Category Archives: Life, The Universe, and Etc.

Choristers of Westminster Abbey

And in this milieu, in this place, a child, a curious little Jewish New Yorker from the wrong side of the Queensborough Bridge who, for four performances and  six rehearsals a week, literally sang for his supper: I, made my spiritual and physical home. And no time of the year was more uplifting, yet fraught with hard work and spiritual and intellectual misgivings, than Christmas. The most daunting service and concert schedule, several performances a day sometimes, with little time for presents or even sleep. Shot through with my own religious conflicts, and a burgeoning awareness — and a longing to join in, of course — of the social disruptions racing around the nearby streets; Moondog and Janish Joplin talking on the corner of 6th Avenue; Sly Stone staying at the Warwick hotel, limousine liberalism ascendant, a mad dash to man some invisible barricade. Still, joyous too, with the hope of family and a week’s vacation to come at the end.

Quite divorced from any contemplation of the Christ child as either sacred object or historical artifact, to me the meaning not just of Christmas, but of spirit, faith, mystery — of very life itself — was then and still is today most magnificently expressed in the sacred choral music in the German and English traditions. The voices of boy choristers are, then, to me, like the voice of g*d herself. And that can come anytime, if I put myself in the place to receive it — a recent winter’s evensong at Westminster Abbey, notably, where a weak white winter sun shone on the famous chiaruscuro floor, and two boy sopranos sang a Mendelssohn duet, the spirit of that most-Jewish-and-yet-not composer once again giving voice to … what, exactly? And without being able to frame it intellectually there wells up in me what I can only describe as a living spirit — what for me stands for the true meaning of Christmas; neither sacred nor profane, but a nativity of both spirit and body without conflict or contour. And it has a purity — in the liturgical analogy, while the Christmas story carries a hint of tragedy, the coming passion of the Christ as the controlling metaphor for the human condition never completely out of sight — it brings, like every birth and rebirth, a hope that is the hope of Christians at Christmas, as it is the hope of the Jews on the New Year, as it is the hope of the world. That off chance that, just this one time, we won’t screw it all up.

And there it is — my wish for all this Christmas season — let’s try together, one more time, to not screw it up. To sing just the right notes. To get through the score. To hit all the high notes. To cheat tragedy and death together, or at least, if we cannot defeat them, to face them (as I said to a dear friend recently) with dignity and integrity. 

One last note: this was going to be a post about the question of whether Mendelssohn’s, Mahler’s and my experiences of being, in effect, Jewish musicians in these dominantly Christian cultures was ultimately examples of an invidious and centuries-old processs of conversion and assimilation, opportunities for social mobility, or merely selfishness on the part of a couple of perfidious and ambitious “bad” Jews. I leave that for your contemplation — and perhaps a future post.

Meanwhile, Christmas breakfast is waiting on this tardy blogger, so off we must go.