Gifts of love

From the film "As It Is In Heaven" ... from the Lord's Prayer. Directed by Kay Pollak.
Daniel Deraus a famous conductor returns to his birthplace in Northern Sweden. During his return he gives gifts to a church choir, various members of the choir and one special gift to Gabriella ( Helen Sjoholm ).This gift was a song sung for a concert at the "Let the People Sing" competition in Innsbruk, Austria. It is a study of gifts given and received and how others respond to a gift given to another which allows joy and gladness to come. Gabriella receives a thrashing from her husband after a presentation in the local Hall. No prizes for guessing who he is from the sequence of the film shown.
Another character: Arne (Lennart Jähkel), who is so serious about the choir's success that he obsesses over tiny mistakes when what he doesn't realise is that he is making bigger mistakes himself; .... ouch.
Connie, Gabriella's husband places himself in Hell. He became a bully as a child, remains one through his life and then finds it impossible to recognise LOVE either in the gift offered to his wife, or in her love for him expressed even in her look towards him at the end of her song.

I have never lost who I was
I have only left it sleeping
Maybe I never had a choice
Just the will to stay alive

The film is a must see film.

Music as Unexpected Delight

Katrina reminded me of this the other day on her Facebook site when she reported hearing a busker play a favourite song. That he played in the tube area was the unexpected but it gave her great delight. The story of music on this blog indicates many others for me.
The photo above I took in a side room of a large hotel in Beijing where we were staying in 1991. I bought 4 cups of coffee to allow me to listen. A magical moment.
Coming home from a Scout Jamboree in Melbourne .... it was 2.00am in the morning as the train came into Junee Railway Station. I could hear the sound before we reached the station. I was awake and thrilled. A Jazz Festival had descended onto the station. Stunning, marvellous ... I relived the experience for many years. The rest of the journey to Sydney and then to Lithgow was a Jazz filled dream.
The Doch Gipsy Orchestra concert to which Jocelyn and I had been invited was simply JOY. That we had been invited to a meal and concert was special but to listen to such a variety of sound kept fingers and toes moving all evening. Another remarkable aspect of this evening was the way each section of the band played solo items which delighted the rest of the band. They as individuals responded with great enthusiasm for the individual contributions to the concert. Sadly I learn from friend Christie that the band no longer exists. The core group has moved on to other ventures.
The East European band on the walk along the Thames three weeks back was again a special occasion. The demands of family members to move on was reluctantly agreed to .... I could have stayed much longer.
The music at Holy Trinity Brompton on Good Friday belongs here as well. Choirs and soloists contributed to a very special occasion.
Obviously this entry will be edited from time to time. I acknowledge that to play CD or tape of favourite music will always bring pleasure and memories but there remains a special place for all of us from Music as Unexpected Delight.

EASTER IN LONDON, 2009

Good Friday: Jocelyn and I attended a three hour service of Readings, Meditations, Music and Reflection at Holy Trinity Brompton. This is a church associated with the Alpha programme. Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia gave the meditations. We stayed for the three hours. His meditations were worth a second and third listen. The music was superb - a note on this later. Following the reading from John 19: 25 - 30 the meditation was "The Victory of Love" - It is finished. Then the organist played "Darkness" from Messiaen's Le Livre du Saint Sacrament. Confronting, disturbing Word and Music together in a way that we combine Word and Sacrament. The time for reflection was real time and appreciated.

On Sunday - James and Katrina joined us at St Paul's Onslow Square. Again, a special time.

Bishop Tom Wright's sermon on Easter Sunday at Durham Cathedral is excellent and worth your attention. He entitles the sermon - Let Beauty Awake. In his book "Surprised By Hope" Bishop Wright spells out three themes that should shape the mission of the Church : Justice - Beauty - Proclamation of the Gospel to ignore one is to mis-shape its mission. The Gospel is : Christ is Lord, Caesar is not, therefore you can come home. This echoes the Gospel which Isaiah proclaimed to the Jews in captivity in Babylon. God has won the victory; God is King therefore you can go home. The invitation to come home is a most wonderful way to describe Salvation. Read his Easter sermon here: www.ntwrightpage.com/sermons/Easter09.htm

Two Songs are sung

"He taught me the music of the book written by the Creator God. I am not now a believer, but I was then, and felt certain that I was learning the music chanted by God Himself whenever He opened the pages of the sacred narrative. And the angels, too, used that melody each time they told the story to one another. So Mr Zapiski informed me one evening. Sweetly the celestial choir sang the sacred trope, and the music ascended through all the heavens and reached to the seventh heaven wherein was the Throne of Glory on which sat the Creator God, and the Creator God would hear the chanting and be transported with joy, and the joy would overflow and drift downward from the Divine Presence, down like the invisible benevolent rain through all the lower heavens and the fiery stars to our troubled Earth, and brush humankind with its radiance, and for a time there would be peace in the world and an abundance of happiness."  So said this Jewish survivor of the Great War ( 1914 - some say 1918, but actually it continued to the end of the 20th century)

A little later Mr Zapinski told 13 year old Benjamin Walters of another music.

"Not everything that sounds like music is truly music. ... The tyrant Phalaris roasted his prisoners in a huge bronze bull, in whose nostrils he had his servants place reeds in such a way that the prisoners shrieks were transformed into music. The sounds came  out as music, but were they indeed music?"  There was a pause a resonating silence."

While Phalaris is long since gone his descendants continue his practice to this day. The spin doctor, the thirty second news bite on television, and all those who sing "all is well when so much is not well". To speak of dead civilians in a war as "collateral damage" and so many other expressions remind us that Phalaris continues his demonic song. The song from Robert Mugabe's lips about his Zimbabwe is such a song. Pol Pot's Cambodian song is another.

"Victory in Iraq" is a Phalaric song. The misuse of the word "terrorist" provides echoes of Phalaris. And now in May 2008 "The Song of Burma"  sung by the Myanmar Junta joins the Phalaric chorus. One of my first posts was "A Justified Complaint" a short story written by Oz Shelach an Israeli. Its telling has a similar impact and therefore worth visiting.

This comes from the third story - The Trope Teacher - in Chaim Potok's book "Old Men at Midnight" A Ballantine Book published in 2001. It is a sobering book touching, CONNECTIONS, JOURNEYS LESS TRAVELLED and JERUSALEM MISSED!

There is a third song sung that arises from that same sacred text. The song that required the words IT IS FINISHED to be said before it could be sung.   

While not directly connected the second verse of a hymn sung yesterday at the Anglican Cathedral here in Brisbane is worth a pause. In other words there are songs we may sing that ring true that care and hope.

"When love is tried as loved-ones change,

hold still to hope, though all seems strange,

till ease returns, and love grows wise

through listening ears and opened eyes."       Brian Wren