XXXII. SS-Files: Ang Pagkarapâ, Part Four – “Even the Orbs Love It”

What seemed like a pretty straightforward commission - deliver - set-up - go process for this Holy Week paso wasn’t really.   Although the yard of our ancestral house was large and expansive, there wasn’t actually any built structure available to house the carroza there. (That’s still a future family project.)  Instead, several weeks before that setting-up day on Palm Sunday Eve, my aunt asked a relative, who lived diagonally across and had a large rice mill (“kiskís,” as we call it there), now idle, if we could use her space to park the carroza and set up the paso there.

At first, the relative agreed, but within days, the offer was quickly rescinded.  As it turns out, she was a member of an iconoclastic “born-again” sect in the local community, and in fact the mothballed kiskís was used for their regular prayer gatherings.  She feared, quite rightly, that her co-religionists might expel her for welcoming her staunch Roman Catholic relatives’ processional tableau into her kiskís. Imagine them worshipping on Palm Sunday and denouncing the evils of “graven images” while seated right next to our “Pagkarapâ” – that would be quite surreal.  (What I would give to see that on video!)

Fortunately, there was another alternative, which involved the rice granary (kamalig, as we call it) of another aunt, actually the next-door neighbor to our ancestral house.  Like the kiskís across the road, the kamalig had a large garage right in front of it, and both structures adjoined this aunt’s own ancestral house.  She was frequently not in residence, as she lived, and ran a thriving business, in another part of town, rearing thousands of heads of pigs (a lucrative industry in these parts).  But she very kindly let us use her wide, empty, and tall-ceilinged kamalig-garage for our new processional paso.

One of the risks that we foresaw with this processional tableau was its height. Based on a diagram that Kiko Vecin scribbled, the carroza itself was about (in metric terms) 206 cm wide, 360 cm long, and 195 cm tall.

This is actually not very large, considering how massive and formidable it appears in person and in pictures (see Parts Two and Three).  Its length and width were well within the normal limits for unarticulated road vehicles.  However, laden with the tableau, its overall height rises to about four meters, or more than thirteen feet – still within the international minimum vertical clearance standard of 427 cm (fourteen feet), but certain to pose problems in some places.

And in fact, as we were setting up the tableau on the carroza in that space next to the kamalig that Palm Sunday Eve, a real problem slowly dawned on us – we were trapped!  While the ceiling in the center of the garage was more than fourteen feet high, the roof sloped steeply downwards towards the entrance, such that at least the mace of the temple guard, the tip of the cross, and the captain’s helmet would have to be removed if we wanted to wheel the carroza out into the driveway and onto the road.

Clearly, the prospect of detaching and reattaching parts of the tableau upon leaving and entering this garage was no good. This called for drastic action.  We then called our master carpenter (who had also worked on the restoration of our own ancestral house next door over the previous two years), and presented the problem to him. He quite confidently recommended that the roof at the entrance be dismantled, and a new inverted-V-shaped structure be constructed to replace it, at the required fourteen-foot vertical clearance.  We then quickly obtained the owner’s permission, and had our carpenter start hacking away, ensuring that the Pagkarapâ paso could move in and out freely.

Well, not by itself obviously.  For the Holy Wednesday procession that was scheduled to begin at 6:30 pm, we push the carroza out the driveway shortly before 6:00 pm and begin our long trek to the church some distance away.  We cover the three or so kilometers in about twenty minutes, being the first to arrive at the church (apart from the church-owned pasos), and giving us both the Early-Bird and Eager-Beaver Awards.

This seemingly fast speed for what appears to be a bulky and heavy paso is no doubt attributable to the fact that its processional vehicle was actually very easy to “drive” – once we got over the virtual hump of moving it from a standing stop to a cruising speed, the well-engineered low-friction axles and wheels of the carroza and the nominal brawns of half-a-dozen assorted cousins, childhood playmates, and neighbors made the journey sufficiently zippy.  In fact, I recall that we even overtook an ice cream vendor and his pushcart along the way.  (Admittedly, he wasn’t after speed, but still….)

We were then asked to park in the yard of the public school across the church.  The church had no churchyard as such; in my childhood it was just an unassuming visita where an obviously old (some say 18^th century), reputedly miraculous (unsurprisingly), half-life-sized image of the Crucified Christ was venerated.  Having been upgraded to parish church status a few years ago, certain improvements to the building fabric and physical facilities had since been undertaken, but since land does not materialize from nowhere, the schoolyard across the road is regularly commandeered for parking and other similar needs, making us grateful for this union of church and state at the barangay level.

