Passion Symphony for organ solo in five movements. Large-scale work lasting 2 hrs and 05 mins., intended for recital use linked to the liturgy of the Church year

Pott, Francis

English

UWL Repository

CHRISTUS:Composer’s noteChristus (1986-1990) owes little to the French tradition of the organ symphony. Itsconcern with motivic unity and evolving tonality arises mainly from a deep interest inthe (orchestral) symphonic methods of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, whilecertain harmonic habits relate more specifically to his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. Itwould be rash to suggest such a kinship were Christus not a determined exercise incyclical integration.The five movements of Christus trace respectively the Coming of Christ; Gethsemane;the Via Crucis/Golgotha/the Deposition; the Tomb; and, finally, Resurrection –portrayed not as a prolonged psalm of victory already attained, but as a vast struggletowards ultimate triumph. Any narrative dimension applies principally to the centralthree movements, which together approximate to the length of either the first or thelast. The music may be described as fundamentally tonal, though listeners maysympathise with a treasured dry comment by the composer Patrick Gowers thathe did not think he would care to be asked to sing doh. Tonal character resides morein long-term destinations, and in individual notes as gravitational points, than inconventional diatonic relationships. Triadic shapes are often in conflict with theirharmonic bass, and embrace elements of bi- or atonality as a consequence ofchromatic voice-leading. The first four notes of the work (Fig.1: D-E-C sharp-F)articulate a progression which both dictates an overarching tonal cycle and becomes acontinual motivic presence. The first movement responds to this motif by ultimatelyreaching the tonal centre F (the motif’s fourth note). The second movement, openingwith the motif transposed to start on F, duly ends on A flat. Repeated application ofthis principle brings about a fresh start from D at the outset of the finale (Fig.2).However, this movement eventually breaks the cycle by distorting the motif to D –E-C natural-F sharp (Fig.3). C natural is then enharmonically absorbed as a sharpenedfourth of the transposed Lydian mode and the work ends in F sharp major.The first movement, Logos [ λογος ] evolves into  a listless fugato after a strictexposition, evoking a world as yet devoid of any affirmative or elevating impulse.After a brief climax a succession of ideas is heard. The mood becomes restlesslyexpectant and the tempo accelerates. After the first substantial climax in theSymphony (still based on the four-note motif) an extended Allegro is launched. Itsrhythms inhabit a consciously middle ground between mediaeval and modernpractices, while the intermittent presence of a pedal C sharp undermines an ostensibleD tonality. Eventually a further climax occurs, temporarily consolidating C sharp.After a more spacious passage the dynamic level drops. A chorale theme is heard forthe first time (Fig.4), ornamented by fragmentary patterns beneath. This is destinedfor increasing significance throughout the work as a whole, assuming many harmonicguises and ultimately crowning the Resurrection finale. Insofar as there exists anyspecific ‘Christ motif’, the chorale may be felt to provide it.There follows an extended free development of material heard hitherto. In due coursethe Allegro is recapitulated, but rising tension is dissipated by a remote chordalstatement of the chorale (which shows a tendency to remain open-ended until itsapotheosis near the close of the work). The resumed Allegro presents a steady2 | P a g eescalation through successive restatements of the ‘motto’ four-note theme, beginningin the depths with an unceremonious interruption and rising inexorably towards thefinal bars. Fitfully dramatic and beset by sudden contrasts, the movement seeks toconvey some impression of the Holy Spirit [Logos] contending with a resistant paganforce. Its peroration retains some austerity, as if not yet free from the shadow of theopening fugato.Gethsemane begins with the unaccompanied motto theme, before introducing aprocession of long-held chords. These are in effect a non-vocal ‘setting’ of the word‘slowly’ in the quoted text by Thomas Merton, whose vision depicts Christ as aspectral visitant embodying all the despair of human suffering. Eventually motiviccounterpoint asserts itself in a transient chorale prelude (the chorale being sounded bythe pedals), introducing a chromatic downward motif (Fig.5) which becomes blendedwith references to Fig.1. The chordal material returns, now silent on the first beat ofeach bar to allow a pedal development of the four-note motif to show through. Ananguished climax intervenes suddenly, subsiding at length until the chordal texture isregained. The music becomes both more meekly accepting and more other-worldlythereafter, though perhaps not before Merton’s vision has exposed the ineluctablehumanity of Christ’s frailty and defeat: that hairsbreadth of salvation which Christianperception of the resurrection as fait accompli threatens largely to obscure.Via Crucis is an exercise in contraction. Its Passacaglia ‘ground’, founded againupon the notes of Fig.1 and those of Fig. 5, sounds five times beginning on A flat,then four on A natural, three on B flat, two on B natural and one on C –the furthestpoint in the chromatic scale from ultimate ‘resurrected’ F sharp. Meanwhile, theground itself begins to distort rhythmically, to admit rests and to unfold in fewer bars,as if unsteady beneath hostile buffeting. The flow of ancillary counterpointprogressively features a descending chromatic motif from the previous movement, aswell