A month of Easters

May in Seattle; rhododendrons in Washington Park Arboretum

It’s hard to believe, but a whole month has gone by since my last post.  Four Sundays of the Easter season – four Compline services. And so much wonderful music – I’ll write about some of the highlights – but you can hear three of these Sundays broadcast on the Compline Choir’s podcast site.

Easter Sunday was magnificent as always – it is always thrilling to sing the Peter Hallock “Easter Canticle” processional as we walk the length of the cathedral, singing and playing handbells – listen to the opening of the Easter podcast ; if you want to see the words, I previously posted them on my blog “Easter Joy” last year.  Next on the podcast (at about 4:55) was the psalm appropriate for Easter, Psalm 114, which in the chant repertoire is given unique significance by being sung on two different pitches, or “psalm tones”.  Because it goes back and forth between the two, it became called the wandering (“peregrine”) tone, or Tonus Peregrinus.  Because Psalm 114 tells of the wonder of God in delivering the people of Israel through the Red Sea, I  think of the Israelites, like the psalm, wandering in the desert for forty years.

This year for Easter we did not sing the chant “Christians, to the Paschal Victim” but instead sang a lovely hymn to the words of John of Damascus (d. 749) and music from Renaissance Germany (see the same podcast, about 8:55).  The first verse also compares Jesus’ resurrection to the miracle of the Red Sea:

Come, ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness;
God hath brought His Israel into joy from sadness;
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke Jacob’s sons and daughters,
led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

On the Sunday after Easter, we sang the magnificent hymn about Jesus’s appearance to the doubting disciple Thomas, to a old 17th-century French Noel tune (see the podcast at about 8:34).  This year soloists took the parts in quotes:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
O sons and daughters, let us sing! The King of heaven, the glorious King, O’er death and hell rose triumphing.  Alleluia!
That night the apostles met in fear; Amidst them came their Lord most dear, And said, “My peace be on all here.” Alleluia!
When Thomas first the tidings heard, How they had seen the risen Lord, He doubted the disciples’ word.  Alleluia!
“My pierced side, O Thomas, see; My hands, my feet, I show to thee; Not faithless, but believing be.”  Alleluia!
No longer Thomas then denied, He saw the feet, the hands, the side; “Thou art my Lord and God,” he cried.  Alleluia!
How blest are they who have not seen, And yet whose faith has constant been, For they eternal life shall win.  Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is named “Good Shepherd Sunday” in the Episcopal Church and other denominations, after the reading from the Gospel of John, verse 10:11: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”.  The psalm is always the 23rd (“The Lord is my shepherd”), and we sang as the Orison the beautiful Irish hymn St. Columba (listen to it at the beginning of the podcast for April 29).  The words are a paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Henry W. Baker, first published in 1868.  It has long been our tradition to have the “death’s dark vale” verse sung by a soloist:

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

In my next post I will return to writing a sidebar about one of the more than fifty groups praying Compline throughout North America.  Until then, Happy Easter!

Good Friday

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the tree.
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the tree.
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the tree.
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heav’ns with clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the cross with nails.
The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy Passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy Passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy Passion, O Christ.

Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection.

(From Antiphon XV from the Orthodox Christian Matins of Holy Friday.  Listen to it at about 13:00 on the April 1, 2012 podcast of the Compline service at www.complinepodcast.org )

Blessings on this day, and the Easter to come.

John Muehleisen’s “Pietà” (spotlight: Compline on Bainbridge Island)

Michangelo's Pietà

The Compline Choir was privileged to sing during the world premiere performance of Pietà by Seattle-based composer John Muehleisen  on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle.  The work was commissioned by Seattle’s Choral Arts, directed by Robert Bode, and was  appropriate to the contemplative time of Lent in the Christian calendar.  This is a stunning composition, with its many layers: musical, textual, and spiritual.

Pietà’s inspiration is rooted in the word itself, which in its more profound meaning is “compassion” or “mercy”.  Evoked by the Michangelo statue, we think of “Pietà” as the image of a mother holding her dead son; in Muehleisen’s work, this image is portrayed through three timelines: (1) the Passion, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus; (2) wartime poetry of loss and grief; and (3) the need for compassion in our own day.  Each timeline is emphasized in two of the six sections of the work: (1) the relationship of Mary and Jesus in Scene Three (Calvary) and Scene Four (Pietà); (2) mothers and sons in general in Scene One (The Son) and Scene Two (The Mother); and (3) the grief and loss felt by all of us and the call to mutual compassion and love for one another, in Scenes One and Six (Prologue and Epilogue).