Right before the start of the procession, our friendly parish priest (a young guy who had been there ever since it first became a quasi-parish a few years ago) came over and had a nice chat with the family.  He stood silently for a minute or so just about where the above photo was taken from, obviously enthralled over the new addition to his processional line-up.  He then put on his stole and blessed the paso, walking around it and liberally sprinkling holy water at it.  Afterwards, he pronounced it the finest thing that he ever saw, and stated that he wanted to make this the benchmark for all future pasos in the parish.  Well, God bless us all, I say.

The Holy Wednesday procession was lengthier than I had expected – over three hours long, and winding down the main road in an easterly direction, off to a side road that leads to the main highway, back to the main road, off to another side road that loops around the neighboring barrio, back to the main road, then back to the church.

But throughout the long evening journey, this well-lit, generously-elevated, and elegantly-designed paso of “Ang Pagkarapâ ng Panginoon” was a consistently effective medium for public devotion and personal reflection, and perhaps private awe as well. 

The only difficulty we encountered was something that my cousin had foreseen well – all those low-hanging wires and cables and tree branches along the processional route.  On Palm Sunday, he and a couple of his younger minions had surveyed the processional route and had noted down the exact spots where these low-hanging obstructions were present.

They had also armed themselves well for the actual procession with not just one but two twelve-foot bamboo poles with triangular ends, which wise carroza operators far and wide know to be an essential tool in this activity.  The idea behind having two poles was to ensure that even in the most densely-obstructed side streets, all low-hangers could be well-managed.  And if not, we would attach a sharp pair of garden shears to one of the poles and snip those pesky wires out of the way.  Fortunately, no such violence was found to be necessary during this Holy Wednesday procession, as even the most problematic-looking areas were navigated through quite smoothly.

The other star performer of the evening was the Elemax-brand generator described in Part Three.  It fully lived up to its marketing hype of being super-compact, super-silent, and super-low-emission. Once my cousin had switched it on, it hummed silently and without any noticeable exhaust fumes.  For the latter, it helped that we had placed it in the middle portion of the under-belly of the carro, accessible through a side entrance in the middle of the starboard side.  This resulted in it being quite nicely hidden away by the flowing sayál and therefore allowing its minimal emissions to be dispersed.  For the former, we should thank the other paso owners, who all had humongous trailer-sized generators, enough to power the entire barangay individually, and producing sufficient noise to wake the comatose.

In contrast, some of the devotees walking with the Pagkarapâ would even say, “Oh, it’s so good of you to have used batteries instead of a noisy generator.”  Sometimes it was difficult to decide whether to ‘fess up and give up the illusion, or to say, “Yes, well, we really wanted our paso to be quiet and conducive to prayerful reflection.”  Ha ha ha.

And the best part was that throughout the nearly four hours that the carroza had to be lit that evening, including the journey at the end of the procession from the church back to its home base, not once did the tiny generator fail.  Whether from the front or the back, the paso was always well-lit, bathed in warm light, and a feast for devout eyes.

My cousin occasionally crawled under the carro (which wasn’t really so difficult as he could stand upright inside there despite his being quite tall) to check and make sure that there was enough unleaded gasoline remaining within, but even by the time we got home, the small tank was still half-full.  That’s four hours of continuous silent, unobtrusive, problem-free operation.  How many carroza owners around could report that? 

After a modest late evening snack of pansit and puto for family and friends who walked with the Pagkarapâ, it was time to hit the sack and recharge for the Good Friday procession.

For Good Friday, we knew the routine – leave home base at around 6 pm, do the carroza sprint to the schoolyard across the church, and wait for all the other noisy-as-a-jet-engine pasos to assemble.  This time, though, the processional route was still along the main road but in a westerly direction, taking us past our ancestral house and into the neighboring barangay, then a quick U-turn back past our house and on to the church.  While seemingly straightforward, this was also a considerable distance and took nearly as long as the three hours or so that the Holy Wednesday route needed to be covered.

The main difference was that there were far more people this evening than two nights previously.  Obviously, more hometown kids were back from the city or wherever they were on Wednesday, which was still a regular working day.  I’d like to think though that people heard about “that exceptional new paso” in Caingin, San Rafael, Bulacan, and decided to venture out to see what all the fuss was about!

