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It doesn’t matter where you are in Great Britain (that is England, Scotland and Wales), you are always within striking distance of the sea. You are never more than 70 miles from it, as the crow flies, to be precise (which, alas, may have precious little to do with Google Maps-, traffic- and road-network-dependent journey times). So it’s natural for this island’s culture to be profoundly shaped by its relationship to the sea and no accident that the secret of the British Empire’s dimensions and longevity was the Royal Navy (not to mention both the spread and abolition of the slave trade). Inevitably, then, the sea looms large in Britain’s musical heritage. Sea Pictures: 5. The Swimmer (Op. 37) Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934, English) Dame Janet Baker (alto), London Symphony, Sir John Barbirolli (cond.) If people have an impression of Elgar at all (by no means guaranteed these days), it is that of a rather stiff, tweedy bastion of the imperial establishment (reinforced by his knighthood). The reality couldn’t have been more different. He always felt like an outsider, the combination of being the son of a provincial piano tuner and because of the Catholicism he learned from his mother. His music constantly seems to ache with a profound melancholy (even when at his most whimsical, as in Enigma Variations). But he also manages to evoke something indefinably British, and even particularly English. Somehow the Sea Pictures (even more than his Pomp & Circumstance marches associated in the US with graduation ceremonies) remind me how embedded my Englishness really is! This is the classic performance with the great Janet Baker, recorded in 1965 in Abbey Road studios (in the months between the Beatles’ recording Help! and Rubber Soul). Classics all! Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes 3. Sunday Morning by the Beach (Op. 33, 1945) Benjamin Britten (1913-1976, English) Royal Opera House Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (cond.) Britten was the greatest British composer of the 20th Century, and arguably the most versatile and creative one since Henry Purcell in the 17th Century. (I know, I know, you were all confused by that, but actually Handel was not English. He settled in London when he was 27 and remained until his death nearly 50 years later; but he was, of course, born German). Britten grew up on the Suffolk coast and never lived away from it for long (apart from 1939-42 when he and his partner Peter Pears lived in the States at the behest of W. H. Auden.) When he came across the book by George Crabbe called The Borough, he was gripped and would write one of his most stunning operas based on it: Peter Grimes. It is set in a village loosely based on Aldeburgh, the seaside town where Britten & Pears lived for over 25 years. The Sea Interludes powerfully evoke the ocean’s unpredictable moods but they have an even greater resonance for me. I spent the whole of the 1980s (my teenage years) growing up only 15 miles away (incidentally, very near to where BBC’s Detectorists was filmed). Fantasia on British Sea Songs (1905) Sir Henry Wood (1869-1944, English) BBC Concert Orchestra, Barry Wordsworth (cond.) If Britten’s Peter Grimes is serious, and even great, music, Henry Wood’s Fantasia certainly is not! It is a string of old sea shanties (sailors’ songs sung to keep them energised and working in sync while they managed the sails). Henry Wood is best known today as the founder (in 1895) of the Promenade concerts that take place every summer in the Royal Albert Hall (now known as the BBC Proms). This is arguably one of the largest music festivals in the world, with 2 if not 3 concerts happening daily for 8 weeks (Covid-permitting!). The Last Night of the Proms is a faintly absurd but fun jamboree, in which Wood’s Fantasia is an annual feature. During its performance, the promenaders (those with standing only tickets who get right in front of the stage) can be relied upon to bob up and down, make silly noises and generally try to put the orchestra off. Sea-Fever (a setting of John Masefield’s poem) John Ireland (1879-1962, English) Roderick Williams (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano) In complete contrast, we now follow a poet daydreaming about why he loves taking solitary cliff-top walks on the coast. John Masefield’s poem is greatly loved for good reason and it has been set to music many times, undoubtedly because of its musicality and onomatopoeic rhythms. This setting by John Ireland (who, ironically enough, was English of Scottish extraction, despite his surname) is heart-meltingly gorgeous and with simply a voice and piano, wonderfully evokes maritime flora, fauna and people. You can find the full text here. Tintagel (1917-19) Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953, English) BBC Philharmonic, Vernon Handley (cond.) On the north Cornwall coast, in the part of the country that stretches out into the Atlantic, sits the small village of Tintagel. It is a beautiful spot and draws tourists from all over the world. The reason (apart from the beauty)? King Arthur, of course! The stunning ruins of Tintagel Castle cling precariously to the cliff-face and it is on this site that Arthur was supposedly conceived (adulterously, after a cunning ruse of Merlin and Arthur’s biological father, Uther Pendragon), born and raised. What a gift to creative minds! Tennyson, Hardy, Anthony Trollope and Edith Wharton were all inspired by visits, as were Elgar and Arnold Bax. In just 15 minutes of orchestral colours, Bax transports us across seas and centuries to a place of magic and wonder. It has it all. Symphony No. 1 ‘A Sea Symphony’ (1910) Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958, English) BBC Symphony, Sir Andrew Davis (cond.) This is a surprising but captivating symphony. It is long (at 70 minutes, it’s RV-W’s longest) and requires not only a large orchestra but also a choir and two solo singers. This is because he was inspired by several sea-themed poems by Walt Whitman around which he constructs the symphony. So here is an American inspiration of a very cosmopolitan symphonic composer but with the result of something that is uncannily evocative of the waters of the North Sea, English Channel, and Irish Sea, despite the composer’s insistence that it has resonance for all sea-faring cultures. And there can be no uncertainty at all about the theme —within the opening seconds, the chorus cries out: ‘Behold! The Sea!’ There are four movements: I – A Song for all Seas, all ships (ca 20 minutes!) II – On the Beach at Night alone (ca 10 minutes) III – The Waves (8 minutes) IV – The Explorers (ca 30 minutes!) That may seem very long and drawn-out. But I can assure you that there isn’t a dull moment! I find a spot of air-conducting hard to resist at various points, even if driving in the fast line of the motorway. That the sea continued to inspire RV-W is clear from his 7th Symphony, which he entitled Sinfonia Antarctica. But that’s to run before walking. There’s plenty to be getting on with before we head to the far south!

The Bard was hardly the world’s first literary giant to dramatize or narrate great historical moments; far from it. But no one was more methodical and systematic about it; none could conceive of such a brilliant and sustained narrative arc as the old Staff-Shaker. It is no wonder, then, that the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) devised The Hollow Crown, a production on a vast scale of his English History plays taking in all the plays from Richard II to Richard III, via the Henriad (namely, Henry IV 1&2, Henry V, Henry VI 1&2). The idea was for character continuity, with those in more than one drama to be played by the same actors (where possible). A triumph of the British and U.S. stage (even features as background to a West Wing episode!). Perhaps inevitably, the concept was then also filmed for a Sam Mendes-led joint BBC/PBS production from 2012. This could never have worked if the plays were merely of academic historical interest. It’s because they are compelling and brilliant, profoundly resonant for power politics still. That is why the history plays have inspired composers almost as much as the tragedies—as this week’s list will seek to prove. HENRY V “Non Nobis Domine” (finale from Branagh’s 1989 Henry V) Patrick Doyle (1953- , Scottish) Crouch End Festival Chorus, City of Prague Philharmonic We start with one of the greatest cinematic Shakespeares, the 1989 Henry V played and directed by Kenneth Branagh while still in his 20s! His go-to composer has always been Patrick Doyle (who often has cameo roles as singers and others). The entire soundtrack is thrilling (if you can track it down; it doesn’t seem to be streamable), epic in scale, altogether enhancing the film’s creative vision. Branagh sought to make this much more of a visceral war movie rather than the jingoistic morale booster that was Olivier’s (of which more in a moment). So, he preserved scenes like the play’s early unmasking of the traitors and did not shy away from the mud and gore of mediaeval battle. This track captures both the joy and sheer relief of victory after the Battle of Agincourt on “Feast of Saint Crispian”! But leaving aside the crude assumption that victory automatically rendered a war’s cause just, the mediaeval mind was ever-conscious of God’s presence and providence. Thus, as the king instructs, the whole cast is led into rapturous praise (using Psalm 115:1 and the ancient Christian hymn, the Te Deum): Henry: Do we all holy rites. Let there be sung Non nobis, and Te Deum, The dead with charity enclosed in clay, And then to Calais, and to England then, Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men —Henry V, Act 4, Scene 8 Incidentally, an old flatmate of mine, Steve, had an American friend studying over here for a while. This chap ended up working quite high up in the G. W. Bush administration, I think, and was as patriotic as they come. But Steve got him to watch Branagh’s film, after which he said, “Now that’s what real patriotism looks like!” At the king’s St. Crispin’s Day speech, he said, “This is making even me feel English!’ A nice irony is that Sir Kenneth (as he now is) never was English in the first place. He’s actually from Belfast in Northern Ireland! HENRY IV 1 & 2 Sonnet to Hank Cinq (from Such Sweet Thunder, 1957) Duke Ellington (1899-1974, American) Duke Ellington & His Orchestra I can almost guarantee you did not expect jazz to follow. But, in fact, the Duke put out an entire album inspired by a 1957 tour stop in Stratford, Ontario that coincided with their annual Stratford Shakespearean Festival (begun in 1952 because of the city’s English namesake where the Bard was born). He and his collaborator Billy Strayhorn created a 12-part suite, for which they devoured the plays and recent Shakespearean scholarship. It’s fantastic and has gone down as one of the great jazz albums, full of variety and invention. I love this track’s title. It says it all. Smooth and cool; and the music is too. After all Henry is very young, a cool cat about town when he is crowned. Prince Hal, together with his old partner-in-crime, the disreputable Falstaff, got up to all kinds of tricks (in the Henry IV plays). And Ellington has caught the bachelor prince’s swagger perfectly. But we know the fun and games cannot last. The prince must grow up if he’s to become king; his leadership will have life and death consequences. Which is why, as we learn at the very end of Henry IV, the young monarch must disown the old rogue with a heart-breaking “ I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.” (Henry IV part 2: Act 5, Scene 5). But as I listen to the piece, this is all far off in the future in Ellington’s mind. For now, the plan is simple: party! RICHARD II Sicut Cervus & “Of Comfort No Man Speak” Paul Englishby (1970- , English) Paul Englishby & RSC; David Tennant Plenty of music originates in the theatre; previous playlists have included some. But with so much on so many stages the world over, it is impossible to keep up. Most gets performed during a predocution then disappears. So I’m glad that the RSC records much of the original music for their shows. Here is a track from their recent production of Richard II. It is a choral piece, a setting in fact of Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for streams of water…” The king’s right to rule is a divine one and so it is an entirely appropriate accompaniment for one who derives his authority from heaven. Yet one of Shakespeare’s key concerns here is what makes a reign effective. Richard is too weak and irresolute to manage it. We watch him fatally make an enemy of Bolingbroke (son of the powerful John of Gaunt). As scholars have noted, Bolingbroke seems to have learned from Machiavelli’s The Prince (it first appeared in translation less than a decade before Shakespeare wrote Richard II). Richard is left flailing, losing his mental equilibrium as his power dwindles (David Tennant’s recital of the glorious Hollow Crown speech brings that out superbly). Bolingbroke seizes the throne, crowned Henry IV, prompting a toadying courtier to murder Richard, confined at Pomfret Castle. Englishby’s setting of Psalm 42 is extraordinary. It is eerie and unsettling, as apparently other-worldly as the rightful king. The (extremely) high soprano leaps and jumps serve to deepen that unease. A lesson perhaps that heavenly devotion rarely results in earthly success or power. RICHARD III Richard III: A Symphonic Poem (Op. 11, JB 1:70) Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884, Czech) Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar (cond.) Richard is the king everybody loves to hate and every actor loves to play. If you got hooked on House of Cards (whether in the original UK series with Ian Richardson or the U.S. version with Kevin Spacey), you’ll have been transfixed by the times when the lead stares straight into the camera to explain his thinking. Or perhaps to justify himself. It’s known as breaking the fourth wall and done well, it can be incredibly powerful. But Shakespeare’s villainous ruler is the one who perfected the art. The Crookback Richard frequently takes the audience into his confidence; we thus become complicit. I’ve seen a few Richards over the years, but I’ll never forget Spacey’s in London years ago. I bet it was this that inspired him to get House of Cards made. Here is Richard’s opening speech, while still only Duke of York: Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate, the one against the other; And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mewed up. —Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1 Smetana was a great Czech patriot and nationalist (his Má Vlast/My Fatherland is superb), so he isn’t perhaps the first composer one would expect to write about an English king. But he was clearly greatly taken with Shakespeare, and wrote music inspired by Twelfth Night and Macbeth as well as Richard III. In this single movement piece, we can hear Richard’s stealth and skulduggery from the very start. If Bolingbroke introduced Machiavelli’s wicked pragmatism to the English throne, Richard, Duke of York perfected it. ANTONY & CLEOPATRA The Death of Cleopatra (Op. 40, 1966) Samuel Barber (1910-1981, American) Esther Hinds (soprano) & Jeffrey Wells (bass), Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Christian Badea (cond.) Shakespeare, of course, was hardly restricted to English history. He was fascinated by Athens and Rome too, and his Antony and Cleopatra came eight years after his Julius Caesar. Both qualify as tragedies, as do Macbeth and Coriolanus despite their historical origins (though Coriolanus is now regarded as legendary). But as so often, great art is impossible to categorise. Samuel Barber is best known for his ethereal, melancholic Adagio for Strings (sometimes in its choral form, Agnus Dei). But he is by no means a one-hit-wonder! He was commissioned to write an opera for the Met in New York and so his Antony and Cleopatra (with text by none other than the great Franco Zeffirelli) was premiered in 1966. Unfortunately, it was a flop and closed after eight performances. It has subsequently been revised and has found new audiences. I only discovered it while researching for this playlist but was knocked sideways by its climax, the Egyptian Queen’s suicide. This too is eerie and dark, as befitting a story set in an alien and unimaginably remote world. HENRY V Henry V Suite (1944) Sir William Walton (1902-1983, English) Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir William Walton (cond.) (1963 recording) And so it’s back to Hank Cinq. The world was at war in 1944. The UK was no longer alone, now that Hitler had turned on his erstwhile ally Stalin, and the U.S. had been propelled into the fight by Pearl Harbor. But England’s morale had been battered and bruised like its Blitz-beaten cities. (Though we should never forget that the Allies would drop as many bombs on German cities in a single night as London suffered during the entire war). Who better to bolster the country’s resolve than the national poet himself, and which better character to turn to than Henry V, the king who sailed across the English Channel—known by the French as La Manche, or The Sleeve, a fact I’ve always found rather impertinent myself, but you can’t have everything—to claim a heroic victory? And who better to portray him than our finest thespian (at least, as far as he was concerned), old Larry Olivier himself? We won’t make too much of the fact that the enemy in question is French, because the Free French were our allies (sadly, the bard didn’t really anticipate a German foe). So as already hinted, the film clearly had propagandistic purposes (hence no traitors’ scene—we don’t really need reminding of that possibility now, do we?). And the fighting scenes are gripping but highly stylised and glory-focused. Olivier commissioned Walton to compose the soundtrack and he pulled off a masterpiece in its own right. His score wonderfully captures the film’s heroic spirit and few did more than Walton and his contemporary Ralph Vaughan-Williams to evoke what we now assume to be the sound of the late mediaeval and early Tudor periods. As you listen to it, even without seeing the movie, I’d be surprised if you failed to envisage scenes of chivalrous knight jousting and beautiful maids sorting fragrant herbs, spied through a blur of lead-latticed windows. Walton’s score became a kind of Hollywood template for the Middle Ages! The five movements in this suite (devised specifically for concert performances, of which there have since been thousands) are utterly compelling and exciting. A little teaser as I wrap up. I wonder if you can spot Walton’s musical inspiration for the 4th movement (“Touch her soft lips and part”—depicting the scene where Pistol and his fellow foot soldiers say farewell to his wife to leave for France)? Hint: we have had it in a recent playlist… Bonus extra: Henry V contains one of my favourite lines about tennis balls in the history of theatre.

Picasso said (allegedly), ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal.’ Well, knowing a little bit about him, he probably stole it. Or was that Banksy? Anyway, the point is simple. Every creative person is forced to engage with the past, whether they like it or not, whether conscious of it or not. None of us lives in a vacuum. However, a problem arises because none of us can identify every single influence on us. What we sincerely believe to be innovative or peculiar to us might instead be a half-remembered, half-regurgitated soundbite picked up from a talk show while passing through a department store TV showroom. Or something. The ‘genius’ in Picasso’s quip is one who not only knows exactly where they steal from but also how to use it to make something truly innovative. Many presume that the worlds of symphonic halls and Music Halls of Fame are separated by light years of mutual ignorance and other cultural barriers. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Scratch the surface and there is much more overlap—or ‘cross-over,’ to be completely on-trend—than you might realise. Stealing proceeds with abandon. So here are a few fun examples (though not all are successful, in my view!). One of your go-to whistles just might have a far grander pedigree than you knew. Adagio Cantabile, Sonata No. 8 in C minor (Pathétique, Op. 13) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827, German) Alfred Brendel (piano) The thief: Billy Joel on “This Night” (An Innocent Man, 1983) This is one of only a tiny handful of Beethoven sonatas that I learned in its entirety back in the day—and was utterly depressed when I went back to it last week after a gap of too long. Arhghgh. My left hand? Practically useless now. Oh well. It’s just as well the likes of Alfred Brendel made such great recordings. I find the whole of this sonata overwhelming (in a good way). Pathétique does not mean what you might assume. Beethoven is not declaring that this is a useless attempt at a composition; rather that it is full of pathos. It is heart-breaking. And that is especially true of this, the central of the three movements. It is no surprise that it has found its way into hymn books and psalters, funeral marches and, here, Billy Joel, no less. You think Billy’s just going down the tried-and-tested doowop road, and he does it pretty effectively. And then all of a sudden, he bursts into Beethoven in the chorus with ‘This night…’ To be honest, I’m not entirely convinced on this one—but you have to admire the pluck. Evidence of the rule (first coined by J. I. Packer, of the Christian gospel, I think) “To add [to it] is to subtract [from it]”. Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D (BWV 1068) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750, German) Gottfried von der Goltz, Petra Müllejans (violins), Freiburger Barockorchester The thief: Procul Harum - A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967) I don’t think Bach had much time for skipping light fandangos or turning cartwheels across floors—but it’s certain he would have felt pretty seasick if he had. But this ‘Air,’ which is gorgeous in its own right, inspired one of the weirdest and most successful singles of all time (vying with “Bohemian Rhapsody” on both counts). 10 million copies is not to be sniffed at. An ‘air’ might be a song (as in an anglicised form of an operatic ‘Aria’), or it could be a song-like composition, in that it might have the structure and melody of a song but without texts. (Mendelssohn would compose nearly sixty, which he called ‘Songs without Words’). So perhaps this is why Procul Harum’s ingenious appropriation of Bach’s work seems so much more convincing than Billy’s Beethoven burglary. But one thing we can state categorically: that brilliant believer in Leipzig had no need of narcotics to express his genius—it’s a moot point whether or not Procul Harum could have done so without them! The creation, though, seems to have gained many identities since its composition. It is much beloved of adolescent boys who find its alternative title (‘Air on a G String’) eminently snigger-worthy. For whole swathes of the British population it is indelibly linked with Hamlet cigars. For decades (probably) it was the soundtrack to many adverts depicting people finding themselves in awkward scrapes for which the only possible solace can only be a cigar. Trying to leave all of that to one side is tricky. But try. Because it is an exquisite piece of music in its own right. ‘Vesti La Giubba’ (‘Put on the costume’) from Pagliacci (‘Clowns’) Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919, Italian) Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), National Philharmonic Orchestra, Giuseppe Patane (cond.) The thief: Queen It’s a Hard Life (The Works, 1984) This is the only opera that Leoncavallo is known for today, and it is nearly always performed with the one that inspired it, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavallieri Rusticana. Neither is full length and both are in Italian and composed just a couple of years apart, so the combination is tried and tested. (By the way, to bluff your way with opera buffs, just wax lyrical about the last time you saw and were ‘utterly transported, darling’ by ‘Cav and Pag’.) This aria concludes the first act and is sung by Canio the Clown in his dressing room, just after discovering his wife’s infidelity. He is devastated but ‘the show must go on’ and there’s a paying audience out there. So, he forces himself into costume and make-up—the archetypal cheery clown who masks internal despair. Pavarotti shows how it’s done. But then, unsurprisingly (to us now especially if you’ve seen the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic), so does Freddie Mercury. Queen had referenced Pagliacci in their 1975 A Night at the Opera album, but in this song, they go full-on diva-fest (just dig up the song’s official video). Thematically, the song is entirely in harmony with Leoncavallo’s, which probably explains the success of this appropriation. As well as the fact that Freddie always was a diva-cum-tortured-clown himself… Prelude No. 4 in E Minor Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849, Polish) Martha Argerich (piano) The thief: Radiohead Exit Music For A Film (OK Computer, 1997) Chopin was a pianist of unique ability, both as a performer and composer, and his output prolific. Before his death at 39, he wrote nearly 250 individual pieces for piano, many of which are almost universally recognised as masterpieces. The 24 Preludes was Chopin’s homage to Bach, who himself had written 24 Preludes and Fugues. Why 24? Well, think of a piano. Take any note at random and then then go up the keyboard a perfect fifth at a time (in other words, 7 semitones, an interval fundamental to all western music). Keep doing this and you’ll find you eventually cover all 12 notes in a western scale. Since the two most common scales are the major and minor, when you combine them, you get a total of … woah… 24 different scales (or key signatures). Why Preludes? Fair question. In Bach they clearly prefaced the fugue written for each key. For Chopin, we can only imagine; as far as we know each is just a prelude to the next prelude…! But they are basic works in every professional pianist’s kitbag. And as well as presenting all kinds of challenges and difficulties (like most of Chopin—I can’t really play any of it properly), they are just toe-curlingly, exquisitely sublime. But even though I knew them well (or thought I did), and despite being in awe of Radiohead since being hooked on The Bends in 1995, I really didn’t catch the dodgy dealing with this OK Computer track. I had a niggling sense of familiarity but thought little more of it. Until I read something a few years later which exposed the theft. And what a superb job it is too. I think Frederic would have been happy (though the singing style would not perhaps have been to his taste). But what do I know? Allegro Molto (3rd movement), Symphony No. 5 (Op. 82) Jean Sibelius (1865-1957, Finnish) London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (cond.) The thief: Strawberry Switchblade Since Yesterday (1985) I can’t claim to be a big Strawberry Switchblade fan. In fact, I remembered their name and the fact that they were an English 80s girl band and that was it. Everything else I had to Wiki—including the fact that they were actually Scottish and just a duo. But I vividly remember hearing this song come on the radio and being totally gripped. Well, I was only 15. I suggest you listen to that first, before the symphonic movement. It wasn’t the song itself, but that synth brass intro. There was something about the intervals and joy it expressed. Listening to it now (for the first time in perhaps 30 years), it seems like classic disposable 80s pop. For which I’m now… well… meh. I didn’t know about Sibelius, Finland’s greatest composer, then. But Strawberry Switchblade did. And they stole from him, lock, stock and chord-sequenced barrel. At least, they preserved the composer’s orchestration for that sequence. Sort of. But once you get to know the Symphony as a whole, and this movement in particular, you’ll hopefully see why Sibelius’ triumphant score needed nothing extra. Strawberry Switchblade perked up my ears, so I’m grateful to them for that. But in all honesty, they did so by gilding the lily. If you didn’t know it, I hope the symphony grows on you, and in time, you come to see why his 5th is one of my favourite symphonies by anybody ever. And ever since I’ve known it, the temptation to ‘air conduct’ (even while driving) is overwhelming. Getting the final bars right is fiendishly tricky… but go on… resistance is futile. Lieutenant Kijé symphonic suite (Op. 60, 1934) Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891-1953, Soviet/Russian) Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado (cond.) The thieves: Sting “Russians” (The Dream of the Blue Turtles, 1985) Greg Lake I Believe in Father Christmas (1975) Soviet cinema inspired some remarkable soundtracks. For all its propagandistic value (to its state commissioners), some wonderful music was produced. As I mentioned in #4, the more you get to know early 20th Century orchestral music (and Russian particularly), the more you hear the roots of modern Hollywood soundtracks. At the forefront of that extraordinary wave of creativity was Sergei Prokofiev. His score to the Eisenstein film Alexander Nevsky is stunning in its own right (written four years after the one in focus here). But Lieutenant Kijé was Prokofiev’s first film score and it is brilliant. He drew together the key elements into a concert suite of five movements for orchestra. The film is a biting satire about a bureaucratic slip of the pen that creates a fictitious soldier and thus exposes the idiocy of Tsarist rule along with the trembling courtiers too compromised or corrupted to speak truth. The political resonances haven’t exactly disappeared… Prokofiev captures the wit and pathos of the story beautifully. As a result, this little suite is one of his most popular works; you’ll probably recognise all kinds of moments. Both Sting and Greg Lake do grand jobs of incorporating Prokofiev’s music (from the 2nd and 4th movements respectively) without the remotest sense of contrivance. The Emerson, Lake and Palmer song is great (though I love Bono’s cheeky lyrical tweak in the U2 cover). But I remember being very affected by Sting’s song when it came out. The Cold War was still officially on the cusp of becoming hot and one half of the world threatened to nuke the other into oblivion. For a glibly cocooned western teenager, the notion that people in the Soviet Union might actually love their children seemed revelatory… Finally, a quick bonus. You will know, I’m sure, Pachelbel’s (in)famous “Canon in D.” Even if you didn’t know its name. The reason? Because it crops up everywhere. And I mean everywhere. This is has done the rounds, but I still love it. Rob Paravonian’s Pachelbel Rant (disclaimer: there are a few not-safe-for-work words, but in the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll empathise)

