gch : music for reflection

Charlie preached on Genesis 18.1-15, the narrative where Three Visitors appear to Abraham, and he and his wife Sarah invite them to stay and have a meal - typical expected hospitality of the ancient world. It's an annunciation of sorts - Sarah is told by these visitors, despite her old age, she will bear a son. Only an extract of this 25-minute work was used - a short section of vocalise (singing without text). It's music about waiting and turning over the few things that are in your mind - the piece is constructed of different sections, each use patterns made by permutations of 4 notes. In many ways, what the patterns produce are completely predictable, logical and pre-determined - but there is something about the experience of listening to them which is both uncomfortable and reassuring, savouring and also disinterested. It's a quality you find in all Pärt's music from this point, and this work was an important gateway in the formation of his tintinnabuli style. More

Although it's the First Sunday after Trinity Sunday, the Gospel reading was John 6.51–58,  the set reading for the Feast of Corpus Christi (Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion), which falls 10 days after Pentecost (therefore, just the Thursday past). This Anthem (a musical setting of scripture for liturgical use) is by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), who served the courts of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I as a composer and performer and somehow managed to survive. Tallis avoided the religious controversies of his times and was particularly versatile and adept at adapting his style. This anthem demostrates all the desired qualities sought during the protestant reformation: in English (rather than Latin), setting of the text with the natural rhythms of speech and can be heard easily, judicious repetition, a directness of emotion, and measured drama and rhetoric. (Historian Peter Ackroyd however still thinks Tallis was an unreformed Roman Catholic).