My grade-school-age nephew and his two sisters were busy during both evening processions, distributing copies of our specially-printed stampita, not only to those who walked with us in procession, but also to the more infirm (lazier? less devout?) who decided to stand or sit by the roadside and watch the action from a fixed position.

From my observation during both evenings, the most common response to the Pagkarapâ was a silent stare, no doubt because its unusual staging versus other equivalent tableaux required greater-than-average focus and concentration to fully appreciate the action – the hair-pulling, the noose around the neck, the mace raised to strike – and to absorb the total effect of the tableau.  But based on the expressions on the faces of the observers, there is little doubt that it got its message across.

The final remarkable thing is that unlike Holy Wednesday, Good Friday evening seemed to be full of orbs.  For the uninitiated, these are those whitish transparent discs of light that show up occasionally in digital photographs, ruining what would have been a perfectly good shot, such as in this one:

Other photos that I snapped just seconds before and after the above photo don’t show these orbs at all, so I don’t believe that they represent dust particles on the camera lens or in the air in between the camera and the subject of the photo.  These next three photos were shot within the same minute, in practically the same spot, and yet two seem more orb-riddled than the other, or at least they look very different from one shot to the next. 

If they aren’t dust particles, are they “elementals” (whatever that means)?  Angels?  The spirits of slaughtered pigs and other farm animals over the past century here in Barangay Caingin?  Well, whatever they represent, these orbs seemed to like the Pagkarapâ very much as well!

To exorcise ourselves of whatever evils those orbs (and any humans of ill will around) might be giving off, our always-reliable parish priest set himself up on a high platform, blessing the pasos as they returned to the church.  This he did by dispensing heavy clouds of incense, enough to mask the more intense odors of devotees after hours of walking in the hot summer night.  And as if that wasn’t enough, he also sprinkled holy water generously on the devotees themselves, providing some nominal moisture to the hot, dry, still, and stale air.

There was one last special touch that we had for Good Friday.  On his own initiative, my enterprising young cousin had printed off some custom-designed shirts for all our invited Pagkarapâ-ers to wear.  These apparently had been silkscreen-printed only within the last couple of days, but all who had been specifically invited by the family had at least some “uniform” to wear that evening, which would subsequently be a nice souvenir and token of appreciation as well.  Here, you’ll see some members of the Pagkarapâ gang wearing them as they manoeuvre the carro (more difficult than it looks, if you’ve not done it before) back into the garage. 

Next year, we’ll try for Nazareno-red golf shirts, if we can afford it. And matching tres potencias on headbands, why not? Ha ha.

The carro having been repositioned in place, it was another good time to go for some Kodakán.

And finally, just my aunt and cousins as before:

Then after a modest repast of munggó with tinapá and other abstinence-observing dishes, it was time for everyone to get some much-needed rest.  The paso itself would remain in the garage throughout the Easter weekend, available for viewing by friends, relatives, neighbors, or the simply curious.  Easter Monday, being a public holiday this year, was a good time for my cousins to take everything down, pack away the flowers, fold away the sayál and the garments, and set the images aside.  The bodies were to be stored away; the supporting characters’ heads were to be placed on custom-made stands and kept inside an aparador to protect them from damage, and the Christ’s head and hands were to be displayed in our ancestral house’s living room, inside a beautiful antique balayong hardwood urna, also acquired from the Vecin Collection.

Thus passed quite uneventfully (no news is good news!) the Pagkarapâ’s first Holy Week run.  Salamat sa Diyos!  Until next year.  Let’s see if those orbs will decide to reappear.

- - - -

Watch out for future features from the SS-Files (Semana Santa Files), including exciting Holy Week reportage from various fields and fountains, moors and mountains.  (Wait -- that’s Christmas! Ha ha.)

- - - -

Originally published on 24 April 2007.  All text and photos copyright ©2007 Leo D Cloma. The moral right of Leo D Cloma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

Original comments:

nsconsolacionycorrea wrote on Apr 27, '07 Hay!....DEO GRATIAS!!!... Congratulations to your family for the Primera Salida Procesional of your Tercera Caida tableau.