The musical performance of Pietà involved three choirs, two wind instruments, tenor and soprano soloists, and percussion.  Choral Arts, an SATB chamber choir, was positioned in the front of St. Mark’s Cathedral, along with the two instrumentalists (oboes and English horns) in the center, flanked by the tenor and soprano soloists.  Off to the right were timpani, vibraphones, tubular bells, gong, and cymbals, played by two percussionists.  In the choir loft behind the audience was the Seattle Girls’ Choir Prima Voce ensemble, which became a symbol of the divine nature of Jesus, as opposed to the human nature portrayed by Choral Arts.  The Compline Choir was located between the two groups, in the rear of the cathedral in a semicircle around the baptismal font, and underneath the organ positiv division, which hangs off the front of the choir loft.  Compline Choir’s role was as the “Chanters” — singing traditional two- and four-part Orthodox chants, which set the stage for each Scene and sometimes carried the Passion narrative.  The plaintive sound of the oboes/English horns, inspired by the Bach St. John Passion, provided a musical motive of “compassion” throughout.

A moving combination of texts is used to portray grief, loss, and compassion: among them poems by Wilfrid Owen, William Blake, and Rudyard Kipling; words from Martin Luther King, the Stabat Mater, and a homily from the Requiem Eucharist and Celebration of Life for Matthew Shepard.  Particularly beautiful was the text of Mary’s “Lullaby” from Scene Four (Pietà), which was written by Choral Arts’ director, Robert Bode (I hope eventually to have a link to the musical excerpt):

Lullay, lullay, little One,
Such a gift as God’s own Son:
   Come to Earth
   Our hope to be,
Sleeping soft upon my knee.

Heu!, heu! martyred One,
Such a gift as God’s own Son:
   Come to Earth
   To broken be,
Hung so cruel upon a tree.

Ave!, ave! Holy One,
Such a gift as God’s own Son:
   Lying still
   Upon my knee,
In my arms, forever free.

The juxtaposition of sleep and death in the Lullaby is one of the foundational ideas behind Compline – our preparation for sleep at the end of the day reminds us of our preparation for end of life.  Muehleisen’s use of the Compline texts Nunc Dimittis and the chant “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit” underscored this connection.  The idea that in death we release our fears and anger, inspires us to do this in the present — as one Zen master says, “Why don’t you die now, and enjoy the rest of your life?”  It is this ego-death that enables us to live compassionately in the now.

If you want to find out more about the Pietà, John Muehleisen has written extensive program notes at the Choral Arts website.  John came to our Compline rehearsal and service several months ago, and expressed the desire at that time to write a guest blog about his experience for the Underground.  I look forward to it.

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Spotlight:  Bainbridge Island, WA Compline Choir

Bainbridge Island Compline Choir

For those of you unfamiliar with the Seattle area, Bainbridge Island lies to the west of Seattle, and one gets there the fastest by hopping on a ferry and taking a 30-minute ride across Puget Sound.  Here is a description of the choir sent to me by its director. Bill Pelandini:

The St Cecilia’s Compline service is essentially the same as that sung at St Mark’s, with a couple of notable exceptions and additions.  In consideration of its host Roman Catholic parish, we amended the service to include a silent Confiteor at the beginning, added a second psalm and shortened the responsories slightly.  The service is sung in a darkened church without accompaniment. Unlike St Mark’s, the group sings from the front of the church, under the cupola over the sanctuary, which allows us to take full advantage of the acoustics.  Attendance over the years has been a consistent 50-75 – not a bad showing in a small community such as ours.

Unlike other groups, our association with Peter Hallock and the St Mark’s Compline Choir came a few years after we began.   In early 1996, we invited Peter to present a workshop for the group.  He started the session with an hour’s reflection on the history of Compline and the importance of the psalm as the spiritual center of the Office.  From there, he tackled some much needed work on vocal production, the essentials of ensemble singing and general principles of musicality.  It was an eye(ear)–opening experience that has shaped and influenced our choir ever since!  Shortly thereafter, Bill was asked to join the St Mark’s group, where he spent 14 years learning more and more from Peter, and, after Peter’s retirement,  Jason Anderson.  In the process, we became part of the “Compline Choir family,” and we continue to  look to the ‘mother choir’ for inspiration and support.

Congratulations, Bill on your 20 years, and for being the first group to chant Compline on a regular basis in a Roman Catholic parish!

