A Cautionary Tale

So, it seems I left off Wednesday evening (ignore for the moment that I’ve posted Monday’s events right in between), as we were back from dinner at the Miller’s Arms.

It was very hard to believe, next morning, that it was already Thursday, already our last day. It felt like we’d just begun, and indeed like we were just beginning to get the hang of things.

Rehearsal that morning was a bit rough. Thursday’s music looked easy by comparison to Wednesday’s, and I think perhaps we’d taken it a bit for granted. I found myself wishing very much that we’d had rehearsal time the evening before.

All too soon, it was time to leave our little nest up in the south transept. We rehearsed in All Saints, which is marked as a private chapel; it isn’t customarily open and people don’t tour there. It’s very plain, with a wood floor and white walls; the furnishings aren’t fancy. There’s some decoration of the stonework in the ceiling, but the paint is fading.

In the stonework around all the windows – both the internal windows that overlook the inside of the south transept and some of the ongoing restoration work, and the external ones that open on the south lawn – was various scratched-in graffiti. Not recent – OLD graffiti, little churches and other drawings and people’s initials, and dates going back to the 1700s and 1800s.

In the side wall – on the left, as you face the altar – is an odd-shaped memorial. There’s a carved head or bust that’s clearly professional or near-professional work, roughly set, and in the stones around it were carved crudely three names, all listed as “organ blower,” with dates in the mid-1800s. Not far from it, toward the front of the room, is a small, square hole going back about a foot into the wall. The more I looked at it, as we worked in the room, the more I think that room might once upon a time have been the bellows room for one of the configurations of the organ.

There was something particularly poignant and haunting, to me, about that small memorial. The names are carved as carefully as possible, but clearly by an amateur – there’s an improvised, impromptu feel to the whole thing, as though some people just took it upon themselves to create it to honor their friends. It isn’t polished like the formal ones downstairs; it isn’t all neatly carved straight lines and perfectly aligned lettering. It is simply the best someone had to offer, to memorialize people obviously dear to those who created it. It speaks directly of the love we find in community, however humble our station.

So it was a bit sad for me to leave that room for the last time, knowing that the next day it would be someone else’s space and not ours.

We gathered early for that afternoon’s warm-up, to get a couple formal pictures of the group before our last service. One of our baritones had very thoughtfully worked out the placement, so all we had to do was go stand where he told us and stand still. You’d think it would be easier than it turned out to be.

As we gathered in the vestry chapel for our final line-up, David approached Andrew, to say that although there is a combination lock on the choir room door, it isn’t actually engaged – so the room is open and he could in fact take one of us up for a quick look and a picture. I handed off my camera, and we agreed that would happen after the service. I knew David was on a bit of a tight timeline – his wife was in the production of Cosi fan tutte taking place that evening in the Dean’s Garden, which started at 7:30 – and I was a bit concerned when we were told they wanted to do more pictures after the service…

The service itself went well enough, but the cautionary tale is this: the service is enjoyable to sing and goes smoothly in direct proportion to the prep time you put into it. I found we were really hurting for that Wednesday night rehearsal we didn’t have, in favor of a group dinner.

And then there was the herding of the cats, trying to get everyone back together and get the final pictures taken and get out of the church – complicated by the fact that we had to be quiet about it, because there was a Eucharist in progress in the Lady chapel in the Martyrdom, and sound in that great place carries everywhere.

We eventually got all that done with, and Andy made a quick pilgrimage to the choir room to snap a few pictures of the place where the Cathedral choir rehearses, and then we were off to dinner and rehearsal for Sunday morning’s service, which we were singing with the choir of St. Paul’s church – and thence the other cautionary part of the tale: when you have only an hour for dinner, opt for quick and cheap, not Mediterranean.

We went to Azouma, a restaurant directly across the street from the church where rehearsal would be (after all, we’re practically there already – how could we be late?). It’s really quite charming – the décor is lovely, and everything was very tasty. The only problem is that a Middle Eastern restaurant with couches and pillows instead of chairs is really the sort of place you go when you have three hours for dinner, not when you’re pressed for time.