robbyandharry wrote on Apr 27, '07 lol... leo, those orbs really loved your tercera caida... so many orbs in san rafael... maybe dead animals... (parang kilala ko itong line na to a...) hehehe btw... congrats po for this wonderful tableau... now we have to wait for "Ang Banal na Hapunan" tableau... panigurado, idodocument mo yon mula sa paglililok hanggang sa paglabas... :)

dennisraymondm wrote on May 1, '07, edited on May 1, '07 Yup! At last I thought I was the only one capturing these ORBS! Most of the pics I took inside churches had these orbs and they occur only in churches and in cemeteries (as with my case). Just this morning, I took a shot at the altar of the Divina Pastora in Gapan, N.E., (my maternal grandparents' hometown) since it's her fiesta and lo and behold, two swirling orbs appeared. They seem to appear only in particular churches coz like last year, orbs appeared in my shots of Panglao and Tagbilaran churches in Bohol but not in other churches. When I returned this year, the orbs appeared only in the Tagbilaran church (since I did go to Panglao church this year) but not in the other churches. The La Salle Chapel in Taft Ave. shots (where the massacre of FSC Brothers, et. al. occured) had a couple of orbs and that was shot during daytime! Pics of the Cubao Cathedral I took last week had orbs galore like the shots of another flickr member done at the same church at a diffrent time! Zooming in on them seem to produce facial images. Well, what more can I say? Happy orb hunting whatever they are!

jayroberto wrote on Jul 1, '07 *clapclap* Last Supper na! I can hardly wait.

adlailara wrote on Nov 16, '07 The paso is extraordinarily beautiful and so is your story!!!

antigualla wrote on Feb 18, '09 Bow! Congratulations for an excellent paso and equally excellent story. Viva El Señor!

pasonanca wrote on Nov 30, '09 The realization of your Pagkarapa was indeed an awesome undertaking and devotion by your family and your unique santero, duly honored by your inimitable narrative.

rally65 wrote on Dec 3, '09 pasonanca said "The realization of your Pagkarapa was indeed an awesome undertaking and devotion by your family and your unique santero, duly honored by your inimitable narrative." Thanks for the visit and the appreciation!

XXVIII. Cantat Bis Orat, Part Four – A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Filipino Lenten Sing-Along

We’ve already started Holy Week, and in the Philippines, this signals the observance of a great number of traditional practices developed over the past few centuries of Christianity in these islands.  The most musical one of these is definitely the Pasyon, or Filipino Lenten chant. Its origins seem to date back to at least the 17^th century, with prayers and catechism texts authored by the early Spanish missionaries and set to chants used by the indigenous people.

The first milestone in its development is probably the versified narrative of the Passion, beginning with the Last Supper and ending with the Resurrection, authored by Gaspar Aquino de Belen of Rosario, Batangas, and published in 1703.  Over the following century, the narrative had slowly expanded to include even the Creation from the Book of Genesis.

In 1814, a major editorial effort culminated in the publication of “Kasaysayan ng pasyong mahal ni Jesucristong panginoon natin na sukat ipag-alab ng puso ng sinumang babasa,” also called “Pasyong Mahal” (The Sacred Passion).  Essentially, the initiative sought to rewrite or delete unorthodox texts and content from whatever was in current use at that time.  The editor of this church-sponsored project was a priest named Mariano Pilapil, and as a consequence, this pasyon is also known as “Pasyong Pilapil.”  Like the 1703 version, this newer edition continued the use of the Spanish “quintilla” format – a set of five verses, each of eight syllables, and with rhyming endings. 

Since then, various other editions have appeared, especially in Philippine languages other than Tagalog.  By the early post-World War II years, the entire nation was apparently Pasyon-literate in their own regional languages.

Today, the chanting of the Pasyon seems to be in relative currency, though various quarters complain that it is a dying tradition, brought about by the scarcity of traditional singers familiar with the “way it is supposed to be sung.”  The obvious next step is therefore, let’s simply learn how it’s meant to be sung.  And the obvious question is, do we have any recordings that we can use as references so that we can become self-taught Pasyon chanters? 

The answer is a bit complicated, so let me start with a simple version.  No, I have not come across any broadly-published documentary-type field recordings of actual Pasyon chanters in action.  This is a pity, because in order to learn how these chants are to be properly sung, it is best to listen to how they were ACTUALLY sung in some home or visita during Holy Week.
 

Instead, what is available are a couple of recordings of funky, modernized versions of the Pasyon.  The first one of these is inside the album “Langit: The Filipino Sings of Faith” from the Ateneo Glee Club.

