Total Eclipse (1999)
Sung text compiled from the Gospels by Mother Thekla
Total Eclipse is a Metanoia, which literally means ‘change
of mind’, ‘turning around’ or ‘conversion’. ‘It is not I
who live but Christ who lives in me’. These are the words of
St Paul after his blinding conversion on the road to
Damascus. Everything in Total Eclipse is related
metaphysically, whether it be voice, instrumental timbre,
rhythm, or melody. The music is not dramatic in the Western
sense, but rather an esoteric contemplation of Metanoia
using the conversion of St Paul to give it structure and
indeed meaning. In this piece, St. Paul is symbolically
represented by a soprano saxophone and a countertenor.
The music should be performed in a petrified ecstasy; the
manner of playing and the spatial distribution is of the
utmost importance. The music begins with the crucifixion of
Christ, but although loud, awesome and terrible, it is also
shining, because by His death Christ overcomes death. The
descending string chord is a perfect chord of the spheres:
the notes are also played by strings, baroque trumpet,
baroque trombone and the two sets of timpani, spaced in
cross formation.
So although the music is intentionally fearsome, terrifying
and awesome, the sounds of rocks and earthquakes are all, in
the deepest sense, Divine. Only Saul is dissonant or ‘off
target’, and his saxophone screams abuse, as part of the
‘lawless synagogue’. At this early point, the saxophone
should be played in a deliberately anarchic manner, totally
devoid of purity, full of hate and delinquent loathing. He
should play slightly apart from the main group, possibly to
the side. He should then move to the chorus, which ideally
should be unseen and behind a screen. This is to give their
comments objectivity — they always sing in Greek, and always
identify states spiritual or otherwise. Here they represent
the state of the mindless crowd, singing with the mindless
saxophone, and we hear the word Stavromanos (crucified).
This has nothing to do with Western Passions. Again it is
metaphysical, and it is represented by an ever falling
series of dominant sevenths, taking us into the hellish
realm, while Christ hangs serenely on the cross, symbolised
by the sacred string chord as King of Glory. Then follows a
heavenly/hellish outburst.
After this, the tenor, baroque oboe, temple bowl and tamtam
representing Christ, are heard from the heavens. In a
building like Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, this would
ideally sound from the dome, where the huge fresco of Christ
Pantocrator (Christ, ruler of the universe) would have been.
However, the main point is that whenever Christ utters, he
does so from a high and central point. Saul (Paul) (the
saxophone) does not know how to respond. The responses are
still off-target, but clearly less so. Therefore the ritual
of Metanoia requires that the saxophone moves nearer to the
high gallery and the delinquent tone is very slightly
changed. This is the end of the first part. The second part
begins with the choir singing the word Metanoia. The
saxophone responds more and more until the first ritual
blinding by light. These ritual blindings are separated by
a dialogue between Christ and Saul, until the chorus sings
‘and when he opened his eyes, he saw no man.’ The third part
begins with a solemn duet between the oboe and the
saxophone, which frames this section — ‘it is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me’. There follows a
series of echoes between Christ and Paul, which symbolise
the teaching or Agapi (Divine love) coming through Christ
into the mouth of Paul. The fourth part is a mirror of the
first, but much quieter. It is not the cosmic crucifixion,
but the serene death of a martyr who has become so close to
Christ-God that his execution is a dying into Christ, and
into life eternal. But there is also a warning — Parousia,
the second coming — sung by the chorus.
My use of period instruments is deliberate. I favour
their more sober and hieratical sound. Also, the combination
with modern instruments, such as the saxophone, heightens
the inner ritual of Metanoia and the ikonic nature of the
music.
Total Eclipse was written in eternal memory of Father
Paisios, whose humble and holy image was in front of me
while I was writing the final pages.
It was commissioned by Keating Chambers. First
performed on June 20, 2000 at St Paul’s Cathedral, London,
by John Harle (saxophone), Christopher Robson
(countertenor), James Gilchrist (tenor), the Choir of New
College, Oxford, and the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted
by Paul Goodwin.
