Eastern Orthodox Liturgical Chant

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Music has been a part of my life ever since I was a little child, a significant witness to the passing of the years. I can still remember. Whether it was listening to the Divine Liturgy, which Mother would play on her treasured vinyl records (LPs), or to the easy listening stations at the Reno Café, where the old Philips radio was forever on. And later by choice, when I was older, music would accompany me everywhere from the city across the ocean and into the desert. Whatever the condition of the heart, as King David one of the authors of the Psalms well knew, there is consolation in music. But I have even from my childhood noted a difference between what we might call sacred and secular music.[1] It seemed the natural distinction to make. And the manifest difference between the two? In very simple terms, sacred music relates to God, to ‘the divine’, whereas secular music will typically relate to the human, ‘to the earthly’. Sacred music as well, has a tradition of being accepted as a music genre set apart for worship by a large group of a believing community. It is conventionally in the form of a chant (“a rhythmic speaking or singing”).[2] Another difference between the sacred and the secular is that the former is text confirmed in scripture and liturgical texts, and does not stimulate or arouse violence or wickedness,[3] which secular music can do.

This is a tremendous topic and one which can stimulate much discussion, especially when it comes to definitions and to people’s biases of what actually constitutes the sacred.[4] It could be as difficult as trying to get behind Dostoyevsky’s enigmatic “[b]eauty will save the world” spoken by the Christ-like figure the epileptic Prince Myshkin. But technically, at least, chant, is one of the signature characteristics of sacred music together with its connection to ritual and cultic practices. I can be moved to tears, for example, when I listen to Kris Kristofferson’s country gospel “Why Me, Lord?”[5] Or Barbara Streisand’s haunting rendition of “Avinu Malkeinu”.[6] Where would musicologists place these songs in a canon of religious music? I know they swell up an enduring gratitude in my own heart. The spine-tingling Christos Anesti sung by Irene Papas [7] which was adapted by Vangelis from the traditional hymn is another piece of music which can test the boundaries for the definition of a music style or form. Nor as a Christian, is the magnificent Azan from Sheikh Abdul majeed,[8] or listening to Cantor Moishe Oysher,[9] something which does not deeply touch and act upon my spirit. Gregorian chant synonymous with the Roman Catholic Church plays a part in my devotions, as do the inspiring chants of the Taizé community. From the masters of classical music there is an impressive list of great requiems in the dramatic tradition of the concert oratorio. The purpose behind sacred music, or at least that music which is specifically set aside for worship, is to lead to interior reflection and spiritual growth.

“Nothing elevates the soul,” writes Saint John Chrysostom, “nothing gives it wings as a liturgical hymn does.” In modern terms this could be transliterated into Hunter S. Thompson’s poetics on music as “energy” and “fuel”.

The intention behind this little introduction was to share some paragons of the sacred music from my own community of worship, the Eastern Orthodox Church. Outwardly traceable to the classical age of the Greeks but strongly influenced by the “Jewish Synagogue chant and psalmody”, eastern liturgical chant in its present recognizable form was developed in the earliest years of the Byzantine Empire.[10] Below are samples of the chant which is not to be confused with the Byzantine music of the courtly ceremonials.[11]  If you do not have time to listen to all the pieces, then might I suggest the cantor who is considered the principal of his generation, Theodoros Vasilikos, and the angelic Cherubic Hymn from the Novospassky Monastery Choir:

Lucio Dalla’s Caruso

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Qui dove il mare luccica e dove tira forte il vento Su una vecchia terrazza davanti al golfo di Sorriento…
Here, where the seas shines, and the wind howls, on the old terrace beside the gulf of Sorrento…

On an afternoon in the summer of 1986 the Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla (1943-2012) wrote what was to become one of the most beautiful and heartrending songs of recent times. It has been covered by an impressive number of the world’s finest singers on a diverse range of stages and in different tones. The song is the unforgettable Caruso.[1] The story behind its inspiration was revealed by Dalla himself in an interview he gave to an Italian newspaper. He relates a story told to him by the owners of a hotel in Sorrento where Dalla lodged for some nights.[2] It was the hotel where the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso himself had stayed shortly before his death from peritonitis in 1921. He was aged 48. At the time he was suffering from pleurisy and empyema and was in awful pain. The celebrated Caruso was giving singing lessons to a young girl with whom he would become infatuated. Lucio Dalla stayed in the same room, the “Caruso suite”. It was this impromptu story, of an impossible love emanating from a dying man who looks into the eyes of a beautiful girl in full bloom, which inspired the singer-songwriter and registered the song into our imagination.[3]

