A new museum for the ages

Did you know that Tyrannosaurus rex used to be vegetarian?

Were you aware that baby dinosaurs were on Noah's ark?

Undoubtedly, when you were in college, you studied the difficult hard sciences such as post-Babel studies, floodology and post-diluvium studies, in addition to your creation sciences class. Perhaps you even took a museum-sponsored field trip to the mountains of New Guinea to search for living pterodactyls. And you'll always remember that test question you missed—you knew the earth was created in the year 4004 B.C., but you missed the correct date of September 17 (extra credit for knowing it was 9 a.m.).

Do you think I'm on drugs? Am I having a bad trip or a wild nightmare? I could only hope.

As we speak, a new $25 million museum, complete with animatronic dinosaurs and a theme park with a lake, is being built in Cincinnati, Ohio. The "Creation Museum" is slated to open in early 2007. Nearly $20 million has already been contributed towards construction costs, and organizers anticipate that the remaining $5 million needed will easily come in during the next year. They anticipate that the museum will host hundreds of thousands of visitors, visitors who are coming to hear "scientific" proof of the biblical Genesis version of creation. And, this organization is not unique—there are at least another half dozen groups supporting creationism with scholarly publications, internet web sites, and even radio stations in this country alone.

The Washington Post recently reported that in polls taken last year, 45% of the American people believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. It also said that another poll indicated that 65% of Americans want creationism taught side by side with evolution in the public schools.

Vast segments of the country are falling victim to a dangerous religious fundamentalism. We sit here and criticize Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran for oppressing women and enforcing strict sharia law based on the Qur'an, while at the same time, we are creating our own superstition, prejudice, and oppression out in the Heartland with a Christian American Taliban that creates its own interpretation of the Bible and persecutes anyone who does not believe in that interpretation. Much the same as many Muslims follow the twisted philosophies of a renegade cleric, many Christians totally believe, totally trust, and totally follow the rantings of their chosen televangelist or local pastor to follow their own Christian jihad.

Our Christian jihads range from the outrageous to the insidious. Lately several fundamentalist Christian groups have been preaching that God sent Hurricane Katrina to destroy wicked New Orleans, some claiming it was because of the "decadence" and "promiscuity" of the city (yet I notice that the primary site of the so-called decadence and promiscuity in New Orleans, the French Quarter, went largely unscathed by the storm) and others claiming it was God's vengeance for the United States forcing Israel out of Gaza. We've all heard the recent news about Christian Coalition leader Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela and how Fred Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church members have been picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq because "God hates America," a theme he somehow ties to his incessant campaign on "godhatesfags.com." In Kansas, the Fundamentalist-dominated state Board of Education has previously voted in 1999 to teach creation science in the public schools, and they are slated to vote again next month on science education standards which will further undermine the teaching of evolution. Several political commentators have attributed the re-election of George Bush to the presidency last year to Evangelical Christian voters motivated by their pastors to oppose the rising discussion of marriage for homosexual couples. In northern Virginia, there is a local school board with two Evangelical Christian members who are working to "christianize" the curriculum all the while home schooling their own children and not putting them in the schools which the board members were elected to lead. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to drape the classical sculptures of Lady Justice in the lobby of the Department of Justice building because she was unclothed. An unrepentant Eric Rudolph was recently sentenced to prison for his bombings of abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympic Park, yet his and several other churches continued to support him and his goals of stopping abortionists with lethal force if need be.

Some of the jihads are less negative but potentially just as misguided. The Creation Museum has collected millions of dollars to support their cause in gifts averaging just $70 each. A megachurch in Houston has raised millions of dollars to convert a former basketball arena into a church space. And we all remember the 900-foot tall Jesus televangelist Oral Roberts saw when he was raising money for his university and City of Faith hospital complex.

Recently, some religious leaders have hedged a bit on the hardcore creation science gambit and started the new creation theory called "intelligent design." Frighteningly, President George Bush has jumped on the intelligent design band wagon. Intelligent design proponents seem to be trying to modify pure creationism to a form which will appear to be less based on the Genesis stories believed by the Abramaic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) so as to pass muster in the courts hearing separation of church and state cases. Intelligent design isn't fully accepted by all Christian extremists, though, as many of them reject it in favor of pure creationism.

