the choir and music Silence is a great blue bell Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing, In measure’s pleasure, and in the supple symmetry of the soaring of the immense intense wings glinting against All the blue radiance above us and within us, hidden Save for the stars sparking, distant and unheard in their singing. And this is the first meaning of the famous saying, The stars sang. They are the white birds of silence And the meaning of…
Let us bless God for the gift of music O Christ, whose birth was greeted with the song of angels, whose mother sang as she magnified the Lord, and who was greeted in the Temple by the song of Simeon, we bless you for the gift of music. For music which calms our fears, lifts our hearts, speaks to our souls, and takes us beyond words into the presence of your joy. Give us, O Lord, A deeper…
Bach’s contribution to Western imagination and spirituality is immense His is a sounds-world that in its scale and depth accompanies us on a profound spiritual and musical journey. The bass notes travel, often at walking pace, rising and falling, journeying through the narrative with delicacy but with seemingly inexorable harmonic confidence. The melody is horizontal, often based on Lutheran psalm chants or hymn tunes, pointing us always forward in the direction of travel. The harmony is vertical, but again travelling…
A short taster of Lucy Winketts excellent new book: Our Sounds is our Wound The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book by Lucy Winkett Sound is also a powerful metaphor for describing our relationship with God. From the description of Creation in Genesis and the beginning of John’s Gospel, the action of God has been expressed in sound. Trying to describe the beginning of the earth’s life, Jews and Christians have said that God speaks, and Christians offer the metaphor…
After celebrating Christ the King and the end of the Church’s liturgical year I was fortunate again to be able to travel into Birmingham on Sunday afternoon for an excellent 3.00 pm concert. A packed house enjoyed the chamber orchestra of Europe play some Stravinsky. But the highlight of the concert was two extraordinary pieces of Mozart played and directed by Mitsuko Uchida. We were enthralled by two piano concertos (No. 23 in A major) and (No. 24 in C…
Many of my friends are quite prejudiced about Birmingham as a place to work and live. Well, of course, living on the edge of Solihull as I do many of my neighbours and parishioners have little to do with the city of Birmingham! Indeed, you could argue that places like Solihull, and, to a lesser extent Sutton Coldfield, are defined simply by not being Birmingham. While some of the planning and the architecture of the city is understandably rather…