Text for Total Eclipse — ‘Christ, King of Glory, on the cross, serene.’
| 1. Stavromanos |
| Choir: | Stavromanos (Crucified). |
| Christ: | SAUL |
| |
| 2. Metanoia |
| Choir: | Metanoia (Conversion). |
| Christ: | SAUL. Why persecutest thou me? |
| Saul: | Who art thou, Lord? |
| Christ: | I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest:
it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. |
| Saul: | What wilt thou have me to do? |
| Christ: | Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be
told thee what thou must do. |
| Treble: | And when his eyes were opened, he saw no man. |
| with Choir: | (Conversion). |
| |
| 3. Agapi |
| Choir: | Agapi. (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Suffereth long. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Envieth not. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Beareth all things. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Believeth all things. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Hopeth all things. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Endureth all things. |
| Choir: | (Divine love). |
| Christ & St Paul: | Never faileth. |
| Treble: | And now abideth faith, hope, charity,
these three; but the greatest of these is charity. |
| With Choir: | (Divine love). |
| |
| 4. Parousia |
| Christ: | PAUL. |
| St Paul: | LORD. |
| Choir: | Stavromanos (Crucified). |
| St Paul: | Even so, Lord Jesus, come. |
| With Choir: | Parousia (The second coming). |
Agraphon (1995)
Greek text by Angelos Sikelianos/English translation by
Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard
The term ‘Agraphon’ — literally ‘unwritten thing’ —
designates a saying or tradition about Christ not recorded
in the Gospels or traceable to its original source. For
Sikelianos, everything in the natural and visible world,
when rightly perceived, was an expression of a supernatural
and invisible order of reality. Agraphon was written
towards the end of his life, during the devastating Athenian
autumn of 1941 under the German occupation of Greece, and
speaks with a solemn, tragic dignity. The music contains two
symbolic ideas — the first being the opening series of
intervals, which appear to be inexhaustible in their
multifaceted symbolism, representing the music of the
spheres. If the angels’ song is indeed one of knowledge,
they could not choose a better theme or harmony. And then
there is the apparent evil of the endless series of
spiralling sixths and sevenths, falling without apparent
hope of redemption through an eternal geometric series, down
into a hellish realm. The music ends fiercely at the
incomprehensible clash and union between the Divine and the
human.
Agraphon was commissioned by the Athens Concert Hall
Megaron Mousikis, and first performed at the Athens Concert
Hall on October 29, 1995, by Patricia Rozario (soprano) and
the Camerata, conducted by Alexander Myrat.
Text for
Agraphon
Once at sunset Jesus and his disciples
were on the road outside the walls of Zion
when suddenly they came to where the town
for years had dumped its garbage:
Crowning the highest pile, its legs
pointing at the sky, lay a dog’s bloated carcass;
such a stench rose up from it that all the disciples, hands
cupped over their nostrils, drew back as one man.
But Jesus stood there, and He gazed
so closely at the carcass that one disciple
called out from a distance,
‘Rabbi, don’t you smell that dreadful stench?
How can you go on standing there?’
Jesus, His eyes fixed on the carcass,
answered: ‘If your breath is pure, you’ll smell
the same stench inside the town behind us, but
Look [how] that dog’s teeth glitter in the sun:
like hailstones, like a lily, beyond decay,
a great pledge, mirror of the Eternal, but also
the harsh lightning-flash, the hope of Justice!’
‘And now, Lord, I,
the very least of men, stand before You,
give me, as now I walk outside this Zion*,
as I walk through this terrible stench,
one single moment of Your holy calm,
so that I may also pause
among this carrion and with my own eyes
somewhere see deep inside me,
beyond the world’s decay, like the dog’s teeth
at which, Lord, that sunset You gazed in wonder:
a great pledge Eternal, but also
the harsh lightning-flash, the hope of Justice!’
*i.e. Athens in 1941
From Agraphon, Angelos Sikelianos, Ikaros Edition
English Translation from the Greek was jointly written
and composed by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
© Philip Sherrard, Anvil Press Ltd.