Many of you know that before I moved to Washington to work for the federal government, I taught law and humanities for several colleges and universities in northeastern Oklahoma. Tulsa is sort of the buckle on the Evangelical Bible Belt, so I had plenty of students with strong religious convictions. The naïveté of most of my formerly-home schooled students was appalling. Those who went to Evangelical high schools were often deficient in skills of academic thought and analysis. Many of my hardcore Christian students were fully versed in quoting the Bible, but sadly deficient in their classical and cultural educations--they didn't know of Greek mythology, they'd never read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, they thought Roman Catholicism was a small, non-Christian cult, their sex education was laughable, and they'd never read or seen Harry Potter.

When we talked about pre-historic cave art such as the Hall of Bulls in Lascaux, France, they refused to believe that it was old art or that it was created around 15,000 B.C. When we talked about parallels between the Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh (written about 2500 B.C.) and the Book of Genesis (written somewhere between 1000 and 1500 B.C.), they would bring me notes from their pastors explaining my "errors." When I asked them to compare and contrast the writings of various ancient Greek philosophers, they would discount the Greeks and begin to witness to me and explain Jesus's true philosophies. When we studied Augustus Caesar and the then-predominant religion of Rome, Mithraism, they rejected outright my suggestions that the early Christians chose to celebrate Christmas on December 25 because that was Mithra's birthday and they wanted to distract converts from Mithraic and Saturnalian celebrations. Should I even discuss the creation of the universe, and how the words we translate into English as "God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days" really means "six periods of time" when one examines the original Aramaic language writings? Of course, as you know, God personally dictated the Bible to King James (a notorious homosexual, by the way) in Renaissance English.....

And, I can't image all the crises I created when I asked them to think about the origins and purposes of their Christian beliefs and traditions. Baptism, wedding rings, and communion bread were Jewish? Scandalous! Allegories of God as Light and the original concept of heaven and hell were Zoroastrian? Preposterous! The early church became "Christian" instead of remaining Jesusite Jews because converting Roman soldiers didn't want the tips of their penises whacked off in Jewish circumcision? Untrue! Christmas trees were Druidic and Easter eggs were pagan in origin? Laughable! Trinitarian doctrine and the idea of a Holy Breath (or Ghost or Spirit) as an element of a tripartite God came about merely so we could worship Jesus as divine? Heretical! Catholic priests had to become celibate because of feudal politics and primogeniture? Excommunicatable! American churches stopped believing in the Apostolic Succession and hence confession and absolution because the Church of England stopped supplying priests to the colonies? Unacceptable! These kids were trained by their pastors not to think for themselves. Their only acceptable form of religious thought was to blindly accept the statements of their pastors as preached from the pulpit. They could not fathom any variation on religion different from what Preacher told them.

Now, I don't want you to think that I am an enemy of God or of Christianity. I actually go to church nearly every Sunday, even though I know a lot of Fundamentalists would question whether or not we Episcopalians (much like Catholics) are truly Christian or not. The liturgical churches believe that a person is reborn in Christ during the sacrament of baptism, so I can even say to the Fundies that I am a "born again Christian," just like them, and that not only was I baptized as a child, I chose to ratify my faith through the sacrament of confirmation. I can still see and feel the majesty and mystery of God. I just have a hard time tolerating ignorance.

Which brings us back to the Creation Museum. I am appalled at the idea of such an "educational" experience. I am saddened that so many people are wasting their money to support it. Do I believe in creationism? No, certainly not as it is promulgated by the religious Fundamentalists. Do I believe in evolution? Probably. The facts certainly seem to support Darwin's ideas and the whole concept seems logical and a whole lot more believable to me. Religion has long been used to explain the unknown, to deal with natural phenomena. Of course, we tend to call these old religious beliefs "mythology" once they have been debunked by evidence and knowledge. No longer to we think lightening bolts are thrown by the Nordic god Thor or that tsunamis are the evidence of the anger of the Greek god Poseidon. We know that most illnesses are caused by viruses and bacteria rather than a displeased deity and that the mentally ill have neurotransmitter imbalances in their brains and are not inhabited by evil spirits.

In 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a statement that said that "evolution is more than a hypothesis." He supported the "big bang" theory of creation of the universe, considering that to be the beginning of time, and he admonished scientists meeting in Italy not to look beyond the big bang, because that was God's moment of creation and not for them to examine. One of John Paul's predecessors, Pius XII, even issued an encyclical in 1950, Humani Generi, which stated that "nothing in Catholic doctrine is contradicted by a theory that suggests one specie might evolve into another—even if that specie is man."