E’ una catena ormai Che scioglie il sangue dint’e vene sai…
It is a chain by now that heats the blood inside the veins, you know…

I first heard Caruso from Pavarotti and Bocelli. It resonated deeply from the start for its mesmerizing melody and elegiac lyrics. Even so, it was only when I was older that it struck me for all of its other implications. This happened when I unearthed the breath-taking Lara Fabian who gives perhaps the most impressionable of all the performances. Mercedes Sossa, the legendary Argentine singer known as “La Negra”, is probably the most soulful. I listen to the song often. It transports me to different destinations. Not only as I grow older and consider the decay and ruin of my own flesh, but particularly when I reflect on the relationship I have with my wife and on the miraculous circumstances which brought us together.

Ti volti e vedi la tua vita come la scia di un’elica…
You turn and see your life through the white wash astern…

The English philosopher Roger Scruton who specializes in aesthetics (the study of beauty and taste) has recently published a marvellously engaging and intelligent piece on the BBC’s A Point of View where he considers what it is that makes for great music.[4] One of his key contentions is that good music is “a language shaped by our deepest feelings” and not “put together on a computer from a repertoire of standard effects”. Dalla’s delicate song in the celebrated tradition of the canzone Napoletana does sit comfortably in the first category.

‘Bumping’ into Audrey Hepburn

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In 1971 halfway through fourth class and enthusiastically exploring the limits of a ten year old’s “autonomy” my schooling was all of a sudden interrupted. It was the year two Australians were crowned Wimbledon champions and the United States landed a fourth crew on the Moon. I would not travel so far or so high, but take flight I would. Mother upon hearing from my old and irascible teacher Mr K. that I was “shocking” became visibly despondent and decided that if there was to be any hope for her errant son he needed to be “sent away”. Father for one, was none too happy with the idea that his “only begotten” would fly the coop a lot earlier than expected. I was to leave for Greece post-haste to live with my Aunt and Uncle and two older cousins, where I would continue with school during the latter part of the seven year Greek military junta.[1] My new home for the next twelve months would be in the port city of Piraeus made internationally famous by Manos Hadjidakis’ film score “Children of Piraeus” in Never on Sunday (1960).

The first few weeks were entirely miserable. I missed my home. I missed my parents. I missed my friends. And the little transistor radio I brought over with me, to listen to the doyen of rugby league callers, Frank Hyde on 2SM, was to my shock and horror not working! In spite of everything, not surprisingly perhaps given the resilience of a young child, I would slowly find myself getting used to this strikingly different environment. The little shop-front home that Aunt M. had refurbished to sell an odd assortment of school supplies (to make ends meet after Uncle N. was ‘decommissioned’ from his high naval post by the junta), was situated on a marvellously named street Aghiou Orous (Holy Mount). Providence would have that many years later I would spend long periods of time on the Holy Mountain itself, the famous monastic community in Northern Greece.[2]

Next door to our little home lived an old couple. One afternoon there was a commotion, a wailing of young and older female voices. A large crowd had gathered. The old man had passed away in the morning, “died suddenly in his sleep”, they said. I peered through the window and there he was in full view lying in wake. He was the first dead person I had ever seen and the first time I beheld that other, more terrifying, face of God. Up the road lived a gypsy family in a ramshackle of a place, the youngest daughter was a fiercely attractive rebel, she was two years older than me and I would be very happy to see her. A few streets down the famous (occasionally riotous) taverna with its big underbelly of Greek culture, which for a little kid, was a world unto its own. At my new school, no doubt on account of my ‘alien’ place of origin, I was made the class captain. During the weekdays we would salute the portraits of the Colonel’s and on Sundays in strict parallel lines marched to church.

Mother would come to Greece early in 1973 to bring me back and so together we would make a second return journey to Australia (ten years earlier we had voyaged to the old country on board the broken-down ocean liner Ellinis).[3] Along with our suitcases on this occasion, I can still remember, we also packed a large carton of books. The assorted collection included cookbooks, an encyclopaedic etiquette manual, and a variety of popular magazines. But what particularly caught my attention was the stack of beautiful looking hardcovers. These books were thick and bound in fine colourful cloth. In gold lettering on the front and spine were printed the title and name of the author. I rediscovered these treasures a few years later crammed in a wardrobe and it seemed to me, if the creases on the pages were any indication, they had been read or at least had been thumbed through. These finely crafted volumes were translations of classics into Modern Greek. Amongst the mix where Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Hugo’s Les Misérables, a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, an anthology of Plato’s writings, and Kathryn Hulme’s The Nun’s Story . This last title was made famous by Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of Sister Luke in the popular film directed by Fred Zinnemann (1959).  