Here’s the dilemma: you’re desperate to get a message out, but only to the right people. It’s imperative that the wrong people don’t hear it. So, what options do you have? How do you ensure it gets hidden in plain sight? Well, for those with ears to hear, music is the perfect medium. Forget about codenames, dead-letter-drops and Moscow rules (although friends well know I’m a sucker for good spycraft). Barlines and key signatures offer up even better possibilities. Overture, The Magic Flute (K. 620) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791, Austrian) Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Claudio Abbado (cond.) Now, the first rule of Freemasonry club is (obviously) don’t tell a soul you’re a member of Freemasonry club. It’s Freemasonry 101. And then, whatever you do, you must never, ever, reveal Freemasonry Club secrets. But Mozart had an irrepressible and subversive impishness. He just couldn’t help himself, it seems. Conspiracy theorists (akin to those hooked on Peter Schaffer’s ingenious but seriously speculative play, Amadeus) will insist that the great composer’s untimely death (he was only 35!) was somehow masonic retribution for his indiscretions. That’s nonsense. And yet, the provocations in his final opera, The Magic Flute, must have infuriated fellow Lodge members. We’ve already heard one of my favourite moments in the opera (see 5&1 playlist #7). But now it is time for the overture. The house lights are dimmed but the stage curtain is still closed; the orchestra briefly has our exclusive attention as it heralds the imminent drama’s big themes. Now let’s face it, the story (written by Wolfgang’s friend and fellow Mason, Emanuel Schikaneder) is just plain silly. Just skim the wiki synopsis, if you need convincing. But it is brimming with all kinds of masonic tropes—such as solemn initiation ceremonies, priestly hierarchies and ancient Egyptian symbolism. Which is very strange since Mozart regarded membership of the Viennese lodge as far more significant than offering networking opportunities. He apparently bought into its philanthropic humanism. So, what on earth was he thinking to lacing the opera (and especially the overture) with masonic symbols and scenes? For example, listen out for the many types of 3, and the 3 x 3s. They just loved their symbolic numbers, the masons. Then after almost a minute, you’ll hear a fugato (a hurried fugue), whereby voice upon voice piles in to create an urgent, stunning whole: representative of the masonic ideal of the universal brotherhood of humanity. One might even think Mozart was relishing the chance to let the secrets out of the bag. Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV248) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750, German) Hilary Hahn (violin) Something that marks classical composition out from, say, jazz improvisation or a band’s work in the studio on a new album, is the desire to make performance replicable in some way. Why else try to capture it on paper, for all the many shortcomings of dots, scratches and accidentals? How else can it be performed again? But those dots and scratches offer the secret messenger other opportunities as well. The conventions of musical notation have little to do with the ‘sound’ of those notes, per se. There is nothing about 440hz (so-called ‘concert pitch’) for example, that means it must be called ‘A’ above ‘Middle C.’ It is just the convention. Because letters of the alphabet are used, the scope for codemaking fun is endless. And Bach knew it. He scatters his ‘musical signature’ across his works. Now, for reasons best known to themselves, German notation doesn’t exactly follow anglophone convention (weird, huh). Confusingly, what we call B flat, they call B; what we call B (or B natural) they call H. But look! Hey presto! Bach can now sound out the letters of his surname. Bach’s solo string compositions are demanding on the ear, especially if you’re not used to them. The solo cello suites are perhaps an easier way in, not least because of the popularising efforts of Yo-Yo Ma and others. But try to ‘hear’ the orchestral accompaniment that Bach is hinting at throughout, even at those moments when only one note is sounded at a time. The Chaconne (all 17 minutes of it) is breath-taking because so much is hinted at with so little. Then, on top of that, some powerful coding is taking place. As well as using the motif of his own name, Bach includes other elements. The use of the key of D minor was a common convention among composers to connote death and defeat; and that was fitting, because Bach’s beloved first wife, Maria Barbara had recently died. He is in mourning. But halfway through the Chaconne, it shifts into D major—symbolic of triumph and overcoming. And so on and so on. I’ve not even mentioned the complexity of its mathematical structures (mainly because I don’t understand them) and its profoundly Christian theology. Yehudi Menuhin called the Chaconne “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists.” Joshua Bell has said the Chaconne is “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.” In that famous experiment of him busking at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington DC rush-hour, this is one of the pieces he played. Largo, Quartet No. 8. (Op.110) Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich (1906-1975, Russian) The Fitzwilliam Quartet Many composers after him would incorporate the B-A-C-H motif as a kind of homage to the master. Many also played around with the musical notations of their own names. Shostakovich did it frequently in his symphonies and concertos, for example. It’s a kind of autobiographical marker, suggesting that he himself inhabited the emotional force of a particular musical moment. The added ingredient necessary for understanding this one is the fact that E flat in German notation is called Es (rhyming with Bess)—hence written as S. Now, for Soviet composers, work really was a matter of life and death. And after decades of resisting pressure to join the Soviet Communist Party, Shostakovich finally relented. The self-loathing and despair that this prompted crushed him. And he poured it out in the 8th String Quartet, of which this is the opening movement. It is melancholy, dark and despairing… but exquisite. Each of the quartet’s movements contains the DSCH motif—but it is most obvious in the opening bars precisely because each instrument sounds it in turn in a fugue. Heart-breaking. Danny Elfman (Simpsons and Hollywood composer) described the 8th Quartet as “Simply one of the most beautiful, exquisitely sad, and soulful pieces of music I’ve ever heard.” But the most telling insight about it comes from this little anecdote which I included in my 2019 Hutchmoot seminar: Two years after the work’s premiere, in 1962, the Borodin Quartet played the work to the composer at his Moscow apartment, hoping for constructive criticism. Instead, Shostakovich buried his head in his hands and wept, at which the musicians decided that the best thing to do was pack their instruments and creep away. —How Shostakovich Changed My Mind, Steven Johnson Inspector Morse theme (full version) Barrington Pheloung (1954-2019, Australian) Original Soundtrack Now for something completely different. It is the mid-1980s and you’ve been commissioned to compose the music for a brand-new British detective show. It’s going to be set in and around Oxford and each episode will last two hours and draw on cinematic production values. Oh, and the copper in question is an opera-loving, cryptic crossword fanatic but curmudgeonly old goat called Morse. What do you do? Well, you incorporate Morse code into it, obviously. And, for good measure, spell out Morse’s name in code. So instead of tonal messaging, this is rhythmic. But what’s more—and this is the part that I really love—Pheloung occasionally beats out the killer’s name in the soundtrack halfway through; or he might throw in another character’s name purely as a red herring. Brilliant! But to top it all, it is a superb piece of music, perfectly capturing the show’s pathos and melancholy as the end credits roll. Allegro non troppo, String Sextet no. 2 in G (Op. 36, 1864-5) Johannes Brahms (1833-1897, German) The Amadeus Quartet, with Cecil Aronowitz (viola), William Pleeth (cello) Brahms never married. His life was dedicated (like so many other great composers before or since) to a relentless pursuit of musical creativity. But more than that, one might say he was unlucky in love. Or rather, fell for women who were unattainable, for whatever reason. Most famously, he adored Clara Schumann, wife of his good friend Robert Schumann, both of whom championed his music. And then there was Agathe von Siebold. Into this gorgeous piece of chamber music, one full of passionate intensity, Brahms smuggles his burning love, using A-G-A-H-E. They had actually been engaged in 1859, but for various reasons, it was called off. Here he is six years later and still agonised. Enigma Variations Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934, English) Hallé Orchestra, Sir Mark Elder (cond.) So here at last is the whole point of creating this list! Elgar wrote this theme and variations as a way of honouring his most precious friends, and it was dedicated “to my friends pictured within.” Each variation is given headed with a set of initials, so there is little mystery about identifying them. He is a little more opaque with a handful, though. CAE (I) is (Caroline) Alice Elgar, his devoted wife—the wistful musical fragment (of just four notes) in this variation was what Elgar would whistle whenever he arrived home! Ysobel (VI) is for his violin pupil Isabel Fitton, and the opening bar includes a phrase that crosses over the strings and is therefore quite difficult for the beginner; but it is glorious in its sense of musical yearning. Nimrod (IX) is perhaps most famous. It depicts Elgar’s great publisher and musical champion, Augustus Jaeger—it is obvious how indebted he felt to Jaeger by the exquisite pathos of the various. And the name is a play on words: Jäger is German for hunter, and Nimrod was of course the mighty hunter of Genesis 10:8. EDU (XIV) is actually a self-portrait. Edu was Alice’s nickname for him and the variation incorporates elements of both Alice’s and Jaeger’s variations, depicting them as his two most significant influences. None of this is especially enigmatic, however. So where is the enigma? Elgar himself wrote, “The Enigma I will not explain—its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played… So the principal Theme never appears…” He took the ‘solution’ with him to his grave and while ingenious suggestions have been made, nobody has cracked it… But what keeps me repeatedly returning to this piece is its exuberant joy in friendship. Each portrait is so distinct and alive. Each one clearly contributes so much to the composer’s life. And each time I find myself reflecting in deep gratitude on what each of my own friends bring. Elgar’s Enigma somehow encapsulates for me precisely what C. S. Lewis was getting at in his reflections after Charles Williams’ death: In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald… In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have. —C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

If the challenge behind last week’s 5&1 was the relative scarcity of music to fit the topic (although perhaps not as rare as some might assume), this week’s is the opposite. Christmas has inspired composers to reach new heights for centuries. There’s just too much. So, I’ve tried to pick out a few items that will be very familiar to choral enthusiasts but less widely known. I can leave you to enjoy the profound wonders of Messiah by Handel and the iconic nine Lessons and Carols from King’s Cambridge for yourselves (although several of these will have undoubtedly appeared in the latter over the years). Christmas Oratorio: 1:1 Jauchzet, frohlocket! Auf, preiset die Tage (BWV248) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750, German) Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Stephen Layton (cond.) The events of that first Christmas were deeply puzzling. I suspect that none of those involved really understood what was going on. Indeed, it would take Jesus’s own mother at least three decades. What those first on the scene would have grasped, however, is the grounds for joy. Joy at the miracle of a new life. That’s a source of wonder every single time, in itself. But 2,000 years ago, it was so much more. This was a miraculous new life who would usher in new life for all, including those not yet alive. Bach opens his Christmas Oratorio (in fact, his own combination of several cantatas—see 5&1, Part 8 on Advent) with an evocation of the angels calling the shepherds. With rousing drums (anyone who complains about drums in church would need to take the matter up with the great JSB first) and glorious brass. This is eighteenth-century music to get people off their backsides and into town to see the newborn. Incidentally, cast aside images of stables and cowsheds—if you want to know what really happened at his birth, check out this post from my friend Ian Paul, a fascinating NT scholar. Hodie Christus Natus Est (FP 152) François Poulenc (1899-1963, French) Cambridge Singers, John Rutter (cond.) So, you’ve trekked from your sheep paddock into the seething metropolis that wasn’t Bethlehem, and what do you find? What’s the big deal? This brief burst of unaccompanied choral exuberance from the quirky but brilliant François Poulenc informs us, setting the Latin text of a seasonal Gregorian chant. For this baby is actually a king. No newborns, even royal ones, have much to set them apart from others, regardless of proud parents who insist otherwise. They’re always very needy, with unrestrained combinations of bodily functions to which all but the most parentally biased will go, ‘Ewww’. And I have little doubt that Jesus bar-Joseph was the same. For he was fully human, fully enfleshed. He was one of us. And yet, he is also the Christ—God’s yearned-for King, for whom all heaven rejoices. And I’m sure this eternal joy will have even some echoes at least of Poulenc’s Alleluia… O Magnum Mysterium (1994) Morten Lauridsen (1943- , American) Chamber Choir of Europe, Nicol Matt (cond.) But that’s just the start. There are depths to the significance of this birth that we will never plumb. And this track takes another Gregorian chant text for Christmas to lead us in meditation on those depths. For it is not just the Christ who has been born, but the Lord: Latin ‘dominum,’ Greek ‘kyrios’ / Hebrew ‘adonai.’ It is the latter which the Old Testament regularly uses as a substitute for Yahweh / YHWH / Jehovah, the revealed name of God, deemed (by tradition but not scriptural warrant) too holy to utter. For yes, this is the claim. Yahweh has been born. Remember, in the bible, a mystery is not something spooky or scary (necessarily) but something only God knows, and therefore something only God can reveal. Because he’s God, mysteries tend to shock and surprise. So, the fact that animals witness this caper is only the start. A great mystery indeed. Listen out for Lauridsen’s sublime articulation of the words’ varied emotional force. This birth is far greater than anything the world had seen or ever will see. Yet its joys, that in this setting seem to unfold and escalate organically, would still be pricked by pain, a pain which only a grieving mother could truly know. Stars ‘Alone in the night’ (2011) Ēriks Ešenvalds (1977- , Latvian); text by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933, American) Voces8 This one isn’t a carol at all, per se. And the fact that the composer and Latvian Baptist seminary graduate uses water-tuned wine glasses to accompany the choir makes this quite unusual! But the very last lines of Sara Teasdale’s gorgeous text tie perfectly into the themes we have considered, not least because the experiences she evokes would have been experienced by all that first Christmas, but with even greater wonder. Those of us who live in or near cities are denied them by pesky light pollution. But this, for me, superbly evokes the true light-bringer, the one (famously described by Graham Kendrick) who with “hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered.” Legend (‘The Crown of Roses’) (1883) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893, Russian) The Queen’s Six This precious miniature by the great Russian composer gives us further insight into a mother’s concern as she watches her son grow up. The original poem was written by the American Richard Henry Stoddard, translated into Russian in the 1870s, and it was this that caught Tchaikovsky’s imagination. It tells of an imagined incident in Jesus’ childhood, when he is found by a group of children in his garden. They mock him for the roses he cares for and from which he makes garlands. When they decide to make their own crown for him, stripping theirs of petals but leaving the bare thorns, it spoke truer than they could have known. A Ceremony of Carols (Op. 28, 1942) Benjamin Britten (1906-1976, English) Westminster Cathedral Choir, David Hill (cond.) Several months before the outbreak of the Second World War, Britten and his partner Peter Pears left Britten for the United States. They were committed pacifists and could see the storm clouds of war building. But on the back of English incomprehension and hostile reviews of his music, they were encouraged by the American reception their friends W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood had enjoyed. Once war broke out, the UK embassy in Washington urged them to remain as ‘artistic ambassadors.’ In the end, after some of the darkest years of the war, they felt they must return and set sail in 1942. It was while onboard that Britten started writing this glorious piece—a collection of eleven movements, with words mainly taken from the English of Chaucer and a bit later. It is unusual—set just for treble voices (unbroken boys’ voices) and harp—but the effect is magical. The boys process in and out singing a plainsong chant (we have already heard Poulenc’s setting of that text)—and in between, true glories are contained. Each movement is a fragile but precious jewel. And I’ll never forget the time I heard ‘This little Babe’ live—electrifying. Who knew that boys + harp could convey both the seriousness of, and deadly threat to, this newborn’s mission so effectively? Follow the full text here. Just as Dickens evokes (and probably invented) the Victorian Christmas, for me Britten’s Ceremony just is the mediaeval Christmas! BONUS: Fantasia on Christmas Carols Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958, English) Sir Thomas Allen (baritone), Corydon Singers, English Chamber Orchestra, Matthew Best (cond.) Well, it’s Christmas and I couldn’t resist a bonus. It’s too long to include in the 5, but I really wanted Britten to get the 1! Some will have felt short-changed without traditional carols on the list. So here they are (or some at least). As a master of folksong and orchestration, Ralph Vaughan-Williams weaves them altogether and thus invites us into a kind of classical Behold The Lamb of God gig!

A requirement to create art that is ‘relevant’ can be a curse. After all, today’s relevance is tomorrow’s obsolescence. Not only that, the requirement itself, however well-intentioned, can push the artist uncomfortably close to the precipice into full-blown propaganda. No wonder so many prefer to be stimulated to create by their experiences and observations of life. At the same time, few, if any, actively set out to be ir-relevant! Why would anyone bother to communicate then? So, what makes the difference? Well, I just wonder if the crucial ingredient is that these observations of the mundane provoke spontaneous and heart-felt responses. How much more when the provocation is not mundane at all—such as the Nazi bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica that so incensed Picasso, or the horrors of the Holocaust which lurks darkly behind one of today’s pieces? The creations that came out of these agonies were located within very specific moments and places and yet they somehow maintain a relevance that transcends time and cultures. The industrial and post-industrial world has affected us all, in many ways of which we are blithely unaware. It is a machine world, whether analogue or digital. So, inevitably, it has provoked composers. Pacific 231 “Mouvement Symphonique No. 1” (H.53, 1923) Arthur Honegger (1892-1955, Swiss) Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariss Janssons (cond.) Not much of Honegger’s music is played these days. Except this piece. A short blast that might be played at the top of an orchestra’s evening programme, one to blow out cobwebs from ticket-holders’ ears and expunge the brain-detritus from a day in the office. It was written a century ago, can you believe it!? As so often, the clichés of film and TV soundtracks derive from the pioneers of classical music. So if asked to imagine music for a train pulling out of a station and picking up speed—as in, for example, one of the countless versions of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express or that classic Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor double act that I so loved as a kid, Silver Streak—then, it might sound a bit like Honegger’s piece. Intriguingly, it wasn’t called Pacific 231 when he composed it. He wasn’t actually thinking of trains at all. Instead, despite being a train-buff, he had set himself the task of writing a piece of music that gained momentum while simultaneously losing speed. But when he completed it, he gave it the name of a particular class of steam locomotive. Hopefully, you’ll be able to hear precisely why. A short ride in a fast machine (1986) John Adams (1947- , American) New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur (cond.) The great poets like Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge all decried the advances of industrialisation. But there’s no denying the thrill and majesty of some machinery. Wonder and amazement are natural responses to, say, a vast hydroelectric dam or a massive freighter aircraft lumbering towards take-off. John Adams invites us to buckle up in the passenger seat and get psyched for the G-force assault. Ready? It’s quite a short ride. But boy, can it motor… The Iron Foundry (Op. 1919, 1927-8) Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov (1900-1973, Soviet/Ukrainian) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly (cond.) But sometimes, propaganda is precisely what is expected of creators. If you presume that this is something indulged in by enemies foreign and domestic only, then get real. I’ve recently been fascinated by two books that describe firstly what five Hollywood film directors did during the Second World War (Five Came Back by Mark Harris) and secondly by what was expected of writers on both sides of the Cold War (Duncan White’s superb Cold Warriors: Writers who Waged the Literary Cold War). Composers couldn’t escape either. So Alexander Mosolov, like all Soviet composers, was expected to serve the interests of ‘the people’—and especially during the Stalin era, the Soviet Union was propelled from essentially agrarian peasant economy to a fully industrialised one within only three decades. It was an astonishing achievement. And Mosolov conveys something of that in this piece, originally written to be part of a ballet simply called—wait for it—Steel! We can hear the mechanised chaos of the foundry. But is there more? Is there not an inherent human, not to mention environmental, cost to this aggressive programme? Perhaps it is just our 2020 sensibilities that colour our listening…I’ll leave you to decide. Belshazzar’s Feast. IV. Praise Ye The God of Gold (1931) William Walton (1902-1983, English) Sir Bryn Terfel (bass), BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (cond.) You’ll think this piece the odd one out. Far from being set in an industrial landscape we know too well, Walton’s piece casts us back millennia to the world of Israel’s Babylonian Exile. What machinery there was is primitive to say the least. But this excerpt from the cantata (whose text was selected from Daniel and Psalm 137 by Osbert Sitwell) does fit on this list. Because this movement is a magnificent, inspiring, heart-stopping hymn of praise… to idols. The words are simple: Praise ye… the God of Gold… of Silver… of Iron… of Wood… of Stone… of Brass… It is utterly pagan. But it is exuberant and joyful, is it not? And totally absurd. Has our era learned nothing? We’re not as crassly idolatrous perhaps (that’s a big perhaps); but how many these days simply add supplementary verses to… the gods of silicon… of digits… of bytes… of gigahertz. I would love you to listen to the whole of Walton’s masterpiece—for it certainly is that. But it is an example of brilliant musical story-telling. The music as the famous words are mysteriously inscribed on the wall is chilling. And as for the moment when the king was slain… I don’t know a musical moment like it. But that’s all for another day! On we must go with our list. Toccata in D minor (Op. 11, 1912) Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891-1953, Soviet/Russian) Martha Argerich (piano) Some will have seen the title of this piece and recognised it. But this is not Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, so beloved of schlocky horror movie organists. This is a pianistic tour de force and is one of those that only the truly brilliant can pull off. In fact, Prokofiev himself (apparently) struggled to play it well enough to perform it—and he was a gifted pianist! But it is more than keyboard fireworks. Its complexity is mechanistic. So is its violence. There seems barely any room for the human. Which is kind of the point. Different Trains (1988) Steve Reich (1936- , American) Kronos Quartet But the true human costs of mechanisation have been under the surface so far in this list. It is now that the appalling ends to which mechanisation can be put are explicit, albeit in a brilliant and deeply unsettling way. It has three movements and is written for a string quartet and tape (made by Reich himself of various voices and industrial sounds). America, Before the War (movement 1) Europe, During the War (movement 2) After the War (movement 3) Steve Reich (pronounced Rysh) was born in New York to Jewish parents who divorced when he was just one. So much of his childhood was spent travelling between New York and Los Angeles, which naturally enough, meant a lot of time spent on trains. So we hear the voices of people like his governess Virginia and of Lawrence Davis, a retired Pullman porter looking back on the era. We can sense Reich the boy, staring in wide-eyed-wonder at these enormous machines. But as he looked back from his 50s, it occurred to him that had he lived in Europe, as a Jew, his experiences of train travel would have been entirely different. Three Holocaust survivors (identified as Paul, Rachel and Rachella) thus speak in the second movement. In the final movement, all the voices come together back in America. The philosopher Theodor Adorno said, ‘After Auschwitz no further poems are possible, except on the foundation of Auschwitz itself.’ There’s a lot going on in that sentence. And room for debate. But what is surely true is that any artform, especially one involving words, will struggle to come even close to being an adequate response to the Holocaust. Once acknowledged, however, it sharpens the mind. And Different Trains is an astonishing attempt at doing just that. It is precisely because it is so oblique, and yet simultaneously personalised via voiceover track, that Reich’s work is so heartbreakingly effective. Click here to listen on Spotify and here to listen on Apple Music. This playlist will be updated each Friday with new music recommendations from Mark Meynell.

There is a deep-rooted logic to the church calendar. It doesn’t always feel like that, granted, but I’ve often found that its apparent peculiarities provoke some helpful meditation. After all, how weird to celebrate Christ’s birth with a meal devised to memorialise his death! Then within less than three months, we’re preparing for that death with Lenten glooms. It’s all over so quickly. Then, how odd to spend half the year in so-called ‘ordinary time’ without anything specific to focus on at all. There is method in it, however. So it is profoundly helpful that Advent, a time of preparation, has a double focus on both comings of Christ. It is about expectations and hope; it is about nurturing that most irritating of virtues, patience. Who enjoys being patient? Not me, that’s for sure. But music definitely helps me wait with a little more patience. Matin Responsory, I Look From Afar Anon (after Palestrina) Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford; Bill Ives (cond.) This track is full of happy memories. I was perhaps 9 or 10, a treble in the school choir, and we would kick off our annual Advent Carol service with it. Usually, the choir will start in church off-stage somewhere. Just like John the Baptist, it begins with an unaccompanied voice, coming out of nowhere. Different soloists respond with the choir chiming in occasionally, expressing eager anticipation of the joyful news to come. Ideally—though, to be fair, it’s tricky to do this well when singing acapella—they start processing in and reach the piece’s resounding climax just as they get to their seats. So for me, the Matin Responsory is precisely how Advent is supposed to start. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland: 3 Aria (Cantata BWV 61) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750, German) Antony Rolfe Johnson (baritone), The Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner (cond.) How can any classical playlist not have Bach? The more one learns about him and familiarises oneself with his music, the more astonishing he becomes. And he was a supremely theological composer (quite apart from the fact that he was able to compose incredibly mathematical music which managed simultaneously to be very affecting). So I’m embarrassed that he’s not featured on 5&1 until now. No matter. This excerpt from one of his cantatas will rectify the situation more than adequately. A cantata was a setting of the liturgy in church, often composed specifically for a day in the calendar. When Bach was working for the church in Leipzig, he pulled off the most astonishing feat—producing a cantata for soloist(s), choir, organ and orchestra every week for several years. Many are masterpieces. This is a solo in the middle of an Advent cantata, reflecting the fact that Advent marks the start of a new church year. Come, Jesus, come to this thy church now And fill with blessing the new year! Advance thy name in rank and honour, Uphold thou every healthy doctrine, And bless the pulpit and the altar! This is the record of John Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625, English) Fretwork, Rogers Covey-Crump, (tenor), Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, Bill Ives (cond.) The effect of the Reformation on sixteenth century Europe was colossal. Its reverberations are felt still. So it is hardly surprising that music, and especially church music, was revolutionised. After all, Luther himself was a more than competent musician (and Bach respected his musicianship almost as much as his theology). One of the big shifts in choral music was the need to pay close attention to words. Much pre-reformation choral music had sought a sense of the ethereal with words a means to an end by providing singers with some nice open vowels! And it did this very effectively (just listen to some Palestrina masses, for example). But the reformers were committed to the Word and therefore to words. So music had to reflect that. Orlando Gibbons was a brilliant Elizabethan composer in England. And here, he does the most obvious thing—he sets texts taken from the Word. But it is far from pedestrian. This is music as story-telling and it is just gorgeous. Magnificat (Gloucester Service, 1946) Herbert Howells (1892-1983, English) Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, Andrew Nethsingha (cond.) Dial forward two hundred and fifty years to one of my favourite composers that you’ve never heard of (probably)! Herbert Howells wrote mainly, but not exclusively, for cathedral choirs and so his work, especially his settings of Anglican liturgy, are the pinnacle of the English choral tradition (to my mind). He’s not for the faint-hearted singer, mind you—some of it is complex and exhausting to sing, with scrunchy harmonies that take ages to master. But when you do… just wow. It is a staple of the Anglican daily office that several canticles (biblical songs, essentially) are said or sung. In the afternoon/evening, at Evensong, the prayer book stipulates the Magnificat (Mary’s song at her annunciation in Luke 1:46-56) and the Nunc Dimitis (Simeon’s song at Jesus’s presentation in the Temple, Luke 2:28-32). So we’ve got to have a Magnificat in this Advent list—and this is one of my favourites from Howells. He wrote many, usually identified by the cathedral or chapel for which it was originally composed. The Gloucester service is epic. Listen out for the word-setting (follow along with your bible, perhaps)—notice how he brings out the great biblical reversals, especially for the proud and worldly wealthy. Then in the Gloucester Gloria (tacked onto the end of all the canticles and psalms in this ‘service’), is overwhelming in its triumph. Sublime. Es ist ein Ros entsprungen Michael Praetorius (1571-1621, German) Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Graham Ross (cond.) Praetorius was a contemporary of Gibbons, over in Germany. He was an organist and extremely versatile composer. I’m only familiar with a tiny proportion of his output, but he is especially known for his development of the Lutheran hymn tradition. This track is a case in point. Here he took a mediaeval, advent text about Mary, the one through whom Jesse’s line will be carried (see Isaiah 11:1), and added some gorgeous harmonies. Here is a literal translation: A rose has sprung up, from a tender root, As the old ones sang to us, Its strain came from Jesse And it has brought forth a floweret In the middle of the cold winter Well at half the night. The little rose that I mean, Of which Isaiah told Is Mary, the pure, Who brought us the floweret. At God’s eternal counsel She has borne a child And remained a pure maid. or: Who makes us blessed. The floweret, so small That smells so sweet to us With its bright gleam It dispels the darkness. True man and true God, It helps us from all trouble, Saves us from sin and death. This recording is unusual, though. I’ve been trying to dig out more information but failed so far. Perhaps you can help out in the comments. But Graham Ross directs the choir to sustain the harmonies and lines in surprising, even unsettling, ways. It is a wonderful twist on words that ought to inspire deep meditation. Veni, Veni, Emanuel (Percussion concerto, 1992) Sir James MacMillan (1959-, Scottish) Evelyn Glennie (percussion), Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Saraste (cond.) Now. I hope you’re sitting comfortably. Because this will come as a shock. It is not choral, and at several points, it’s definitely not ‘nice’ or ‘comfortable.’ But this piece is by one of the finest composers still working on this side of the Atlantic. James MacMillan is a committed Catholic who seems as versatile musically as he is imaginative. It is a percussion concerto (of all things), written for the unique Evelyn Glennie (MacMillan’s fellow Scot). She went profoundly deaf at 12 but this didn’t stop her performing to the highest standard (google her performances and her TED talk). She simply ‘hears’ through other parts of her body (as she describes it) and often performs barefoot as a result. In common with all concertos, it is designed to show off the potential and glories an instrument (or in this case, instrument section) and this one does so in spades. So what on earth has this got to do with Advent? Well, yes, the clue is in the work’s title. But listen carefully. The orchestra at times appears to be going completely nuts, as if out of control (hint: it isn’t). But as the piece progresses through its eight separate sections, the storms gradually, if unevenly, clear and we begin to get the point. All the way through, as if trying to find a space to be heard in the cacophony, is the centuries-old melody that we still sing today. O Come, O Come Emmanuel! This is an orchestral depiction of the world’s darkness and chaos, through which the light fights for its rightful, and ultimately triumphant place. So please—give yourself the 30 minutes or so to listen to the whole thing. It’s as epic a musical depiction of the gospel’s triumph as you well ever hear!

You’re probably unaware if reading this in the States, but we don’t really do Halloween in Britain; or at least, we didn’t until Hollywood instructed us and the rest of the world how to do it. I remember seeing E.T. in the cinema when it came out (jeepers—I can’t believe that it was 38 years ago!) and being totally confused about everyone wandering around as Frankenstein’s monster or Dracula. Just weird. But I totally get that it might be fun. And since composers have gone to town over the centuries with the ghoulish and macabre, it’s as good a time as any to pick out a few chillers from the archives. So in recognition of Snoopy’s contribution to great literature, this is the kind of music to play on a dark and stormy night: Night on Bald (or Bare) Mountain Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881, Russian) Vienna Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev (cond.) A brilliant but troubled prodigy who published his first composition aged only 12, Mussorgsky died at only 42 having never been able to break the grip of alcoholism and insanity. His musical legacy is remarkable, though (his opera Boris Godunov, a Russian Macbeth-type story, is one of my favourite pieces). This is a tone poem (a musical depiction of a scene or narrative) which evokes some very dark goings-on to commemorate St. John’s Eve (June 23rd). He completed the composition on that very day in 1867. But it would take the orchestration by his friend Rimsky-Korsakov for it to become really well known. Shivers… Peer Gynt Suite: In the Hall of the Mountain King Edvard Grieg (1843-1907, Norwegian) Iona Brown (violin), Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner (cond.) The great Norwegian dramatist, Henrik Ibsen, asked his compatriot Grieg to compose incidental music for his satirical play Peer Gynt. It is a staging of the fairy-tale about a character who sets off from Norway’s mountains and travels south all the way to the deserts of Northern Africa. The result is some of Grieg’s most popular music. ‘Mountain King’ is the English name, even though the original Danish (the language of Norway at the time) means something like ‘Troll King.’ As it happens, the king is just a figment of Gynt’s imagination, which explains why the music conveying the dangers from the troll is slightly tongue-in-cheek. Erlkönig, D. 328 (Op.1):Wer Reitet So Spät Franz Schubert (1797-1828, Austrian) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Gerald Moore (piano) Schubert could evoke charm, lightness and happiness one moment, but the next could witness him plumbing the depths of horror and despair. Here in his setting of Goethe’s poem, we find him making the hairs on your neck stand up with just a singer (who voices several characters) and fairly simple accompaniment. You can hear the breathless pace of a father carrying his son through the night on his horse in the music. But our fears intensify as the boy vainly tries to convince his father that the Erlkönig (the Elf King) is coming for him… Read a translation of the poem here. The Return of the King (The Complete Recordings disc 4): 1. Mount Doom Howard Shore (1946- , Canadian) Renée Fleming (soprano), London Philharmonic, Howard Shore (cond.) Howard Shore uses all the idioms and techniques of the great classical composers who went before him. The way he uses leitmotiv (musical ideas associated with individuals, locations or themes) is something that Wagner’s operas are famous for (especially The 4-opera Ring cycle, which Tolkien insisted, perhaps a little too vociferously (!), had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Middle Earth). Shore uses the technique brilliantly—as well as the whole range of aural colour available to an orchestral composer. I think he is particularly effective in the LOTR films when things get darker… Danse Macabre (Op. 40) Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921, French) Kyung Wha Chung (violin), Philharmonia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit (cond.) There was an old French legend that Death would appear at midnight on Halloween each year to rouse the skeletons of the dead in a sinister dance (hence “Danse Macabre”), leading them with his violin. They would continue all night until the crowing of the cockerel at dawn (heard in the orchestra on an oboe). Its first performance in Paris apparently provoked widespread feelings of anxiety. So imagine the vast Parisian catacombs suddenly coming to so-called life and echoing to the jangling of old bones and be afraid . . . very. Isle of the Dead (Op. 29, 1908) Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943, Russian) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy (cond.) Rachmaninoff was inspired to write this stand-alone so-called ‘symphonic poem’ by seeing one of a series of paintings (of the same name) by the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. The latter’s baby daughter had been buried near Böcklin’s studio, at the English Cemetery in Florence, and the series seems loosely based on that place despite of course being on land. In the music, we can hear the lapping of the water and the relentless movement of the oars as we approach this strange and sinister island. There is lightness and even a little levity in the music from time to time, perhaps as we look at the natural beauty all around us. But we can’t escape the inevitable, and the closer we come to our destination, the more menacing and overwhelming the music becomes. We can never escape our mortality, however much we try to avoid going gently into that good night. Memento mori as the ancients constantly reminded us: remember that we die. Previous generations were far better at doing this than ours is, because we have believed the lie of eternal youth or that ‘it will never happen to me.’ That’s why we want to avoid being ‘morbid’ at all costs. But here’s the original purpose of All Hallows’ Eve (from which the word Halloween derives): Hallows is an old term for saints (holy ones) and All Saints’ Day (November 1st) was set aside for remembering those loved ones in Christ who have died before us and therefore represent a model for our own discipleship. But because the night before became associated with some practices like praying for the dead or seeking protection from evil, it developed a paganistic life of its own when shorn of its Christian moorings. Perhaps this piece might challenge us to reflect as our ancestors have.

Classical music is so stuck up, isn’t it? All prim and proper in its white tie and tails—no wonder it gets a wide berth. Yet, as with any other section of society, composers have ranged from the ultra-serious and self-important to the irreverent and shameless. So in the face of so much cultural weirdness and anxiety at the moment, it’s good to let our hair down occasionally. We need to take having fun far more seriously than we do! Now I could have picked out moments where classical musicians have fun on stage; there are plenty out there if you look. If you have never encountered the wonders of Victor Borge, the musical gags of Dudley Moore—yes, that Dudley Moore—or more recently the genius of Billy Bailey on Downton Abbey here or U2 here, then you’re seriously missing out. Or I could have chosen examples of composers satirising their fellows (which is not that rare either). But that feels like cheating. Instead, I’m looking for pieces that put a smile on your face just because of what they are. Composing humorous music is quite the art. For discerning precisely what makes particular combinations of notes and harmonies funny is harder and less funny than explaining one-liner gags. I defy you not to find yourself smiling after at least one of these… (but no answers on postcards, please). Symphony No. 94 ‘The Surprise’ in G ma: 2. Andante (H 1/94, 1791) Josef Haydn (1732-1809, Austrian) Concertgebouworkest, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cond.) One of Hadyn’s so-called London symphonies was written for his first major stadium tour of Britain. Well, not exactly. But he was one of the biggest stars of his era. Haydn was known for his sense of humour (as well as writing symphonies—he wrote over 100. Take that, Ludwig). The second movement of his 94th is the source of this one’s nickname. I wonder if you can tell what the surprise is… The “Cat’s” Fugue in G minor (K30, L499) Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757, Italian) Elaine Comparone (harpsichord) Scarlatti never used this piece’s nickname, so it could be a complete fabrication. But the legend is fun, so worth including. Fugues open with a sequence of notes (sometimes a subject or motif) and then build on it by repeating that sequence unchanged in different lines or voices (apart from starting on different notes). Imagine other instruments picking it up, or parts of a choir. It takes remarkable skill to do it with three or four voices. Bach did it with up to six! Anyway, Scarlatti’s motif is definitely weird. So the story is that it was originally ‘composed’ by his cat walking up the keyboard. See what you think… A musical joke: 4. Presto (K. 522 Divertimento for 2 horns & quartet) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791, Austrian) Concentus Musikus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cond.) Okay, I did say I’d exclude composers ribbing other composers and Mozart does seem to be doing that in this four-part ‘Musical Joke.’ He pokes fun at the various musical clichés of the day. But my justification is that in the last movement, he’s having a giggle at the expense of incompetent performers. When I was growing up in the UK, there were only three TV channels (I know, right—serious deprivation). Sometimes I’d be so desperate for a bit of telly-therapy that I’d sneak in a bit of viewing at odd times. So this piece will be familiar to millions because it was used as the theme for BBC2’s Horse of the Year show. (I told you I was desperate). Because it would simply fade post-titles, I had no idea about Mozart’s actual ending… Masquerade suite: 5. Galop (1941) Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978, Armenian/Soviet) Moscow RTV Large Symphony Orchestra, Karen Khatchaturian (cond.) Khachaturian’s five Masquerade pieces (gathered into a suite so that they could be performed separately) were originally composed for the Russian playwright Mikhail Lermontov’s play of the same name. The glorious opening waltz is one of those pieces that will perhaps be familiar without you realising why. But it’s not funny. The 5th really is. It’s not directly depicting wild horses pelting as fast as they can (that would be a gallop); a galop was often the final dance at grandest balls in the nineteenth century. All caution is flung to the wind and speed is of the essence. This recording was conducted by the composer’s nephew. The Major-General’s Song from The Pirates of Penzance (1879) Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900, English) / book by W. S. Gilbert George Rose (Maj-Gen Stanley), Joseph Papp (prod.), Wilford Leach (dir.) Now this is just plain silly. Gloriously silly. Gilbert and Sullivan were the perfect antidote to British Imperialistic hauteur, and this ingenious tongue-twister is lyrically and musically sublime. Need I say more? This recording was quite the discovery, though. Rather than the traditional option of the D’Oyly Carte Opera company in London (for whom G&S would create), here is a Broadway production whose cast featured Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury and Linda Rondstadt, believe it or not! The Major-General is played by a Brit though, George Rose, who made the part his own throughout his career. Jazz Suites 1 & 2 (1934 & 1938) and Tahiti Trot Op. 16 (1927) Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich (1906-1975, Russian/Soviet) Russian State Symphony, Dmitry Yablonsky (cond.) If Schubert is my 19th century musical hero, Shostakovich is my guy from the 20th. He could do practically anything. Symphonies—check (all FIFTEEN). Concertos—check. String Quartets—check (also FIFTEEN). Solo instrumental stuff—check. Operas—check. Ballet—check. Songs—check. Film scores—check (Incidentally, you’d be amazed how small the list of composers who laid the foundations for modern film music is—for everyone from Bernard Herrmann or Erich Korngold to John Williams and Danny Elfman, James Horner and even Hans Zimmer—and Dmitri is definitely on it – perhaps a 5&1 for another day). You name it, he could write it. And brilliantly. There are widely accepted masterpieces from each of these genres. It was simply incredible—not least because he wrote it all under the sinister gaze of the Communist Party (which he was eventually compelled to join in the ‘60s), and for thirty years, that of Stalin himself. But jazz? Like a number of composers in the century’s early decades, he was fascinated by African American musical forms, and by jazz in particular. So he wrote a number of individual pieces in jazz style (they probably sound a bit more like dance band music now)—and they’ve been grouped together in two suites, although there isn’t full consensus about which bits go where, so this recording has the lot! And after them comes the Tahiti Trot. This was written in answer to a bet from the conductor Nikolai Malko after he played Dmitri the tune on the piano. 100 roubles completely to reorchestrate (i) in under an hour (ii) from memory. He took just 45 minutes! So here it is. I’m sure you’ll recognise the melody… Strictly speaking, these pieces are more fun than funny but I can’t help but think there’s a wink and a grin throughout.

Most artforms are essentially con-tricks. A painting is a fixed, two-dimensional image designed to give the illusion of three dimensions and movement in time. A novel constructs universes out of words into which a reader is immersed. And music is a fleeting and dynamic form that moves through time to evoke and provoke emotion. But sometimes, it seems to make time stand still as if the music itself can transfix us in sublime suspension. String Quintet, The ‘Cello’: 2. Adagio (D. 956, Op. posth. 163) Franz Schubert (1797-1828, Austrian) Mstislav Rostropovich with the Emerson Quartet Called the ‘cello’ quintet because Schubert adds an extra cello to the more conventional string quintet (2 violins, viola and cello). The whole work of 4 movements is one of Schubert’s most astonishing and poignant compositions (and probably in my top 10!). It was published posthumously because he completed it just two months before his desperately young death at 31. If ever a piece qualified for the claim to being sublime it is this second movement. ‘Soave sia il vento’ Trio from Act 1, Così Fan Tutte (K. 588) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791, Austrian) Miah Persson, Angela Brower (soprano), Alessandro Corbelli (baritone), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (cond.) Opera is not everybody’s cup of tea! One needs a gentle initiation to get what all the fuss is about. This is an ideal entry point, from one of Mozart’s best loved. Imagine harbour walls as an old man and two young sisters sing their gorgeous send-off to the women’s fiancés. They are sailing away to war. However, nothing is quite what it seems—the fiancés have devised a cruel trick with the old man’s help to test the sisters’ fidelity. Yet the music for this trio betrays not a hint of that deception. It’s a sincerely meant blessing on the soldiers and their journey. Let yourself be wafted by the orchestra’s lilting, breeze-like accompaniment—a perfect fit since the words mean ‘May the wind be gentle’. Spiegel im Spiegel (1978) Arvo Pärt (1935 – , Estonian) Vladimir Spivakov (violin), Sergej Bezrodny (piano) The first years of Pärt’s life (pronounced ‘Pairt’) were spent living under Communist rule in the USSR, although he managed to get permission to leave with his family in the early 80s. He converted from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodoxy in his late twenties and was fascinated by mediaeval choral music. He has a unique style, often termed minimalist, and this is one of his most well-known compositions (beloved of movie-makers looking to give their soundtrack added atmosphere). It is very simple, musically, with the violin’s stretched out melody accompanied by broken triads on the piano. Different patterns of notes are played and then inverted—thus literally portraying the piece’s title: mirror in mirror. In Paradisum from Requiem (Op. 9, 1948) Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986, French) King’s College Cambridge Choir, English Chamber Orchestra, Stephen Cleobury (cond.) It is probable that you will know Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem (even if you can’t put a name to it). Less well known is that of Duruflé who had been Fauré’s student, yet I would argue that it’s a far richer and more profound work (as well as a lot more fun to sing!). This is the final movement of the mediaeval Latin requiem mass: May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs receive you at your arrival and lead you to the holy city Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive you and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest. It is too brief, but in its brevity it conveys (to my mind at least) the closest thing in music to the setting sun streaming through stained glass windows. And here’s the conundrum. How do you convey eternity without going on forever? Duruflé’s genius merely suggests it with just one plucked harp string in the final bar. The whole Requiem closes with a suspension (F#7), itself suggesting more. But the effect is hauntingly magnified when a harp (or organ when there is no orchestra) plays a G# and leaves it hanging (a note which has no place in the chord). Yet it does not seem out of place. It merely points us beyond… Piano Concerto no 2 in Fma, 2. Andante (Op. 102 1957) Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906-1975, Russian) Dmitri Shostakovich Jr (piano), I Musici de Montreal, Maxim Shostakovich (cond.) If Schubert is my 19th Century musical hero, Shostakovich is my 20th Century musical hero. He was a survivor of the insanity of Stalin’s 3-decades-long rule of the Soviet Union but the psychological cost was severe. In the midst of it all, though, he was able to create the most astonishing musical balm for a brutalised population. This middle movement of his 2nd piano concerto is a case in point—it seems to pull the melody of the ether like a string of feathers. The concerto was written as a 19th birthday present for his son Maxim who gave its first performance. But this recording is a treat. Maxim’s son, Dmitri Jr, is in the hotseat as soloist, while he himself conducts. Three Shostakovich generations in one recording! Symphony No 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Op. 36, 1976) Henryk Górecki (1933-2010, Polish) Dawn Upshaw (soprano), London Sinfonietta, David Zinman (cond.) Few people outside the minute world of avant-garde composition had even heard of Górecki (pronounced GoRETski, with short ‘o’ as in box!) before this symphony became a CD sensation in 1992. Much of his music prior to this 1976 composition was obscure and what’s known in the trade as ‘difficult’. But this symphony is a revelation – and to date over a million recordings have been sold. Like many symphonies, this has 3 movements, the first longer than the other two combined. Uniquely, however, all three are marked Lento (slow). That by itself gives a strong indication of the work’s tone and mood. Then, in contrast to almost all his 20thCentury composer contemporaries, Górecki manages to avoid all but the tamest dissonances throughout the symphony. Lento – Sostenuto tranquillo ma cantabile (sustained but lyrical peace) Lento e Largo – Tranquilissimo (slow and long – very peaceful) Lento – Cantabile semplice (simple, songlike/lyrical) But the most notable feature is the fact that each movement includes a part for soprano soloist, because Górecki gathered an astonishing trio Polish of songs to set to music. Mary’s lament from a 15th Century Polish monastery. “Oh my son, beloved and chosen, share your wounds with your mother.” A young girl’s prayer to Mary that was found scratched onto the walls of a Gestapo prison cell at Zakopane. “Oh Mamma do not cry, no. Immaculate Queen of Heaven, you support me always.” A song from the Silesian (southern Poland) uprisings of 1919-21, in which a mother sings “where has he gone, my dear young son?” The theme of female suffering at man’s inhumanity is clear, and many have suggested meanings to the whole (including, a Holocaust memorial, the horrors of fascism and communism, the suffering of Poland over the centuries, a pacifist appeal, and so on). This is what the composer said: Many of my family died in concentration camps. I had a grandfather who was in Dachau, an aunt in Auschwitz. You know how it is between Poles and Germans. But Bach was a German too—and Schubert, and Strauss. Everyone has his place on this little earth. That’s all behind me. So the Third Symphony is not about war; it’s not a Dies Irae; it’s a normal Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. —Bernard Jacobson, A Polish Renaissance (1995)

How do you articulate to others an experience so searing, so crushing that one is left gasping and flattened? For many of us, our own words are simply too puny, too ephemeral. That’s why so often we resort to those of true wordsmiths, those who, with the pen, refine, sharpen and pinpoint. But even the greatest of these fall short, tumbling into incomprehensibility, into grunts rather than words. Which is why, when words fail, music takes their place; or perhaps more commonly, serves to ignite or amplify those words that seem fruitless without it. So, like so many, music has uniquely sustained me during the pandemic and previous dark times. And I’m all too aware of those who suffer physically, mentally and spiritually, not least because of loved ones lost to Covid-19. Now I’m not picky when it comes to musical genre or era or forces. I just search out music that combines excellence with beauty, integrity and reality, whether from ancient choirs, singer-songwriters at open-mic nights or 120-piece orchestras. But since this is specifically a classical playlist, here are some works that have evoked the pain of grief when I’ve most needed them, expressing the inexpressible (or, as the late English philosopher Roger Scruton put it, they serve to ‘eff the ineffable’!). Mélisande’s Death from Pelléas et Mélisande (Op. 46, JS 147) Jean Sibelius (1865-1957, Finnish) Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan (cond.) Pelléas et Mélisande, an 1892 play by the Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck (who won the 1911 Nobel for Literature), profoundly affected a number of composers. It depicts the classic trope of the love triangle and would inspire Debussy’s famous opera, symphonic music by Schoenberg and then one William Wallace (a Scottish composer, but not Mel Gibson’s revolutionary), as well as incidental music for the play by Gabriel Fauré. But I’ve got a real passion for Sibelius. He plumbs extraordinary depths—and this, the final movement from his suite, is subtle but unfailingly moving. We’re in a similar sound world to Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite (from which we heard an extract for Halloween). But this really does it for me (like pretty much anything Sibelius wrote). Just astonishing. ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ (Act 2 Sc. 4, The Magic Flute, K. 620) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791, Austrian) Sandrine Piau (soprano), Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz (cond.) Pamina pours out her broken heart because her true love, Tamino, has spurned her. We saw them earlier on stage full of love’s ecstasies, but now, he stubbornly refuses even to acknowledge her. What a cad! Mozart is at his most tender and empathetic, the orchestra lending her a musical arm round the shoulder as it gently strokes her searing, sinuous lament. Listen out for the wind instruments that weave in and out of her melody from time to time. Just glorious but deeply affecting. Now, as so often in opera (especially Mozart’s), nothing is what it seems. I was first taken to see The Magic Flute aged 8 or 9 and it’s the perfect immersion for a kid. The plot is completely and utterly bonkers, involving magic, goodies who are actually baddies (and vice-versa), wicked queens, giant serpents, high priests and bird-catchers. Oh, and, Freemasonry. So naturally, Tamino is undergoing some dumb initiation trials, one of which is silence. All is not lost; he still loves Pamina; they can end up happily. But Mozart’s genius is such that even for a comic opera, he can come up with the most poignant and heart-breaking music. Lesser composers would have reserved such a masterpiece as this for a context far more weighty. But then they’re not Mozart. (Click here for the text in translation, scrolling down to #17.) Dido’s Lament “When I Am Laid In Earth” (from Dido & Aeneas Z. 626) Henry Purcell (1659-1695, English) Véronique Gens (soprano), Les Arts Florissants, William Christie (cond.) Purcell was perhaps England’s first truly great composer, and his Dido & Aeneas perhaps his greatest masterpiece. The story is from Virgil’s Aeneid Book 4 (by the way, if you want to save a bit of time reading the whole Aeneid, a top tip is to leave out the odd-numbered books!). Aeneas dumps poor Queen Dido of Carthage because of his determination to fulfil his fate of founding Rome (could that be a justification for being a rat?). Of course, Virgil is writing a political Just-So story to explain the centuries-old hostility between Rome and Carthage (remember Hannibal and his elephants?). In this aria, Dido also pours out her heart, broken by grief and betrayal. Purcell’s melody is so simple—essentially going up and down scales. But the artistry is stunning, both in word-setting and harmonies. Follow the text here. When David Heard Eric Whitacre (1970- , American) Eric Whitacre Singers, Eric Whitacre (cond.) When Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James (I of England, VI of Scotland)–yes, he of King James Bible fame—died from typhoid in 1612, there was national mourning. Two contemporary musicians composed settings of King David’s reaction to hearing of his son Absalom’s death (2 Samuel 18:32-33): Thomas Tomkins and Thomas Weelkes. Both are beautiful. But to my mind, they have been eclipsed by a new setting by the rock star of choral music, Eric Whitacre. I personally do not find myself drawn to everything he writes (which says more about me than him probably). However, this is choral gold. He employs all kinds of musical and vocal effects that send shivers down the spine. The first time I heard it was an overwhelming experience. And it hasn’t palled. This truly is mourning with those who mourn. Parce Mihi Domine Cristóbal De Morales (1500-1553, Spanish) Jan Garbarek (saxophone), Hilliard Ensemble Who knew that some plainsong settings of the office (the Catholic cycle of daily prayers) would become one of the biggest selling records of 1994, a disc of ecclesiastical music transformed into a uniquely arresting sound-world through the addition of a solo saxophone? But that’s precisely what happened when the renowned Hilliard Ensemble (an English all-male singing quartet) joined forces with Jan Garbarek (a Norwegian jazz saxophonist). This was aural alchemy. This track is not lament for a lost loved one; it is a lament for our sin, with the text crying to God for forgiveness. But the extraordinary effect created by four singers and one saxophonist is overpowering—somehow creating hope in the midst of grief. It does not play down the darkness; but nor does it indulge in wishful thinking. To my mind and heart, it conveys a sense of both realism and expectation in the very presence of God. Stabat Mater (1736) Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736, Italian Papal States) Julia Lezhneva (soprano), Philippe Jaroussky (counter-tenor) & I Barocchisti Pergolesi wrote his 12-part Stabat Mater just a year before TB robbed him of life at only 26. Who knows what wonders could have resulted had he lived longer? This is a stunning work, scored for orchestra, choir and two soloists, one of whom is a soprano or boy treble, the other a (female) contralto or (male) counter-tenor depending on preference. It narrates the crucifixion story from the perspective of the Lord’s mother, Mary, initially as she was standing (‘stabat’) at Golgotha. The piece was controversial initially, accused of scandalously transporting forms and styles from the operatic stage into church, which was deemed entirely inappropriate. But part of its wonder is that it brings the pathos and agony of that scene to dramatic life, while using words and music alone. The chilling dissonances and long-sustained suspensions (especially between the two singers) pierce right to the marrow. It fully deserves the 30 minutes of full attention it demands. Follow the translation from the Latin here.

We all know about the classic Quest. It’s a literary staple from Homeric epic to contemporary fantasy. The hero must undertake a long and hazardous journey to rescue damsel/destroy artefact/carry message/save soul. From Odysseus to Aeneas, Mallory to Tolkien, Spielberg to Shrek, they’re all at it. These plots may or may not get advanced by a MacGuffin, a term popularised by Hitchcock for plot-driving objects such as rings, maps or antidotes. But whatever the ingredients, the reader/listener/viewer is gripped by the need to complete said quest in the face of great jeopardy. And if there’s no jeopardy, there’s no grip. For three centuries of English readers, the definitive quest narrative has been John Bunyan’s. Second only to the Bible in importance for a person’s formation, everybody used to read The Pilgrim’s Progress. Dr. Johnson, no less, declared that “the great merit of the book [is] that the most cultivated man cannot find anything to praise more highly, and the child knows nothing more amusing.” What sets it apart, however, is this simple fact: rather than a plot to participate in vicariously, perhaps as a distraction or enchantment, Bunyan contended that his was truly a universal quest, designed to set up the primary contours of the saved life. Inevitably, the book has nothing like its former influence today, but it still has a significant legacy. My sense is that this can be detected even in a hit movie like 1917. A Quest: Into the Wild 1917 compresses its entire quest into just twenty-four hours but the ingredients are all there. Unlikely heroes, an absurd mission, lethal odds, and a binary outcome lead to mission accomplished…or not. Here, there is no “try.” Mendes’ film is further intensified by its celebrated full immersion-technique of appearing to use only one take. The cinematic experience is visceral, doing for World War I what Saving Private Ryan did for the D-Day landings. Two young, English soldiers, Blake and Schofield, are sent on a do-or-die mission by the jaded General Erinmore (Colin Firth). Communications are down so they must deliver a message to two battalions of the 2nd Devons (currently nine miles away) by hand. German forces had withdrawn but it was now clear they were by no means in the disarray that the Devons hoped to exploit. It was a trap, evidently weeks in the planning. They had retreated to heavily fortified lines—the Hindenburg Line. The Devons’ Col. MacKenzie simply has to call off their dawn attack. “If you fail,” says Erinmore to the two men, “it will be a massacre.” Now, some artistic licence comes into play here. Historically speaking, the Germans did retreat (in Operation Alberich). They left the intervening territory scorched and studded with mines and booby-traps. Anything of potential use to the allies’ cause was systematically destroyed. It was a hell of Isengardian proportions. Furthermore, director/co-writer Sam Mendes pieced the story together from his grandfather Alfred’s tales from the trenches as well as the wider historical record. Alfred Mendes was indeed required to run through no-man’s-land with a message—for which he was later awarded the Military Medal in 1918. We discover early on that Schofield has already won his, and it is clear that success in the narrative’s mission would easily warrant the award. Finally, the weeks of Spring 1917 were undoubtedly a chaotic and terrifying phase of the war for Britain and France. However, the likelihood that the fate of nearly 2,000 men depends on just a couple of squaddies (as in the film) is slim, although not unthinkable. Furthermore, how a large detachment found themselves so far ahead by the time the enemy’s ruse was rumbled is never clear; nor is the reason why others in the original British line (led by Andrew Scott’s character, Lt. Leslie) are still attacking the evacuated German trenches. Communications, even when lines got cut, were constantly attended to and supplemented by other methods (such as carrier pigeons). It seems the greatest Quest narrative of them all is as relevant, and needed, as ever. Mark Meynell Still, these pedantic quibbles are small-fry. 1917 is all about the vivid and traumatic experience of war’s chaos, horror, and absurdity. With Blake and Schofield, we are thrust into the horror of trenches and no-man’s-land, and it all feels very real: the mud and gore, vermin and stench, tree stumps and bloating corpses. No one knows what is happening. One moment, the man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you marches forward, the next he is face down in a blood-streamed puddle. It was just the luck of the draw. Like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, Schofield must prevail over appalling obstacles. For both, the temptations to abandon the mission are legion. Schofield must persevere despite his stunned grief at Blake’s death, anxiety about infectious wounds, trauma of being buried alive, and the constant threat of snipers. Nor can he afford to recuperate in the sanctuary of the cellar where he finds a young woman and orphaned baby. The quest is all. On his life depend two thousand lives. He must continue. Like Pilgrim’s before him, this journey has value only if completed. Otherwise, it is futility. But of course, Schofield succeeds. And we are with him all the way. So far, so archetypal, and the film is none the worse for that. It is a remarkable experience. But then something weird happens. A Cycle: There and Back Again The film’s closing image is of Schofield leaning against a tree. He has been looking at photos of his family; it’s the first time we discover he even has one. And then, at last, he closes his eyes. He sleeps. Fade to black. But the thing is, we have been here before. This is where the film began: Blake lying asleep under his helmet in a beautiful field full of spring flowers. The camera then pulls back to his companion, Schofield, also asleep but up against a tree. Schofield’s sleep thus brackets the entire film. It is an elegant device, common, in fact, in the Bible (termed inclusio by commentators). But its significance is quite profound. Dial back a few scenes. How does Schofield first chance upon the 2nd Devons? He’s been propelled downriver by overwhelming torrents, having just escaped another sniper in Écoust. It is the one stage of his journey entirely beyond his control but it results in him being washed up in rocky shallows, defeated and despairing. He then glances up, catching intermittent billows of muffled singing. It’s ethereal, angelic almost. But the music has a strange familiarity and we soon realise that, of all things, they’re intoning that classic, lamenting African American spiritual, The Wayfaring Stranger. It is almost a minor-key lullaby. Schofield scrambles up the bank and into the forest where he finds hundreds of soldiers resting. We could almost be in Elysium, ancient Greece’s Underworld resting place for heroes. Schofield sits with them and relishes this scene of almost unimaginable balm and beauty: I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger Travelling through this world below There is no sickness, no toil, nor danger In that bright land to which I going I’m going there to see my Father And all my loved ones who’ve gone on I’m just going over Jordan I’m just going over home I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me I know my way is hard and steep But beauteous fields arise before me Where God’s redeemed, their vigils keep I’m going there to see my Mother She said she’d meet me when I come So, I’m just going over Jordan I’m just going over home. —”Wayfaring Stranger” It is the perfect song choice. Schofield has just crossed over a river, for one thing. And he has been “travelling through this world below”, which of course originally refers to our world, even though Schofield’s experiences might more reasonably be associated with the world below ours. He is not a member of this battalion and so is unknown, a wayfaring stranger who is passing through. He too is spurred on by hope through both the hard and steep way and the beauteous fields. Yet despite his grief for the “loved ones who’ve gone on” (Blake is the primary example) we know by the end that it is a different hope that sustains him: reunion with his wife and children. And Blake’s last words? “Will you write to my mum for me? Tell her I wasn’t scared.” The film’s agony is that the river Schofield crossed is no Jordan River. It grants none of the finality that Bunyan’s Pilgrim receives when he crosses the River of Death into the Celestial City. For he does not enter a “bright land”; instead he is funnelled into another war zone. Even though he can rest against his tree after completing his mission, we know that this cycle will be repeated. This thought is made explicit by Col. MacKenzie’s response (played with searing economy and latent violence by Benedict Cumberbatch) once he accepted Gen. Erinmore’s command to stand down: I hoped today would be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing. He goes on There’s only one way this war ends: last man standing. For Erinmore’s communiqué doesn’t actually protect soldiers from the fight; it merely postpones it. Schofield can rest from his heroics, but there is no knowing what tomorrow will bring. This is what makes it all seem so futile. There is such little progression; it is more like an infernal hamster-wheel. Or consider the nightmarish Merry-Go-Round painted just the year before the film’s setting in 1916 by London artist Mark Gertler. What should be a source of innocent delight and joy, especially for the young, has mutated into an instrument of torture. The individuals depicted are dressed in stylised military uniforms, their faces suspended in rictus grins. This circus-favourite is in constant motion, so dismounting is impossible. There is no escape. To my mind, this is one of the most powerful images from the period: Merry-Go-Round by Mark Gertler (1916). A nightmare is surely Mendes’ intended effect of the surreal and stunningly shot night scene in the blazing Écoust. Before the end of this war, countless thousands more will die. Bravery in such circumstances is absurdly unbearable. As Andrew Scott’s embittered Lt. Leslie comments on learning of Blake and Schofield’s task, “Nothing like a strip of ribbon to cheer up a widow.” We now better understand Schofield’s unexpected disposal of his medal early on. Just what on earth was the point? Who wouldn’t rather return home in person than have his family receive a medal in his place? 1917’s narrative inclusio is cinematically and emotionally satisfying. In the grand scheme of things, however, its vision of reality is anything but. A Trajectory: From Here to Eternity Now it should be said that Mendes does not leave his audience entirely adrift. There are glimmers, but that is probably the best that can be said of them. The film takes place on 6th April, two and a half years since the outbreak of World War I. But for American viewers, it should have special significance. That was the day on which the USA declared war on Germany. It was thus the war’s last significant turning point. But only history buffs could possibly know that! Nothing on screen even hints at it. So we must conclude that, for all its individual cases of heroism and self-sacrifice, this war of attrition leaves little grounds for true hope. Of course, the spiritual sung in the forest holds out hope for life after life. And for the majority of those soldiers preparing to go over the top, they would have taken comfort from that, chiming as it did with the Christian worldview that permeated pre-World War I culture. They might never have given it any thought previously, but with their mortality brought to the forefront, many would have sought solace in precisely this reality. Yet that is not the way most people today think, especially on this side of the Atlantic. They simply lack the intellectual substructure that makes the hope on offer seem even remotely plausible. This is because most in the West still live with the residue, if not the furniture and framework of Modernism. This has slyly appropriated the structure of a Christian worldview but shrunk it by removing the divine elements: Where there was Divine Providence, there is now an arbitrary commitment to human progress. Where there was sin to be rescued from, there is still a liberation required, but it is couched in terms of liberation from the so-called superstitions of religion and the mystical. Where there was a rescue made possible by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, there is now the self-sacrifice of revolution (in which, as Stalin would say, eggs must be cracked in order to make the omelette). This is what will usher in that liberation. Where there was a hold-out for a new society in an other-worldly kingdom (as articulated in the “Wayfaring Stranger” spiritual), now the best that can be offered is some heaven on earth, a utopia built on capitalist or communist foundations. In these and many other ways, then, the Christian worldview has been contracted, shrink-wrapped and desiccated. But here’s the horror. The “war to end all wars” blew any nineteenth century utopian aspirations to smithereens. For many, the possibility of a divine providence—as well as personality at the heart of reality—now seemed utterly implausible, obscene even. Yet many others came to believe, not just despite the horrors of the trenches, but through them. Oxford’s Inklings were a case in point. Tolkien and the Lewises (both Jack and Warnie), Barfield and Dyson all endured and survived the trenches. Many of their dearest friends did not. But in their various ways, each grasped that despite the noxious evidence of their senses while on the fields of France and Belgium, this was not the totality of reality. They had come to see that Bunyan had articulated truth, that the Bible reveals a trajectory for life that transcends all these horrors. We really are wayfaring strangers in this world, just as Peter describes the Turkish recipients of his first letter (1 Peter 1:1). Or as Paul can say without any glib deprecation of the torments that life can subject people to—remember, he himself endured many of the worst of these—“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). A modernist living within a shrink-wrapped and reductionist reality can never say that. Certainly not with any confidence. Sam Mendes doesn’t seem to be offering the possibility. But, with the prominence of “Wayfaring Stranger” in the film (whose melody is in fact prefigured in the soundtrack from the start), it is nevertheless offering it. So it seems the greatest Quest narrative of them all is as relevant, and needed, as ever.

Loiter, even briefly, near the Rabbit Room and you’ll surely hear the word. And even if you don’t hear it mentioned, you’ll surely sense its impact. There are two reasons, primarily. One, because it preoccupied the Inklings—the original Rabbit Room regulars—especially C. S. Lewis. Two, because it’s one of those aspects of life that seems to require another’s articulation of it before our own awareness of it. You guessed it. I’m talking about Sehnsucht. It was a word beloved of the German Romantic poets like Goethe and as such attracted Lewis’s attention, via his hero George MacDonald. You can tell that a language is struggling when it has to borrow from another. So inevitably, what the word grapples with is hard to define in English. “Disorienting longing” might be one definition, while simultaneously being a “blissful longing;” an experience with intimations of a transcendent reality, another. It’s that profound—if fleeting—sense, not only that there’s more to existence than anything in this life, but also that the beyond is where we belong. That’s why we yearn for it. That momentary awareness is what Lewis encapsulated (somewhat confusingly, I think) in the word joy. It was a crucial apologetic for his belief in God. We need it deeper At the most recent Hutchmoot, the concept of Sehnsucht featured. A lot. I expect it does so every year. The problem is that to the unfamiliar, it seems pretentious; to the regular, almost clichéd; but to the desperate for the really real, it’s indispensable. This is because the experience it articulates is reassuringly complex. These days, western culture has an infuriating tendency to find comfort in crude simplifications: the strapline, the soundbite, the elevator pitch, the bullet points. They make life easier or more efficient. Or so we’re told. And so we settle for them. But too often, their comfort is illusory. They’re never enough, because life doesn’t work like that. So these days, I find myself increasingly saying (or, more likely, muttering under my breath), “It’s more complicated than that…” As puddles are to wells, so soundbites are to reality. This is because the experience of Sehnsucht is multifaceted and paradoxical. It brings pleasure and wonder but also cuts deep and hard. It is frustratingly momentary and yet it somehow tethers us to the eternal. Each of us encounters it uniquely—a result of our unique matrix of genetics, background, culture, temperament, and experience—yet it seems a universal phenomenon. But we should expect nothing less if the Teacher is to be believed. “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) That final clause by itself ought to hold any glib theological formula in check—while, of course, never to be set against the importance of what God has revealed. We need it darker Leonard Cohen’s final album, You Want It Darker, was a haunting, starkly beautiful meditation on mortality. As I blogged at the time, it was strange that David Bowie had also released his last work earlier that year (2016). Both were relentlessly creating while cancer was corroding them; both were determined to leave a posthumous musical legacy; both were intent on peering unflinchingly into the darkness. But while I was profoundly affected by both albums, it is Cohen’s that has stood the test of the last four years for me. Bowie’s darkness is creepier, displaying an almost gleeful relish in occult mystery, whereas Cohen is prepared to plumb the depths of human pain and perplexity, even when he has been the cause of both. He provokes us with You Want It Darker. He seems to be saying, “Well, you did want me to be real, didn’t you?! So I’ll do just that.” He’s going to face reality, however dark it gets. Impending death often does that for people, doesn’t it? Once you stop denying mortality, it’s hard to deny anything else. Up until then, as Eliot noted early in his Four Quartets, our tendency is to settle for mirages: … human kind Cannot bear very much reality. The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot But thankfully, we don’t need only to wait until life’s autumn to face reality. Moments of Sehnsucht have a similarly sobering effect. What about those moments of being spellbound with wonder? Or swept up in the sublime or ecstatic? Our God-given, exquisite yearning reminds us that the object of our wonder can never fully satisfy. It was coming to terms with this reality that was instrumental in C. S. Lewis’s conversion. Tim Keller often refers to this in his preaching: Tolkien talked and said to Lewis, “You know when you’re in the presence of great art, there’s a joy you experience, but the joy is never delivered by that great art. The art makes you feel there’s ultimate truth, but it’s not ultimate truth. It makes you feel there’s perfect love, but it’s not perfect love. It makes you feel there’s meaning. Even as you experience it, you realize this feeling is just coming through the art, but actually there’s an underlying reality from which we’re cut off that we never feel we can quite get to that we so need, that we so want.” Lewis looked at Tolkien and he said, “Of course I know all that. Everybody understands that.” [Lewis continued,] “Yes, the great music, the great books, the old myths, the great legends, how they make you feel like there really is meaning …” Then he looked at Tolkien and said, “But myths are lies, though breathed through silver.” Tolkien looked at him and said, “No, they’re not.” He began to make two points Lewis never forgot. The first point he says is, “Think of the logic here. How is it possible that you would, unlike the animals, feel there is an underlying reality, that there is a meaning and there is a truth, and there is a love nothing in this world can satisfy if that doesn’t exist anywhere?” Christmas Wisdom, Tim Keller This means that Sehnsucht is a surprising hindrance to our worship of created things. We are forced to recognize that there is something greater or deeper beyond. If what is ultimate is alone deserving of our worship (as only the Creator can be), then we are foolish to rest here. The person driving to London doesn’t pitch a tent at the first road sign pointing to London. But what about the times when we are wracked with private anguish? Or those times when we are overcome with compassion for the agonies of others? Doesn’t our longing for the home beyond lift our eyes and reassure us? Suffering, let alone death, will never—no, can never—have the final word. Those fleeting touches of Sehnsucht bring us solace in a broken creation. We were not made for this; we were made for perfection. Why else would we even be tempted to strive for it? Sometimes people need it darker before they can get to that point. But doing so is no less than following in the Master’s steps. He is enthroned, but he will never not be the slain lamb on the throne. We need it safer But here’s the thing I love about Hutchmoot. It is safe. Take note. I didn’t say comfortable—reality is rarely comfortable (is it ever?). Nor did I say easy—reality is rarely easy. And I am definitely not suggesting it’s safe because it provides a retreat from reality. I mean rather that it offers the gift of healthy safety. That is crucial because facing reality is risky, at times painful and bewildering. It can leave us intensely broken. Yet, simultaneously, it is crucial when we are confronted by beauty and artistry. It's that profound—if fleeting—sense, not only that there's more to existence than anything in this life, but also that the beyond is where we belong. That's why we yearn for it. Mark Meynell So many of our contemporaries seem to try to inoculate themselves with a ready wit and easy cynicism. They want to guard against the threat of wonder and awe, thickening what Charles Taylor so helpfully called “buffering.” In the secular west, we are “buffered selves,” surrounded by experiences and artifacts that keep us several steps removed from transcendent reality. We’re immersed—”encased” might be a better word—in the results of human manufacture. Consequently it’s nigh on impossible to see why God is even relevant. How easily we disdain our dependence for our every breath on the sustaining power of the living God. But in a place such as Hutchmoot, we can relish the wondrous and beautiful together. Sure, beholders’ eyes have different perspectives. But we know what it ultimately means: we have hope. Hope for something even better, more beautiful, more breath-taking. For the sum of all our sub-creations is nothing compared to the new creation that God has promised. This year’s Hutchmoot was precisely that. No one person’s experience of it will be like another’s—the range of break-out sessions ensures that. But I had an overwhelming sense of mutual support as we peered into the darkness, precisely because we could do it together and because our tears are safe. The read-through of Pete Peterson’s dramatization of Corrie ten Boom’s memoir The Hiding Place was a case in point. We longed for a world where Holocaust horrors could never occur, yet we could see the agonizing beauty of hard-won forgiveness, quite apart from the astonishing artistry involved in presenting the drama. It broke me utterly. But it couldn’t leave me hopeless. At this and other points during the weekend, I saw God’s startling power to redeem in and through darkness. He can sustain us through pain. But he can turn the pain itself into a means of his grace. Just think about that for a moment. We might regard all kinds of things as divine means of grace: our friends in times of need and distress; a particular sermon that lifts our eyes or spirits; a bump in the road that jolts us awake just as we nod off at the wheel. Then, of course, there are the sacraments of baptism and communion which are the most traditionally understood means of grace. We rarely imagine that our sufferings might themselves function along such lines. But in God’s hands, they do, miraculously. So those ephemeral flickers of the really real in the life after life all serve to make our yearning grow deeper and more intense.

The book engrossed me so much that I found myself continuing to read it while going on a rollercoaster with my then young son. And I have the photographic evidence to prove it. Well, to be strictly truthful, I thought it might be cool to spice up the roller-photo with a book, and this was the one I was in at the time: F. S. Michaels’ Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything. But it is certainly engrossing. It’s important and chilling, and deservedly won the 2011 NCTE George Orwell Award. She exposes something so pervasive and insidious that we rarely give it a moment’s thought. I’m referring to today’s prevailing monoculture, what Michaels terms the economic story. The word monoculture comes from the world of agriculture, applied to the planting of one crop to the exclusion of all others—which inevitably damages carefully balanced ecosystems. This book uses monoculture as a metaphor for contemporary society. The resulting damage has not simply been ecological (though it certainly has been that). It has been ethical, social, and spiritual. The economic story is built on the assumption that human beings are all essentially thinkers—remember Descartes’ definition of being? “I think, therefore I am.” If that is all we are, then it follows that we will behave rationally and in our own self-interest. The development of human society becomes predictable and, therefore, programmable. This is why the communists put such faith in their five-year plans and capitalists raise funds on the basis of their business plans. Neat economic models are powerful because they appear to account perfectly for everything in society. But what are the consequences in practice? Economic growth is deemed unequivocally good. This is true for individuals, corporations and nations. Apart from anything else, it’s what fuels the American Dream. Long-term loyalties to individuals or groups (such as using the same baker or butcher for years) are less ideal, since they tend to hinder either money-saving or profit-growth. Related to this, geographical mobility is crucial for economic development. Economic units should always be prepared to uproot to wherever there is work or they can create income-generation. So do you see? Everything has been reduced: I am an economic unit, my social interactions are transactions, and even my giving is driven by self-interest. Have you noticed, for example, how corporate social responsibility has grown exponentially in recent years? This is often because firms have experienced catastrophic damage to their brands (and thus their profits) when they tried to get away with ignoring the repercussions of their activities. This economic story has been totalizing: it affects everything from healthcare, government, and the military right down to leisure and even church life. Michaels quotes theologian Darrell Guder: It is now clear, as we look back over the last 100-125 years, that the value systems and operating structures of the large American corporation have become the dominant model for the institutional church… They acknowledge that many things once deemed important in the Christian life do not fit in the management/marketing scheme of spirituality, and conclude that not surprisingly, these matters are neglected in a marketing paradigm. As far as I know, she is not a Christian, but I couldn’t help but wince when she quotes a former senior executive from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: …our job is to dispense the world’s greatest product—with the greatest economy—to the greatest number of people—as fast as possible. Unsurprisingly, the arts have suffered from this monoculture. “Successful” music is too often gauged by its effectiveness at generating income (so often for executives rather than composers). Cinematic or theatrical productions ride high only when box office tills jangle. Art only makes headlines when it breaks auction house records. When was the last time you saw a news item focused on how challenging or thought-provoking an artwork was, rather than its price? This was precisely what Banksy was recoiling against by installing a shredder into his Girl with a Balloon when sold at Sothebys in London last year. He has apparently since claimed that he wanted the whole image to be shredded, not only half. Who knows!? The irony, of course, is that Banksy’s piece is now worth even more. The values of the Kingdom of God are never necessarily pragmatic nor lucrative nor popular. Instead we are called to value what our king values: truth, beauty, justice, mercy, and love. Mark Meynell I’ve been chewing on all this for years, not least because four years living in East Africa transformed how we perceive western assumptions (in our better moments). Those who know Wendell Berry’s writing will recognize resonance with one of his most important prophetic undercurrents. Or as one of Oscar Wilde’s characters so artfully put it, “Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Our monoculture’s reductionism mutilates on many fronts. It dehumanizes us. And it is antithetical to the Kingdom of God. This should be obvious. Just look at how often Jesus subverts the prevailing economic story of his own day. Matthew 29:1-16. Jesus’s strange parable of the vineyard workers. Everybody gets the same pay, regardless of how many hours they have worked. The earliest workers whinge, despite the owner’s generosity and their initial agreement with the amount. Mark 14:4-9. Jesus rebukes the critics of the woman who anoints him with her tears and expensive oil (even though they said it could be sold for “more than year’s wages” to help the poor). “She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have… But you will not always have me.” That is unexpected, to say the least. Luke 15:4. To explain his reasons for “eating with sinners and tax-collectors,” Jesus offers this peculiar analogy: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” It’s peculiar because most business people will make a calculation at this point, surely? The shepherd will hunt down the lost sheep only if the flock is safe. Otherwise, it’s not worth the risk. But such is Jesus’s commitment to individuals (not to mention the fact that he is sovereign!)—he is determined to go after the lost sheep. John 2:15-16. “So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!'” This is as far from Jesus meek and mild as it’s possible to get. He painstakingly makes a whip to close down some exceedingly lucrative business opportunities. Worship is emphatically not to be monetized. But perhaps the most subversive of them all has to be his interpretation of something he spotted at the temple: He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others.” Luke 21:2-3 This makes no economic sense whatsoever. But it makes all the spiritual sense in the world. Sacrifice and humble integrity are the surest signs of a heart dedicated to the Lord. But unless we grasp the centrality of a relationship with God, Jesus will always seem to spout gibberish. If the job of the artist (through whatever medium) is in part to expose the emperor’s new clothes and to hint or point at something far better, then what she or he makes can never be reduced to mere currency. Value and worth surely transcend such things, even perhaps into the next life. After all, what will the rulers be bringing with them? …the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. Revelation 21:23-24 Now, this is no recipe for naiveté. Artists need to eat, which means earning enough to pay their bills. And didn’t Jesus himself use an economic model to convey the importance of making the most of one’s God-given gifts in this life? He told the Parable of the Talents (or “Bags of Gold,” as the NIV has it) to make precisely this point. Nor is it an excuse for the shoddy or mediocre which is immune to criticism or professional assessment (as if offering my mite, out of my poverty, justifies what is actually bad art). Nevertheless, we must resist at all costs the temptation to reductionism, despite the fact that we are immersed in it. The values of the Kingdom of God are never necessarily pragmatic (“it’s good because it works”) nor lucrative (“it’s good because it sells”) nor popular (“it’s good because the majority likes it”). Instead we are called to value what our king values: truth, beauty, justice, mercy, and love. Our art doesn’t necessarily have to have all of these at the same time—ultimately only God can pull that off! But I suspect this is why it’s worth making art for its own sake, for then, it is seeking to relish these great kingdom values rather than function as a means to another end. Living and making on these terms will offer the world something far more valuable than economic worth, even if it gets dismissed as just a mite.

Assuming that artists are to be visionary prophets, what might that look like? I think it means pursuing at least three separate (though not mutually exclusive) goals. Truth: Exposing the False, Reflecting the Real Of course, the very notion of truth is often rejected by contemporary culture. The common assumption is that there are no shared foundations on which to base any statements or criticisms of the culture. But if we are followers of Christ, then we have a duty not to be conformed in our minds to the way the world thinks (as Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2) but to be transformed. Scripture is the foundation for that intellectual and spiritual renewal and the benchmark for our understanding of renewal. Now we can be oblique, we can be metaphorical, we can be allusive and elusive—but I would argue that we always have to be true. Do we not have the duty to expose the false in whatever form it comes? I love this point by Calvin Seerveld: Art, like anything else, is relevant if it supplies what is needed. Art that is popular is supplying what is wanted, but not necessarily what is needed, and may not therefore be relevant. Let me give you an example. I was talking a while back to someone in our church who worked as a scriptwriter for a number of TV shows (including a big British soap opera and other well-known series that have been exported globally). She works hard to bring her faith to bear on what is a hostile and difficult environment. But one of her goals is always to be true to reality in plot lines. So take one of the lies of our age: it doesn’t matter how many people you sleep with as long as it’s always consensual. It is easy for soaps to portray easy sex as having no consequences. But in the moral, created universe, that is simply not true. Sex has extraordinary power to destroy and damage some or all concerned. So when she writes about people having affairs, my friend ensures that there is no such thing as consequence-free sex, for the simple reason that there isn’t in real life. It is fascinating to see that this seems to be implicitly acknowledged in a number of the most compelling shows of recent years. The Wire and Mad Men are cases in point—both are gripping in large part because they show how sin has consequences. Steve Turner picks up another example. The Catholic painter Georges Rouault, like many of his contemporaries, painted prostitutes, but the art critic Louis Vauxcelles noticed the difference: “Unlike Lautrec,” he wrote, “when he [Rouault] paints a prostitute there is no cruel pleasure in seeing vice exalted by a creature. He suffers and he weeps.” Now I suppose you might apply Philippians 4 crudely and say that being confronted with something like prostitution is hardly lovely or noble. But take that line and you actually find yourself coming into conflict with Jesus himself. He never exploited prostitutes or took pleasure from them; instead he suffered and wept with them. And they with him. And they loved him for it. Like when he was anointed by the so-called sinful woman in Luke 7. Could we not expose the horrors of human trafficking through an integrated application of our Christian imaginations? Sometimes this will entail reflecting the ugly in our world, because that is the real, that is the true. After all, what is a war artist trying to do? What else is Picasso’s Guernica seeking? That is a colossal work driven by the artist’s awakened rage at the horrors of war. But Flannery O’Connor puts it best: My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse and for the unacceptable… Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause. This is not to suggest that we should relish the ugly—there is of course a place for beauty—for there is a place for raising our eyes above the mundane and grubby to the transcendent. Beauty: Exposing the Idolatrous, Reflecting the Wondrous I put this in the same breath as idolatry because the Romantic movement in the last 150 years or so has idolized beauty to such an extent that some reacted against it by relishing the ugly and bestial. It was an understandable reaction—because it seemed to focus only on some unreal ideal—a feeling that perhaps harked back to art fixated on the Greek myths with heroes located in stylized Italian landscapes where everything was in its sun-drenched perfection. But it is not a helpful reaction. Instead, I think beauty’s greatest purpose is to draw us in and point us beyond itself. We don’t worship beauty, for that is no different from any other idolatry. We don’t worship created things but the Creator. So the Christian artist’s challenge in portraying beauty is to use it to reflect the truly wondrous. T. Bone Burnett, speaking to the L.A. Weekly, said: If Jesus is the Light of the World, there are two kinds of songs you can write. You can write songs about the light, or you can write songs about what you can see from the light. That’s what I try to do. A poet who did just that was Gerard Manley Hopkins. He responded superbly to the challenges of living in an urbanized and concretized world that attempted to suppress the wonder of the divine in creation. A lovely case in point is his poem God’s Grandeur. Hope: Exposing the Baseless, Reflecting the Future Back in 2011, the Royal Academy in London put on a fascinating exhibition exploring the development of Soviet architecture in the first two decades of the USSR. It was fascinating. The centerpiece of the exhibition was a huge scale model in the RA’s grand courtyard of the planned monument to the Third International outside St Petersburg. It would have been vast, dwarfing the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was never built but it is a good emblem for the ethos. It is a dynamic helter-skelter-like structure, driving forward and upwards at an angle into the sky, symbolic of a confident modernity that knows where it is going. The Soviet state would only commission art that glorified the state or was sufficiently “ideologically pure” (it was to inspire citizens about the guaranteed and glorious future of Communism. Everything—and I mean, everything—had to work towards this.) But this is not hope; it is politically imperative unreality, an idolatrous delusion. And it was oppressive. Look at some of the images from the era’s propaganda. It is crushing and inhumane. It brooks no dissent. It is the ultimate “Get with the program” kind of art. That is not liberating hope; that is bludgeoning jackboot art. There is nothing organic, real or plausible about this kind of hope. So, we need to clarify terms. For the Christian, hope is fundamental. Without it we would desiccate and be crushed. And if our art is to be integrated, it should surely reflect that hope, in some shape or form. I’ve no idea how—that’s your job! But how else are we going to combat the prevailing cynicism and even despair of modern cultural life if we don’t somehow point beyond it to something more? That doesn’t mean we always have to have glimmers of dawn on the horizon, or paint a rainbow on everything. Certainly not. But surely one of our most urgent questions, and one of our society’s most pressing needs, is for us to find a vocabulary of hope. And at the heart of that hope must be God’s mercy in Christ and his Cross. Here is Steve Turner again: It is easy to state the bare facts of the cross. The difficulty is to do it in a way that is consistent with the rest of our art and that engages our audience. It is easy to write a song that says “the Savior of the world died on a tree/ in order to save you and me” but how many people have their perceptions rattled by such language? Art should be helping us see things as if we had never seen them before. “We need to clean our windows,” said writer J. R. R. Tolkien, “so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity.” Lest we get ideas above our station and become so wrapped up in our own creativity that we forget we can never do more than reflect the Lord’s great creative acts, check out this little ditty by Joyce Kilmer, rather wonderfully using the same rhyme that Steve Turner rightly mocked: “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God could make a tree.” Mark Meynell’s new book, When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend, is now available in the Rabbit Room Store. Click here to learn more.

For nine years, I was on the senior staff of All Souls, Langham Place in London. Many in the USA will know it as the church where John Stott attended throughout his long life (he joined as a toddler and only at 86 moved to his retirement home). But in the UK, if people are aware of it at all, All Souls is more likely to be known as “the BBC church.” This is because Broadcasting House is our immediate neighbor, literally a few paces away, and for many years, it was the church from which BBC Radio’s Daily Service was broadcast every morning. A few years ago, Broadcasting House underwent a mammoth redevelopment. This inevitably caused huge disturbances for a decade or so, and throughout the process, they went on a big PR exercise with the neighbors. I was invited to a tour of local religious leaders in late 2011, and it was hard not to be impressed by the vast well dug several stories into the ground. In what is now the largest news broadcasting center in the world, the centerpiece is the main news studio. Because of its close proximity to the London Underground’s Bakerloo line just below it, the entire studio had to be built on a cushion of air. Only then could the vibrations and noise every few minutes be contained. But in the end, that was not the thing that struck me most. We were assembled in the BBC’s Council Chamber at the front of the original 1930s part of the building. Despite sitting under the intimidating portrait of founding Director-General Lord Reith, my eyes kept being drawn to the Latin motto on the corporation’s coat of arms opposite. It’s actually a quote from the Bible—surprising enough for a secular public broadcasting body. Yet, as if to illustrate the perennial dangers of shorthand, it is actually one word from the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, taken from Philippians 4:8. Here it is in full: de cetero fratres quaecumque sunt vera quaecumque pudica quaecumque iusta quaecumque sancta quaecumque amabilia quaecumque bonae famae si qua virtus si qua laus haec cogitate So what is the BBC's motto? It is quaecunque, an alternative spelling of the word repeated six times above (clearly the verse's most significant word). As will be obvious to all who know the verse, it has a simple meaning: whatever. It made me chuckle every time I glanced up. You can just hear its teenage sneer, accompanied by a dismissive shrug of passive aggressive apathy. Integrated Christian art must have a place for the ugly and the despairing. Because that is the way our world is. We can still inspire people to reflect on, and indeed long for, the beautiful and noble. But that doesn't necessitate art that is itself beautiful and noble. Mark Meynell Now to be fair, that hardly describes the BBC. Despite its critics (and there are many), I am actually a fan, and it is an organization full of those who do genuinely strive after excellence. I only wish they took the whole of the Pauline quotation a little more seriously. Nevertheless, the motto did seem an unwittingly telling comment on contemporary society. Convictions, confidences, conventions—all are routinely dismissed with a shrug (or something worse). To the extent that a national broadcaster reflects, rather than shapes, a national culture, the BBC will inevitably communicate aspects of this—especially when it comes to those things that modernity demands to be excluded from the public square, like religion. “Whatever… that’s fine… unless you take it seriously enough to actually believe this stuff…” Lord Reith was in fact a Christian believer, in a rather austere Scottish Presbyterian mold. He held deep convictions about the great good that a national broadcaster could potentially accomplish, and he famously embedded the aims of “entertaining, informing and educating” into the corporation’s ethos. That is undoubtedly what motivated the adoption of the Philippians 4 motto to think on “whatever is true, noble, right, and pure.” Now, of course, when Paul wrote to the Philippians, he was encouraging them to live godly lives, or more specifically, godly lives of thought. And that is a noble aspiration. Crucial, in fact. It is wonderfully open-ended, too. Here Paul is not laying down prescriptive rules, but inspiring his readers to figure it out for themselves in the context of their own lives and contexts. It is something that all involved in the creative arts do well to embrace. It occasions a profound challenge to know ourselves, to acknowledge our own fallibility and temptations. Each of us is different. One person’s beartrap is another person’s irrelevance. We should bear that in mind when debating the sometimes very fine line between art and pornography, say. Or between what is an acceptable or unacceptable level of violence on screen or on canvas. But the truth is, at times, Philippians 4:8-9 has become a rod for artists’ backs. Too often, these verses have been wielded by various powers-that-be as a tool of coercion and control, in order to restrict what can be created. Paintings have to be lovely and pure, words must be clean, themes must be inspiring, and the arts must always be improving and “noble” (whatever that word means). You get the idea. But that is to miss the point. For not only are beauty and nobility notoriously relative to the eyes and ears of the beholder; this approach too often has led Christians down the blind alleys of kitsch, clichés and platitudes. But if we are to take the visionary prophetic as our model for creativity, which perhaps means to take our cue from the Old Testament prophets, then our horizons need to be far greater. For it means that integrated Christian art must have a place for the ugly and the despairing. Because that is the way our world is. We can still inspire people to reflect on, and indeed long for, the beautiful and noble. But that doesn’t necessitate art that is itself beautiful and noble. We are not propagandists. Calvin Seerveld is surely right here: You cannot bludgeon people with Christian art into accepting Jesus Christ. But neither should you settle for just being as dispassionately good as the secular artist, adding: ‘I do it for Jesus, you know.’ It is the crux of your task as a communal body of fellow Christian artists to fire your art until it emits sparks that warm, or burn, those it reaches. (Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves, (Piquant, 2001) p35)

Just the mention in some Christian circles of Modern (capital M) Art (capital A) will guarantee glazed eyes, knowing smirks, and a handful on the edge ready to pounce. Someone may well mention the infamous “pile of bricks” bought for a fortune by London’s Tate Modern and they’ll pour scorn with words like “even my five-year-old could do that.” It won’t cut much ice to argue that their five-year-old could not have done that (as Susie Hodge has argued in her intriguing if a little uneven book from 2012, Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That.) Neither will it help much to mention that the Tate Modern was the UK’s second most popular attraction in 2017, and that is despite being a decommissioned 1940s Power Station and containing only artworks made since 1900. Something about that place must be connecting with people! But let’s leave that to one side for now. There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of nonsense out there. And there’s a lot of bad art. Incidentally, by art and artists I mean not just the visual arts but all creativity: musical, literary, theatrical, cinematic, architectural. But just as you shouldn’t dismiss the whole idea of cricket after watching bad players or reject the idea of preaching after listening to bad preachers, so I’m sure we can agree that we should never reject any art form on account of its worst manifestations. We should take the best seriously. And by best, I don’t mean high art as opposed to low or pop art. In many ways, I reject the distinction. I’m quite prepared to recognize the multi-textured scenery of a computer game or the delectability of a hit single. The problem is that many Christian creative people receive little support from their churches and pastors, if not actual incomprehension and outright hostility. There are many reasons for this, beyond the scope of this post. Perhaps there is a modernist or evangelical suspicion about the non-verbal, as if words were the only ‘certain’ means by which to communicate. Perhaps there is a fear of the supposedly iconoclastic, bohemian, or subversive tendencies of creative people. Perhaps it is simply because people are nonplussed by an alien subculture that they find hard to understand. Whatever the reason, this situation is tragic. Reducing creative people’s church contributions to a trendy event flyer, or church website, or sermon illustration, is both a terrible waste and an insult to the Creator of human creativity. It treats the arts as mere tools, essentially reducing their function to propaganda. A while back, I was speaking to a tiny fellowship of Christians studying at one of London’s art colleges to encourage them. If you think being a creative person in church puts you in a minority, then just try being a Christian at the aggressively secular University of the Arts London! I wanted to give them something to aspire to, give them hope in their creative work. But this was not driven by a desire to fuel ambitions or motivate for success. It was out of a genuine belief that creative people have a God-given role, a mandate to serve the wider community through, not despite, their creativity. But this is not just for those involved at the creative cutting edge. It ought to bring a universally beneficial byproduct. By considering what art could and perhaps should be, we can then better discern what is good art, even in places where we least expect it. To be creative is to fill space with something new. At a certain point in time, a created object does not exist, but at another it does exist. All because an individual or group worked to bring it into existence. Even in the smallest of ways, it has thereby changed the world. And all who engage with that new object are somehow changed or affected. Artists help us to see what we didn't see, perhaps because we didn't notice or perhaps because we didn't want to notice. Great art demands deeper and more intentional looking, listening, and feeling. Mark Meynell To fill that space is first to imagine it filled. It may not be that its creator has fully conceived of it; it may end up as a very different thing from what was first imagined. But imagination is fundamental and God-given, for good or ill. All Christians are (whether we like it or not) theologians who seek to understand and live in God’s world in acknowledgment and dependence on God; perhaps, then, we should see Christian creativity as a theology of the imagination. That brings with it two significant roles, I think. (i) Theological Visionaries There is a UK chain of opticians called Specsavers that has produced a string of amusing advertisements in recent years. Each one shows the predicaments people get themselves into because they never got their eyes tested. One has a pair of senior citizens calmly sitting on a nice park bench to eat their sandwiches only to discover that they accidentally sat in the front carriage of a roller-coaster; or there are the space shuttle pilots who accidentally land at Luton airport outside London. Each advertisement ends with the tagline “should have gone to Specsavers.” It’s all quite fun and just a little bit silly. Artists are life’s equivalent of Specsavers. Artists help us to see what we didn’t see, perhaps because we didn’t notice or perhaps because we didn’t want to notice. Great art demands deeper and more intentional looking, listening, and feeling. After all, why privilege the eye above our other senses? They are all creation gifts. David Hockney is a painter who has spent a lot of time looking and helping us to look, and he appreciates others who have done the same for him. In a fascinating series of conversations with the English art critic Martin Gayford, he tells a lovely story from a few years back. There was a fantastic Monet exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995. They got a million people to see it. There are forty-six Monets in the Art Institute’s collection, which they lend to other exhibitions, so a lot of museums owed them a favour. As a result, for this exhibition they had got together about a hundred and fifty of his paintings. I went to see it one Sunday morning. It was fabulous. When I came out, I started looking at the bushes on Michigan Avenue with a little more care, because Monet had looked at his surroundings with such attention. He made you see more. Van Gogh does that for you too. He makes you see the world around just a little more intensely. And you enjoy seeing it like that, or I do. All good art does that in some way. A poem articulates a previously undefinable moment; a song expresses the contradictions of emotional reality; a novel helps us empathize with an enemy or alien; a painting helps us to see that a lawn may actually contain all kinds of reds and pinks rather than the uniform greens we always assumed it had. Because the artist has seen, we can see. But that is only half of it. Great artists do not just sense better than most of us; they can then do something about it. They can communicate it better than most. That is what gives them authority. (ii) Creative Prophets Those involved in the arts and media have taken on the role of prophet for our generation. It is no longer the philosophers, the statesmen or the preachers. These days, the prophetic is far more likely to be encountered in the Tate Modern or Hollywood than it is in a cathedral or Capitol building. Which grants those who are creative an influence that most of us lack, whether they like it or not. That is not a little intimidating. In fact, I hope it is intimidating. Because this is nothing to be blasé or whimsical about. As Peter Parker was famously told before becoming Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility.” That is a weight to bear. Here is Hockney again, later in his conversation with Martin Gayford. Now they’ve gone on to discussing Picasso. After all, any discussion of art in the 20th Century has to! Gayford begins with an anecdote he’d heard about from Picasso’s biographer, John Richardson. Lucien Clergue, the photographer, knew Picasso incredibly well. The other day he said to me, ‘You know, Picasso saved my life.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Yes it was after a bullfight in Arles.’ Lucien said he had been feeling fine, had lost a bit of weight but wasn’t worried. Out of the blue Picasso said to him, ‘You must go instantly to a hospital.’ Lucien asked ‘why?’ Picasso said, ‘You’ve got something seriously wrong with you.’ Lucien was damned if he was going to do it, but Jacqueline [Picasso’s wife] added, ‘When Pablo says that, for God’s sake go.’ So he went, and the doctors had him taken straight into the operating theatre. They said he had an extremely rare type of peritonitis, which is lethal. The bad thing about it is that it doesn’t manifest itself in pain, it just kills you. Picasso used to say quite often, ‘I’m a prophet’. After Gayford finished telling this story, Hockney was in total agreement: Picasso was a prophet. He must have seen something, most likely in Clergue’s face. Picasso must have looked at more faces than almost anybody, and he didn’t look at them like a photographer. He would have been thinking how would you draw it? Most people don’t look at a face too long; they tend to look away. But you do if you are painting a portrait. Rembrandt put more in the face than anyone before or since, because he saw more. That was the eye—and the heart. It is not enough to see something (in this case, something dangerous). It is necessary to communicate it. On another occasion, Picasso’s seeing would result in his overwhelmingly damning masterpiece, Guernica (1937), a seeing that brought tremendous responsibility. Mark Meynell will be speaking at Hutchmoot this year. Click here to learn more about him and his new book, When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend, at his website.

For a long time in the early years of my Christian walk, I felt quite schizophrenic. I was generously discipled by older believers, which meant that I learned huge amounts and grew rapidly. As a result, I came to love the Gospel and the Bible deeply. This led in turn to ministry opportunities, Church of England ordination, and service in two UK churches and at a small seminary in Uganda. It was a fairly tried and tested evangelical (of a British kind) path. But something was always missing. I had grown up in a very artistic home, with three generations of painters in the family, and had been involved in music of all kinds from an early age. Words, images, sounds: in their different ways, each held me enthralled. But the realms of aesthetics and beauty seemed tangential at best to my experience of discipleship; at worst, they might even be a hindrance. To compound the problem, whenever I pursued one of these aesthetic interests, they would invariably be portrayed in ways that were cynical, if not downright hostile, towards traditional worldviews such as my own Christian faith. The impression I received from the spirit of the age was that unless art is being provocative, subversive or seditious, it isn’t valid. Which is not to say that provocative, subversive, seditious art is always bad; there are times when art must be precisely these things. But only these things? The prevailing assumption in our western culture seems to be that we’ve grown out of what our forebears believed; we’re now mature. So even if our ancestors produced exquisite works of art to express their beliefs, we have no need today to take seriously those beliefs underlying their works. Which is, of course, bizarre. Few would dream, say, of interpreting Brecht’s plays without his Marxism, Camus’s novels without his existentialism, or even the music of Cat Stephens without his subsequent Muslim beliefs. So for years, I was presented the choice between theological conviction without aesthetic integrity or aesthetic integrity without theological conviction. Either way, theology and art didn’t seem capable of getting along. I sensed there had to be another way, but couldn’t tell you what it was. I sensed in my time at Hutchmoot a deep, even infectious, commitment to the lordship of Christ; and it was precisely this commitment which fueled the determination to explore human creativity in all its forms. Mark Meynell The first place to put me on the right track was Francis Schaeffer’s great legacy, L’Abri. It has been an oasis for me. I first started going to English L’Abri in 1990 as a university undergraduate. It blew me away to discover tapes of Christian thinkers speaking about everything from Voltaire to Velazquez, Madonna to Modernism, humor to hospitality. I made long-lasting friends and witnessed the possibility of taking seriously Kuyper’s great maxim, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ does not cry, ‘Mine!'” Hutchmoot seems to have found a way of doing a similar thing. I sensed in my time there a deep, even infectious, commitment to the lordship of Christ; and it was precisely this commitment which fueled the determination to explore human creativity in all its forms. I was thrilled to find a happy marriage of orthodoxy with the human imagination. It is clear from the Rabbit Room website that this organization highly prizes a thriving community life. Yet it is one thing to advocate for community and quite another to live it. Of course, three or four days at a conference is never sufficient to reveal the authenticity of a community, but it was clear to me the depth of relationships that returning guests enjoyed. They were able to pick up directly from where they left off the year before. It can be tricky for a newcomer like me in such circumstances, but the meals and refreshment breaks proved that most guests were more than happy to include those they didn’t know. But why is this important, when so much artistic work depends directly on solitude? Well, regardless of the circumstances in which we work, as divine image-bearers we all need others—especially when we become too self-sufficient or even self-important to remember it. We are not islands, as the great John Donne rightly insisted. This was one of the most helpful themes I picked up in Andy Crouch’s plenary session at Hutchmoot. By making community life so central—through wonderful touches like John Cal’s marvelous menu stories, the workshops, and the encouragements to work together for God’s glory rather than our own—it seems to me that the Rabbit Room has got something right. I left knowing more clearly what I need to grow and stay spiritually healthy and creative in the coming months. It would be fantastic if Hutchmoot UK can develop soon. But regardless of that possibility, I hope that all of us in our different places can find ways to live out some of these core Hutchmoot values until we meet again next year.

It was an idle conversation with an old friend in ministry, essentially. We both spend a fair amount of time at our desks and so we chat most days, mainly about triviality and absurdity. It keeps me going on the days when I don’t actually speak to a soul for hours on end, and I like to think it does him good, too. We often turn to matters of music, literature, and the arts generally, not least because both of us have been sustained by them in life’s dark valleys. So earlier this week, Beethoven’s late string quartets (Op. 127, 130-133, 135, written between 1825 and 1826) came up. They were his last major works. They were misunderstood and neglected at the time, but their posthumous reputation has been astonishing, with scholars and performers alike hailing them as high watermarks of human achievement. My friend said that these pieces kept him going during a time of acute family crisis. I’d listened to them before, and even heard one or two in concert. But in all honesty, I don’t think I’d ever actually heard them. I certainly couldn’t appreciate exactly why they had been such lifesavers. So I’ve started listening to them again, but properly this time. Picture the context: Beethoven is in his mid fifties, but since his thirties had become increasingly aware of weakened hearing. By 1820 he was profoundly deaf, though there is some debate about the extent. We do know that regular social interaction was now impossible, so everything would be written in his “conversation books.” He was also troubled by various serious medical complaints. None of this curtailed composition, of course, but it did slow him down. Still, in his now silent, final years, he completed such aural miracles as his Missa Solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, and the last piano sonatas. As well as the late quartets. Now I love great swaths of chamber music—for me, that of Schubert, Brahms, and Dvorak (with some of Mozart) are my mainstays. I particularly love pieces in which the quartet partners with a solo instrument, such as clarinet or piano. But string quartets, the purest expression of the form, have often floated over my head, feeling too ivory-towered, arid, or inaccessible. So I asked my friend what it was about these pieces in particular that helped him. This is what he came back with: It’s such involving music, an objective correlative for the knotted muscles and compound fractures of the soul, the confused and chaotic journeys.But it has its own knots and U-turns too, the emotional-musical architecture of another universe, a different set of journeys. So it draws you out of yourself in its own insistence: “Stop listening to yourself! Listen to my story, feel my mountains and chasms. You’ll have to stop hearing your own whispers if you are going to get mine!”And where Ludwig scores so high is that his are both real and beautiful. So in summary, Beethoven’s saying, “Listen to the way I can make patterns out of my pain and end up in peace.” I was stunned. Those thoughts have rattled around my cranium ever since. What we need is art that looks horror in the face. What we yearn for is redemption from that horror. The problem is that our world has despaired of ever finding it. But Christian hope has proven itself resilient in the face of horror again and again. Mark Meynell If there is a section in these quartets that clearly corresponds to that culminating peace, it must surely be third, central movement of the Fifteenth String Quartet (Op. 132). That alone can last nearly twenty minutes (almost half the length of the whole piece), and it was written after Beethoven was confined to his bed by an illness that he feared would finish him off. So he described this movement as “a holy song of thanks (Heiliger Dankgesang) to the divinity, from one made well.” Words cannot do justice to it—which is presumably why he expressed himself in music rather than poetry. But it is ineffably sublime. As it happens, he would succumb finally to illness in the following year. And the rest of this quartet, as well as the others, do express all the inevitable fears, confusions, and puzzles of our mortality. But that movement was my way in. I was beginning to “get it.” After the twentieth century’s accumulated horrors, artists in all media have found it impossible to be real without eschewing beauty. Sometimes ugliness renders beauty inadmissible, even offensive. As Theodor Adorno famously claimed, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (though please do read this helpful post on what he was getting at in that misunderstood phrase, and how he later refined the idea). What we need is art that looks horror in the face. What we yearn for is redemption from that horror. The problem is that our world has despaired of ever finding it. But Christian hope has proven itself resilient in the face of horror again and again. And I suspect the reason these late quartets exert such a majestic influence is that they are both “real and beautiful.” They “make patterns out of my pain and end up in peace.” Which naturally made me think of Jackson Pollock’s (in)famous “drip paintings.” London’s Royal Academy put on a remarkable exhibition in 2016, gathering in one place a host of works from the Abstract Expressionism movement that flourished mainly in 1950s New York. Rothko, de Kooning, Krasner—they were all there, as were many others. And of course, so was Pollock. I’d never seen him live before. It was an unexpectedly visceral experience. I had previously assumed his works were random, accidental, somehow artless. How ignorant! My standout was his vast 1952 work, Blue Poles. It is nearly fifteen feet wide. Yet, despite its scale, it is surprisingly intricate and complex. What’s more, it felt alive and dynamic (which is an incongruous thing to say of hardened oil paint fixed into two-dimensional place decades previously). Yes, Pollock was dripping or spattering paint from tins to make it, but precious little of it was random. Here was astonishing design that was only perceptible by stepping back. It was fractal-like. Get too close, it is impossible to discern how that fractal pattern expands and multiplies. “What is it of, though?” I hear some complain. Well, Pollock tells us: blue poles. Eight of them, in fact. But I think he’s playing with us a little. “You need a name? Ok, I’ll give you one.” But it doesn’t really get us very far. They might be poles, but they’re only gestures towards something pole-like. The painting is more like an invitation to an intricately woven but lively choreography. There are many layers of paintwork, many different dimensions to this dance, many separate patterns. But here’s the point: patterns do exist at the heart of this apparent randomness. And yet there are times when it seems confusing, uncompromising, and even ugly. A hideous beauty, perhaps. The day before my friend and I were conversing, I came across some extreme magnifications of butterfly wings on the internet. They are mesmerizingly beautiful: such intricate order and clarity even when it is so tiny that distances need to be measured in microns. There is order and wonder here. In these images we are privy to sights that the naked eye of previous generations could never imagine, but which have been present since the dawn of time in their God-given order. Musical patterns woven out of unimaginable pain; vast patterns blazing out of the apparent chaos of oil-paint dripped onto a warehouse floor; microscopic patterns invisible but God-given all along. Is it any wonder that we long for a context for the elements of our stories, a sense of purpose and place? That is how the world was made. And the greatest art seems to reflect that in the most surprising ways. This is not to be mistaken for rigidity or dehumanizing order (perhaps epitomized by the modernist extremes of Mondrian in his numbered Compositions). So perhaps this is one place where the arts and sciences can at last be reconciled again. Didn’t the great astronomer Johannes Kepler once say that he was “merely thinking God’s thoughts after him?” Perhaps artists can seek to do the same. Mark Meynell’s new book, When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend, is available here at the Rabbit Room store. Photo by Chris Perani

Author’s Note: Last May (2016) I enlisted Jamin Still’s visual genius and together we launched a crowdfunding campaign to bring our picture book, The Wishes of the Fish King, to print as a Rabbit Room Press project. Hopefully all of you who partnered with us either have your book(s) already or, if you also ordered the family book journal Stories We Shared, you’ll have them soon. For those who didn’t get in on the initial campaign but are still interested in securing a copy by Christmas, the Rabbit Room Store is your new best friend. This week I thought to pen an article expounding on the themes of the book and delving into my reasons for writing it, but before doing so I happened to read a random tweet from someone who had just discovered an article I wrote and posted during the crowdfunding campaign last May. I skimmed back over it and thought “Oh. Okay. Huh. So I already said pretty much everything I had to say. Funny. I don’t remember writing that.” Like I tell my kids: “If my brain was a computer, it would all be RAM. There is no hard drive.” No matter how many times I do something, it’s always the first time. So with a few tweaks to make it more relevant to the post-publishing stage of the Fish King project, I (re)present to you my already mentally-misplaced essay “Remembering What We Mean.” (Because apparently, I need more help than most with remembering pretty much anything.) _________________________________ “Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.” –G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy It might not be a bad idea just to let Chesterton drop the mic right there and leave readers in a wide and silent space to ponder his ponderous words. Still, at the risk of slapping bumper stickers on the sunset, I want to unpack this notion of Chesterton’s and make it a bit more personal. Because it is so very personal. My Anglican pastor tells me that for him, consecrating the elements for communion was a huge step the first time it was his responsibility to perform the ceremony. The act of consecration is a conscious drawing forth, a lifting up, a marking out, a recognition of these particular things as holy—not because this bread and this wine are any more holy than all other bread and all other wine, but because by this conscious act we are reminding ourselves of the truth that everything in the world will one day be this; all parts of creation will one day be seen for what they truly are, viewed again through the knowledge of their consecration, both in their parts and in the whole. And so, this bread and this cup of wine, so consecrated, are a first fruits, are a reminder, are a means of refocusing our vision with a greater clarity that sees all things, even if only for this flickering moment, as they more truly and eternally are, each imbued with a holy light. Chesterton’s point about the work of fairy tales is, I think, exactly that same point. Fairy tales… make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. Fairy tales employ the tool of the fantastic to jar us back to a truer vision that sees that all things are fantastic. Wonder is an appropriate response to all things because all things are wonderfully made. Though few of us can remember that earliest season of awakened wonder, there yet was a time when everything was new to our hearts and minds and senses, when everything was an unfolding delight. There was a first time we first saw the ripe redness of a strawberry. There was a first time we encountered a rushing stream and dipped our bare feet in the giddy laughter of it. There was a first time we met the sort of rollicking, affable beast we call a dog, and reveled in the uproarious, comic beauty of its romp. There was a time when all things were new and so were seen and encountered as the wonders they actually are. And the work of fairy tales, according to Chesterton, is to rescue that wonder from the grey sediments it has long been silted over with. Songs penned by Mark Heard in the ’80s and early ’90s had a profound influence on my own development as a lyricist. One of the devastating lines that early etched itself in my consciousness came from the song “Worry Too Much:” It’s these sandpaper eyes It’s the way they rub the lustre from what is seen It’s the way we tell ourselves that all these things are normal Till we can’t remember what we mean. Fairy tales, apparently, are about helping us remember what we mean. They’re about helping us see things with the lustre recovered. Because that’s the true nature of nature and of all creation. It shines from within with a bright, luminous glow, with a deep “magic.” When we are children, we see it. We see it with aching clarity. And then our vision goes flat, fuzzy, out-of-focus. We grow bored, tired, wounded, cynical. We lose the ability to see the wonder for what it is. We gravitate instead to the novel, the flashy, the garish, consuming all that we can, addict-like, in a long, misguided attempt to reclaim those lost wonders by sheer excess and volume. By the age of 12 most of us have forgotten that an earlier sense of Eden ever existed in our lives. It takes something like a fairy tale, or a consecration, to pull our vision back into true focus. To lift an element out of the commonality of our banal slog, and to show us again that this singular thing is fraught with wonder. And if this thing is so fraught, then is not everything? Have you forgotten? we are asked. Look again! I recently completed a collaborative book project with painter/illustrator Jamin Still. The Wishes of the Fish King is a manuscript I wrote when my oldest daughter was two. We lived in a house on a hill in a forest. The hill swept down and out into magnificent views of fields and pond and forest and faraway hills and even a forest island set in the midst of the billowing field grasses. At dusk we would join hands and walk together, exploring our own little corner of the world. For my daughter Anastina Mansi, it was a season of perpetual wonder, of the unfolding of creation, of all things shiny and new and resplendent with their native glories. For me, it was a time of shedding my old cynicism, of negating my sandpaper vision, and of seeing the world anew as my daughter saw it, bright and joyful! Of course, there was simultaneously the sense that I carried of the fleetingness of things. I knew this was but a small window in the span of my daughter’s life. With it came an attendant and consequent grieving for the passing of that small season even as we were still walking and breathing in the midst of it. For a mother or father watching their small child delight in the newly-discovered creation, there is that bittersweetness that comes from the knowledge of the loss and the longing they will one day encounter. Andrew Peterson sings in “Don’t You Want To Thank Someone”: And when the world is new again And the children of the king Are ancient in their youth again Maybe it’s a better thing To be more than merely innocent But to be broken, then redeemed by love. This is the wellspring of the bittersweetness. It flows from the knowing that our children cannot remain in the bright place they are. They will have to walk their own wild journey through pain, woundedness, heartache, suffering, brokenness and loss. They will lose this true and delightful vision of creation somewhere along the way, just as each of us has in our own journeys. But as their parents we have lived long enough that we can also see further ahead to the even greater joy that will await them beyond those sorrows. We can look ahead to the time when vision will be eternally renewed and that first innocent delight and the brokenness and sorrow that followed it will all be wrapped up in the same glorious redemption that restores our delight but that does ever so much more than simply restore. We hold this promise and anticipate the coming advent that will see the redemption of our vision of all things and of our place in them, making it right and true and new and as unbreakable and as beautiful as diamonds shot with a fairy light. And though we cannot see it all that way yet, we have caught enough glimpses in stories and songs and paintings and starfields and moonrises and sunsets and romping dogs and glad streams and giddy romances to know that it is real and that it is already breaking into our brittle-edged world. We will see one day with such an unbroken, sacramental vision. All things. All things for the inexhaustible wonders that they hold, for the inexhaustible glories they reveal of the mind of the artist and storyteller who created them. But fairy tales, and luminous paintings, and the voices of cellos and the taste of a wild, sun-warmed blackberry or the sparkling of a chalice held aloft or the visual force and scale of a wide, windswept ocean can sometimes jar us back to that sacramental vision, even if only for a brief, precious moment. That is the particular notion that resides at the heart of what I set out to accomplish with The Wishes of the Fish King. I want adults to read it and lose themselves in the rhythm of the words and in the glow of the paintings and to remember what it was to see the world anew. And I want the words and images to nest in the hearts and memories of young children so that their vision might be more sacramentally shaped as they grow. I want them to one day return to the story as adults with young children of their own that they might be reminded again of the delightful garden they once knew and of the shining city that awaits. I know it is a lofty goal. And I knew from the outset that I was unequipped to pull it off adequately. But my prayer with such endeavors is always that the whole will somehow be more than the sum of the parts and that there will be spaces between my words that winds of another world might blow through. I think that my hope is to create sacramental spaces where more important things can happen that don’t even involve me. If in twenty years I have mastered one aspect of being a writer, it is the ability to step back and let a thing go, knowing that its journey from here will scarcely involve me, and that the rest is dependent upon the Spirit whispering as the Spirit pleases through such imperfect offerings. As such, I took a strange, third-person encouragement in observing that the words of the story, paired for the first time with one of Jamin’s illustrations, were having a noticeable effect on me. The painting was called “The Sea of Fields.” Even as a chalk sketch over a base coat it was already stunning. I wasn’t able to look at it without some emotion, as it was a fantastical rendering of a place and time I once inhabited. The tone is magical and perilous and fairytale-esque. And yet I saw the real place clearly pictured there. In fact, the blend of fantasy and memory created a layered vision that held the essence of that time more vividly than any photograph ever could. This fairy tale visual re-interpretation of that physical location and era, offered a keener sight of the deeper reality of the wonder and the beauty of it than a camera ever could capture. Jamin’s painting held an iconic familiarity in its placement of the house atop the great hill, sweeping down to the wind-rippled fields and the forest island. I saw it clearly as my old home. This was once my land. I walked it. I fished it. I tended it. My second daughter was born here. I saw the terrain and the history. But in that painting, I saw also, as if in hindsight, the eternal glory that filled it as well. I saw the light. I saw all at once what was and what is and what is to come. And upon viewing the painting something in me rises and says Yes, that was always how it was, even when I couldn’t see it. The Sea of Fields is a sacramental painting of a real place and a real time in the lives of real people. And I was one of them. And I hope that though this story began as a personal reflection to capture for my daughter the memories of that bright season, that it will still function for others as a window flung open to the bright, sacramental nature of their own corner of creation and of their own lives and relationships and of their own histories of glory and brokenness, and especially of that brief season with their young children when all the world is seen as new. I hope that in some small way The Wishes of the Fish King will help children to grow wise and will help adults to grow childlike. And with that, now I finally will just step out of the way and let Chesterton bring the point home, because in his continuing words resides the point of it all… “…[G]rown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” [Chesterton drops the mic, walks off stage.] __________________________________________________________________________________ The Wishes of the Fish King hardback, as well as the Audiobook/Original Musical Score CD version, are available now from the Rabbit Room Store. And checkout Amazon.com where we’re giving away the ebook for free for a limited time.

