Benjamin Britten's "Rejoice in the Lamb" preparation for live performance

Tomorrow, the church choir in which I sing is performing Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb during the service. So I thought I would share my lamb thoughts...

When the choir started rehearsing Rejoice in the Lamb, you could easily count the number of confused looks on members' faces--mine among them. The poetry of Christopher Smart (pictured, right) and the message Britten extracts from it are not obvious at first. There is a slight Gertrude Stein "pigeons on the grass, alas" quality to much of the verse that obfuscates its meaning. But this is not mere word-play. There is also a child-like quality that belies an adult understanding of the ways of God.

Christopher Smart was in in an insane asylum and considered mad when he wrote the poem he called Jubilato Agno. He seems to have equated some of his fate to that of Jesus--misunderstood by the public powers, and resigned to suffer at their hands. But Smart also saw God in this suffering. He saw God in everything--in his cat, in mice, in flowers, in rambling off the alphabet, in silly rhymes. But what drew composer Benjamin Britten to Smart's poem, I believe, is Smart's belief that we are perhaps closest to God in music, whether making it or listening to it.

Britten wrote this piece in 1943. Imagine London at that time. The city has been a primary target of bombing for four years. During the blitz, civilian lives are being lost daily. Public services like power, water, trash collection are sporadic. Supply chains from Europe and elsewhere have been interrupted, so food is often in short supply. Blackout orders have shut down all the concert halls, theaters, and movie houses. Entertainment of all types has come to a complete stop for fear of being in a crowd when the bombs start falling.

It is in this world that Benjamin Britten is asked to compose a cantata for use in church--about the only place that live music is being heard. And WH Auden hands Britten a poem from a forgotten 18th Century poet. A poem which has raised its author's reputation from obscurity and madness to prominence and brilliance. A poem which, while written in 1763, was not published until 1939 after being pieced together from hand-written loose-leaf sheets that had somehow survived 175 years. A poem which was probably written to stave off deeper depression during Smart's institutionalization and daren't consider anything other than his cat Jeoffry. Did Britten see this as the survival story that England needed in its dark days?

The music Britten composes is by turns nursery rhyme-like tunes, robust mixed-meter dances, and chant. Chant opens the piece, and is used again for the darkest, most penetrating moments of the cantata. The dances enliven the texts about how the many Old Testament characters to which Christopher Smart refers should glorify God. Dance meters also are used when the chorus sings it anthem to music-making.

The nursery rhyme-like tunes come during three solo sections; a treble soloist (a female soprano in my choir) likens the stretches and meanderings of a cat's movement to praying. The organ part portrays the cat with its twists and turns. An alto soloist sings of the bravado of a mouse (perhaps this is an analogy to how we are to engage our lives?). Thirdly, a tenor soloist muses about flowers and draws comparisons to Christ, the bloom of Mary. Here, the arching line of the soloist floats over a chipper organ part that seems to me to be tripping through a field of daisies.

You can make your own correlations between that time and ours. Between Christopher Smart's story and your personal struggles. Between Benjamin Britten's faith and your own. For me, when the darkness seems to be all around and I'm not certain where the next bomb is going to fall, I am glad to be able to revel in the "Shawn, Lawn, Fawn", and the "Flute, Suit, Moot, and the like", believing that "the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence" which comes "from the hand of the artist, and from the echo of the heavenly harp, in sweetness magnifical and mighty."

Hallelujah. Amen.

Rejoice in the Lamb

Music by Benjamin Britten
Text from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart
One performance only by
St. Pauls United Church of Christ Chancel Choir
Lincoln Park, Chicago IL 60614

Sunday, May 16, 2010 11am service