christe, aller Welt Trost the chorale moves to the tenor, a musical invocation to the middle person of the Trinity. The third chorale, Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist places the chorale in the pedals, depicting the third person of the Trinity present among the faithful. These chorale settings are in the key of E-flat major (a key with three flats), a further reference to the Trinity, and draw on compositional techniques and influences that looked to older influences, giving the pieces an air of eternity.

In another way, these chorale settings suggest that the divine movement is towards the hearer. We are invited to call on God in the expectation of God's mercy, and the hope of eternity.

Organ music for the First Sunday in Lent

Prelude
O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig [BWV 618] – J.S. Bach
O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross [BWV 622] – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Postlude
Christus, der uns selig macht [BWV 620] – J.S. Bach

Today's organ music comes from a collection called Orgelbüchlein (“Little Organ Book”), in which J.S. Bach composed a sequence of chorale preludes based on hymns for the liturgical year. Chorale preludes are a distinctive genre of organ music that arose out of improvisation practices where the organist embellished a hymn melody to express the sentiment of the text as the preparation for a congregation singing the hymn.

O Mencsh, bewein (“O man, weep for your great sin”) is one of Bach's most elaborate chorale preludes, with its sweeping upper voice and dramatic harmonic turn in the final bars. This piece expresses the pathos and tragedy of the human condition seen in the light of the cross. Albert Schweitzer described Bach's main musical idea in thus chorale prelude as a motif of grief, which has two characteristics: 'to depict lamentation of a noble kind [Bach] employs a sequence of notes tied in pairs; torturing grief is represented by a chromatic motive of five or six notes.' This chorale prelude is very chromatic, and uses musical gestures that would have pressed the organ tuning systems of Bach's day to their limits.

(Ignore the next few sentences if the intricacies of keyboard tuning seems like an impenetrable mystery! NB: The performance linked below was recorded on an instrument tuned to a baroque tuning system, where the intervals are distributed unequally through the octave. This means some intervals, such as thirds and fifths, are more in tune than in modern 'equal' tuning which allows us to play highly chromatic music without the discomfort of screaming dissonance -- but equally, it denies us a strong sense of key colour where this helps to underpin the musical rhetoric.)

Bach was a master of canon, a musical technique where a melody accompanies itself by having a second voice join in at an interval of time. Because it is a very strict form of composition, canon expresses obedience, and two chorale preludes today use canon to express differing types of obedience. O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (“O Lamb of God, unstained”) presents the chorale melody in canon between the pedal and the middle voice of the manuals. The canon is at the fifth, a perfect interval that alludes to Jesus' close relationship with the Father. The first type of grief motif, depicting lamentation of a noble kind, is used to create an accompaniment for the canon. Christus, der uns selig macht (“Christ, who makes us blessed”) presents the chorale melody in canon between the top voice of the manual and the pedals. This is a commentary on the hymn text which presents our obedience to Christ: the leading voice is at the top of the texture, a musical depiction of divinity. The following voice is in the lowest extreme of the texture, the pedals, alluding to our following Christ.

Gerre Hancock improvising

Here is a video I ran across on Youtube. Gerre Hancock was the organist at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Fifth Avenue, New York. Hancock wrote a very fine book on organ improvisation, where he recalled a moment in his early life when he joined Nadia Boulanger's class in Paris:

At the first lesson, I was asked to improvise on a theme of Mlle. Boulanger's choosing, using a simple ABA song form. The A section, of some twenty-four measures' length, when fairly well, as did the B section, of some sixteen measures' length, and built upon an inversion of the A theme. With confidence thus renewed I began to elaborate at greater length, traveling to one key for a diminution of the A theme, back to the sonic for an augmentation of the B theme, changing to yet another key for a diminution over an augmentation, and so forth, each scheme growing in ambition and ornateness. All considerations of time and space were consequently forgotten as the young performer continued to show off, to put it bluntly. After a while, a tap on my shoulder brought the organ playing to an abrupt halt, and Mlle. Boulanger asked this simple question: "Why do you keep playing the organ when the piece was finished some time ago?" After all these years, the great lesson I learned then is as fresh as though I had learned it only yesterday; the considerations of space, balance, and proportion are essential in creating any work of art.

Gerre Hancock, Improvising: How to Master the Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), ix.

Here is the piece that Hancock's improvisation was responding to: