Palm Sunday music-fest

A dull damp day, but nevertheless how good not to be in lock-down and able to worship together on this Palm Sunday. Sure, we didn't have a hymn singing procession around the grounds, for the second year in a row, but we had palms blessed in our seats, and the socially distanced choir sang a couple of anthems. Best of all, S Mark's Passion was read in dialogue form, steeping us all in the drama of Jesus' last week of ministry. For me this is one of the most important things we ever do as a worshipping community. It was so hard last year, having to read the entirety of Luke's Passion into my phone's voice recorder, before making the audio service offering of the day, wondering who'd listen, and identify with the story and be moved by it. There were thirty in church, four of them children. There's a children's Zoom service this afternoon. I wonder which kind of service will impress itself on their memory?

After lunch I went out for a walk early and readied the BBC sounds app on my phone to listen to Choral Evensong at three. I discovered that the preceding programme was a concert of Bulgarian Orthodox liturgical music, sung by a men's choir in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St Alexander Nevski in Sofia. This gave me a sublime treat of choral music of the 19th and 20th century, all new to me. Evensong came from Wells Cathedral, and included Renaissance canticles and anthems. I arrived home just before four. 

Clare and I then listened to another Palm Sunday special on Radio Three - Bach's St Matthew Passion, in a recording from the Netherlands. It seems the live concert had to be cancelled at short notice because of covid among the musicians. I downloaded a German text of the lyrics with English translation, and Clare downloaded the full score to follow the music, a somewhat bigger challenge. We're both familiar with the music, as we have a recording of it, but it was lovely to have time to sit and absorb the meaning of the text as it was being sung. So often over decades, I have been too bust, working under pressure to get everything ready for Holy Week, unable to relax and drink deeply. Laborare est orare, sure enough, but it's such a blessing to relax and reflect on a deeply spiritual work of musical art.

I watched the second episode of 'Line of Duty' this evening. Last week, the first attracted criticism from the media commentariat about shallow portrayal of some of the characters in the drama, and a remark by the lead investigator about a character he hadn't met being 'oddball' because of evidence found in his flat, and the person turns out to have Downs Syndrome, which he didn't know when the remark was made, and wasn't repeated. Not intended to offend anyone, but portraying perceptions made in real time. Were the critics paying attention to the structure of dramatic development here? Tonight's episode left us guessing who is corrupt here, the accuser or the accused? This series introduces a young police officer who was, as a teenager used as a 'runner' for a criminal network. He's now a corrupt undercover cop, bent on revenge I think, a narrative thread opened in the last series and developing in this. Unfortunately his presence on screen is spoiled by the use of sinister background music. Whose idea was that? Unless he is destined for an early dramatic exit. You never know! The enigmatic 'Line of Duty' is much watched, and just as much scrutinised for clues about how it will turn out.

No subtitles on radio

Saturday morning, I drove to Kenilworth to look after Rhiannon, while Kath and Anto went to do a gig with their band 'Sonrisa' down in Hampshire, driving home in the early hours of the morning. Rhiannon received Monopoly among her Christmas gifts and is now a keen player, so we spent the afternoon playing the game. After supper of fish and chips we watched a TV game show and several episodes of 'Last of the Summer Wine', contentedly snuggled up on the sofa together, while she constructed virtual houses on her iPad. Clare emailed to say she's been given a date for her shoulder operation at last, the 26th February. Now we can start planning ahead once more.

Today, on a cold and frosty morning, I walked to the eight o'clock Communion service at St Nicholas' Parish Church. Since I was last here a fortnight ago, snowdrops have come out fully in the churchyard, pristine white in early light.

It's not a good photo, as it's taken with my phone which only performs decently in good lighting conditions, but it gives an impression.

After breakfast, Rhiannon and I played Monopoly again for a couple of hours, then I drove home with the sun in my face, listening to Choral Evensong from St Paul's Cathedral on Radio Three, with an amazing, hard to sing contemporary setting of the Latin Magnificat text by Giles Swayne. All well and good, but the complexity of the music made the words hard to hear and understand.

I rejoice in the creative adventure that is a feature of 20th and 21st century church music. I love the fact that we can use Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French and various kinds of English in our acts of worship, but there's still a streak of reformation soul in me that wants things to be understood in our mother tongue as well. Not least for the sake of those hearing these texts being sung for the first time.  A broadcast on TV or the web could stream a readable text easily enough. With Radio music there are no subtitles. Now there's a challenge!

We watched an interesting late evening programme called 'Finding Shakespeare' in which Lenny Henry spoke about discovering Shakespeare in adult life, acting on stage for the first time in 'Othello' and recently in  'Comedy of Errors'. Schooling had left him with the idea that Shakespeare belonged to elitist high-brow culture, not relevant to a working class black kid. As an adult he worked his way over six years through an O.U. degree in English literature, which gave him a different appreciation of texts that were aimed at all levels of people in a mixed society, from this he made his first venture into the world of straight theatre, after the best part of thirty years on the comedy stage. A fascinating insight into the way education has contributed to the stratification of society and culture.