Cover image: Cappella Romana at St. Mark’s (Photo courtesy Cappella Romana)
Portland’s Cappella Romana stepped away from its usual programming of Orthodox chant Friday night to sing a concert of music remembering the Armistice of 1918 and what it meant to the survivors. This was not by any means a rejoicing for the Armistice, but nor was it one of sorrow and anguish for the dead and wounded: close to 2 million dead, 23 million injured, some irreparably. Rather it was a somber one of consolation and also of hope for the resurrection of the dead.
“They Are at Rest” was the concert title. Surprising to us perhaps, none of the music, all by English composers, was written in direct response to the Armistice. Indeed most of the words of the songs came from words by writers from centuries earlier, such as the 17th century’s metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan and John Bunyan (an excerpt from Pilgrim’s Progress); the 16th century’s John Donne, Edmund Spenser, and Thomas Campion; and the 19th century’s Robert Bridges and Henry Fothergill Chorley. The latter’s poem, with music by Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan fame, was frequently sung as an anthem at funerals and memorials during those war years. The closing work of the program, this was one of the most moving works performed.
The program was arranged around six pieces, collectively titled” Songs of Farewell,” by Sir Hubert Parry who composed them during the war years and died very shortly after completing the last.
The first one, “My Soul, there is a country | Far beyond the stars” (words by Vaughan) which opened the program, set the tone for the entire evening. Hearing this music exquisitely and expressively sung in the ambiance and acoustics of St. Mark’s Cathedral was already an emotional experience. Parry was used to writing for English choirs with often pure voices and clear harmonies singing in English churches and cathedrals, many with the same type of acoustics as St. Mark’s. The result here was intensely eloquent, perhaps even more so for those of us who grew up in Europe right after WWII with losses surrounding us. The sound of Cappella Romana in this could have come from King’s College, Cambridge.
There was a work by Holst (best known perhaps for The Planets), not written until 1924, and his beautiful setting of the “Nunc dimittis,” in Latin as it was composed for the Catholic Church and first performed in 1915. Elgar’s “They are at Rest,” was commissioned to be sung on the anniversary of Queen Victoria‘s death well before the war, but was applicable and often sung at memorial services held during the war.
Using the speech by Sir Valiant-for-Truth from Pilgrim’s Progress, Vaughan Williams composed his piece during the equally dark war days of 1942. That the whole performance had this feel of immediacy, of feelings close to the surface, and the way the singers phrased each piece with such beauty, was enhanced by the guest director, England’s Guy Protheroe, who with his wife also wrote the program notes.
Although there was no request, the audience applauded only at intermission and the end, allowing the train of the performance to continue uninterrupted. At the very end, as encore, the choir sang, to the words from the Requiem Mass beginning “May perpetual light shine upon them, O Lord,” an arrangement of Elgar’s Nimrod, that dignified work of majesty, awe and closure as it descends at the end to a quiet conclusion.
Poppies, the symbol of the thousands of WWI graves in Flanders, were handed out to anyone who wished to wear one.