When the creationists try to support the idea of a 6,000-year-old earth and to discredit the fossil record and carbon-14 dating by claiming that it's all part of God's plan, that He created the world with such mysteries in place and that those fossils and radionucleotides are red herrings to throw off unbelievers, I simply find the creationists to lack credibility. Do I claim to have all the answers? Do I know how the universe was created? Certainly not. The universe is a mysterious and a wonderous thing, and I certainly think there is room for God in explanations as to its creation. I definitely think the proponents of creationism and intelligent design are dead wrong, though, and we cannot continue to tolerate their intrusion into our public educational systems. Institutionalized mythology is not the answer.

So, why am I writing this? Is it enough simply to alarm you with the rising tide of ignorance and miseducation? Is it merely to make you shake your head and be sad? No. There are things we must do. We must stop this outflowing of uneducated religious superstition in our public schools.

The first thing you can do is vote. Remember, the Evangelical Christians are motivated and organized and they vote in almost every single election. Most of my liberal and agnostic friends and acquaintances love to bitch, whine, and moan about the state of the nation and our elected politicians, but they, for the most part, don't bother to vote—and when they do vote, they ignore the primaries and the local municipal and school board elections. So, very simply, you must vote. Do not let the religious demagogues get elected. Even when you feel the odds are in their favor, don't let their "mandate" go unchallenged and show large majorities.

The second thing you can do is write to your politicians. Don't email them. Don't telephone them. Don't mail in a pre-printed letter or postcard. Sit down and write them a letter in long-hand, because those letters actually get more attention than letters deemed to be a part of some special interest group's mass marketing campaign. Send letters of support to politicians who make intelligent decisions. Chastize the politicians who vote in ways detrimental to the long term benefit of our country.

Third, if you are Christian or even predisposed to Christianity (Christmas and Easter? Weddings and funerals?), join and financially support those denominations which are sane.

Fourth, be aware of dangerous governmental policies which support radical Christian Fundamentalism. These include school vouchers, abstinence-based sex education, faith-based programs for charitable work with government funding, stem cell research, and tax deductions and advantages for Evangelical church programs and PACs. Women, particularly, need to be aware of the erosion of their civil rights by Fundamentalists in religions created thousands of years ago when females were merely property, whether those religions be Christian or Islamic.

The stakes are high. If we aren't careful, the creationists will force us into another era of the Dark Ages. Be on guard. And think.

Tuba Mirabilis

It was a bit of a rush getting to the church tonight for Evensong and an organ recital from dinner in Chinatown to Foggy Bottom. The trains were running particularly slowly tonight, plus there are still a lot of protestors in town wandering lost on the subway, so I didn't walk into St. Paul's K Street until just after 6 when the choir had just started singing the introit back in the narthex.

I don't usually go to Evensong at St. Paul's, since they always do both Solemn Evensong and the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament (what R.C.s call "Veneration of the Host," something my Protestant sensibilities finds rather "popish") which makes the service a full hour; unlike Trinity Episcopal back in Tulsa, they don't have tea and sherry or wine and cheese afterwards as a "reward" for sitting through a long second service. Tonight was a special occasion, though, so that's why I went. In addition to this being Michaelmas, they were blessing and dedicating their new tuba mirabilis for their pipe organ, and there was a mini-recital featuring three organists slated after the service.

For you non-organ people, the tuba mirabilis is a special set of organ pipes which is similar to a state trumpet or a trompette en chamade, except they are much bigger and have a little lower register than the trumpet stops. Most organ pipes are tubular, but tuba pipes are conical and very long. These special ranks of pipes are used for fanfares and as a "solo" stop designed to soar over the full organ. Both trumpets and tubas (particularly tubas) are a typical characteristic of the English-style pipe organ, and generally these pipes are located in the back of the church. It would be a bit of an understatement to say that the tuba mirabilis is rather loud.

