Alleluia songs

Through this month of May we shall be exploring the music of this breathless period in the Church’s year from Easter to Trinity via Ascension and Pentecost.    

Benjamin Britten died fifty years ago. His death made the front pages of the papers - surprising even then - one of my earliest memories. I had the privilege of conducting his spellbinding anthem Rejoice in the Lamb in St Paul’s Cathedral a fortnight after Easter. It’s a setting of Christopher Smart’s poem Jubilate Agno - a joyful exploration of God’s 'magnifical and mighty' creation - animals, instruments, the lot - written from his mental asylum in Bethnal Green c.1760. Every time I perform this piece new insights pop up from both the text and the music. This time it was the repeated whispered Alleluias that spoke of the rumours of Christ’s Resurrection to be found within the glories of the world we live in.    

The day after this performance I sang at the Memorial Service for Jane Goodall, a clarion voice of wisdom who called humanity to a deeper relationship with our closest relatives - the chimpanzees - and not only with them but with all living beings on God’s Earth. We heard about a dream she’d had as a teenager which she described to the Dean of Washington Cathedral just twelve days before she died aged 91. In the dream she was pushing through angry crowds who were shouting in a language she didn’t understand. Once she fought her way through she saw Jesus on the cross who spoke directly to her. “I don’t remember what he said,” she remarked, “but what I am doing now is an answer to some sort of plea.” What followed over the next seventy years was a life devoted to our precious planet and all the creatures therein. We sang Easter Alleluias for Jane too. Her shared vision with Christopher Smart of God’s whole creation united in mutual care will live on in resurrection hope long after her death.