Coming up

The message you can't hear from either party called ALP

The standard excuse from cabinet

I don't mean to judge, but...

For Bastille day

Faces

Melbourne has a pretty interesting street art scene, and if you wander around you will quickly find a variety of things to see in alleyways and lanes. There seems to be a theme in some of the quieter spots of faces appearing, for example, on an abandoned washing machine.

Or a slightly more improvised effort with the remains of a paint tin.

There are some faces that appear and change form over time, such as this one from a laneway in Richmond.

Music for Sunday

The funny thing about Lent is that it speeds up as the season progresses, but Easter feels much slower. Perhaps there's a kind of rebound action from the intensity of Holy Week. While the Easter season certainly feels a bit more laid back, the Sundays certainly whizz by fast enough.

Since we're getting on in the season, and organ music is back on the menu at CCB, here's what's on the plan for Sunday.

The communion anthem will be

The Lord is my Shepherd -- Howard Goodall

The postlude will be

Praeludium -- Johann Christoph Kellner

Out and about: Easter triduum

The next four days are probably the most intensive period of music-making for the year, with the arrival of the great three days. Here is what is planned for the services at Christ Church.

Maundy Thursday, 8.00pm Mass of the Last Supper

The choir will sing chants from the American Gradual for the Maundy ceremonies.

Good Friday, 10.00am Liturgy

St John Passion -- plainchant
Reproaches -- Thomas Lius da Victoria
Crux Fidelis -- John IV of Portugal
God so loved the world -- John Stainer

In the afternoon I will be playing for Stations of the Cross at St Silas, Albert Park, which will include a performance of the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi.

Easter Vigil, 6.00am Sunday 5 April

Plainsong and organ music.

High Mass, 10.00am Sunday 5 April

Communion Service in F -- Herbert Sumsion
Blessed be the God and Father -- S.S. Wesley
Grand Choeur -- Theodore Dubois

Music for Sunday

This is the last Sunday before Lent, and so the last Sunday where there will be an organ postlude before Easter. Lent brings a change of musical pace, with a more intense program for the choir as the season progresses towards Holy Week.

Here is the organ music for this week.

Recit de Tierce en Taille -- Nicolas de Grigny
Sortie -- Louis James Alfred Lefebre-Wely

The choir will sing an anthem at communion:

The Lord is my Shepherd -- Howard Goodall

Music for Sunday

Last Sunday's services went very well. The evening service was a packed house, and lots of good singing and music-making.

This week will feel a little bit more back to normal. Here is the organ music I have planned.

Trio super Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr [BWV 664] -- J.S. BachMarche Religieuse -- Gustav Merkel

The choir will be singing music by Ted King, who was the organist at Christ Church when the new instrument came in 1972, and C.V. Stanford.

Music for Sunday

Here is the music I have planned for Sunday morning at Christ Church, Brunswick:

Andante and Andante con Moto from Sonata V -- Felix Mendelssohn
Praeludium -- Johann Christoph Kellner

The parish choir will be resuming, and the communion anthem will be It was to older folk -- John Bell

At 7.00pm there will be a special evensong for the commemoration of Charles I. This includes a major address, which is being given this year by Peter Sherlock, vice-chancellor of the University of Divinity.

There will be an augmented choir for the occasion, and the music will be as follows:

Evening Service in C -- C.V. Stanford
O Thou the Central Orb -- Charles Wood
Preces and Responses -- Plainsong
Psalm 85 set by S.S. Wesley

Australia Day thoughts

Why is the Anglo-Celtic identity not considered ethnic?

I've grown up hearing various white-faced folk declaring various degrees of warmth or chilliness to what they call 'ethnics.' At school it was the kids who had caught the semi-white supremacism of the Pauline Hanson moment. I've also heard it on the lips of older people, usually referring to their Italian, Greek, French or Spanish-speaking neighbours. In church circles, 'ethnic' is often the nice euphemism for talking about a congregation that meets at some time other than the main Sunday service where English is not spoken.
Out in society at large, 'ethnic' has moved on from the old signification of asian people, who have been overtaken as a significant Other by different cultural groups, mostly Islamic. White Australian society seems to spend a lot of its public discourse finding a cultural Other against which to identify itself, never once thinking that it is itself an ethnic cultural identity. We are all foreigners, eventually.

The big gongs should be trashed

Reinstating knighthoods into the Order of Australia was Tony Abbott's step through the looking glass. The whole notion of orders of chivalry is risible. But giving one to Prince Philip simply beggars belief. I think there is a strong argument for throwing out the whole honours system as it stands, and starting again by remembering the reasons why the attempt to create an Australian peerage didn't work the first time round.

Reconciliation starts with justice

Constitutional recognition of the indigenous heritage of Australia is probably not going to work out on Tony Abbott's watch. This is a very frustrating and humiliating place for our society to be. Tony Abbott and his colleagues are too invested in the cultural conflict over land rights and pre-European history that the Liberal Party has cultivated over the last 20 years. The current government lacks the cultural vision and the moral centre to do anything more than an empty symbolic gesture. Doing that would be worse than doing nothing.

Here is a better start to the conversation:

In memory of Marcus Borg

Second prize-winners of the world: unite!

Stephen Fry's latest volume of memoirs is proving an entertaining read, even the lengthy chapter re-telling much of the previous two books offers some new sidelights. However, as a perpetual second-placer in every competition I've entered, here's an encouraging nugget:

I once judged a reading competition at Harrow School...I awarded one of the schoolboys, who went by the exotic name of Benedict Cumberbatch, second prize. Second. I cannot remember the name of the boy who won first, but I hope he will suddenly burst on to the acting scene, blow Benedict out of the water and finally vindicate my judgement. Something tells me that the contingency is a remote one, and I shall continue to look upon myself as the fisherman who let the big one go.

More Fool Me (Penguin: London, 2014), 119

Music for the Australia Day weekend

This weekend is the end of the summer holidays. Next week brings the return of the school term, and the slow arrival of ordinary routines.

This is the weekend where I usually break out the Australian organ repertoire, so here is what I have planned.

Melody -- Fritz Hart
Chorale -- Alan Tregaskis
Handel in the Strand -- Percy Grainger

Music for Sunday

Here is the organ music I have planned for Christ Church, Brunswick, this Sunday.

Christe redemptor omnium -- C.H.H. Parry
Praeludium -- J.C. Kellner

Music for Sunday

This week is the Baptism of Christ. Here is the organ music I have planned for the day.

Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam [BWV 684] -- J.S. Bach
Sinfonia from Solomon -- G.F. Handel

Happy New Year