This was compounded by the arrival, within minutes after we got there, of a party of forty to be served downstairs…

It was also compounded by at least two mistakes on the part of the waitress – she put in one order completely wrong, and we think she simply forgot the other one. So three of us had dinners in front of us with twenty minutes to eat – but one of those three dinners wasn’t what the gentleman ordered – and the fourth member of our party wasn’t served yet by the time we dashed out the door and across the street, intending to make his excuses to the director. His dinner arrived – already packaged for take-away, as we requested when it was clear it wouldn’t arrive in time – just about 7:55. Rehearsal was at 8.

And the rehearsal went quite well, considering. The main piece we were rehearsing is the Bairstow setting of “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” It’s in F-sharp minor, it’s very chromatic, and all the parts divide, sometimes more than once – which is the main reason, I think, that Dom’s never had a chance to perform it; his choir is just too small for it, most of the time.

Enter Schola Cantorum on Hudson. Twenty more singers makes a tremendous difference, when all the parts split at least into firsts and seconds.

It was not an easy piece. We spent a fair amount of time wood-shedding with Dom, and fair amount more wood-shedding with Deborah – but by the time we all retired around the corner to the pub for a pint and a chat, we had it pretty well in hand.

I’d had visions of being out until all hours, but we were all pretty tired, so we headed back to the Lodge at a very tame and respectable hour, with the prospect of two full days off spread out before us.

A Wanderer's Tale

It occurs to me that I never really wrote about what we did Monday at Canterbury – just about the travel and our arrival, and not all that much of that.

We arrived in London early on Sunday morning. Our flight was due to land at 10:30, and we were there and ready to land by 10:00. So we had to circle because we were early and they had to make room for us in the schedule. Then we taxied for a while, and waited while they found a gate for us. Then we parked at the gate, and waited while they found a driver to attach the gate.

And then we walked. And walked. And walked. Had to stop to wait for crossing traffic. And walked some more. And then stood in a long, snaking queue for customs. You know you’re in trouble when there’s a sign in the customs line like the ones at Disneyland rides: “Your wait from this point is…”.

We rehearsed a little bit, Sunday night before dinner and after hearing Evensong. We were too tired to do much, but we at least cleared out some of the cobwebs.

Monday morning, it was time to get to work. We headed over to the Cathedral after breakfast, to begin rehearsal by drilling the processions. Most church choirs at least have some basic clues as to how this is done, and it’s a matter of adapting to the Cathedral’s protocol. Schola is not a church choir. We do “move into place” and we do occasionally wander around the hall, but it would be dramatically overstating the case to say we ever “process” anywhere. Until now.

This was somewhat complicated by the fact that we were not using both sides of the choir. Ordinarily, the two halves of the choir face one another across the center of the quire; there’s room for about 18 per side. We had twenty singers, total, so dividing really wasn’t an option.

We rehearsed the processing and the bowing for an hour. A solid hour. It wasn’t nearly as warm there as here, but we were all wringing wet by the time we were done – and we still weren’t just sure exactly what we were doing, although we were starting to get it.

After rehearsal, we had a walking tour of the Cathedral, led by one of the many friendly guides who work there. We wandered through the crypt and through the chapels and up through the space where Becket’s shrine once was (it was demolished in 1536, one of the earliest casualties of Henry VIII’s depredations). Toward the end of the tour, I got separated from folks, and ended up heading out on my own to find cash; a face cloth (something we’d been told to bring because they’re not supplied, but I forgot); and lunch. I accomplished all three, and headed back (as I supposed) to the Lodge to eat and get dressed for Evensong.

Except I turned toward what I thought was Christ Church Gate, but was in fact the West Gate. I figured out pretty quickly that I’d gone wrong, once I realized I was out where there was real traffic, but it took a while to get sorted and get back. So instead of a leisurely lunch, I wolfed down my sandwich while getting dressed in concert black, then headed out again.

For all our worries, the first Evensong went very well. We sang well, we didn’t completely disgrace ourselves in the processions, and everyone seemed quite pleased. We changed back into street clothes afterward, found a quick dinner and then headed over to St. Paul’s for rehearsal. This pattern –Matins, breakfast, rehearsal, a break for lunch and perhaps a nap, warm-up and Evensong, dinner, and rehearsal – was pretty much the rhythm of the week for me.

So there's the wandering tale of the first day, out of place and all.

Wednesday - A Miller's Arms Tale

I know I sort of dropped off abruptly, a week ago, and I apologize. I find it a rule that one gets so busy having adventures, one finds it progressively more difficult to find time to write about them. I intend to remedy my misdeed, by posting for each of the remaining days.