There are four short tracks here that are excerpts from the Pasyon text, and do base their music on traditional Pasyon chants.  The album opens with “Pagsilang,” using the following stanza from the Pasyon: 

Nang malaon nang totoo, 

taong maikapat na libo, 
mulang lalangin ang mundo 
siyang nganing pagparito 
niyong sasakop sa tao. 

Because it has been arranged for a young modern choir, it is either really refreshing and innovative, or is irritatingly self-conscious and potentially irreverent, depending on your musical taste and religious profile.  I recommend listening to “Pagsilang” to see which part of the spectrum of listeners you might be in.  If you like what you hear, go ahead with the other tracks such as “Buhay,” “Handog," and “Alay” as well.

This recording just doesn’t do it for me, as I can’t imagine my family, friends, and fellow parishioners in Bulacan singing anything this way, especially not a religious text for Holy Week, unfortunately. 

(the Ateneo Glee Club singing Regina Caeli, an Easter antiphon)

Another creative and innovative effort is the album “Pasyon: An Oratorio based on the Philippine Lenten Chant.”

This makes use of excerpts from the 1703 and 1814 editions to come up with a classical-style oratorio to commemorate the passion and death of the Lord.  The text selections highlight the fact that the beauty of Tagalog poetry, even in the earlier-described quintilla format, lay not in rhyme or meter, but in the juxtaposition of either contradictory or complementary images.  This compare-and-contrast aesthetic is referred to as “talinghaga” even by modern-day Tagalogs.  In “Panalangin,” the first track on this album, we can try to identify what the “matalinghaga” aspects might be: 

O Diyos sa kalangitan 

hari ng sangkalupaan 
Diyos na walang kapantay 
mabait, lubhang maalam  
at puno ng karunungan, 

Ikaw ang amang tibobos 

nang nangungulilang lubos 
Amang di matapos-tapos 
maawai’t mapagkukop 
sa taong lupa’t alabok,

Iyong itulot sa amin 

Diyos Amang maawain 
mangyaring aming dalitin 
hirap, sakit at hilahil 
ng Anak mong ginigiliw. 

Some of the people behind this project were also involved in the “Langit” recording, so musically, the two albums are similar, as the above listening example shows.  The basic chants used are of the most common melodies still current today; the production notes credit the province of Bulacan as the field source for these.  On the other hand, the album also features an unusual traditional chant from Santo Tomas, Batangas, that starts of with a “Na na na na.”  In the track “Huling Hapunan”, we can find out how this works. 

Ay ano nga’y nalikmo na 

Si Jesus na Poong Ama 
Siya sampu ng kasama
Doon sa kakanan nila 
 At nagwika kapagdaka 

Obviously, this still doesn’t meet our requirements for self-edification.  Our last hope is “Krus at Muling Pagkabuhay” from Himig Heswita of the Jesuit Communications Foundation at the Ateneo de Manila University, published in 2003.   

 
This promisingly offers fourteen different “Pasyon Himig” (chant melodies), which the authors each characterize as possessing one of several possible qualities: “angkop sa karaniwang salaysay” (appropriate for normal narratives), “angkop sa bahagi ng salaysay na tigib ng hapis” (appropriate for sorrowful parts of the narrative), “angkop sa mga salita ng Panginoon” (appropriate to lines spoken by the Lord), and so on.

Interestingly, the texts used in this recording are not from the old traditional Pasyon texts, but are taken from the “Aklat ng Pagmimisa sa Roma,” or the Roman Missal in Tagalog, published in 1981.  This ensures that all its contents are liturgical and orthodox, rather than simply traditional or, worse, folksy.

It then becomes a simple matter of matching up the texts, which cover Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, to the appropriate chant melodies, as to whether they are meant to be sad, happy, and so forth.

The first two of the fourteen chants are probably the most common, and should be familiar to just about any Holy Week church-goer in at least the Tagalog-speaking regions.  In fact, from my childhood listening experience, these two are always used together, with the first used for the odd-numbered Pasyon stanzas, and the second used for the even-numbered ones.  Here are the words of Himig 1 and Himig 2 here (even if they’re not arranged in the manner that I’ve just described):  

Himig 1 
Poong makapangyarihan 

Lumikha ng sanlibutan 
lupa’y iyong inilagay 
nang matatag at matibay 
sa tubig ng karagatan 

Himig 2

Kay Kristo, Haring Mesiyas
Sumalubong nang may galak
Taglay ang manga palaspas
Manga batang iyong anak 
Jerusalem na mapalad 

In my view, this is valuable not only because it offers the fourteen different Pasyon chant melodies as previously mentioned, but also because it comes fully documented with a book with complete liturgical texts beyond the ones included in the recording.  In fact, beyond the texts set to Pasyon chant, the album includes a “bonus track” at the end, a popular hymn frequently used in the Mass, “Pag-Ibig Mo, Ama.” 

Moreover, the book includes the printed musical notation so that your pianist or organist (or a musically-literate guitarist who can play from musical notes rather than guitar chords) can play the main melody so that the singers can follow, as well as improvise the chordal and bass accompaniment.

I would have, however, preferred to listen to a wider variety of voices, as all of the singers in this album seem to be young, male, and Atenean.  This is rather unlike the typical Pasyon singer, who would be older, female, and possibly a full-time homemaker in one of the Tagalog-speaking provinces around Manila.  I’m sure some small effort could have been expended to find other good singers who could have lent some authenticity to this recording.  

It would also have been better to make use of other accompanying instruments other than a synthesized piano – for example, a normal guitar, or a small electric organ, as this would probably be a more typical accompaniment as well.  Or why not even unaccompanied, but harmonized, vocal arrangements, in two, three, or four parts?  

My final beef with this recording is that, even with the ubiquitous Himig 1 and Himig 2, the recorded performances are not perfectly accurate – based on my hearing, they’re not the sung in the same way, meter- and beat-wise, as how they are sung even today in Bulacan.  And the harmonized accompaniment too is inferior to what is used and played in places like Malolos.  Not really being a trained musicologist, I can’t really explain it in precise musical terms, but one only needs to visit Barasoain Church on Holy Thursday or Good Friday and compare how the choir and congregation sing these two melodies versus the recorded versions here.

Overall, though, this is a worthy effort and fills a huge gap in our knowledge and understanding of this most important form of Philippine religious music.  But we still want to listen to an authentic field recording that documents an actual Pasyon “performance.”  It doesn’t have to be the whole eighteen- to twenty-hour saga of the entire Pasyon book, and video is a nice bonus but is not an essential.  Hopefully, some day, one such recording will turn up, and it will be a good one too. 

Originally published on 18 March 2007.  Text copyright ©2007 by Leo D Cloma. The moral right of Leo D Cloma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. Musical examples are owned by their respective copyright holders and are used only for review and demonstration purposes. 

Original comments:

illuminati1 wrote on Jul 19, '07 thanks for the download and lyrics

tandang1 wrote on Feb 1, '08 can u tell me where I can get a downloadable copy of the words of Tagalog Mass please? You can contact me at kevin@padrepio.org.au

rally65 wrote on Feb 12, '08 Sorry, I don't actually know where the Tagalog mass text may be downloaded from. I suggest that you try doing an internet search.

ivanrondelsalditos wrote on Mar 7, '08 can i have the chords? for himig 1 and himig 2? please?

ivanrondelsalditos wrote on Mar 7, '08 salamat

rally65 wrote on Mar 8, '08 The music for the pasyon himig examples is given in the book. Please try to get the book and look for the chords in there.

pabasa2011 wrote on Apr 15, '09 For the benefit of the Filipino children born outside the Philippines do you think it's possible to have the pasyong mahal translated in English? The tradition is brought over here in California (at least) and it will make more sense and perhaps draw their interest (even other nationalities') if they could at least "pray" or "sing-along" with it. Thanks.

rally65 wrote on Apr 15, '09 That's certainly a good idea. I just don't know who might be capable of undertaking this initiative (translating musical lyrics from one language to another while retaining "sing-ability" is always a challenge). Hope someone steps forward.

XXVII. Cantat Bis Orat, Part Three – King David’s Songbook with the World’s Two Best Choirs

“To sing is to pray twice” wasn’t lost at all on the ancients – it is sometimes easy to forget that the Old Testament has a fair number of examples of musical material, from the obviously-titled Song of Solomon (also called the Song of Songs) to the Lamentations of Jeremiah (better sung than wailed).   Our clear modern-day favorites are the Psalms. The ancient Greek word meant “songs sung to a harp,” but harpists were not always readily available throughout the past three-odd millennia, so since two thousand years ago, “psalms” simply became synonymous with “songs.”

Traditionally, the Psalms are attributed to King David (of David and Goliath fame), who is said to have based his song-writing output on the works of earlier “psalmists” including Adam and Moses.  Since we don’t have any of Adam’s or Moses’ songs on-hand, it is difficult to say just how closely David copied his forebears’ styles.  Which is just as well, I suppose. 

In reality, even though about half of the one hundred and fifty numbered Psalms include David’s name, they are all most likely the work of several authors, or groups of authors.  Since they weren’t formally written down in Hebrew until nearly half a millennium after King David reigned, they must have relied on recited and / or sung transmission of any materials actually originating from David.

Psalms have always been in use for worship throughout Christian history.  The Holy Mass always includes a Responsorial Psalm, which is nothing but a rearrangement of the Psalm texts into verses with an antiphonal response from the congregation.  This is often sung, though you’d be lucky to have a good cantor to sing the verses and a good song leader to teach the congregation how to sing the response properly.   

There are also many musical arrangements of the Psalms, in English, Pilipino, or other Philippine languages, in current use throughout the Philippines.  Of course, these are not appropriate to be sung in place of the prescribed Responsorial Psalm for the day’s Mass, unless the texts actually refer to the same Psalm.  We’ve also already heard a Taizé example of a setting of Psalm 34, “Qui regarde vers dieu resplendira” (Look to God and you will shine), and in fact there are numerous other Psalm settings in the extensive Taizé repertoire.

We now look at a sampling of different Psalm settings, from other musical traditions, starting with “Anglican Chant.”  This refers to the practice in the Church of England (i.e., the church originally established by Henry VIII to break-away from the Roman Catholic Church) of chanting the Psalms to English texts, using a simple harmonized melody in seven, fourteen, twenty-one, or twenty-eight bars.  The precise melodies and harmonies evolved from the 16^th century onwards, but were probably pretty much established by the 18^th century, and were fully developed in the Victorian era, with chant settings authored by distinguished English composers in the 19^th century, as we’re about to hear.

First is a setting of Psalm 84, “O how amiable are thy dwellings” with a chant composed by Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918).  This is from the album “The Sound of King’s,” (EMI CDZ 7 62852 2) an anthology of choral works performed by what many say is the world’s best choir, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. 

Here is a recent photograph of the choir in their home chapel in King’s College, a famous structure with acoustics that make them sound even better than they already do to begin with. 

In their rendition of Psalm 84, which dates from 1969, they were led by their then Director of Music, the venerable Sir David Willcocks, who retired in 1974, but is still an active musician to this day.

The choir recorded all one hundred fifty Psalms in Anglican Chant during Mr. Willcocks’ tenure there, with him usually playing the small accompanying pipe organ. This allowed the choir to demonstrate various variations of Anglican chant – including where verses are sung alternately by the higher voices (boy sopranos and male altos) and by the lower voices (tenors and basses), or by half of the choir (half of the sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses), and then by the other half. 

As a matter of fact, choirs in Anglican churches are usually positioned into two halves straddling the nave of the chapel or church, with the halves referred to as “cantori” (the half positioned on the cantor’s side) and “decani” (the half positioned on the dean’s side). So depending on the chant arrangement used, one could achieve a “stereophonic” effect with volume increasing or decreasing, and shifting from left to right to center. I recommend listening to their recording of Psalm 84 again and try to see what dynamics were used by the King’s College Choir with Parry’s chant arrangement.

After Mr. Willcocks retired, he was succeeded as Director of Music by Sir Philip Ledger, who also made many recordings with the choir. 

In 1978, they recorded “Choral Evensong for Ascension Day,” (EMI DCM 5 65102 2) a recording of the service for that feast day. The program included a setting of Psalm 24, “The Earth is the Lord’s,” with a chant composed by Sir Joseph Barnby (1838-1896).

From these two tracks, one may observe that despite the gap of nearly a decade and the leadership of two different conductors, the choir’s sound has not changed at all. It is indeed paradoxical that despite the fact that the choir’s membership constantly changes – the boys’ voices break and therefore trebles usually stay in the choir for no more than three years, and the choral scholars leave the choir after graduation from the university – the choir sounds exactly the same from year to year. Just another example of how a religious musical tradition is transmitted through the ages – perhaps directly, in a manner of speaking, from old King David himself!

The current Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge is Stephen Cleobury, who succeeded Mr. Ledger in 1982. 

He too has recorded prolifically with the choir. In the album “The Sound of King’s” cited earlier, there is a recording of “Miserere mei, Deus” (Have mercy on me, O God), made in 1984, not long after Mr. Cleobury took over.  This piece is a setting of Psalm 51 composed by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), priest, composer, and member of the Sistine Chapel Choir in Rome. 

