O Magnum Mysterium

Side door of old parish church, rural Quebec

The sun has set on this Christmas day, but the roast is yet to go into the oven, the fire to be lit, the small pile of presents still to be unwrapped. It's quiet here in the late afternoon of a much-needed restful day. I didn't get to bed last night until 1:45 am, after singing two services with rehearsals that began at 2:30 in the afternoon. I was tired but exhilarated, and although my shoulders and back still ached this morning from standing many hours holding my music folder I felt happy to have this aspect of Christmas back in my life. We're glad, too, to be celebrating the holiday here in Montreal for the first time. Although we miss the three parents who are no longer with us, there's a sense of relief and release at not worrying about a mother or father who is declining or ill - which has been a constant reality for us this entire decade. My father drove up last week to meet us in Vermont, and we visited some of our old friends who've also known him now for many years. At 84, he's absolutely remarkable, and for the first time since my mother died he is starting - cautiously - to date a little bit. And while there is some sadness in the letting-go and change that that entails - for both him and me - there's a lightness and spirited hopefulness in him that I haven't seen for years.

In his sermon at the midnight service, the Dean, who is nearing the end of his formal ministry career, spoke about his disappointment in the institution of the church - still so invested in power and the preservation of a formal structure - and so resistant to change. But in reflecting on what this night can mean to us, beyond the traditional stories and the pagan rituals of solstice they incorporated, he suggested that it was a time to think about what needs to be born in each of us, as we pass out of darkness into light, with hope. Of course I thought about my father, and other family members who seem to be emerging from long difficulties, and the way that - later in life - you can't return to a former untouched innocence, but instead go on somehow holding the darkness and light in both hands. I also looked around at the red-robed choir members around me in the organ loft, some listening to the sermon, some reading or reviewing their music, some leaning their heads back, eyes closed, trying to catch a few minutes of rest after a long day, and felt a surge of affection for all of them. What has needed to be born in me again, and what I felt so grateful for last night, is music.

At the end of the midnight service, we sang a setting of "O magnum mysterium" by Malcolm Archer, organist and choirmaster of Wells Cathedral. This text, which tells of "the great mystery" of Christ's birth and is taken from the Christmas Day responses for the service of Matins (morning prayer), has been set by many composers through the centuries. Malcolm Archer had this to say about his own composition:

O magnum Mysterium is a very still and homophonic setting of arguably the most inspiring of Christmas texts, a text which I have wanted to set for some time. The piece was not a commission but a response to a feeling of the moment, where I wished to create a timeless mood where pulse loses significance and where the harmony unfolds slowly and voices are held in suspension rather than urged forward. It has always struck me that the great settings of Victoria and Poulenc managed this, in their own way, with consummate success and I wanted to try and achieve the same effect using my own language. These great words transport you from earth and give, for a moment at least, a glimpse of heaven.

We had sung the piece earlier, at the 4:00 service, and it went very well. But in the night, after communion, our choir stood in the baptistry - where the acoustics are best both for the audience and for us to hear one another - and sang Archer's beautiful music again. I don't know, of course, what the composer means personally by "a glimpse of heaven", but for me, it is the experience of unity, and that is what happened during O magnum mysterium last night.

I've made music with other people all my life, for the challenge and enjoyment of it, but also because it affords an opportunity for those rare moments when a group of people and the conductor become one organism, all our attention and preparation and skill centered on a single experience. Breathing together, feeling one another, and - most of all - entering with heightened awareness into the music, the group moves together through a final door that has before been closed, or only partly ajar. You feel it happening - all of you feel it - but there is a suspension of conscious thought, akin to meditation, where you know but aren't distracted. And the gift you are receiving becomes a gift you are also giving, so the unity - that momentary glimpse - expands to the listeners, if they are open to receiving it.

O great mystery: seen in the dark eyes of a well-dressed middle-aged woman that met mine during the recessional, and in the clear blue ones of the homeless man in camouflage fatigues who had come inside for the service and who would later go out to sleep not in a stable but on the stone steps of an inner city cathedral.

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I couldn't find a performance of the Archer setting, but here is one of the Victoria Magnum that inspired him, along with a modern setting by Morten Lauridsen, somewhat similar to the Archer but better known. (headphones recommended.) Happy Christmas to all of you!

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

Happy Christmas, Beth! Thank you for giving us this glimpse of your joy in singing with a choir and in the beauty of this music.

[Kaycie]

Your thoughtful words nearly pulse with your experience of the music, the fraternity, and the otherworldly unity of performance. Wonderful, Beth. Wishing you and yours a lovely holiday season.

[margaret]

Happy Christmas--well, Boxing Day, now--to you & J.

[zuleme]

it sometimes occurs to me that the reason humans were created is to make music.

[Julie]

In making music we talk directly to God...
Merry Christmas Beth

[FrScott]

Something like that great mystery between auditor and creator is happening here, too. That homeless man will always be with you; he also came in from time to time during summer months to pray, having received some gift (or not) at the door of eternal hope. That place kept me in hope, too, Beth. I am so grateful that you have settled in.

[john]

Beth
Thanks so much for this and the music which i have played several times.Your post strikes me as a little wistful but perhaps that is how it should be as we reflect on our lives and the challenges facing us and others.At our little Anglican church in my town the packed christmas eve service starts,as it does every year,with a rousing 'O come all ye faithful' and ends with a candles in a darkened church and 'Silent night'.I don't know enough about anglican liturgy to know whether this is common but i find comfort in it and so each year at this time and place, this is where i will want to be.
A late Merry Christmas
john

[Peter]

Since my Christmas cards rest, unmailed, at home, I can at least wish you, J., and your father a blissfully happy new year, full of new ideas, new beginnings, and unlooked-for successes.

[Dick]

May the mystery flourish. Looking forward to another year of good companionship and wise counsel, Beth.

[Miguel]

Happy Christmas to you, Beth, and J., and your father. I'm sorry my words are so late, but the spirit is there. Happy New Year, too. I hope this new year brings you peace and happiness. And that we get a chance to converse more.

I've been getting back into music again lately, too. Just wish I could find others around here who also love to do it. Music is so wonderful when you share it with others, as you wrote about above. Isn't music a strange and wonderful thing? Why do we do it? That first person who sang the first song or played the first instrument, what was going on in his or her head? What is it that brought about the two different states of expression, speaking and singing? And why does music bring people together? What is it about rhythm and melody that has the power to make disparate beings one?

Feels good to talk here again!
Miguel