Music

I'm sure I heard some one in holy orders say - perhaps it was on an edition of 'Songs of Praise' - that for her God and music were more or less the same thing. Something like that, anyway. It's probably heretical, and likely to get one cast into prison in more puritan times, but to me it makes sense, even if I might strive to be more careful and say that nothing inspires and enables my awareness of God as much as music.

I am surrounded by sacred music, currently. 'Olivet to Calvary' is playing full time in my car, as I prepare for a choral performance (well, three, actually) of this work at Passiontide, and I have just returned from singing the Credo, or part of it anyway, there's rather a lot, of Rossini's Petite Messe Solanelle, to be performed in May at The Hafren in Newtown. And I'm loving it, although my throat is hurting just a little.

"Where words fail, music takes over" - so says a fridge magnet we used to have, though it seems to have disappeared or been filed away during one of our house moves. It's true, I'm sure; it's also true that where words don't fail, even so music gives them wings and lifts them higher. The story of the Passion is immensely powerful and moving however it is told, but music somehow helps its deepest meaning to slice straight into the heart. For me that's true, anyway.

This year I have said yes to too many requests, and I am singing too much. Those are the plain facts, and my poor old sore throat knows it's all true, in a purely physical sense. But another side of me knows that really I can never sing enough, there can never be enough music, let alone too much. It is hard work, but it is also a beautiful thing to be able to sing with others, and bring these great works to life; I'm so glad to be part of it, and immensely grateful to the conductors and accompanists who make it possible for ordinary folk in a small town and the surrounding villages to be doing so much music together.