Contrasting with the improvisatory and ecstatic outpourings of Hildegard of Bingen heard in last Monday’s Sacred Meditation, our next ‘Start the Week’ event highlights the music of perhaps one of the most consistent and disciplined composers in the entire history of Western music – Palestrina.

Generations of musicians over the centuries have worked hard to learn and imitate his style, precisely because of these qualities. Music students at some universities today still have to undertake exam questions in Palestrina’s style, so that they develop the technical understanding needed to appreciate precisely why his music came to be revered by so many musicians across the centuries (Mozart, Wagner, Schoenberg…). However, one does not need to have studied music at university to appreciate Palestrina’s sublime music, because we can all simply hear how wonderful it is. As we listen to the singers weaving their phrases effortlessly alongside each other, sharing the same material yet maintaining their independence, the result sounds effortlessly complete, satisfying, balanced, pure, ethereal, transcendental…the music draws us towards an ideal of perfect beauty. For me, this is why Palestrina’s music fits so well with The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, in which the beauty of both the bride and bridegroom plays such an important part.

Of the long array of writers on the Song of Songs over the centuries, the Spanish nun Teresa of Avila (an almost exact contemporary of Palestrina) is refreshingly unconcerned with the long history of theological debate about the precise meanings of the verses in their Christian interpretation. Writing to her nuns she warns against those writers who claim to have all the right answers, and offers her own thoughts simply as her own understanding of, or reaction to, the text. Our Sacred Meditation concludes with the poem known as the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ by Teresa’s long-time friend John of the Cross, whose poetical writings often refer to the Song of Songs, the text that was clearly so cherished by both of them. The musicians are delighted to be joined by Gaynor Bassey Fish as our reader

If you want to listen to the concert live in church you can book a ticket through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/o/the-hampstead-collective-30975107523. Or you can watch on Facebook live via The Hampstead Collective Facebook page