The Risen Christ

The premiere of The Risen Christ took place  on 17th May 2008 in St. Cuthbert's chapel, Ushaw College as part of the college's bicentenary celebrations. It was given a spectacular performance by the the north east's leading chamber choir. Palatinate Voices, conductor Keith Wright (Sub-Organist of Durham Cathedral) with Philip Watson (percussion).  There was also an exhibition of sculptures and line drawings and other works by the internationally renowned sculptor,  Fenwick Lawson who I was delighted was able to be present at the premiere.

Listen to an mp3 recording of the premiere

The Risen Christ part 1 

The Risen Christ Part 2

The Risen Christ Part 3

 The Risen Christ (Durham Cathedral) by Fenwick Lawson

The sculpture from which the work draws its title

The Risen Christ, for choir, semichorus and percussion, is inspired by the work of the internationally renowned sculptor, Fenwick Lawson. It lasts around 30 minutes and is based on five of Fenwick's most powerful and challenging sculptures: The Condemned, The Weeping Women, The Hostage, The Scream and The Burning Bush. The great space of Saint Cuthbert’s chapel becomes an extension of the sculptures themselves as the choir moves through the chapel creating a series of tableaux. To me, this combination of dynamic and static elements mirrors those characteristics in Fenwick’s work. The composition is very much in keeping with Fenwick's own approach, in that I have used scripture, in this case texts associated with Holy Week, to illustrate the human condition. The Risen Christ displays my own preoccupation with music, liturgy, theatre, words and the arts in general. The role of the semichorus and percussion is similar to that of the chorus in a Greek tragedy: it comments on the action.

The music is rooted in great works of the past. It is based on the noble plainsong hymn for Good Friday, Crux Fidelis, by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), which was first sung in 570 to accompany a procession bearing part of the true Cross. A number of factors drew me to Crux Fidelis: the position held by this hymn in the Good Friday liturgy of the Roman Catholic church, the exquisitely refined lines of the melody and, not least, the words “Sweetest wood and sweetest iron”. The wood of the Cross and the nails which pierced our Saviour present Christians with an image both of suffering and of hope, of pain and ecstasy. This resonates in Fenwick’s work as he uses wood and metal to create images of agony and of hope. In The Risen Christ I have tried to reflect this. The sound of the sculptor working the wood and iron is heard in particular in the virtuosic percussion part. Indeed, I was inspired by the whole business of Fenwick’s method of creating sculpture; the releasing of images that he, as artist, can see already existing within the wood he works. In the same way I have tried to release the images I saw living in Crux Fidelis. So there is not a phrase within the work that is not directly related to the plainsong. Every idea springs from the raw material; and from two phrases in particular: “Faithful Cross” and “Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,” the music of which is gradually transformed from grandeur, through darkness to light as the work proceeds.

I very much hope you will be affected by The Risen Christ. For me it has been a great privilege to work with these outstanding musicians and, most particularly with an artist whose sculptures have spoken to me so profoundly since encountering them in my youth. I have dedicated the piece to Fenwick Lawson, Philip Watson, Keith Wright and Palatinate Voices, for their inspiration and for joining me on this journey.

 The composer beside The Condemned by Fenwick Lawson

 I Crux Fidelis                     Venantius Fortunatus (530-609)            

 tr. Percy Dearmer (1867-1936) and JM Neale (1818-66)

The plainsong is sung as the choir processes from the cloisters to the antechapel. The melody is used to build up textures of up to ten parts.

Faithful Cross! Above all other. One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron! Sweetest weight is hung on thee.

Bend thy boughs O Tree of Glory, Thy too rigid sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigour that thy birth bestowed, suspend,
And the King of heavenly beauty on thy bosom gently tend.
 

II Interlude

The mood of the music darkens. Violent percussion outbursts melt into mournful tolling of bells.
 

The team begin dismantling The Condemned

III The Condemned              from The Good Friday Reproaches and                                                                                                   The Gospels

A solemn and austere repetitive chant.

My people, my people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me. I led you from slavery to freedom and drowned your captors in the sea: but you handed me over to your high priests. I led you on your way in a pillar of cloud: but you led me to Pilate’s court. I bore you up with manna in the desert: but you struck me down and scourged me. I gave you saving water from the rock: but you gave me gall and vinegar to drink. For you I struck down the kings of Canaan: but you struck my head with a reed. I gave you a royal sceptre: but you gave me a crown of thorns.
I raised you to the heights of majesty: but you have raised me high on a cross. 

What need have we of any further witnesses? You have heard it! You have heard his blasphemy! Take him away!

The composer beside The Weeping Women by Fenwick Lawson

IV Interlude
Tolling bells and vibraphone.
 

 Fenwick leads the team moving  The Weeping Women

V The Weeping Women           from The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Chorus, semichorus and percussion join in this dramatic movement. The semichorus repeatedly challenges the listeners to question their consciences with regard to their role in the suffering of humanity.

Weep.
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
For these things I weep; mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter who should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate. Because the children and sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, “Where is the corn and wine?” when they swooned in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mother’s bosom. All who pass thee by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city they call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?”
 

  A cross section of part of The Weeping Women

VI Interlude
Cadenza for unpitched percussion and vibraphone.
 

Trying out the  positions of The Scream and The Burning Bush

VII The Hostage                             Psalm 87 (88)

A tense and anxious cry for help, in which the choir alone reflects on isolation from God and man.

Lord, my God, I call for help by day; I cry at night before you. O let my prayer come into your presence. O Lord, turn your ear to my cry. For my soul is filled with evils, my life on the brink of the grave. Like one alone among the dead; like the slain in their graves; like those you remember no more. Cut off, as they are, from your hand.
Lord, you have laid me in the depths of the tomb; in places dark. Lord God, your anger weighs down upon me I am drowned beneath your waves. Imprisoned I cannot escape. My eyes are sunken with grief.
Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face? Friend and neighbour you have taken away. My one companion is darkness.

 Tim Harrison beside The Scream

Fenwick Lawson's deeply moving account of human suffering

VIII The Scream                            Psalm 21 (22)

Despair and pain. Muffled bass drum figures begin the movement. Like a person gagged, the choir struggles to articulate the text, eventually as if in agony, stammering out: My God!

A prolonged percussion cadenza follows (“And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain.” Matthew 27:51), in which the semichorus joins the percussionist and beat anvils as the nails are driven into the hands and feet of Christ and of suffering humanity, and wood is lashed with a chain, as they are scourged. This also echoes the tradition of beating the pews during the service of Tenebrae and the way in which Fenwick has "hurt" the wood with a chainsaw . The sound of a racket (football rattle) suddenly halts the music and there are two prolonged silences. With the sound of the racket the movement continues. This idea comes from my experience of Holy Week in Valladolid, Spain, where a leader with a racket controls the movement and music of many of the penitential processions.

Eventually the music dies away to a whisper from the choir: Why have you forsaken me.

 

 Fenwick supervises the moving of The Burning Bush

 IX The Burning Bush                                     Alleluia!

That great symbol of hope. Yaweh’s extraordinary relationship with mankind can be interpreted by us in the light of the death and resurrection of Christ. One word carries the message of that hope more than any other: the Easter word,  Alleluia!  Lavish  melismas characterise the plainsong Alleluias sung between Easter and Pentecost. These melismas are for me musical tongues of fire. I have tried to capture this hope and this joy as the plainsong theme appears in great arches of polyphony which finally fade into the distance.

 The Burning Bush by Fenwick Lawson

The great image of hope which concludes the work

Some reviews of the premiere of  

The Risen Christ