Martin Luther King Remembered (spotlight: Compline in Pittsburgh)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Every year in January, on the Sunday evening before the holiday in his memory, the Compline Service in Seattle is dedicated to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  There is always an increase in the number of attendees, as is typical for any Sunday before a  holiday. I’ll describe  several pieces of music we sing for that service, and then focus on the Compline Choir from Pittsburgh, one of the more than 50 choirs praying Compline across North America.

Although the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church in the United States do not canonize saints, Dr. King is recognized and venerated in their liturgical calendars.  We often begin Compline by singing “Holy is the true light” in a setting by the British composer Sir William Harris (1883-1973).  Listen to it from our podcast on January 17, 2010, preceded by the opening prayer:

Holy is the true light, and passing wonderful,
Lending radiance to them that endure in the heat of the conflict.
From Christ they inherit a home of unfading splendor
Wherein they rejoice with gladness evermore.  Alleluia!

As the hymn at Compline for that night,  we often sing an African-American spiritual,  many of which have been arranged by members or former members of the choir.  In January we sang Jeff Junkinsmith’s setting of ”There is a balm in Gilead”; listen to it here in a recording from our CD “American Songs of Faith and Longing“:

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Heinz Chapel at the University of Pittsburgh

I’ve been telling the story of groups praying the Office of Compline, and next is the Pittsburgh Compline Choir, formed in 1988.

John W. Becker, the group’s founding director, related to me the story of how the group got started.  He had made a trip to Seattle (possibly an American Guild of Organists event), where he had attended the Compline service; on his return to Pittsburgh, a group of students from the University of Pittsburgh had gathered at his home, and, hearing his description of Compline, expressed a great interest in learning about chant and praying the office.  John’s wife, The Rev. Ruth Bosch Becker, was Lutheran Campus Pastor at the University, and ”was instrumental in helping the new Pittsburgh Choir find sponsorship in Lutheran Campus Ministry and hence access to Heinz Memorial Chapel at the University of Pittsburgh for the Sunday Evening Services.”  John also got “encouragment and sage advice” from Carl Crosier from the Compline Choir in Honolulu.

As there was no countertenor tradition when the choir was formed, it has always been a mixed group of men and women.  The service follows closely that in the Lutheran Book of Worship.  John writes: “The congregation sings the responses to chant formularies which I wrote and also sings a hymn.  As compared with the Seattle tradition, we chanted three Psalms in various styles each followed by a silence and then by a Psalm prayer chanted by a choir member.”

After John retired from the choir, the group was directed for about five years by Stephen Schall, then by Andrew Scanlon from 2005-2009.  The current conductor is Alastair Stout, and the choir has been sponsored the last several years by First Lutheran Church.  Since he became director, Alastair has introduced several collaborations with other musical organizations.  The first was to invite members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to play the prelude music before the service, as well as improvise between verses of the psalms.  The second was in working with composition students from Duquesne University to write new music for the choir, holding public workshops on the pieces and assisting the students in writing for the particular type of service, as well as the choir and resonant acoustics of Heinz Chapel.

Don’t miss visiting the Pittsburgh Compline Choir‘s fine website; there’s also a must-see video on the choir on the home page.  And visit their blog, written by choir member Tim Mobley, which gives insight into some of the music the choir sings each week.  Also, a good introduction to the service was written by Paul Kent Oakley in his blog Night Prayers (May 2010).  It includes links to some of the videos of the choir from September 14, 2008.

Compline in Austin

Compline Choir of St. David's, Austin, Texas

I started last week to write about groups across North America praying the Office of Compline on a regular basis outside of monasteries, and this week I’m writing about the Compline Choir at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas.  It was founded in 1985, the third group chronologically after the choirs in Seattle (1956) and Honolulu (1976 – the subject of last week’s blog).  But St. David’s was the first group whose founder had been a member of the Compline Choir in Seattle.

Leslie Martin left his post in Seattle in 1985 to become organist/choirmaster at St. David’s, Austin.  His love of the Compline service inspired him to start a group of men’s voices (similar to that in Seattle) singing a weekly office of Compline, but, unlike Seattle, the service was based on the order in the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, with a few modifications.  When Les left Austin in 1989 for a position in New Britain, CT, the choir continued under the direction of David Stevens, who is still Director of Music at St. David’s today.  Les started a Compline group in Connecticut, but that group ceased after he returned back to Seattle in 1992, where he sang again with the Compline Choir at St. Marks until 2005.

About ten years ago, David Stevens decided to change the Compline Choir to a mixed group of men and women: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass (SATB).  They sing a variety of choral music in the same places (Orison, Psalm, Hymn, Nunc Dimittis, and Anthem) as we do in Seattle.  They also, like us, meet a couple of hours before the service to rehearse; their service is every Sunday at 9 p.m.  One of the choir members, Susan Richter, has maintained a web page for a number of years now where one can listen to sound clips of the music.  I’ve included one of these music files here from the Christmas season.  It is a polyphonic setting of the hymn “Virgin-born, we bow before thee”, which was sung as an Orison on the Second Sunday of Christmas, January 3, 2010.  The melody is from Psalm 86 in the Genevan Psalter of 1562; words are by Reginal Heber (1783-1826):

Virgin-born, we bow before thee: blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild, blessed was she in her Child.
Blessed was the breast that fed thee; blessed was the hand that led thee;
blessed was the parent’s eye that watched thy slumbering infancy.

Blessed she by all creation, who brought forth the world’s salvation,
and blessed they, for ever blest, who love thee most and serve thee best.
Virgin-born, we bow before thee; blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild, blessed was she in her Child.

David Stevens described to me a phenomenon that we have long experienced in Seattle – that many persons’ first encounter with a particular parish is through attending Compline there.  It is the nature of this meditative service, where all that is expected is a kind of attentive listening, that creates a welcoming “sacred space” for attendees.  For more than 25 years now this has been offered at St. David’s in Austin, and the Underground congratulates you!

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Last Sunday was quite a treat for me, as I was resting at home after surgery, and was able to see the weekly videocast of the Byrd Ensemble’s Compline service (7:30 PST) and then catch the service from St. Mark’s Cathedral live on www.king.org.  The Compline Choir celebrated the Baptism of Christ by singing the anthem of the same name by Peter Hallock, with the countertenor solos taken by our newest member of the choir, Tyler Morse.  Here’s a link to the podcast (the piece begins at about 21:13) – also read last year’s blog about this wonderful composition.

Peter Hallock (b. 1924) has also released his latest CD of several of his large-scale compositions, The Last Judgment and Te Deum Laudamus, recorded by the Tudor Choir, and only available right now at Ionian Arts.  I’ll be blogging about this CD in the future!

Compline in Honolulu

Logo by artist Roland Roy for the LCH Compline

Today I am beginning a new feature of the Compline Underground: each week I will tell the story of one of the fifty-plus groups across North America that is praying the Office of Compline (Night Prayer).   But I will continue to write as well about all things pertaining to the office, especially what’s happening with our group at St. Mark’s, Seattle.

The group that immediately came to mind for my first story is the Compline Choir of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.  To my knowledge, it is the first group whose founding was inspired by the Compline service in Seattle.

While a student at the University of Washington in Seattle in the early 1960s, Carl Crosier attended not only the Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral, but also the wonderful organ concerts, the Good Friday and Advent Processionals, and the “historically informed” performances of Handel’s  Messiah – all creations of Peter Hallock, organist/choirmaster at St. Marks from 1951-1991, and founder/director of the Compline Choir from 1956-2009.  After moving to Hawaii, Carl became involved in the music program at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu in 1972, where plans were already underway to renovate the building and install a tracker-action organ, which was dedicated in 1975.  The Compline Choir was started on August 1, 1976, with eight men from various churches – so it was built on the model of the Seattle Compline Choir, which in turn had its origin in the English ATB (alto – tenor – bass) choir.  Most people know about the English “men and boys” choir tradition, but do not know that there is a substantial repertoire for the group when boys are not needed or on holiday.  Peter Hallock, who sang in the choir at Canterbury Cathedral (a privilege rarely given to an American) while a student there in 1949-51 also influenced Carl Crosier to take up the countertenor (male alto) voice.  Peter helped Carl with many things liturgical and musical in the formation of this first Compline Choir offshoot, and came to Honolulu to give workshops.  Carl began making fair copies of Peter’s music and helped get a number of pieces published.  From the early days of music publishing software to the present, Carl has continued to publish music with Peter, forming a company, Ionian Arts, in 1985.

I first remember Carl from the summer of 1979, when the Seattle Compline Choir made a trip to Honolulu to sing at a regional convention of the American Guild of Organists.  Peter wrote his anthem “Come, Holy Spirit” for the occasion, and we sang it at a candlelit Compline service at the Episcopal Cathedral.  We also sang Compline with Carl’s choir at the Kawaiahao Church.  Over the years, Carl has sung with the Seattle choir, including our travels to Russia and Scandinavia (1997) and England (2000).  Carl retired both as Cantor (Director of Music) as well as director of the Compline Choir in August, 2011 – exactly 35 years after it began.  The choir is now led by Keane Ishii; they still are singing every Sunday evening at 9 p.m.

