Farewell to Choristers
Farewell to Choristers
Sermon preached by the Precentor, Canon Anna Macham
Sunday 20 July 2025 – 3:00pm – 5 After Trinity
Zephaniah 3:14-end and Revelation 4
The anthem we heard earlier, “Blest pair of sirens”, has got to be one of the classics, the jewels in the crown of the Anglican Choral tradition we have inherited. A work of exhilarating beauty, Parry’s setting of John Milton’s poem “At a Solemn Music” seems a perfect example of how music and poetry can combine to create a choral masterpiece that seems to transcend all time and space.
Like other Protestants of his age, Milton was well aware of the power of music. Music affects us emotionally; it affects us, deep in the human spirit, and therefore, it can be dangerous. When we think of sirens, we think of mermaids luring sailors to their death, the seductive power of the sirens’ songs being, according to Greek myth, these mythological creatures’ way of enchanting and corrupting the human beings under their spell.
Yet, in this fine poem, and brought out so magnificently by Parry’s setting, Milton transforms this negative image into a positive one, by associating the Sirens with joy and heaven. He addresses the “harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Verse,” suggesting that they are in fact, signs of “heav’n’s joy”. Music and poetry form a sacred bond that transcends the material world. Music has the power not just to awaken our human senses, but to connect our senses with the spiritual realm, with the harmonious music, the “perfect diapason”- or concord or harmony- of heaven.
Music is the language of the human spirit, our “inbreathed sense” that brings us to life. And, even though disharmonious, “disproportioned sin” can lure us away, music, according to Milton, has the ability to enter our very being, and to awaken us to the divine. Music takes us out of ourselves and connects us with something- or Someone- greater.
Today, the last day of our choir’s year, as we look back over the past year and the many services and events that have taken place here in the Cathedral, we can see how music- in all its variety- has moved people and helped people to give voice to thoughts and feelings close to their hearts; it has had a key role in shaping and giving expression to the worship of God’s people.
Music creates moods; it evokes memories and images; it unites people and draws us heavenwards. And those of us who have shared in the highlights of the past year- from Darkness to Light and singing Handel’s Messiah to a packed Cathedral, to the choir tour to the Netherlands, to the Southern Cathedrals Festival that we’ve hosted here over these past 5 days, now back to its fullest programme since pre-Covid, to name but a few- these, along with many others, are things that we will all remember.
As Phoebe, Joshua, Freddie, Fred, Emmie and Gabriel leave the choir today, they will take with them their own memories, of particular things they’ve enjoyed during their time here, or favourite pieces they’ve sung; these are experiences that will always stay with them. But these experiences are not just personal. They are shared, not only with friends, but with all the various people who have come here and benefitted, all who have taken part in this corporate offering of ourselves and our worship to God.
Of course, music doesn’t have to be religious to move us, or draw us out of ourselves and our own petty preoccupations. Yet the setting of Church and Cathedral worship has inspired many of the world’s greatest composers, as we’ve heard so powerfully over the last few days. Sacred music, of the type that’s regularly performed here, in practices and styles honed over centuries, seems to lead us effortlessly into prayer. Music like this fills us with feelings of awe, and a sense of the eternal.
In the night before last’s serenely beautiful concert of the sacred music of Palestrina and Gibbons with the viol consort, the programme notes alluded to the fact that it’s obvious to us to name this connection between music and the divine. “Palestrina’s “somewhat less-quantifiable attributes”, it says, include “otherworldliness, serenity, and an expansiveness which, though it has been said often, affords the listener a veritable glimpse of heaven”.
Yet music is very much about the earthly too. The creation of music is physical, involving practicalities like the organising of rehearsals and the production of copies. It involves rigorous, physical work, necessitating taking good care of our bodies and vocal apparatus, involving good technique and, as all of you here today know, many hours spent in practice, and fitting that in with all the other complex demands of life. The creation of heavenly music, as our Senior Lay Vicar, Steve Abbott, alluded to in his fascinating- and hilarious- talk on Friday morning, whilst a huge privilege, comes at a human cost. In helping others to worship, it’s not always possible to worship yourself in the same way- because your role is to ensure that that music is being performed to a high standard, in order to facilitate that worship for others. Today we thank all of our musicians, for the heavenly music that’s so fundamental to our worship, and for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make that happen.
Our second reading, from the book of Revelation, is one of a series of mystical visions of heaven, in which music and singing play an integral part. There are more references to singing in Revelation than in any other book of the bible. It’s punctuated with numerous hymns and songs celebrating God’s glory and the victory of the Lamb, that have inspired many more hymns in turn down the ages.
Yet this vision isn’t disconnected from everyday life. The Sanctus, in today’s passage, which we sing in every Eucharist, inspired the Trinitarian hymn “Holy, holy, holy”- a vision of the ineffable, ethereal beauty of God in heaven- but this same passage also inspired the African American spiritual, “Deep River”. Drawing on the imagery that follows the Sanctus of the twenty four elders falling before the throne of God, the author of the Spiritual looks forward to joining in their worship: “Deep River, my home is over Jordan…/Walk into heaven and take my seat,/And cast my crown at Jesus’ feet”. As with many spirituals, this song expresses a longing, not just for an end to the suffering of slavery at the end of time, but in our lives now. By singing the song, justice and peace are brought closer, the idea of them made more real in our own time.
One of the choristers reflected recently that it’s the sense of doing something together, and of other people relying on you, that they will take away from their experience of singing services like Evensong here day by day- of being part of that collective experience and shared offering of worship.
Each of those leaving today have made their mark on this place. They have enabled our worship, moving people and affecting them emotionally in so many ways we may never even know. As we go out from here today, may we take seriously our responsibility to bring heaven to birth in our midst, whatever our gifts and calling, and to sing the new song of God’s love, and of life transformed by heavenly music.