as the chorale outline and ironic mimicry of the ‘ground’ notes, whose finalreiteration (by now reduced almost beyond coherence) ignites a jagged scherzo. At itsheight three abruptly recessed quiet passages occur, each followed by related anddissonant outbursts embodying the crudely obvious symbolism of hammered nails.The intention is to suggest the gulf already separating hideous extremities of outward,physical torment from the silence of the soul’s struggle within. The third outburstescalates further. Momentary silence intervenes before the central climax of theSymphony, headed ‘CRUCIFIXUS’ in the published score and bearing words fromRevelation: ‘Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced him’. This insistentclimax finally collapses into an unsettled darkness, from which upward harmonicprogressions offer an unashamedly literal suggestion of suffering ended and a wingingof the spirit out of this world into another (influenced by Paul Nash’s watercolour,The Soul Visiting the Mansions of the Dead). The chorale returns, harmonised withextreme simplicity in quasi-Renaissance fashion. The poetic lines quoted inconnection with the third movement relate to this passage especially and were set bySamuel Barber amongst his Hermit Songs.Viaticum, the dramatic low point of Christus, provides extended repose between theinexorable treadmill of the third movement and the explosive opening of the last. Itstitle, meaning ‘wages for a journey’, symbolically denotes prayers attending thedeparture of a soul from this world into the next. At first the music makes as if torecapitulate the work’s opening in a new key, thereby evoking a spiritual regression to3 | P a g ethat world before Christ. This is short lived, and after a static chordal passage(balancing that of Gethsemane) a lengthy movement evolves in the time signature of5/4, its principal melodic idea being a free inversion of the chorale’s later stages(Fig.6). (This recurs momentously in the finale, where it suggests satanic oppositionto the true chorale’s determined upward progress.)Viaticum evokes a world locked in sleep or buried in some deep midwinter of thespirit. Its rhythmic tread bears some resemblance to the tenor solo in the Agnus Dei ofBritten’s War Requiem. The music remains confined to modest dynamic levels andpursues its hibernatory course to the prescribed tonal point, D. Far-distant referencesto the chorale conjure a faint memory of the living world reaching into an entombedstillness. The music embodies two momentary homages to the much mourned RobertSimpson, one of the great symphonists of this or any age.Resurrectio aims at formal balance with Logos while articulating a great struggletoward the light. It begins with a thunderous declamation of the motto theme and astormy cadenza-like introduction which comes to rest on a chord of F sharp(anticipating but not forestalling the work’s peroration). The movement ‘proper’ thenembarks from the tonal point E and gives prominence to a new, irregular motif (Fig.7). Logos is recalled rhythmically, without specific recapitulation as yet. The choralereappears (sereno), leading to free development of itself and the motto theme. Achromatic outline, first heard in Gethsemane, appears in inversion, climbing witheach recurrence. A moto perpetuo of detached chordal quavers initiates an immensecumulative process, embracing progressive jaggedness of rhythm and the steadyreturn of earlier toccata figuration. The chorale is declaimed first by the manuals overrapid chordal patterns and then, in augmentation and in octaves, by the pedals.Fleeting references to the tonal cycle of all five movements are heard. The eventualclimax is as massive as that of Golgotha.The descent from this climax induces a semblance of calm. References to the openingof Logos lead to a passage where the sustained chords of Gethsemane become fusedto phrases from the work’s opening and from the chorale, embellished by tripletquaver figuration. The music becomes hesitant, -the first sign of yet greater strugglesahead. From uncertain beginnings a semiquaver line emerges. This proves to be theexposition of a fugue, but, whereas Golgotha was a study in contraction, this fugue isan essay in elusive tonality. Its entries are pitched not at tonic and dominant, but at thedistance of an augmented fourth (‘tritone’). The device therefore relates to the work’stonal structure, since the diminished chord comprising each movement’s starting pitchmay be seen to consist also of interlocking tritones. Such a modal form was shunnedin early music, since it supplanted the conventional ‘perfect’ interval between firstand fifth note, thus running counter to the established harmonic and tonal order ofthings -and hence also to the sophisticated mediaeval mind’s apprehension of knowncreation and divine providence as a pattern mystically and mathematically echoed inmusic. The mode is sometimes termed ‘Locrian’, and the fugue is headed FugaLocriana. Eventually it moves unobtrusively, but perhaps unsettlingly, from the timesignature of 4/4 to that of 7/8, without interrupting its semiquaver flow. A fugalstretto for three ‘voices’ is succeeded by the rare and eccentric device known ascancrizans. This, beloved of Baroque contrapuntists, earns its historical name througha bizarre and approximate likening to sideways (‘crabwise’) motion, whereas actuallya melodic strand (in this case, ten bars long) is heard simultaneously forwards and4 | P a g ebackwards without concession either to pitch or to rhythm. Scholes observes in theOxford Companion to Music that a cancrizans is a futile academic conceit, the listenerbeing unequipped to perceive it happening. This in itself was whimsically apt, sincethe fugue itself is heard to lose its way shortly