Carl’s wife Katherine remains as organist at LCH, and she is a prolific blogger – I’ve put a link to all of her blogs with the “Compline” tag here.  Take a look at the church’s website page for Compline; there is a brochure (PDF) about the service that can be downloaded.  I’ve put a permanent link to Katherine’s blog, “Another Year of Insanity”, on my links on the upper right of this page.

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Last week in Seattle we sang Peter Hallock’s lovely setting of the Christmas carol “Lullay, my liking“, and one of our newest singers in the choir, Tyler Morse, sang the solo in verse 2.  This 21-year-old countertenor, a senior at Pacific Lutheran University, continues the great male alto tradition begun by Peter Hallock and continued by Carl Crosier and many others!  I’ll post a podcast of the service from January 1 when it becomes available.

At the beginning of Compline we sang a lovely New Year’s carol (to the tune “Greensleeves”) based on a poem from 1642, and here is the first verse — may you have a wonderful new year!

The old year now away is fled; the New Year it is entered,
Then let us now our sins down tread, and joyfully all appear.
Let’s merry be this day and let us both now sport and play.
Hang grief, cast care away, God send us a Happy New Year.

Happy New Year from the Underground

The Compline Choir singing in the "O Antiphon" Service

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Compline Underground!

I began writing this blog in January 2011.  To mark its first anniversary, I will look back over the past year’s entries and mention several of my personal favorites, and adopt a resolution for 2012.  But first, I’d like to give some highlights of the Advent season and last Sunday’s Compline Service from Seattle on Christmas Day.

On Advent Sunday, the first day of the church’s year, the Compline Choir and St. Mark’s Cathedral Choir participate in a service built around the “O Antiphons”, seven antiphons sung before and after the Magnificat (Song of Mary) at Vespers each of the seven days preceeding Christmas.  Each Antiphon begins with the letter “O” and designates a particular quality of the Savior whose birth we anticipate:

O Sapientia         O Wisdom
O Adonai             O Lord of Might
O Radix Jesse     O Root of Jesse
O Clavis David   O Key of David
O Oriens              O Rising Dawn
O Rex Gentium  O King of Nations
O Emmanuel      O Emmanuel (God with us)

The service was devised by Peter Hallock (founder of the Compline Choir) and William Bertolas in 1986, and is a combination of the O Antiphons with a service of lessons and carols.  Each O Antiphon is sung, in Latin and English, while a banner with an illustrating symbol is carried down the center aisle and placed at the front of the cathedral.  This is followed by a corresponding reading, a choral anthem, and a prayer (collect) by the Dean of the Cathedral.  Here is an excerpt from the service — the last antiphon:

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, expectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our King and Law-Giver, the desire of the nations and their salvation : come and save us, O Lord our God!

The Compline services from three of the four Sundays of Advent, and Christmas Day, are now available on the choir’s podcast site, complinepodcast.org.  Of the many wonderful Advent psalms, hymns, and anthems sung, one of my favorites is Peter Hallock’s setting inspired by the chant “Rorate caeli”.  You can hear it on the podcast from December 4, 2011, beginning at about 22:30.  I particularly like the ending, where the solo countertenor sings “Confortamini” (be comforted), making a dissonance with the chord held by the choir — a very mystical sound and typical of much of Hallock’s music (musicians will recognize it as the ”Lydian Mode”).

Drop down dews, ye heavens from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity.
Behold, the city of thy sanctuary has become a desert; Zion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate.

Be comforted, be comforted my people; why hast sorrow seized thee?
Fear not, I will save you, For I am the Lord thy God.
Be comforted.

This wonderful anthem was also sung by the Trinity Compline Choir, from Holy Trinity Church, Nevada City, California.  Listen to their Advent service from a link on their home page at http://trinitycomplinechoir.org/.

The Christmas Day Compline service from St. Mark’s Cathedral last Sunday began with Hallock’s arrangement of “Away in a Manger” for unison voices and organ, and ended with a setting, also for unison voices and organ, of “O Magnum Mysterium” by Gerald Near, who is currently Choral Director and Cantor at Holy Faith Episcopal Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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My first-year blog started out as almost a weekly missive, with four postings in the months of January and February, then tapering down to one per month in July through December.  I’ve always tried to aim more for quality than quantity, but certain blogs stand out for me, particulary “Post-Compline Organ Music” and “Psalm 91 and a Movie”.  I should mention that the latter of these two speaks of Compline Choir’s participation in the movie Nothing Against Life — the movie has yet to be released, but I hope to see it released in 2012.  I’m also partial to the second posting on the ancient hymn “Phos Hilaron” and the tribute to Ralph Carskadden.