Wednesday dawned once again bright and clear. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our weather was holding cool and lovely; the last advance weather I'd looked at before we left called for rain almost every day we were expecting to be there. Cured of our misunderstanding of the daily schedule, Andy and I once again went to Matins and then breakfast, then back to our little nest up in All Saints' Chapel for rehearsal.

Wednesday was also our first day entirely on our own. Our tour guide got us through our first couple days, led us to St. Martin's and St. Augustine's Abbey on Tuesday - and then he was off home for a day before meeting up with the choir that started their residency today for a weekend in Paris before he brought them over on the train to Dover and thence to Canterbury.

With no tour to hasten to after rehearsal, and with our hardest music yet on deck for the day's service, the rehearsal went long. Afterward, Andy and I headed out to locate the Miller's Arms, our scheduled dinner spot. Our guide had chosen the place, made the reservation, and paid the bill in advance; all we needed to do was show up and eat.

We found the place easily, and became enchanted with the Abbot's Mill Park, across the street from the restaurant. The remanants of the mill works and the old mill race are still there, fed by a meadering river channeled through several arches and canals. We wandered through the park and into a garden, and could see on the other side a couple lovely old buildings which a sign proclaimed to be the old Franciscan Priory, a formal guesthouse for Canterbury pilgrims in the Middle Ages. We explored as far as we could get, but couldn't see a way to get around to the front and into the remaining buildings.

We wandered back along the riverside, watching the other people out for fun - including one young man who found it a warm enough day to jump into the river for a dunk from the bridge over the old sluice gate. Working our way back toward the cathedral, we found a pleasant looking tavern for lunch and a pint - I had bangers and mash, and Andy had fish-and-chips. Don't recall anymore which local-brewed ale-on-tap I chose, but it was quite nice.

I do recall looking at the various beers available on tap - including Stella Artois, Guiness, and several other well-known names. My feeling on this is that I've come all the way to England - why on earth would I order a beer I can get just as easily down the street from my house? In this, I've grown into a convert to my father's view; not exactly 'when in Rome, do as the Romans,' but certainly an idea that one should, when away from home, specially seek out those things that can only be had in the place one has traveled to, rather than seeking to make everything "just like home."

Back to the Lodge in time for a nap (very necessary!), then over to the Cathedral for our third and hardest Evensong. We had a request to adjust our pace, again - Monday we had apparently walked too fast in procession, and Tuesday when asked to go slower had overcompensated. So - a happy medium, perhaps? I did wish we had a crucifer or verger to follow; would have made it much easier.

Andy and I had asked David, the precentor, if it were possible for us to just climb the (narrow, steep, spiral) stairs and merely see the choir room. He blinked, a bit taken aback - after all, he said, it's just a roomful of music. We explained that we were simply crazy choir people, and that we just wanted to get a feel of what the rehearsal room atmosphere was like. He agreed to take one of us up, after the service.

We tackled the hardest set yet and did very well, and then waited for David in the vestry chapel afterward. When he met us, he hauled out a veritable set of jailer's keys, and said, "I think one of these ought to fit; let me go up first and see."

He came back a moment later. "No joy - it's got a combination lock, and I don't know the combination," he said. "I could ask David (the organist and choirmaster) for it, but if I did, he'd ask why I needed it, and if I told him it was because a visiting choir wanted to see the room, he would scream." Ah, well. At least we tried.

We headed over to the Lodge, to change for dinner and then round up the herd for the walk to dinner. There was a lovely salad, an appetizer of asparagus with Hollandaise, and a very nice chicken dish with roasted potatoes. Dessert was on our own tab; I went for the homemade strawberry cheesecake, and it was amazing - light rather than dense like most NY ones, creamy without being cloying, and with this amazing strawberry sauce that had to have been fresh-made that day.

Naturally, with dinner stretching into the evening, we didn't rehearse - a fact which came back to haunt us - but that is tomorrow's tale.

Endings and Beginnings

Our second day (Tuesday) in Canterbury began for me with sad news. Word came that a friend and fellow parishioner from my home parish had died Saturday night - even as we were winging our way over the Atlantic.