Anyway, I missed the prelude, which the program said was going to be the "Prélude" from Widor's Symphonie III, Op. 13. When I got there, the choir was singing the introit a capella, which was "Duo Seraphim clamabant" by Jakob Handl. After the collect was chanted, they did Psalm 150 using a very unusual antiphonal technique with the odd-numbered verses being sung by the choir and congregation and the even numbered verses being "sung" by the organ. I suppose it gave the organist a chance to do a bunch of improvisations, but I guess you could say the organ pipes need to work on their verbal diction. ;-)

As soon as the pipes and cabinets were blessed, aspersed with Holy Water and censed with incense, we got to hear a fanfare with the new tuba mirabilis pipes speaking for the first time. We had no problem whatsoever hearing them. That fanfare segued into a processional hymn, Parry's Laudate Dominum, to get the choir and clergy out of the narthex and up to the chancel. From that point, we were into "Evensong." The Preces and Responses were by Richard Ayleward. Caelites plaudant was the office hymn. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis were from The Gloucester Service by Herbert Howellls. The did all 35 verses of Psalm 104, plus the Gloria Patri, to Anglican chants by Joseph Barnby and Samuel Wesley. The anthem was "Let the people praise thee, O God" by William Mathias.

After a plainsong Marian antiphon, "Salve Regina," we got to the Benediction service. They started with the choir singing Marcel Dupré's hymn, "O salutaris hostia" as the Host was prepared, and then after the blessing, they sang Charles-Marie Widor's hymn, "Tantum ergo sacramentum." There was a bit of a magical moment when the priest blessed the congregation with the Host. The lights were extinguished in the nave. Dim lights supported the eighteen candles on the altar. After the Host was displayed in a large, silver, jeweled monstrance on the high altar and "adored" for a while, the priest (who was already wearing a festal cope) was wrapped in a humeral veil and then he stood to pick up the monstrance and turned to face the congregation, holding the monstrance above his head. The sanctuary was already filled with smoke from all the incense, and had quite an ethereal look about it. The organ had been playing mysterious chord progressions, and as the priest made the sign of the cross with the monstrance to bless the congregation, crescendoing dissonant, yet glorious, chords were played. I got shivvers up and down my spine!

At last, the service was over, and we got to the organ recital. St. Paul's assistant organist, Mark Dwyer, played John Cook's "Fanfare" as the first selection, which also served as an extended postlude to the Benediction service. He made more than ample use of the new tuba pipes. The most interesting piece of the evening was played by St. Paul's organist and music director, Scott Dettra. He chose Resurrection by Larry King, a work in four continuous movements, "The Lament," "The Rising," "The Ecstasy," and "Reflection." It was difficult to discern the end of "The Rising" and the begining of "The Ecstacy," though the other movements were fairly obvious. Clearly a work in the contemporary idiom, King created a series of quiet and unusual dissonant chordal progressions with "The Ecstacy" rising to a great climax. This piece gave Dettra an opportunity to show off some of the more unique stops and mixtures on the parish's impressive 54-rank, four manual, 3,500 pipe, Schoenstein instrument. The final work was Mendelssohn's Sonata IV in B-flat, Op. 65, performed by J. Reilly Lewis (he is organist at Claredon United Methodist Church in Arlington and conductor of the (Washington National) Cathedral Choral Society). His registrations were very straightforward, though I did notice the third movement "Allegretto" was very flutey. I was grateful that he only made limited use of the new tuba during the final movement "Allegro maestoso e vivace."

It was a tough audience tonight. There was no applause after the first two pieces. Even after the third work, there was silence until the three men came out for a curtain call, and then I found the ovation to be rather restrained and short. Not much credit for what seemed to me to be considerable work to learn difficult organ music. Nonetheless, St. Paul's now has their tuba, and it got a good workout tonight.

Tennessee??

Went to church this morning at St. Paul's K Street to meet a friend there and go to brunch afterwards, but she was a no-show and still hasn't returned my phone call. The rector actually remembered my first name this morning after the service, but he seems to think that Tulsa is in Tennessee. He is a Brit, though, so I'll save the geography lesson for later. I forgot to bring home a program, so I can't remember all the music, but I remember this was Bach day, with "Sheep May Safely Graze" for the offertory and a truncated "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" for the communion motet. The processional hymn was Engelberg and the recessional was Ode to Joy, but I forgot the sequence hymn. The mass setting was by Josef Rheinberger, but I don't know anything about him. It sounded rather Victorianly sappy.

Sunday....was that yesterday?