I have an idea about Compline Underground in 2012: I want to feature, each week, a different group across North America that is praying Compline.  There are at least 50 different groups, outside of monasteries, that I know about and have listed on the Seattle Compline Choir “other links” web page.  So here’s to a blog a week in 2012!

In Memoriam: Ralph Carskadden’s Reflections on Compline

Ralph Carskadden (1940 - 2011)

On September 13, 2011, my dear friend and mentor the Rev. Ralph Carskadden died after a long struggle with cancer.  He was an Episcopal priest in a number of parishes, as well as Canon Liturgist at several cathedrals, finally coming back from retirement to be Priest-in-Charge at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle from 2008-2009.  In addition, he was a talented artist in ceramics, icon writing, and textile art, especially vestments, banners, and other fabric creations for liturgical use. But I would like to write in particular here of his connections with the Compline service at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, and share with you some of his quotations and observations about the Compline phenomenon.

My connections with Ralph were over a period of more than forty years; I met him in 1967 when I was in my third year as a music student at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington; he was assisting at Christ Church nearby and had just been appointed Episcopal Chaplain to the university. I had been singing in the Compline Service in Seattle for three years by then, and Ralph asked me to help with the music for an Ash Wednesday service held at the University Chapel. By the fall of 1968 I was singing in the choir at Christ Church, which Ralph directed, and when in 1969 I entered graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle, our paths continued in parallel: Ralph became an assistant priest at St. Paul’s Parish, and I was asked to become choir director there; he and his partner Steven joined the Compline Choir and sang for several years.  Then Ralph served in positions in Michigan and San Diego, returning to Seattle in 1986, where he pursued a Fine Arts degree.  Steven returned to the Compline Choir, and Ralph came on occasion as reader — earning the epithet of “Father Superior”.

In the liner notes to the Compline Choir’s 1994 recording “Feathers of Green Gold”, Ralph contributed a short poetic passage, which speaks of the nature of the Compline service in Seattle – a service which appeals to those searching for an alternative form of worship – and finding it in this lay-led monastic office, where all that is asked of the attendees is a kind of silence that could be described as “active listening.”  But it goes beyond describing this meditative liturgy to consider an underlying truth about being a Christian in our times:

If we are to grasp the message of the gospels;
If we are to understand the teachings of Jesus;
If we are to be faithful disciples, then we must realize what we are called to be:
Called to act counter to the prevailing culture which surrounds us.

Ralph also commented about Compline in an article about the Seattle service in a New York Times piece in March 1997: “The Faithful are Casual at this Sunday Service”.  He left us again with a memorable quote:

In our culture we do things regarding love and spirituality better by candlelight, at night.

Ralph’s obituary in his memorial service program quotes him as saying “A piece of my soul is connected to the art, music, and spirituality of Russian orthodoxy”.  He was influential in putting together the Compline Choir’s pilgrimage to St. Petersburg, in July of 1997.  We arrived at the Orthodox Seminary, somewhat severely jet-lagged, but after a revival of strong Russian tea, we trekked ten minutes away to the Tikhvin Cemetery near the Alexander Nevsky Monastery to sing the Kievan Kontakion for the Departed at the Composers’ Corner, among the graves of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and others.  Thank you, Ralph, for that wonderful moment.

In 2004, Compline Choir had a 50th anniversary celebration.  We invited all the alumni of the choir to come to Seattle to sing for the morning service at St. Mark’s, and for Compline that evening.  Ralph preached the sermon at the morning service on August 15, 2004.  I’ll let a few excerpts speak for themselves:

I’m reminded of a sign at an entrance to Winchester Cathedral: “You are entering a conversation that began long before you were born, and will continue long after you are dead.”  And so it is each time we enter this resonant space.  We join a conversation.  First, a discourse between architects and planners, among local business- men and women, committees and faithful parishioners who have tried to say something about God and faith in concrete, glass, wood, and iron…

Come to this Holy Box on Sunday nights at 9:30, when both the light and the darkness, inside and outside, are in dialogue with each other.  And discover that the architecture of this place suggests a space apart, rather than a place sealed off from the rest of creation.  It’s not that God is “in here” as opposed to “out there”, but rather our experience in this space opens our eyes to holy presence both within and without…

