The magnitude of Queen Elizabeth II’s service to the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and the world remains both incalculable and indescribable. If, similarly, our gratitude to her is destined to remain beyond expression, music can help us in apprehending and releasing our feelings. As the state funeral made abundantly clear, music – not least when adding a further dimension to words – evokes deep, sometimes visceral responses. Like the readings, the musical pieces expressed the profound personal beliefs of a committed Christian as much as of a monarch who vowed to “maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel”.
At Westminster Abbey Cardinal Vincent Nichols asked us to give thanks for Queen Elizabeth’s “service and dedication … and for the rich bonds of unity and mutual support she sustained”. Her determining personal and public role as a servant of God will be further honoured in a concert in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London on Tuesday 11 October. Entitled “A Garland for the Queen”, it was originally conceived by the Genesis Foundation to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. It will instead now serve as a tribute to her life and reign.
The programme of “choral crown jewels” is built around both sacred and secular pieces from collections assembled for Queen Elizabeth II and for her Tudor namesake Elizabeth I. The Tower of London, once a royal residence, stands at the heart of British history. St Peter ad Vincula was its parish church for centuries; now a “royal peculiar” under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch rather than any bishop, the chapel is the burial place of a number of prominent historical figures, among them St Thomas More.
“O Lord, make thy servant Elizabethour Queen to rejoice in thy strength” is the opening line of a new choral work specially commissioned for the concert by the Genesis Foundation. It is by Cecilia McDowall, one of today’s leading composers of choral music. Retaining her customary focus on the integrity of the text, she draws on words used in the late sixteenth century by William Byrd (a practising Catholic in dangerous times) when he composed an anthem for Elizabeth I. Decades after her father Henry VIII had broken away from the Catholic Church, she steered the so-called English Reformation to its close. A music-lover as well as a canny politician, she pragmatically took a tolerant view when composers like Byrd and Thomas Tallis continued to follow Catholic practice by making elaborate settings of Latin sacred texts.
Before Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, stated that the service would aim to “unite people across the globe and resonate with people of all faiths”. It is estimated that more than half the world’s population watched the event. Fittingly, though in a vastly more intimate context, the concert at St Peter ad Vincula will honour Queen Elizabeth through the proverbial universal language of music. Faith can exist without organised religion, of course: its essence is each individual’s personal relationship with God, a relationship which gives meaning to our existence.
When I get asked about being a Catholic, my response is often that our priority is to think about God rather than religion. I might then ask people when they were last in the presence of God. Often, that question is met with a blank stare. When it comes to heightening our sense of the presence of God we can engage in prayer and meditation, but there are also our contrasting experiences of nature and of art, of silence and of music. Art and music, and the vision, talent and skills that nourish them, are central to the Genesis Foundation’s mission to nurture artists and their creativity.
Part of its mission is also to nurture opportunities for people of every persuasion to sense the presence of God. I am convinced that contemporary sacred music can play an evangelical role, promulgating faith in a subtle but powerful way. The Genesis Foundation has become the UK’s largest commissioner of sacred music, and Cecilia McDowall’s new piece will further expand and enliven therepertoireof choirs around the country. It is the thirtieth Genesis commission from composers both established and emerging, Catholic and Protestant.
My first experience of commissioning sacred choral music dates from a few years before the establishment of the Foundation in 2001. I commissioned the Westminster Mass from Roxanna Panufnik and in 1998 it was premiered in Westminster Cathedral to mark the seventy-fifth birthday of Cardinal Basil Hume. As Archbishop of Westminster he, rather like the late Queen, understood how to be discreetly progressive while always respecting tradition. Memorably, when Queen Elizabeth attended a service of Vespers at Westminster Cathedral in 1995, dressed in cardinal red, Hume called it “a special joy”.
The Genesis Foundation’s concert on 11 October will continue a series of events in which sacred spaces intensify the spiritual resonance of works performed by the choral ensemble The Sixteen and its conductor-founder Harry Christophers. In 2016 there was “Faith and the Crown”, which brought together Catholic and Anglican leaders – notably Cardinal Nichols and the then-Dean of the Chapels Royal, Lord Chartres – at Hampton Court Palace. For the first time in more than 450 years, a service was celebrated there according to Catholic rites. Two years later, a contemporary work that has since been declared a masterpiece was performed at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican: the Stabat Mater by Sir James MacMillan, who was invited to write a new anthem for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
In May 2018 Eton College Chapel witnessed a celebration of The Eton Choirbook, a precious collection of fifteenth-century manuscripts that survived the Reformation. As we began to emerge from the pandemic last year, the Jesuits’ Farm Street Church in London resounded to new choral pieces based on a meditation of St John Henry Newman: “God has created me to do Him some definite service.” Newman is of great significance to both Catholics and Anglicans and the meditation is expressive of the community of mankind. As it reflects on our specific role in life, it is as relevant to people of faith as to people who profess to have no belief at all.
At each of these musical events, thanks to the internet and live-streaming, the message of faith reached beyond the people physically present in the sacred space, inspiring a huge global audience and perhaps attuning listeners more closely to the presence of God. I hope the same principles will apply to the concert at the Tower of London. Maybe an analogy can be drawn between the mysterious power of music and the “soft power” that Queen Elizabeth came to exercise on the world stage. The British monarch’s role as a guarantor of cultural memory seems more important than ever; as the United Kingdom makes the transition into a new era, perhaps we can all take reassurance and indeed hope from the unshakeable Christian values that were so unequivocally and memorably reaffirmed at her funeral.
John Studzinski CBE is Founder and Chairman of the Genesis Foundation
On Tuesday 11 October A Tribute to the Life and Reign of Elizabeth II: A Garland for the Queen will take place before an invited audience in the Chapel Royal of Saint Peter ad Vincula at Tower of London. It will be live-streamed globally on Classic FM’s Facebook page.
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