Even though I'd been awake and on the computer for hours Sunday morning, I was slow getting motivated, cleaned up, and dressed, so I ended up going to St. Paul's K Street for church. They have the latest starting time in the area at 11:15. The music was very interesting. The mass setting was Charles Villiers Stanford's Communion Service in G, Op. 81, that was actually quite lovely. The offertory anthem was "O thou sweetest Source of gladness" by Charles Wood and the communion motet was "Jesus so lowly, child of the earth" by Harold Friedell. Hymns were Tysk, Was Lebet and King's Lynn, with the as it turned out unneeded communion hymn Jesus, meine Zuversicht getting cut. The Anglican chant for the Psalm was by Henry Walford-Davies. They are getting much friendlier at St. Paul's this week. On the way out, the rector not only said good morning, but asked my name, and the new seminarian standing next to him said hello, as well. None of the parishioners talked to me, of course, but I'm sure I'm not of their social caste.

Afterlife

Do you ever wonder what it's like to be dead? I've been Christian my whole life. We're Episcopalians, though, so we don't get into anything undignified or pushy, like so many of the currently popular sects. I'm not sure if any of my Christian friends—including clergy—honestly believe in a mythological afterlife in the clouds with streets paved with gold, mansions, and angels strumming harps. In fact, it's been some of my clerical friends who have reminded me that the church's official teaching on death is not the common popular belief of the dearly departed being immediately swept away on wings of eagles to heaven where they walk the golden streets later that afternoon, hand in hand with Jesus, but that the dead are asleep, at rest in their earthly graves, awaiting the Great Resurrection and final judgment. So, not knowing when the Great Resurrection will occur, I guess death is just one big, long, boring nap.

Weekend

Went to the Dignity Catholic Mass at St. Margaret's Episcopal by Dupont Circle Sunday evening with Doug (and I walked all the way up there and back!). It was an odd experience. They use white wine for communion and they had a lengthy unction segment. Quite a few there, though—about a hundred guys and two or three females.

Audition report

Remember back in college when everybody told you that you needed to major in something "marketable" so you could get a job once you were graduated, and all the fun degrees like English, letters, classics, music, art history, etc., were in the group of "unmarketable" degrees? Well, this is one of those days when the unmarketable degree would have been useful.

Had my audition at the Washington National Cathedral this afternoon. It turns out they were auditioning for substitutes for those occasions when one of the full-time singers was unable to perform, rather than for full-time singers. They held the auditions down in the Bethlehem Chapel, which is the oldest part of the cathedral in the undercroft, underneath the high altar, around an old Steinway piano. The choirmaster was in some kind of cathedral staff meeting, so he was nearly half an hour late starting. I sang "Thus saith the Lord," which is the first bass song in Messiah, and it went very well. Nice acoustic in that chapel. Actually, in terms of solo performance, I thought I was clearly the best singer of those I heard (didn't get to hear everybody). We also had to sight-read and sing two anthems. The first was fairly easy. It was an early music polyphonic piece, and the organist played the piano reduction of the four-part anthem, so it wasn't too terribly difficult to sing. The second piece, however, was a late 20th century English anthem that was fast, atonal, and had constantly changing time signatures. The organist played the accompaniment, but the four voices were not included in the accompaniment, so it was much more challenging to sing. I actually thought I did pretty good on the sight-reading for me (I'm not trained in this and I don't have perfect pitch), but it was pretty sloppy on the second anthem. As I mentioned before, sight-reading was my biggest concern about the auditions, since music majors have a couple of classes where they learn to do it. Anyway, after things were done, the choirmaster told me I had a "lovely voice," but the sight-reading skills weren't good enough (their only rehearsal for music is in a thirty minute warm-up prior to a service), and if I was able to improve my sight-reading, I was welcome to come back and audition again next year. I think that was his diplomatic way of saying "You suck. We aren't hiring you. Go away."

So, I'm ready for my martini now.

What to sing? What to sing?

I have to pick an audition song for next Wednesday. Got a call the other day telling me I'd managed to make the first cut for the choirs of men and boys/men and girls at the Washington National Cathedral, and now I have to sing for the Director of Music/Choirmaster, who'll be making the final decisions. He's a Brit with a very distinguished rèsumé, and he's only been here a couple of years, so none of my friends know him. I've been contacting old choirmasters and rectors getting letters of reference all week. I'm a little nervous. This is one of—if not the—most prestigious paid choral positions in D.C., and there are a lot of excellent musicians here. Big time competition. I heard they are actually listening to six guys. Now, I just have to pick a song.