The news, coupled with another friend's birthday, really colored and shaped my day. We missed Matins, due to a mixup on the Fortnightly Service Sheet (which doesn't show Matins, for reasons unknown) - but that gave us time to attend Mass instead, and I was grateful the opportunity to carry them both with me in spirit into this place.

Morning rehearsal was again in All Saints Chapel. It is high up on the south side of the cathedral, nearly at the pulpitum steps (a long flight of steps down past the tunnel built so pilgrims could go see where Thomas was murdered, without bothering the monks at their prayers). It feels a bit like a nest, cozily tucked away; from the windows in the room one can look down into the cathedral and see some of the massive conservation work underway on the south side of the cathedral.

After rehearsal, we gathered in the lobby of the Lodge, and walked to St. Martin's Church. This is, by virtue of containing some of the remains of the original church or chantry built for Queen Bertha when she came from France to marry Ethelbert, then King of Kent, the oldest church in England in continuous use. She came here in 570 or so. The docent apologized, tongue-in-cheek, for the modernity of some of the church - it's rather new, he said, only dates from around 1170.

It's a lovely little gem of a church, surrounded by a churchyard full of an eclectic collection of burials - from flat slabs with carved crosses on top, to barrel-shaped things that looked a bit like wrapped bodies, to upright memorials from the 1800's. The communion of saints, indeed.

From there we walked back to St. Augustine's Abbey. Augustine was the one sent by the Pope to convert the English, in 597 - and succeeded admirably. The Abbey was one of the less fortunate victims of the Dissolution; all that's left is ruined walls. Once again, thank you, Henry VIII.

It was here that we bade farewell to our guide; he's on to Paris tomorrow, with the group that's coming here next week; they're starting there, then taking the train to Dover and on to Canterbury for their own week in residence.

A quick lunch on the way back; a bit of a walk and a bit of a rest - and it was time to dress for tea.

We had a lovely tea in the library before warm-up; looking a bit formal and sad for tea, being as we were all in concert dress, but it was pleasant.

The service went well, but really hit me hard. It started even in the morning, as we rehearsed the Nunc dimittis (now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace) and the anthem (Bright Morning Stars). I thought of my fellow parishioner - free from pain, now, and never to be lonely again. And then had to fight off a crying jag right before service - which several of my friends unfortunately noticed, and tried to fix. The only problem is that if you're sweet to me when I'm fragile, I'll cry harder. It makes no sense, but it's how I operate. So here are these lovely people trying to be sweet to me, and I'm having to tell them to just go away.

The only fly in the ointment during the service was a particularly ill-timed cell phone going off, which startled us and threw our concentration just enough that one entrance went a bit off the rails. Not too badly; we fixed it, and we got the next one perfect - and only those who know music would have noticed.
For dinner a great number of us went to the Old Buttermarket, just outside the Christ Church Gate. Lovely place, and reasonably good food, but better suited for a day when we've got time to linger - which we didn't, having to get on to rehearsal at St. Paul's.
Very full days, Monday and Tuesday. Only slightly less full today and tomorrow, in that there are no planned tours either day. Enjoying the singing, but very much looking forward to two completely free days at the end of the week.

On pilgrimage...

So, when last I wrote, I was sitting by the gate, waiting for the rest of the group and awaiting our flight. I can now report that the flight was lovely (aside from feeling a bit like I've been folded up in a too-small space for far too long), and we arrived safe and sound and a bit early. You'd think that was a good thing - but early meant nobody was expecting us yet, so we had to circle for ten minutes before they let us land. Then we had to wait at the gate, because the gate driver wasn't there yet to connect us to the airport.

And then, of course, there was customs. There was a hike of what seemed like nearly a mile from the gate to customs (I am again reminded of the pilgrims wending their long, slow way to Canterbury on horseback), and then a long, snaking, shuffling line. You know you're in for it when there is a sign at customs like the ones at Disneyland rides: your wait from this point is 45 minutes.

Excited as I am to be here, I slept most of the way on the bus from London. Every time I opened my eyes along the way, I noted not how different the countryside seemed, but how - aside from the cars being on the wrong sides of the road - I could be tootling along the Garden State Parkway. That changed once there started to be road signs - very different style here.

We arrived in Canterbury, and got as close as we could by bus - we were let off in Burgate, and from there must travel on foot to the Cathedral grounds where the Lodge is. Cobblestone streets, and a weary band band of pilgrims dragging their luggage along to their lodgings - I think Chaucer would have recognized us.

