FESTIVAL CANTATA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 15

FESTIVAL CANTATA

BENJAMIN BRITTEN’S _ Festival Cantata, Rejoice in the Lamb, was specially commissioned for the silver jubilee of Saint Matthew’s Church, Northampton, in 1943, and was first sung on Saint Matthew’s Day that year in the church. Listeners to 2YC will be able to hear a broadcast of this work sung by the Wellington Training College Choir at 9.15 p.m. on Saturday, July 31. The words of the Cantata are taken from a long poem of the same name

by Christopher Smart, an 18th Century poet who was deeply religious but of somewhat unbalanced mind. The poem was actually written while Smart was in an asylum. It is chaotic in form but contains many flashes of genius. Britten chose a few of the finest passages to set to music, and the main theme of the Cantata, as of the poem, is the worship of God by all created things, each in its own way. There are ten short sections in the Cantata. The first sets the theme; the

second gives examples of the Old Testament to join with some creature in praising God. Subsequent sections take various examples of nature praising God; the poet refers to his own sufferings, even these being an occasion for praising God; and the work ends with a quiet and ecstatic Hallelujah. The silver jubilee of Saint Matthew’s Church was made the occasion for commissioning another notable work of art, the Henry Moore Madonna and Child which is reproduced on this page. The sculpture, was conceived and made for a particular position in the church, in the north transept. Facing it, across the church in the south transept, is an eightfoot square Crucifixion by Graham Sutherland, the contemporary British watercolourist, which was also specially commissioned for placing in the position it occupies. Among other works which the Saint Matthew’s Church of Northampton has commissioned are a magazine cover by John Piper, a Litany and Anthem for Saint Matthew’s Day by W. H. Auden, a poem by Norman Nicholson, and various musical works over the years: These include

A Fanfare for Brass Instruments by Michael Tippett, The Revival, a short anthem by Edmund Rubbra, Festival Anthem by Lennox Berkeley, Laudate Dominum by Malcolm Arnold, and The Full, Final Sacrifice, by Gerald Finzi. Benjamin Britten has also written for the church an Organ Prelude and, Fugue on a theme of Vittoria. These works by contemporary artists are largely the result of efforts made by the church’s vicar,.the Rev. Canon W. Hussey, who has been very keen over the years to reforge the ancient link between the Church and the Arts. In a letter to Thomas Young, the conductor of the Wellington Training College Choir, which will give the New Zealand broadcast of Rejoice in the Lamb, Canon Hussey says, "It is encouraging to see how genuinely the people. of this very ordinary, largely artisan parish have grown to love the various works of contemporary art which the church has commissioned."