What if I told you I just read a book that made brushing my teeth feel like a holy act? I actually got all weepy over them. My teeth, I mean. But to explain why, I need to back up about eight years. When I moved to Nashville, I felt like a spiritual vagabond. For years I’d drifted from church to church, denomination to denomination, unable to find a place I belonged. I struggled with intellectual doubts, inner inertia, and the deadening of my feelings of worship. I could barely sing along with hymns anymore. I simply stood mute, waiting for them to end. Four years of editing a magazine in the Chicago suburbs had left me feeling marooned—as a single professional woman in a sea of families, and as a misfit believer in a Christian subculture I didn’t often like and certainly didn’t feel at home in anymore. But soon after moving here, I joined a group of women who met regularly to talk about our passions—whether art, dance, film, social justice, food, or simple living. The first night, a young woman named Tish Warren, with a scarf around her tousled hair and a playful intensity in her face, plopped into a chair beside mine and said, “You were the editor of Christian History magazine? I have such a crush on you.” As it turned out, Tish and her husband and I had all gone to the same college and seminary—so we had plenty to talk about. I learned she attended an Anglican church in town, and weary of all my years of church hopping, I went to their service the following Sunday. I never left. It wasn’t that I considered myself an Anglican—theologically, I have my differences. I stayed because of the liturgy. Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. Frederick Buechner Liturgy, literally “the work of the people,” typically refers to the pattern and rituals of worship. In some churches, this pattern is fairly simple (singing, prayer, sermon, offering, prayer), while in others it’s more elaborate. In the Anglican church in which I now found myself—at least compared to what I’d been used to in the past—it was downright gymnastic. Up, down, kneel, pray, up, down, read, turn, bow, sing, shout, throw your hand out, kneel again, up, down . . . . Every Sunday morning, I arrived (like I had for so many years) empty, dry, cynical, incapable of worshiping on my own. And every Sunday morning, the liturgy took me by the hand—physically, it seemed—and led me through the motions of worship, put into my mouth words that I couldn’t pray alone. Here was a service in which I was less a spectator than an actor in a drama, constantly moving, constantly speaking the lines of a beautiful script that had been spoken for hundreds of years. I was no longer mute. Every Sunday I knelt on a bench beside strangers, bowed my head, and held my cupped hands out to receive communion, and I felt as if I was receiving my dose of grace to get me through the coming week. That ritual, that posture, taught my heart what it had forgotten. It was the actual bodily kneeling and holding out of my hands, again and again and again, that reawakened the desire for something to fill those empty palms. I realized that, underneath my messy, disordered artistic personality, I’ve been a liturgical being my whole life. Concrete acts of tradition and ritual—habits of family holidays or childhood actions repeated so many times that memories and meanings were rolled up in them like snowballs—have always been precious to me. I’m an undisciplined scatterbrain who needs a liturgy to take me by the hand and lead me through the motions of a life well-lived, form me into the postures that will give my heart a healthy shape, turn my longings towards what is good rather than what depletes and wastes me. My journals for decades have been full of ill-fated attempts to fit my daily life into a pattern, an order, that is not merely productive but meaningful, beautiful, touching something transcendent. Throw in a good dose of 41-year-old mid-life angst and there’s been a choir of accusatory voices in my head lately: I’m letting life slip through my undisciplined fingers like water. I must be a constant disappointment to God. What is the purpose of my days? What am I doing with my life, anyway? When my friend Tish’s book—her first, I hope, of many—arrived in the mail, I couldn’t wait to read it simply because Tish had written it. What I didn’t know was how deeply I needed her words, in much the same way as I needed her church eight years ago. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren (InterVarsity Press, 2016) is, in simplest terms, a meditation upon a single ordinary day, from waking to sleeping. (In fact, if you have time, I recommend reading it straight through in one day.) With gentle hospitality and humility, Tish welcomes us into her own mundane moments and through them points us to a deeper understanding of the holy humdrum of being human beings in the world. “We tend to want a Christian life with the dull bits cut out,” she says. But what if the dull bits are precisely the places where the light shines through? “What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that seem small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?” There are so many ways in which such a book could be written badly. In the hands of a less theologically and historically sensitive author, it could have been a vague rumination about all of life being “spiritual” and God being in the details and how we can meet Jesus wherever we are. But in Tish’s hands the subject feels as solid and rooted as an ancient oak tree. In the years since I met her, Tish and her husband (both church history aficionados) have become ordained Anglican priests, and though this is certainly not an Anglican book—it is accessible to anyone, no matter what denomination—I believe Tish’s deep embeddedness in a church tradition is what sets this book apart and gives it a depth that I often find lacking in Christian books aimed at my generation. “If I am to spend my whole life being transformed by the good news of Jesus,” she explains, “I must learn how grand, sweeping truths—doctrine, theology, ecclesiology, Christology—rub against the texture of an ordinary day.” The word texture is perfectly chosen here, because it is precisely in the gritty, knobbly, chapped, and rumpled earthiness of our lives that these grand truths embody themselves each day. Tish expresses big ideas in simple, winsome language, wearing both her hats of seminary-trained theologian and sticky-peanut-butter-fingered mom of two young children, effortlessly flowing between the transcendent and the tongue-in-cheek. “Teeth. So needy,” she jokes in one breath, while in the next she’s pointing us (and those minty molars) towards the hope of resurrected glory. Liturgy of the Ordinary reminds me that the unflashy routines I do unthinkingly every day are—or could be, if only I paid attention—pregnant with spiritual meaning. Making the bed (forming chaos into order), brushing my teeth (proclaiming that my body will be redeemed), eating leftovers (thanking God for his abundant and often overlooked provision), answering my email (participating, even through the tedious tasks of my own small vocation, in the mission Dei, the mission of God to redeem every part of creation), pausing for a cup of tea (embracing beauty in adoration of the One who gave me senses to enjoy it)—these habits can, if I let them, become a liturgy leading me through the day, turning my heart slowly, by practice and repetition, into healthy paths of desire and contentment and hope. “There is no task too small or too routine to reflect God’s glory and worth,” Tish writes. But she pushes us even deeper still. In each chapter she connects an ordinary, habitual moment in her own day with a particular aspect of corporate worship: Baptism, Word and Sacrament, confession, the passing of the peace, “smells and bells,” etc. This was what most surprised me in the book, and it was a little revelation to me, or maybe a reminder of what was always obvious under the surface. Oh, yeah. What I do in church on Sunday, the motions I go through in The Liturgy, is practice for the little liturgies—the habits and rituals that collect memory and meaning like snowballs—throughout the daily grind of my week. And those ordinary rituals of my week are little pictures of what the pattern of Sunday worship ultimately points to. Our waking moment each morning is a reenactment and remembrance of the baptismal proclamation that “before you know it, before you doubt it, before you confess it, before you can sing it yourself, you are beloved by God, not by your effort but because of what Christ has done on your behalf.” We rise into an identity given to us, not earned, donning it like the clothes we put on. We rise as bodies, messy and blessed, and when we stare bleary-eyed into the mirror we are staring at a work of art far more stunning and sacred than the Sistine Chapel. There is a sense in which every meal is a little Eucharist, every passing encounter a chance to pass the peace. The calendar of the Christian year—the rhythm of waiting and hoping patiently in the in-between time, preparing for the celebration to come—is prefigured in the most mundane and irritating of situations, sitting in a car stuck in traffic: on the way, but not there yet. For years I have felt as if the posture of kneeling and cupping my hands for the communion bread has been forming, physically kneading, my heart into a posture of submission and desire for grace. But I needed Tish’s reminder that when I leave that sanctuary to go out into the world, I am not bereft of liturgies to take me by the hand and guide me through the daily drama of a faith I feel unable to sustain on my own. Nor is anything radically monastic required of me—only a submission to my own creatureliness, and a recognition of its God-given beauty. When I wake, I wake already beloved. And when I lie down to sleep, I rest in trust. “Listen to your life,” writes Frederick Buechner. “See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” In her chapter, “Calling a Friend,” Tish likens Christian friendship to the antiphonal back-and-forth of congregational prayers, responsive Psalm readings, sermons interlaced with Amens. Call and response. We speak truth to each other and with each other, again and again. So, in case you’re wondering, this isn’t a review of Tish’s book. Not really. After all, she is my friend—my co-communicant. How could I write a review? No, I’m just here in the congregation answering back, Yes. Say it, sister. I hear you. Amen. What a joy it is to me that God has given me so many friends who are writers, artists, singers, actors, pastors—with whom I get to live out this continual antiphon. Even when we differ. Even when we acknowledge our own and each other’s incompleteness, the muteness of our hearts as we kneel for communion together. Call and response. Peace of Christ to you, Tish. Thank you for making me cry over my toothbrush. [Liturgy of the Ordinary is available in the Rabbit Room Store.]

A recent discussion among friends was really more of a lament. Christmas feels odd this year, we said. That’s not really true. “Odd” is the wrong word. Maybe “sorrowful” or at least some reflection of the idea that it doesn’t feel, well, Christmas-y. Whatever that means. Singing songs about comfort and joy feels weird when our interconnected world confronts me with the reality of Aleppo. I can’t rid myself of these images. The faraway look on a toddler’s face, so far from my own son who bounces with joy from one piece of furniture to another while making up songs that flow so freely from his heart. The ensuing arguments about the treatment of such refugees only worsen the feeling, since we’re not discussing nameless, faceless cases. I’ve seen them which makes looking past them that much harder. This holiday season only exacerbates the tension between the joy of Christmas and the lived-out reality of those running from destruction. After all, I’m preaching from a story that sounds eerily similar: a genocidal decree intent on the slaughter of innocent children, the blessed hope for the nations somehow cowering as a vulnerable baby sheltered by his poor, oppressed, minority family. What if a photographer could have captured the look on Jesus’ face or his mother, Mary, as they fled certain death under Herod’s rule. I’m reminded of Jürgen Moltmann’s beautiful words about the power of the juxtaposition — the defenseless child disarming the rest of us — in his book, The Power of the Powerless. He writes: The kingdom of peace comes through a child, and liberation is bestowed on the people who become as children: disarmingingly defenseless, disarming through their defenselessness, and making others defenseless because they themselves are so disarming. After the prophet’s (Isaiah 9) mighty visions of the destruction of all power and the forceful annihilation of all coercion, we are now suddenly face to face with this inconspicuous child. It sounds so paradoxical that some interpreters have assumed that this is a later interpolation. The prisoners who have to fight for their rights also find it difficult to understand how this child can help them. But it is really quite logical. For what the prophet says about the eternal peace of God which satisfies our longings can only come to meet us, whether we are frightened slaves or aggressive masters, in the form of a child. A child is defenseless. A child is innocent. A child is the beginning of new life. His defenselessness makes our armaments superfluous. We can put away the rifles and open our clenched fists. His innocence redeems us from the curse of the evil act that is bound to breed ever more evil. We no longer have to go on like this. And his birth opens up for us the future of a life in peace that is different from all life hitherto, since that life was bound up with death. ‘For to us a child is born. To us a son is given. The government is upon his shoulders.’ The liberator becomes a pleading child in our world, armed to the teeth as it is. And this child will become the liberator for the new world of peace. That is why his rule means life, not death; peace, not war; freedom, not oppression. This sovereignty lies on the defenseless innocent and hopeful shoulders of this child. This makes our fresh start into the future meaningful and possible. The oppressed will be free from oppression. And they will also be free from the dreams of darkness, the visions of revenge. They stand up and rejoice, and their rejoicing frees their masters too from their brutal armaments. The oppressors with their cudgels, their iron shoes and their bloody coats will be freed from their grim machinations and will leave the poor in peace. For the new human being has been born, and a new humanity which no longer knows either masters or slaves, either oppressed or oppressors. This is God’s initiative on behalf of this betrayed and tormented humanity. ‘The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.’ It is the zeal of his ardent love. * * * But is this really possible here and now, or is it just a dream? There is nothing against dreams if they are good ones. The prophet gave the people in darkness, and us, this unforgettable dream. We should remain true to it. But he could only see the shadowy outline of the name of the divine child, born for the freedom of the world; he called him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty Hero, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The New Testament proclaims to us the person himself. He is Jesus Christ, the child in the manger, the preacher on the mount, the tormented man on the cross, the risen liberator. So, according to the New Testament the dream of a liberator, and the dream of peace, is not merely a dream. The liberator is already present and his power is already among us. We can follow him, even today making visible something of the peace, liberty and righteousness of the kingdom that he will complete. It is no longer impossible. It has become possible for us in fellowship with him. Let us share in his new creation of the world and — born again to a living hope — live as new men and women. The zeal of the Lord be with us all.

If you were at Hutchmoot this year, I hope you had time to appreciate the wealth of talented illustrators in attendance. Every year there seems to be a couple more of these guys sitting at the table drawing and painting and being awesome. This year, Stephen Hesselman (a fine illustrator himself) asked each of them to draw something that he could then ink, and the result is an awesome snapshot of the Hutchmoot cadre of illustrators. But it didn’t stop there. After Hutchmoot ended, Stephen continued to solicit art from friends and attendees he met over the weekend and apply his ink to their work. I love Stephen’s selflessness in this little project of his. He put a lot of work into shining the spotlight on others and the results are fantastic. Take a look for yourself. Pencil: Jamin Still, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Jay Myers, Ink: Stephen Hessleman Pencil: Aedan Peterson, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: John Hendrix, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Joe Sutphin, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Jenny Dorf, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Benjamin Schipper, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Will Kelly, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Jonny Jimison, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Lisa Eldred, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: John Haney, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Wendy Lane Hesselman, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Ken Priebe, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Ben Humeniuk, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Michael Regina, Ink: Stephen Hesselman Pencil: Richard Jenkins, Ink: Stephen Hesselman

If you’re geographically challenged, you might not realize just how majestic the mountains are in southern Indiana. Every year or so, I grew up riding across the state to a small town called Paoli, packed in a 15-passenger van with other kids from my youth group for our semi-regular ski retreat to Paoli Peaks. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized those peaks are nothing more than a single smaller hill, and all that snow was manufactured by machines actually called “snow guns.” However, during those years and well into early adulthood, I was convinced that I was good at skiing. Paoli Peaks had not presented much of a problem. Several years later, I was taking youth groups of my own in newer 15-passenger vans to other Midwestern ski sites, this time in Michigan at places called Swiss Valley and Timber Ridge. These peaks were slightly larger and a bit more advanced, but my ski sensibilities met the challenges just fine. If you asked me in those years about activities I enjoyed, I’d have definitely mentioned skiing. I had no idea what I was talking about. In my mid-twenties, a friend invited me to speak at a ski retreat in Colorado. Copper Mountain, to be specific, nestled right next to Breckenridge the heart of real ski territory. I accepted, of course. Speaking at a ski retreat or seaside resort is an automatic “yes” (just a note for anyone interested in extending any further invitations). Unfortunately I had no idea what I was in for, and the resulting weekend was humiliating in a number of ways. My friend had tried to warn me in advance: . “Have you skiied before?” “Yes.” “Are you good?” “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” “Have you been skiing in Colorado? Because Colorado skiing is different than—” “I’ll be fine.” “And I’m not sure how in shape you are, but even being in the mountain air is something to account for. You’ll want to…” [keeps talking] At that point I wasn’t paying much attention. I certainly don’t remember anything he said, other than realizing that, at some level, he was warning me about altitude and oxygen and nutrition. He was experienced enough to know that Colorado skiing — real skiing — is exhausting exercise if you’re not ready for it. Cardiovascular health is key. Hydration is very important. There are key ways to eat, to prepare, to approach a weekend of skiing. I paid zero attention to all of this. The results of that weekend played out predictably. The total vertical drop at Paoli Peaks is 300 feet. At Copper Mountain, it’s 2,600-plus. The ski lift itself took 25 minutes to get to the top. I could have watched an entire episode of Seinfeld in the time it took to even start skiing. After struggling off the lift and looking down at my final destination, I realized that no previous experience had prepared me for this. To even use the same term, to call it skiing, was inaccurate. Halfway down the mountain, I kid you not, a group of 4- and 5-year-olds who were taking a lesson stopped right next to me as their instructor had to help me out. “Hold on, guys,” she said. “This man needs some help.” She proceeded to help me back up while all 8 or so toddlers stopped skiing without any issue. Once I’d located my missing ski and pole, they moved on down EZ Road. I’m pretty sure I fell down again the moment they turned around. It took me 5.5 hours to get down that mountain, taking a path that was literally called EZ Road. I missed lunch entirely and didn’t get back to our table in the lodge until mid-afternoon. One chaperone thought I was enjoying myself so much that I’d just decided to indulge skiing all day at the expense of taking any sort of lunch break — until she saw the look on my face. My body shut down after that. I was angry and embarrassed. I was exhausted and stressed. I was hungry and thirsty and more tired than I can ever remember being before that moment. It took me considerable effort to remove my snowsuit from over my clothes, but once I did, I never even thought of putting it back on. I was finished with the mountain. Looking back, I realize that my primary error was that I failed to understand the demands of the mountain, even when I’d been warned ahead of time. The mountains of Paoli, Indiana do not require the same demands as those in Colorado, and it’s a reality I could only understand when I was face-to-face with this new mountain. I have a feeling that even if I’d listened to my friend and respected the journey a bit more, I’d have still been thrown off by the sheer enormity of it all. Recently, I was reading through the lectionary and came upon a passage from Isaiah 2. It conjured this memory for me because of its mountain imagery. Even more, it presents a mountain of enormous magnitude with demands of its own. 1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. 5 Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. As with most prophetic texts, there are multiple layers of truth to be found here. In a sense, there is a direct application for the time in which Isaiah lives and yet there are also future ramifications here, that there will be a day when all things will bend toward the mountain of God. The Lord’s temple will be established as the highest mountain of all, exalted above all the other hills that have been named as the most majestic in our world. The Christian’s vision of the future is set here: even with the grandeur of all created things around us, a new mountain will be established that will capture the attention and awe of everyone and everything. This is nothing new for the Christian. We should be used to the idea that, at the end of all things, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess — that at the culmination of the kingdom of God, when the kingdoms of this world finally meet their end, we will all find ourselves overwhelmed by the light and love of King Jesus. But it’s also here in Isaiah that we find out what such a warning means for our daily lives today. Just as I failed to hear the warning of the mountain I would soon visit, it’s possible for us to acknowledge this coming mountain marked by God’s presence without also preparing for it. Yet this mountain also has its demands, asking us to learn his ways and walk in his paths. We are then instructed what happens when the mountain appears. Our cycles of violence will end. Our weapons of warfare will become civic tools. The dividing lines between us will be blurred in an ultimate globalization where enmity between nations will cease to exist. The demands of this mountain are laid out to us as a vision of the future. Yet in the end, we are then encouraged to “walk in the light of the Lord.” We participate now in a new lived-out reality called the kingdom of God, enacting our future hope out in our present age. It is here in the present that our tools of destruction be transformed into tools of construction. It is here that our violent cycles should give way to new schools of thought/action. Abraham Joshua Heschel, a prominent Jewish theologian in the 20th century, wrote, “When the prophets appeared, they proclaimed that might is not supreme, that the sword is an abomination, that violence is obscene. The sword, they said, shall be destroyed. The prophets, questioning man’s infatuation with might, insisted not only on the immorality but also on the futility and absurdity of war … What is the ultimate profit of all the arms, alliances, and victories? Destruction, agony, death.” Perhaps, like myself, most of us will not change until we’re confronted with the reality of a new mountain, that we will refuse to address our violent selves until we’re overwhelmed by the beauty of something greater. But I believe we can begin to showcase the beauty of the peaceful presence of God before the establishment of this mountain, that it is possible to walk in God’s paths in the here and now and that his light can lead us there.

A few [months] ago a wonderful little film showed up online. It featured one of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson, having a conversation about the Psalms with Bono, one of my favorite songwriters. It actually brought tears to my eyes, not just because of the good content but because the video was so well done. I even texted the filmmaker Nathan Clarke to tell him so. But Bono said something that prompted a Twitter response from me, and that response stirred up a good discussion on the internet—a discussion that I hope will bear some good fruit. At one point Bono says, “I’m talking about dishonesty that I find a lot of in Christian art. A lot of dishonesty. And I think it’s a shame because these are people who are vulnerable to God—in a good way—vulnerable. I mean porous, open. I would love if this conversation would inspire people who are writing [with] these beautiful voices, these beautiful gospel songs [to] write a song about their bad marriage. Write a song about how they’re pissed off at the government. Because that’s what God wants from you. The truth…and that truthfulness…will blow things apart. Why I’m suspicious of Christians is because of this lack of realism. And I’d like to see more of that in life, and in art, and in music.” It’s clear that Bono, for whom I have a lot of respect, is shooting from the hip, and while it’s tempting to criticize and parse every word he’s saying, it would do us all good to remember how many conversations we’ve had over coffee that we’re thankful weren’t being recorded, and aren’t being listened to hundreds of thousands of times. (As of this writing, the video has almost 350,000 views.) It’s important to keep the context in mind, and to recognize the spirit of what he’s saying. My Twitter response was this: “I get where Bono is coming from, but the fact is, there’s TONS of honest Christian art. It just isn’t mainstream.” Allow me to expound, now that I’m not constrained to 140 characters. First, there’s no shortage of honesty in art created by Christians. (For the sake of this argument I’m going to assume we mean honest and excellent. There are plenty of bad songs that are honest, and we certainly don’t need more of those.) I think Bono was speaking broadly, about the whole of popular Christian music, and like I said, I get where he’s coming from. There’s no Psalm-like anger or vengeance or confession there—though there’s plenty of Psalm-like joy and praise, much of it lifted straight from the Bible. But I bristle whenever I hear people complain about the state of Christian music because there’s so much good music, good writing, good visual art being made by followers of Jesus. When they say, “Christian music is so bad,” I answer, “What are you listening to? Because I can name scores of songwriters who are Christians whose music is excellent, honest, beautiful and true, not to mention well-produced.” Jill Phillips? Andy Gullahorn? Josh Garrels? Jon Foreman? Sandra McCracken? Thad Cockrell? Colony House? U2? You could say the same thing about books. “Christian books are so cheesy,” says the guy holding the Amish romance. But what about Walt Wangerin? Marilynne Robinson? Frederick Buechner? Eugene Peterson? Leif Enger? Wendell Berry? The problem, you see, isn’t that Christian artists lack honesty. It’s that the masses seem to prefer something else, and that something else casts a long shadow. There have always been, and will always be, followers of Jesus working away in the shadow of what’s popular, using their gifts to season their communities with honest and beautiful art. And I will always harbor a crazy hope that some of it will break into the mainstream so that even the most cynical listener might encounter the honesty that Bono’s talking about. If nothing else, I hope that this conversation prompts some people to seek out the artists that aren’t played on the radio every five minutes. Part of the reason I started the Rabbit Room years ago was to draw attention to good, true, and beautiful works of art that were more or less ignored by the mainstream. So in one sense, Bono’s exactly right. I hope that his conversation leads those with influence in popular Christian music to consider the Psalms, to acknowledge the responsibility that comes with their massive cultural impact. That means putting songs into the world that the audience might need to hear, songs that might reflect not what’s hip and safe but what’s beautiful and true and honest. And on the other hand, I want Bono to listen to some of my friends. I’d love to see him draw attention to the many who are too explicitly Christian in content for the mainstream yet don’t stand a chance on Christian radio because they don’t reflect the sonic homogeny of the decade. Let’s talk about the artists who are baring their souls, troubadours and prophets with beautifully imperfect voices and stunning rhymes, songs about divorce and heartbreak and doubt, just like the Psalms—but also like the Psalms, songs about God’s steadfast kindness, his tender mercy, our desperate need for rescue. They’re out there, Bono, doing exactly what you and Eugene described. How can we draw more attention to what’s working than to what’s broken? This piece originally appeared in CCM Magazine. David Taylor, professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, was the producer of the video with Bono and Eugene. He’s a brilliant guy and has compiled a wonderful page of resources for a deeper encounter with the Psalms. Check it out here.