We came into the Close and past visitors relaxing on the lawn by the Cathedral...which is breathtaking. You can see the tower from anywhere in town, and navigate by it. Then on around and in through the gate to the Lodge, where they sorted out our rooms. We had just time for a shower (and a fire alarm) and then we scampered across to the Cathedral for Sunday Evensong.

The quire is where Evensong is held. It encloses the High Altar; it is separated from the nave by a great wall with a great door; and many parish churches including my own would fit inside handily and rattle around loose. We inadvertently had an extra treat - yesterday was the end of term, and the choir was being dismissed for holidays, so we heard their last service before summer - and they are a tough act to follow. Soaring, clear, pure boys' voices, bolstered by the deeper voices of the men...pure musical enchantment.

Dinner out - a lovely walk there and back, and a stroll around the grounds upon our return in the gathering dark, gazing at various ruined walls and arches, close enough to the Cathedral that we think they must have been part of the monastery that originally was attached to the place.

I find myself in a very monastic frame of mind, actually. There is a TV in the room, but I was loathe to break what felt to me very like the Great Silence, when I finally went back upstairs. Closing the day with Evensong, and opening it again this morning with Matins, gives that gracious framework to the day that I so treasure when I'm at Holy Cross.

What better way is there to begin the day than, "Lord, open our lips, and our mouths shall proclaim your praise"? What better way is there to close it than, "Let us bless the Lord! Thanks be to God"? To read Matins in a chapel so old and so full of the communion of saints is an extra treat.

And the silence. The stillness here, even in the midst of a busy Monday morning, is deep and peaceful and full of love. The depth of the silence in the evening made it even easier to sleep, feeling cradled and rocked in that quiet assurance - that we are loved, that we are precious in God's sight, that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

All checked in!

I'm too efficient for my own good, apparently - I checked my bag and went straight on through security (a necessary evil I prefer to navigate only once and as expeditiously as possible), and thus inadvertently deprived myself of the company of my fellow pilgrims, who are gathered in a tavern *outside* security. Sigh...

Sending this from my loaner phone, and hoping it works. If it does, I may be able to stay up to date even more easily than I thought.

Signing off now to go knit for a while, or perhaps to pursue dinner...

Canterbury Prologue

Well, it isn't April, and no sweet showers are piercing the droughts of anything - but we are going on pilgrimage, nonetheless.

Schola Cantorum on Hudson will be choir-in-residence at Canterbury Cathedral for Evensong from Monday evening through Thursday evening, next week. Yes, that Canterbury - the one where Thomas Beckett was martyred by four ambitious knights thinking they were doing Henry II a good turn, and where the Wife of Bath and the Miller and the Parson and all Chaucer's others colorful piligrims went to visit his shrine.

We will be arriving in London and transferring pretty immediately to Canterbury, where we will stay until we return to London a week from Monday to fly home. Considering that we'll be traveling by air-conditioned motor coach, and not on horseback, and that we'll be staying at the lovely Cathedral Lodge and not small and dingy inns along the road - it's hard to see that part of the trip as pilgrimage in quite the same way - although I'm sure there will be plenty of tales told to pass the time at the airport and on the flight, and on the bus, and over ale in the pubs of an evening, after rehearsal.

For me, it will be a bit like a retreat or a workshop at Holy Cross, in that a friend and I will be attending Matins each morning, in addition to singing Evensong. As in the monastic community, our day will be framed by prayer and music. It is easy to lose sight of that, in the frantic rush of preparation and rehearsal, and yet it is only by holding fast to that that we can hope to do what we are going there to do: to lead the people in prayer and praise to God.

It is hard, also, for those in the choir for whom the daily office is not (yet) as familiar and comfortable as their favorite pair of slippers. It is my hope that by the time we come home, they will have a chance to develop a love for that peaceful, steady rhythm of the day that the office provides.

I'm a little alarmed at how well organized I am; I'm terribly afraid that means I've overlooked something obvious which I will only discover when it's far too late to fix it. I was in fact so very organized that I had time this afternoon to go out for a bit and do some just-for-fun singing with a couple dear friends - a perfect send-off.

That had better be about all. One last check of all the lists, and we're off to the airport!