And it was probably from this time onwards that my love for books can be traced.

I was proficient enough in my second language to make an attempt at these classics when I entered high school, for I have nowhere mentioned the riotous years spent in Greek afternoon school, and how unimaginably horrifying when the classes happened to fall on footy training days! Of course, the sheer thickness of these handsome books, not to mention their subject matter, quickly discouraged me but for one exception, The Nun’s Story [4]. It fascinated me for some reason which would be entirely inexplicable if not for the byzantine atmosphere which permeated our home. It also proved to be quite the omen given how my life would afterwards evolve. I skipped over the words I could not understand and in a short time had completed my first serious work of literature. And in Modern Greek to boot!

Hulme’s book was based on the real life story of a devout young Belgian named Marie Louise Habets, daughter of a famous surgeon. In 1926 she entered a religious order, the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. Following in the footsteps of Habets, Sister Luke who in the novel similarly to her real life counterpart worked as a nurse in the Congo would also depart from the institutional religious life. Though at times thinking of themselves as “failures” neither lost their faith, nor assumed that giving up the habit meant ‘divorce’ from God. Would Maximilian Kolbe, for example, who volunteered to die in the place of a stranger at the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz, been any less of a divine soul if he had taken “off” his cassock the night before? In the novel Sister Luke confidently voices to her chaplain that God already knows the motives which drive us. “I have given too many cups of water in His name and He knows I would go on doing it, whether working for Him as a nun or as a war nurse.” Martin Edmond, the author of that deeply thoughtful contemplation of Collin McCahon’s temporary disappearance in Centennial Park,[5] would speak for most of us when he writes, “…in every life there is a mystery that can never wholly be divulged. We all take secrets with us to the grave and the most profound of those secrets is who we really are.”

We too often place a greater emphasis on the externals, choosing to forget: “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matt. 7:2). Perhaps if this can be paraphrased in modern terms, I can think of nothing which comes closer than the words of Vikram Seth in the last paragraph of that magnificent memoir/ biography of his beloved Hindu Uncle Shanti and German Jewish Aunt Henny (Two Lives, 2005):[6] “May we see that we could have been born as each other.”

 

And so we returned and I would go straight into sixth class at my old primary school on King Street, which was directly across from the Reno.

 

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/23/newsid_2515000/2515819.stm

[2] http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/454

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qVpV8_7thM

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Nuns-Story-Kathryn-Hulme/dp/0316381357/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446369298&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Nun%27s+Story

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Night-Walking-Martin-Edmond/dp/1869404831

[6] http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2006/03/13/1590269.htm

Vladimir Vavilov’s Ave Maria

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Newtown, Sydney

I was delighted the upload of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence resonated with you. It was touching to read from one young person that listening to the spoken lyrics by Leonard Cohen helped him during some difficult days. And to hear from my dear friend, the country and western singer Sand Sheff himself, who emailed to say the song also holds a special place in his heart. Music is indeed, the universal language. It is the common space, the hearth, where we have met for thousands of years to “speak” though we might not have understood each other’s tongue.

Encouraged by this warm response I share with you another beautiful song from my “soundtrack”. This time it is an aria (an expressive melody) from the Russian guitarist and composer Vladimir Vavilov (1925-1973),[1] the enrapturing Ave Maria.[2] The composer recorded it and published it himself on the Melodiya label ascribing it to “Anonymous”.[3] It is dated to 1970.[4] Since the death of Vavilov it has often been incorrectly attributed in one of the great musical hoaxes, to the late Renaissance composer and instrumentalist Giulio Caccini.[5] It is distinct from the more well-known Schubert and J.S. Bach/ Charles Gounod versions.

There are grand pieces of ART which transcend cultures and creeds. They are profound creations which resonate throughout the ages. And this melody which speaks to us of the great grace of the Mother of our Lord, and indeed of the love and benevolence of mothers everywhere, is one of these grand pieces. One does not have to be religious to appreciate the overwhelming beauty of this song, any more than one has to be atheist to have compassion for the suffering and philosophical insights of a Friedrich Nietzsche.