The Choirmaster wants to hear something from Messiah. I presume that means one of the bass solos from Messiah, since I'm auditioning for a baritone/bass position. Alas, I like a bunch of the alto solos. And, just to be different, I was considering doing "I know that my Redeemer liveth" from The Young Messiah (if you don't know it, that's the Christian contemporary version of the Handel, appropriately dumbed down for the Evangelical Christian set), It has two key modulations and ends on a huge high F. (Yes, I'm kidding about singing it, but it really is a real setting.) Anyway, here are the serious options:

1) Behold I tell you a mystery & The trumpet shall sound—classic baritone song, everybody does it; The secret is "covering" on the held high Es, instead of singing them wide open and pushing them flat. Very long, if you do the middle section (about worms eating bodies). Needs a trumpet to sound right.

2) Why do the nations—interesting; has some virtuosic triplet melismas and a couple of contrasting duple/sixteenth note rhythms; a little long, though, and hard for the accompanist to play.

3) Thou art gone up on high—seldom done. These days, when it is actually sung, it's usually done by an alto or countertenor, even though the very first version Handel wrote was for bass (the second version was for soprano; the alto version is the third). Kinda boring.

4) For behold darkness shall cover & The people that walked in darkness—lots of weird intervals; probably much better for a low bass than for me (lyric baritone).

5) Thus saith the Lord & But who may abide—"Thus saith the Lord" is great. The problem is the well-known version of "But who may abide" is for alto/countertenor. It would be fun to do that version (the Schirmer edition has it marked for bass), but nobody does it with basses these days. I have Handel's original bass version (it's so rare, it's not even in the appendix to the Watkins Shaw/Novello edition), and it's a little odd. There's no prestissimo section. It does, however, have an interesting brief high F in it. It might also be fun to do something that possibly the other auditioners haven't done/heard. It just seems a little anticlimactic, since people are used to the alto version.

Right now, I'm leaning towards doing either number 2) or number 5). Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions?

Light in the shadows

Light and darkness. Shadows and highlights. Ornate buildings take on a whole new character at night when the daytime sun no longer illuminates the building. The planners of tonight's concert—one of the fifteen performances in the Summer Music Festival 2005 at the Washington National Cathedral—opted not to illuminate brightly the performance space, but to allow the elaborately carved walls and ceilings of the cathedral to form a dramatic, changing, chiaroscuro backdrop for the sixteen a capella singers of "Phoenix."

Light and darkness continued in the music, as well, as the group sang alternating movements of darker contrapuntal music from a 16th century Christopher Tye Mass with contemporary 20th century motets about lux, or "light." In addition, during the first half of the concert, the setting sun continued to shine through the stained glass of the clerestory windows, not only allowing the liturigcal portrayals in the windows to glow and later darken, but also casting beams of colored light through the upper part of the sanctuary. Those beams reminded me of the symbolism of light in gothic style churches that dates all the way back to the construction of the Abbey Church of St. Denis, the very first gothic building in the Middle Ages, and its creators' studies of the philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius, who taught that symbols such as light and beauty move us towards God.

It was in this mystical space that we heard tonight's concert. What was particularly interesting was the performance location within the vast cathedral. The previous two series concerts I'd attended put the performers in the crossing and the audience in the nave. Tonight, though, the organizers set up hundreds of chairs in the Great Quire, and the singers stood in the sanctuary to perform. Between the permanent stalls for choir and chapter and the supplemental chairs set up in the aisles between the stalls, I estimate that there was seating for 450-500 people (it should tell you how big this place is if you remember this is just the choir or chancel area of the cathedral!). It's a very interesting space, being fairly long and narrow and approximately four stories high. In the area of the stalls, the lower half of the walls are of highly carved walnut and walnut paneling, with artistically arranged organ pipes on each side, and above that white limestone with a heavily ribbed ceiling and stained glass windows on the clerestory level. The sanctuary, of course, is largely of sculpted white marble with limestone and stained glass in the top half. The special intimate acoustics of this area of the cathedral were soon to lend themselves to the delicacy of this all-a capella concert.