The visual conversation is joined by silence and sound, made possible by the space.  In choice of texts both said and sung and in the very musical settings, the dialogue, the conversation continues.  Ancient plainsong hallowed and honed by at least a millennium of daily prayer, polyphony from the renaissance, solid chorales and song-tunes of reformers and Pietists, folk tunes gathered from the countrysides, and joined with them notes from Butler, Hallock, and Proulx still wet on the page.  Hymns of seraphim and cherubim, poetry of King David, prose of Isaiah, mystical texts of medieval bards, angular words of Luther, messages of hope and promise from black slaves, and unforgettable phrases of W. H. Auden, his “rare beasts and unique adventures.”  All of these voices are in conversation with us in this place.  Surely the words of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews seem apropos, as we reflect on our experience week by week “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”.

And great indeed is the cloud of witnesses, with whom we are privileged to converse, as we worship. It is a radical and important thing that we as modern people bring ourselves to this conversation – - open ourselves to the voices of the past, in order to be informed, inspired, challenged, judged, instructed, yea, even disciplined for the work of our time, that we too might run with perseverance  the race that is set before us.

Ralph’s sermon went on to speak of several issues that were in everyone’s thoughts in the summer of 2004: the political race, and the Olympic Games.  He spoke of the divisions in American political and religious life, and wove it into the gospel for the day – Jesus’ saying that every house would be divided, “two against three, and three against two.”  He brought in Karen Armstrong’s book, The Battle for God, and “the ancient distinction between mythos and logos; between sacred significance and rational discourse; between meaning and practical matters.”  And Ralph reminded us of her warning about “the grave dangers which exist when the two are confused or combined – as current events at home and abroad attest.”  He continued:

This last week Dr. Peter Hallock loaned me Armstrong’s book.  He has done that over the years –said – READ.  And in effect what he said to me was…if you want to understand what I have been trying to do in that wonderful sacred space called St. Mark’s – a space he said “I have loved since I first visited it on a Cathedral Day at age twelve as a lad from Kent, Washington.  If you want to know about my choice of texts, my musical compositions; if you want to perceive the importance of the vocation and work of the Compline Choir, read The Battle for God.”  I believe that Peter and the Compline men, have, to use the metaphors of Jesus, “seen a cloud rising in the West and know it’s going to rain.” They have intuited the south wind blowing and know it’s going to be scorching heat.  I believe their commitment to rehearse and sing Compline together is a way of responding.  I believe they sing together on Sunday nights as a way of experiencing meaning.  A way of intentionally, under the discipline of music, giving voice to a great cloud of witnesses.  And in so doing making “savage souls gentle” and uplifting sad minds.”  And these singers –these men we know – together with the hundreds of young folks who fill this cathedral Sunday night by Sunday night, and upwards to a hundred thousand listeners every Sunday – form for us a contemporary cloud of witnesses, pointing to a spiritual realm of eternal and timeless presence, in the face of which issues of daily life find perspective, and our lives find purpose.

That night, we sang Compline with Ralph as reader, and as a memorial to him, we have put it on our podcast site; you may listen to it here.

Ralph’s entire sermon is now posted here.  There is a link to the audio recording as well — when you click on it, the screen clears, and it may take a couple of minutes for the sermon to load.

Thank you, Ralph, for your insights into liturgy, art, and music.  As the Compline Choir sang for you at your memorial service we sing again the Kievan Kontakion:

Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints,
where sorrow and pain are no more,
neither sighing but life everlasting.

Phos Hilaron – Part Two

Kevin Siegfried

After a hiatus filled with many things — the death and memorial service of a good friend and mentor, a trip to the mountains to enjoy the fall color, much activity in both my day job and getting a book proposal ready — I’m back to add the promised second part to my blog on Phos Hilaron.

In my previous posting I talked about the history of this evening hymn from the fourth century, one of the oldest musical texts that we have that are not in the bible, and posted a link to the Compline Choir singing Kevin Siegfried’s setting of Phos Hilaron.  Kevin, who sang with the Compline Choir while he was in Seattle in the late 1990s, wrote us quite a few compositions, including the Compline hymn Te lucis ante terminum (Before the ending of the day), and a setting of the Nunc dimittis (Lord, now let your servant depart in peace).  In his setting of Phos Hilaron he re-used some of the words to form a fourth stanza, then alternated a chantlike setting of stanzas one and three with a slow-moving setting with block-chordal, minimal harmonies for stanzas two and four.  If you missed hearing it from the previous post, or want to hear it again, click here and press the “Play” button (>):

O gracious Light
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
O gracious Light!