Of interest the text has only the two words… the Ave Maria.   

It is a spiritual mantra, or a prayer of the heart.

Any attempts to find cynical or political influences in Vavilov’s composition have yielded no results. The composer died in poverty suffering from pancreatic cancer, at the early age of 48.

The aria became known to a wider audience when it was performed by Inese Galante and then released in her debut album Debut in 1995. The composition gained even more recognition and worldwide interest four years later in 1999 when Andrea Bocelli performed it and released it in his Sacred Arias. Also of note is the incredible performance of the counter-tenor, the Korean David DQ Lee. There are now many covers here as well. The very best of these performances given the high calibre singer who will attempt the aria (normally the classical female singing voice of a mezzo-soprano) are often referred to as performances of “effortless perfection”. Below I have selected the singers which have specifically appealed to me. Each of the performances is truly moving and magnificent in their own right. And yet if you only have time to listen to just one, then please let that be the “irreproachable” Irina Arkhipova.

Irina Arkhipova, Andrea Bocelli, Inese Galante, Denyce Graves, Ewa Izykowska, Sumi Jo, Elisabeth Kulman, David DQ Lee, Olga Pyatigorskaya

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vavilov_(composer)

[2] Ave Maria (Hail Mary) also referred to as “The Angelical Salutation”, is the traditional and most familiar prayer in the Roman Catholic Church in honour of the Blessed Lady. It is inspired by the angel’s salutation of the Blessed Virgin (Lk 1:28).

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria_(Vavilov)

[4] Ibid.

[5] http://www.origenmusic.com/ave-maria-vavilov.html

The soundtrack of our lives

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Kiama, NSW

Songs, great songs, have the power to transport us back to significant years or moments in our lives. Some speak of this evocative effect as a ‘soundtrack’ which is embedded within us… and try as we might we can neither delete nor outrun it. At other times a song can prepare us for what is still ahead and make it more bearable, or force us to re-evaluate our relationships and even our beliefs. One of these “great songs” for a large number of people is Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence.[1] The haunting and unforgettable lyrical ode to the deep aching of loneliness and insufferable loss: “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again…” In 2013 the song was added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress “for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.”[2] But even today it is being discovered anew outside any allegiances to genres. Why? It speaks to the core of our shared sense of alienation, of our needs and fears, of what we could confess to each other when down and vulnerable. It is a song with soul it has been somewhere said. “In restless dreams I walk alone/ Narrow streets of cobblestone…”

The song has been covered countless times, sometimes very well, other times brilliantly and yet on other occasions very poorly. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most-performed songs of the 20th century.[3] When I fall in love with a song I will invariably seek out covers, and quite often I am amazed at how beautiful and true to the spirit many of these covers are. Sometimes we find that the cover can be even more powerful (or at least equal) to the original, and here I am particularly thinking of Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails disturbing and yet surprisingly redeeming Hurt.[4] The covers of Paul Simon’s folk rock classic offered here are outstanding examples of how a great song can be reinterpreted to express different nuances or to reach a new audience without damage to the intent of the original. Of interest from these offerings below: a poetical reading from Leonard Cohen; a startling delivery from Sharleen Spiteri; and yet another from the heavy metal American band, Disturbed.

“We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it’s timeless…” (Art Garfunkel, b. November 5th 1941)

“Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.” (Paul Simon, b. October 13th 1941)

“This deep relation which music has to the true nature of all things also explains the fact that suitable music played to any scene, action, event, or surrounding seems to disclose to us its most secret meaning, and appears as the most accurate and distinct commentary upon it.” (Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860)

On a personal note, The Sound of Silence has been on my ‘soundtrack’ since about the time of the First Gulf War (1990-91). When during those imperilled months I was preparing to leave for London and Madrid, to come face-to-face with a much smaller crisis of my own.

“But my words like silent raindrops fell, And echoed/ In the wells of silence…”

 

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, Disturbed, Mike Masse and Jeff Hall, Sharleen Spiteri, Nouela, Emilίana Torrini, Leonard Cohen, Dana Winner

 

[1] The song was recorded and released by Columbia Records in October, 1964. It was included in Simon and Garfunkel’s first studio album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM. It was famously written by Paul Simon over a number of months.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Silence

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Silence

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5p