Phoenix is a group of young-ish church musicians drawn from across the northeast coast, and it has been performing across the country since 1996, specializing in English choral music. They have an interesting mix of singers, with nine men (one is a counter-tenor) and seven women, plus a conductor. They entered the sanctuary to stand behind black music stands in a large semi-circle, parts mixed, with all the gentlemen in black tuxedos and the women in a variety of styles of conservative long black dresses, and the conductor in a cream dinner jacket. I noticed an interesting thing about the group: they were all brunettes!

The first half of the concert was devoted to Tye's Mass Euge Bone, opening with the 16th century John Taverner's "Kyrie LeRoy" and then between each of the Mass movements, they sang contemporary "lux" motets, namely "O nata lux" by Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943), "Lux Aurumque" by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), and "Lux AEterna" by Edwin Fissinger (1920-1990). This interplay made for quite an interesting balance of moods. The choir was at its best with the contemporary motets. The pianissimos and diminuendos of "O nata lux" were particularly beautiful. I didn't know the lux motets, so I can't say much about the works or the composers other than the fact that they shared a contemporary British feel in their chordal structures and harmonies, and some of the passages felt very familiar, reminding me of some of the British anthems I've sung by other composers. The Tye Mass presented some interesting challenges for the group. Now, I don't want to give a negative impression of the group, because their mastery of the music and their level of artistry far exceeds what we generally hear from church and collegiate choirs. Music from the 16th century can be very challenging for modern choirs to sing, since that era of music expected a trained singer's voice eventually to "solidify," and to lose any wobble, tremolo, or vibrato; modern operatically-trained singers tend to strive for such vibrato. This group also used female singers, but we should remember than in the 16th century, the high parts were sung either by boys choirs or by castrati, since a papal decree forbade women from singing in public. Music written for castrati will be hard for modern women to sing because not only were soaring high notes put in, but castrati were particularly prized for the richness of their lower registers, and few modern female sopranos will have that kind of range. In the Taverner, the singers were particularly careful to enunciate their consonants, giving us especially explosive K's for repetitions of "kyrie," and that made me hopeful for the rest of the concert. Unfortunately, though, the diction lost crispness in many of the more elaborate sections of the Tye Mass, and that was often quite noticeable in the lower voices during some of the melismas. I also had the feeling that several of the women were working hard to hold their voices back, since some entrances felt shaky and almost cracked. They were doing that, though, to blend in, stop the vibrato, and keep their voices from sticking out, and I must say that overall, the blend of the choir was very pleasing.

For the first half of the concert, we sat on the fifth row back from the altar rail. During the second half, we moved and sat twenty rows further back on the next to the last row of the chairs in the choir, just in front of the rood screen. While the closer seat gave us a better feel of the voices as they entered during the contrapuntal sections and the individual personalities of some of the singers, the seat further back not only gave us a better overall blend, but gave us more of a sense of the cathedral's reverberant "echo". It would have been nice to have had a chance to go out into the nave to hear the sound from out there, as well, but perhaps we can do that for another concert.

The second half of the concert was devoted to three of the great British composers of the 20th century. They opened with Charles Villiers Stanford's "Magnificat, anima mea," his long Latin version (not one of his Mag and Nunc settings for Evensongs) that I've never thought was very exciting. Next was a "Chorale after an Old French Carol" by Benjamin Britten which was pretty, but the diction was so blurred I could not swear that they were actually singing the English words in English. Finally, they did Herbert Howell's Requiem, a little known work hidden by the composer until shortly before his death thought to be a response to the death of his son and a preliminary study for Howell's big festival piece, Hymnus Paradisi. The two major portions of the Requiem are settings of Psalms 23 (rather forgettable) and 121 (very nice), with two variations on "requiem aeternam" in between, and all flanked by a "Salvador mundi" up front and "I heard a voice from heaven" at the conclusion The baritone (who looked a lot like the British actor Rupert Graves) and tenor soloists had opportunities to shine in Psalm 121. The first "requiem aeternam" variation had a lot of nice pedal tones from the basses, and the second variation had some of the very few soaring, "big" moments in the evening's performance.