thereafter and to expire on a perplexed,unresolved chord, much as if will and rational thought had shied back in the face ofsome onslaught yet to come. To those familiar with Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony theparallel will be obvious, though the context is changed.An ironic outburst now launches a grotesque parody of the music following theintroduction to Resurrectio. Of what follows, ‘War in Heaven’ (Revelation) bestsummarises the intention. A ‘showdown’ between the affirmative and the demonicallydestructive is implied through the simple expedients of upward or downward motivicdirection and greater or lesser dissonance. The rhythm from the opening of the mainpart of the movement reaches a furious outburst marked gridando (screeching) beforethe chorale blossoms suddenly forth in C major. Its key indicates the distortion bywhich the work’s tonal spiral will be broken, anticipating this by embracing both Cand F sharp in its opening phrase. Reference to the central climax of the work (inGolgotha) shows that the tonal areas C and F sharp were in collision even there, at thework’s opposite pole, though with no resolution yet in sight.The final change of the four-note motto theme (marked very obviously byjuxtaposition of both its forms) propels the music into F sharp, now affirmed at lengththrough rhapsodic treatment of the chorale. The precedent of all four precedingmovements is followed, in that a cadential formula based upon a fragment of thechorale heralds the music’s end. A final reference to the chorale intervenes beforesudden silence, and then a greatly prolonged final chord of F sharp, its duration wellearned by the performer.The easy claim of any definitive spiritual significance in this music must be animpertinence to listener and performer alike. However, a candid –and vulnerable –statement of intention may not go amiss. In an age of scientific rationalism and ofcasual brutality, Christus attempts to respond in personal terms to the increasingdifficulty of any mystical intimations of faith. At the same time, it makes its ownsearch for Christian conviction, in the shadow of a dark century, by embracing anewthe notion of a suffering God both within and without creation, and hence of theCrucifixion as an ineluctable truth perpetually re-enacted within all the inhumanitiesof successive ages. In the event this has become ever more pertinent to Resurrectio,written in the summer of 1990 even as Kuwait became reluctant crucible of theworld’s newest human calamity. By pure accident, the ‘failure’ of the central climaxin Resurrectio to lay its demons to rest now appears prophetic of the re-opened eye ofthat same storm over a decade later, as western tanks rolled back into Iraq.It is because of such atrocities, not despite them, that the attempt to articulate atriumph of light over darkness, compassion over brutality or hope over despair seemsto find its own rightness, and to discover at its heart the image of the Crucifixion. Ifthese aims are rooted in the proper modesty of confronting one’s own humansmallness, paradoxically their adequate articulation cannot be so; and there willalways be those for whom a work on this scale seems founded only upon fatalegocentricity. In any case, the births of my children and death of my mother since thecompletion of Christus, heightening that sense that we go whence we came and that5 | P a g ethe newborn are our clearest messengers of what the poet Yeats called ‘theuncontrollable mystery’, have served to humble the pages of this music in a waywhich critics (fiercely divided!) could not have equalled, though one or two havetried.This note has been updated at a number of points since its first appearance in 1991.To date, Christus has been performed in the UK, the USA and Germany by eightbrilliant organists: Iain Simcock, Jeremy Filsell, David Goode, Robert Quinney,Kevin Bowyer, David Leigh, Tristan Russcher and today’s recitalist, ChristianWilson.Via Facebook an intrepid Nigerian concert organist, Akinkunmi Olubi, currently stateshis intention to become ‘The Ninth Man’. All the above have echoed RobertQuinney’s wry observation that to open the score at random is to feel that one hassomehow gained access for the first time to the locked mystery room in the west wing,- only then to spot the pencilled fingerings and realise how many past hours of patientlabour have seemingly vanished beneath more recent efforts... The challenge to eventhe most outstanding player in terms of preparation, musicianship, virtuosity and sheerstamina is vast, and no thanks by the composer can ever be sufficient to ChristianWilson or to any of his illustrious colleagues for the astounding levels of achievementwhich they have brought to the performance of this music.Looking back at the music after exactly two decades, I note fingerprints that haveremained defining features of my identity since, but also passages which might be byanother person altogether. I can only say, as Ralph Vaughan Williams did about histurbulent Fourth Symphony, that ‘I don’t know whether I like it – but it’s what I meantat the time’.The last word may be left to Edwin Muir and his poem The Transfiguration, quoted inthe published score, from which the following shows exactly where Christus seeks toend:Then he will come, Christ the uncrucified,Christ the decrucified, his death undone,His agony unmade, his cross dismantled-Glad to be so – and the tormented woodWill cure its hurt and grow into a treeIn a green springing corner of young Eden,And Judas damned take his long journey backwardFrom darkness into light and be a childBeside his mother’s knee, and the betrayalBe quite undone and never more be done.© Francis Pott, 2012.

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