(A 1987 version of the piece conducted by Stephen Cleobury by the King's College Cambridge)

(Another version of the piece)

The well-known story about this piece is that to preserve its exclusivity, the church forbade copies from being published. That changed when the fourteen-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, visiting Rome in 1770, heard it performed, and transcribed it from memory.  It is not difficult to hear why the choir would have wanted to keep the work to themselves, or why the young Mozart would have wanted to write it down after hearing it – the choral arrangement is both sublime and striking, perfectly suited to a musical work of repentance and penance. It being the Lenten season now, this work, usually performed on Ash Wednesday, is an entirely appropriate musical reflection for us at this time.

Psalm 51, “Miserere mei, Deus”

Miserere mei, Deus,

secundum magnam misericordiam tuam;

et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum,

dele iniquitatem meam.

Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea,

et a peccato meo munda me.

Have mercy on me, God,

in accordance with your great mercy;

and in accordance with the greatness of your pity,

destroy my wrong-doing.

Furthermore, wash me of my wrong-doing,

and cleanse me of my sin.

In reality, this is an abridged version from the original recording, and includes only verses (stanzas) 1 to 4 and 17 to 20.  There are several famous recordings of this venerable work truly worth dipping into, with perhaps one of the first all-time classical lollipops being a recording made, in an excellent English translation, by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge also, way back in March 1963. The soloist who hits all those other-worldly high C’s was a boy treble in the choir named Roy Goodman, who has since had an outstanding performing and recording career as a violinist, keyboardist, and opera and orchestral conductor. Try to look for this original recording, now reissued on a CD album titled Allegri: Miserere (Decca 466 373-2).

If you want to listen to Allegri: Miserere in the original Latin, the best recording that I have listened to is the one by what I think is the best choir in the world (despite what the King’s College Choir fans might say) – the Choir of Westminster Cathedral in London. This is the major Roman Catholic Cathedral in the UK, so I’m probably biased on at least two counts: (1) I’m a Roman Catholic, and (2) I’ve actually attended Sunday High Mass in the Cathedral with the choir on hand on a few occasions. But I’m not the only one who thinks they’re outstanding – they are among the most awarded choirs in the world, with Gramophone Awards received for some of their recordings, and they continue to sell plenty of CDs of their recordings, of which they make frequently.

(a recent recording of the piece from the Choir of Westminster)

Credit must likewise go to the choir’s Master of Music, James O’Donnell, who joins a distinguished roster of choir directors since the Cathedral was founded about (only!) a hundred years ago.

Interestingly, Stephen Cleobury was Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral prior to moving to King’s College, Cambridge. And in 2000, Mr. O’Donnell was “pirated” by nearby Westminster Abbey (an Anglican church), to be succeeded by a former student, Martin Baker, who now leads the choir in its daily sung Masses and Vespers, probably unique in the Roman Catholic world.

Again, their Allegri: Miserere lasts nearly twelve minutes.  I do strongly recommend the album that it comes from: Masterpieces of Sacred Polyphony; Westminster Cathedral Choir, directed by James O’Donnell. This was recorded in 1995 and is published as Hyperion Records CDA 66850. 

The last track in that album is a six-voice choral setting of Psalm 97, “Cantate Domino,” composed by the late renaissance-to-early baroque composed Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).

Cantate Domino canticum novum,

cantata et benedicite nomini ejus,

quia mirabilia fecit.

Cantate et exultate et psallite,

psallite in cithara et voce psalmi,

quia mirabilia fecit.

Sing to the Lord a new song,

sing and bless his name,

for he has done marvelous things.

Sing and rejoice and sing praise,

sing praise with the lute and with the sound of a hymn,

for he has done marvelous things.

This joyous setting, perfectly matched to this very popular Psalm’s message, is most exuberantly delivered by Mr. O’Donnell’s full-throated boys (sopranos and altos) and men (countertenors, tenors, and basses) in the expansive acoustic of the Cathedral. To my ears, this piece is a short (two-and-a-half minute) but solid demonstration of why this is the best choir in the world.

Have another listen and see if you don’t agree that they make old King David proud. And the Lord Himself as well, no doubt.

Originally published on 18 March 2007.  Text copyright ©2007 by Leo D Cloma. The moral right of Leo D Cloma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. Musical examples are owned by their respective copyright holders and are used only for review and demonstration purposes.