Juli Morgan

Juli Morgan is a guitarist and composer of sacred song whose home base is Tacoma; once when she was attending the Compline Service in Seattle she heard Kevin’s setting of Phos Hilaron, and felt like she “was floating.”  [I too feel like I'm in a special meditative state when I'm singing it.]  Juli went on to record Phos using her own voice for all the parts, laying down 37 tracks — listen to her story about the process and play her recording here.  And see how she combined it with her own song, Salvation is Yours.

Juli stopped by after a Compline service in September to give me a copy of her new CD, My Universe.  In her song Center of my Universe, she refers to another ancient chant that has been part of Compline for over a thousand years, known in Latin as the “In manus tuas”:

Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

In the Office of Compline that we sing, this is a response after the short bible reading.  The next line of the response is “For you have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.”  These are several verses from Psalm 31, which was one of the four psalms designated for Compline in the Middle Ages.  There it is, in one short verse — it really speaks to many things: about Compline, and our response to our own life and death; about who Jesus was, and our response to his saving act (is not what Jesus said on the cross accompanied by the verse about what he did on the cross?); and about our response to being in the universe.

As I listened to Center of my Universe, I kept thinking of something I had heard before, some Déjà vu moment.  Was it a Hildegard of Bingen chant?  No, it was something purely instrumental.  And then it came to me — a recording called A Meeting by the River, by Ry Cooder on bottleneck guitar and V. M. Bhatt, on his own instrument, the mohan vina.  Both Juli’s song and the improvisation in Indian style by Cooder/Bhatt were in the key of D – I had made some connection similar to ”perfect pitch” between the two; and also a connection in feeling — meditative, joyful, prayerful, expansive…

My thoughts went back to Kevin Siegfried also, because he spent some time in India.  It’s all about bliss.

Phos Hilaron – Part One

Seattle's Byrd Ensemble, who launch a weekly videocast of Compline on September 11.

I’m devoting the next couple of posts to the Phos Hilaron, which is translated as “gladsome light” or “gladdening light”. It has been called the earliest hymn of the Christian church not taken from the Bible; it is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions, an early Christian document from the end of the fourth century.

This hymn was perhaps composed by St. Athenogenes, who scholars think was martyred in Armenia about 305 C.E.  It was already considered old by the time of St. Basil (d. 379), and was later modified several centuries later by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem (560-638).  It was used as part of the lamplighting ceremony called Lucernarium at the beginning of evening prayer (Vespers); in fourth-century Jerusalem, candles were lit at evening prayer from a lamp perpetually burning in the empty tomb of Jesus.  The candle-lighting ceremony still forms part of the office of Vespers in the Eastern Orthodox rite, and is now an optional canticle in Evening Prayer in the 1979 Episcopal Prayer Book, where it is translated as follows:

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

Kevin Siegfried, a member of the Compline Choir in Seattle from about 1996-2000, composed for us a setting of the Phos Hilaron.  He set the first and third stanzas to a chantlike melody, but the section “Now as we come to the setting of the sun” is set to slow-moving block chords; and this section is heard again after the second chant section.  For me, the slow chordal section seems to exist in a different world, where time seems to stand still.  See what you think by listening to the podcast from the last time we sang Phos Hilaron earlier this summer (click the “Play” button — Kevin’s composition is right after the spoken words at the beginning of Compline).

John Keble (1792 – 1866), one of the founders of the Oxford Movement,  translated the text of Phos Hilaron into “Hail Gladdening Light”, and was set to music for double chorus in 1912 by Charles Wood (1866-1926), music professor at Cambridge University.  There are many recordings of this anthem, but I’d like you to listen to it sung by Seattle’s Byrd Ensemble (formerly the Renaissance Singers): they do it with just one to a part, and I really enjoy the crystal clarity of the sound:

Hail, gladdening Light, of His pure glory poured
Who is th’immortal Father, heavenly, blest,
Holiest of Holies–Jesus Christ our Lord!

Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest;
The lights of evening round us shine;
We hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine!

Worthiest art thou at all times to be sung
With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, giver of life, alone:
Therefore in all the world thy glories, Lord, they own.

I’ve got great news to report:  The Byrd Ensemble will be singing Compline EVERY SUNDAY starting this coming Sunday, September 11, at 7:30 p.m. PST, from St. Clement of Rome Episcopal Church in Seattle.  They will still be doing a live videocast, and promise to archive their webcasts at their Compline site.  This is really a first, as far as Compline choirs are concerned!

Next blog will revisit Siegfried’s Phos Hilaron, and talk about a setting in Contemporary Christian style inspired by it.