Anthem – Faire is the Heaven – by Sir William Harris
at Evensong on 18th October
The anthem for Evensong on Sunday 18th October is one often chosen for inclusion in the Marriage Service*, to fill that otherwise awkward hiatus when all the main protagonists in the Chancel suddenly disappear to sign the Register. It is, appropriately, a profoundly serene and happy work; it also happens to be a perfect marriage of words and music. Its text is religious but not Biblical – a setting of a poem by Edmund Spenser based on St John’s description of the heavenly hosts in Revelations. Harris captures the sense of wonder and beauty underlying Spenser’s text by setting it as a sonorous motet for unaccompanied double choir in eight parts. Sir William Harris (1883-1973) spent his long working life as an organist and choirmaster in wonderful sacred buildings, beginning with Lichfield Cathedral, moving to New College and then to Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford before taking up his last appointment at St George’s Chapel Windsor. He understood exactly how to fill these vast resonant spaces with glowing choral sounds, and this anthem, written in 1925 during his time at New College, is one of his finest works.
The setting opens in a mood of wonderment as the two choirs echo each other in describing their awe of Heaven:
‘Whence they doe still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine, Eternall Majestie …’
The wonder grows in the rich, dense texture of the quickening central section describing the Cherubins and Seraphins, and the Angels and Archangels, and builds to a powerful climax. As this fades a single bass line leads into the final description of the ‘Highest farre beyond all telling …
Fairer than all the rest which there appeare.
Though all their beauties joynd together were …’
and the transcendent quality of the opening returns, illuminated by beautiful shifting harmonies:
‘How then can mortal tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?’
*It is included in the choir’s CD recording of wedding music – available from the Vestry [£10]
Pick of the Month
Gill Perrin