Hampstead Collective – Second Concert – Sacred Meditations – Monday 7th September at 7.00 pm
Following on from our sold out opening concert on Monday 31st August, everyone at the Hampstead Collective is busy preparing for our second appearance – the first in our series of Sacred Meditations, ‘Where two or three are gathered together,’ a programme devised and directed by Dr Geoffrey Webber with Jess Dandy (alto), Aidan Coburn (tenor), Ben McKee (bass), Geoffrey Webber (organ) and Handley Stevens (reader)
Geoffrey writes:
When we began to plan the events for the ‘Start the week’ series it wasn’t at all clear how many musicians would be allowed to perform together during the first stages of a return to normality, so we planned our series to range from solo recitals through to the forces needed for Cantatas and Oratorios. The Sacred Meditations generally fall in between these two sizes, from two singers performing the music of Hildegard of Bingen, to a larger group of singers for the programme ‘Lux aeterna’. On Monday we have just three singers performing music that often drops down to just two voices, so the title ‘When two or three…’ seemed fitting, though not exactly corresponding to the three figures in our publicity picture for the event (God, Man and the Devil)!
The idea behind the Sacred Meditations is to allow words and music on a particular theme (and often from a similar time period) to complement one another, thus facilitating religious meditation. At an earlier point in my career I was Director of the Edington Music Festival in Wiltshire, and one of elements of the Festival that I enjoyed the most was the occasional ‘Sequence of Readings and Music’. The daily liturgical round of services provide the bedrock of the Festival, but the Sequences offer a different and much-valued perspective on religious life. It’s a bit like the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, except not just for Christmas!
On Monday we travel back to the reign of Elizabeth I, with music by William Byrd and John Mundy, and readings by Richard Hooker. We are delighted that throughout the Sacred Meditation series we will be joined by members of the Hampstead Players to perform the readings for us. Byrd wrote much small-scale sacred music for domestic use, and we include his Mass for Three Voices in Latin (probably composed for singing in the private Chapel at Ingatestone Hall in Essex) as well as some Psalm settings in English. The readings come from Hooker’s famous ‘Polities’ in which he outlined much of what we now recognise as standard Anglican theology, avoiding what he saw as the extremes of the Calvinists on the one hand and Roman Catholics on the other. He writes powerful and often beautiful prose, and on Monday we hear his thoughts on subjects including the theology of the Sacraments, the meaning of true penitence, and the value of the use of appropriate music in worship. All the texts being sung and read will be available in the e-programme, together with some thoughts and prayers on Christian meditation.
Hooker came from Exeter, where a statue of him now stands outside the Cathedral. As it happens, I was on holiday there last week (during the gales…) and took the picture below. The blue plaque to him reads as follows: “‘Prophet of Anglicanism’ and a Son of Exeter, he was a lively Elizabethan priest, quick-witted, urbane, intellectually acute, politically sophisticated and passionately committed to the Church of England he served.
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
