Dear Friends,
Happy Eastertide! Leading up to and on Easter Day, I had conversations with two dear friends and colleagues about that remarkable piece of organ music that one really must play on Easter morning: the Saraband for the Morning of Easter by English composer Herbert Howells.
One friend remarked to me how vividly the soft section in that piece evokes an early-morning sunrise in a garden.
I agreed wholeheartedly. And his observation helped me remember that in practicing the piece on Holy Saturday, I became keenly aware of the smell of the Easter flowers in the church right as I played that part of the piece.
In Benjamin Britten’s anthem Rejoice in the Lamb, it is customary to draw the string celestes of the organ for the Tenor who sings about the flowers. I once checked the recording Britten conducted; the registration is the same! And maybe I have this floral feature in mind in my performances of the Howells Saraband; most years I begin that flowery section with the strings.
For the flowers are great blessings.
For the flowers have their angels, even the words of God’s creation.
For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary.
For there is a language of flowers.
For the flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.
— Christopher Smart
In his marvelous A Festival Anthem, Lennox Berkeley also has a “flower section.” The string celestes don’t quite work here, but it is suitably florid nonetheless.
O that I once past changing were,
fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
off’ring at heav’n, growing and groaning thither:
nor doth my flower
want a spring-shower,
my sins and I joining together:
— George Herbert
That’s all for now. I’m off to keep Easter in bloom with some of the Fiori Musicali (Musical Flowers) by Frescobaldi.
Later,
-David