Tallis quincentenary

Just got back from a concert at the National Cathedral celebrating the quincentenary of the birth of the English composer Thomas Tallis. Most of you would probably recognize a hymn tune of his which is often sung as a round, usually with the words "All praise to thee my God this night, for all the blessing of the light: keep me, o keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings." Long time church choristers may also remember singing an English motet called "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

Anyway, tonight's concert was devoted exclusively to Tallis's a capella choral compositions, sung by five different area choral ensembles. This concert is a part of the month-long Summer Music Festival at the cathedral, wherein several free concerts are given each week from a broad range of performers and genres. I got there tonight about fifteen minutes early, and had to sit at the back of the front half of the nave. Eventually, the north and south transepts were also filled, and I'd say about a third of the back half of the nave was full. The audience was quite diverse and seemed to have people from all age groups. The past several days, there has been a Tallis workshop going on at the cathedral with musicians from all over, led by Philip Cave, an original singer with the Tallis Scholars choral ensemble and the director and founder of the English choral group Magnificat.

The program opened with "Loquebantur varlis linguis" (the apostles did speak with many tongues), sung by the Choir of Men and Girls of the Washington National Cathedral. The choir was surprisingly small, with about five men and six high school aged girls. I guess most of the girls are off on summer vacation, since the choir for services is much larger. The next ensemble was the Choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek, that sang "Te lucis ante terminum" (before the ending of the day), "Salvator mundi" (Savior of the world), and "In ieiunion et fletu" (fasting and weeping). This was another small group, and there was one guy in the group who was absolutely adorable, even from way back where I was sitting!

The only English-language anthems were sung by the Woodley Ensemble, which did "If ye love me," "Hear the voice and prayer," and "O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit." This was a little bit bigger group. One of the men had this very unfortunate tendency to bob and sway wildly as he sang, though, and all that movement made his hair comb-over fall out of place and become very obvious. The "large" group of the day was the Palestrina Choir, which sang "In manus tuas" (Into your hands), "Candidi facti sunt" (Made radiantly white), and "O nata lux de lumine" (O light of light). They were certainly the most polished group of the evening. I noticed there were several people who sang in multiple ensembles, especially with this one. The last group to sing was the Schola Cantorum from St. Matthew's (Catholic) Cathedral. Another small group, they did "O sacrum convivium" (O sacred banquet) and "O salutaris hostia" (O saving victim), a couple of pieces they recently recorded for their CD. They use microphones at St. Matt's, so they weren't quite used to the live acoustic here.

A couple of notes seem common to all of the ensembles. The acoustics of the cathedral are amazing. Even the small groups of eight singers could be clearly heard without any amplification. That acoustic was rather unforgiving in some of the less-well-rehearsed passages, where the diction got a little muddy. I was also reminded, unfortunately, with each ensemble, why the early, medieval, and Renaissance church used choirs of men and boys instead of choirs with adult women. It is extremely hard for women to sing with a "straight tone" and avoid using their vibrato to help keep the pitch on target, even with these auditioned, professional singers. At some point, each group had some major pitch problems when the women went flat. Now, I certainly don't want to infer that boys never go flat, but they naturally sing in straight tone, so I find that most trained boys choirs do a much better job with pitch and intonation on this type of music.

For the finale, all of the groups came on stage to sing Tallis's masterpiece, the motet "Spem in alium", conducted by workshop leader Philip Cave. Now, most choral music is arranged for four parts (for example, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass), and some complex music today may be written for eight parts or for a "double choir". This motet, though, is written for forty parts, distributed amongst octuple choirs! Because of it's difficulty, it isn't often performed. This is the first time I have ever heard a live performance of the piece. About twenty years ago, I sang the motet with the Canterbury Choral Society, but you get a completely different perspective of the work when you are in the ensemble and are trying to concentrate on one part and watch the conductor. Our performance was also complicated a bit by the director's decision to spread the choir out all over the Civic Center Music Hall (before the big remodeling process in Oklahoma City's post-bombing renewal), rather than keep the group together on stage. Today was, then, a really exciting opportunity for me to hear this piece (and the main reason I went to the otherwise rather dry concert). They acquitted themselves well. There were, as expected, a couple of places where the parts get dense when some of the voices got lost, but they eventually picked it back up again. The subito fortes were of wonderous effect in the cathedral acoustic. It made a fine ending for the hour-long concert.

I was rather amused during the concert by an elderly man sitting in front of me a bit. He came in before the concert began to find his seat, then he pulled out this big book called Einstein in Berlin, and he proceded to read it during the entire concert! He looked rather annoyed during those moments of applause, which, I guess, distracted him from his reading. After the final ovation, he closed his book up and left with the rest of the audience. I have no idea why he came to the concert, if he was just going to read!