Rejoice in the Lamb: The Poet, The Composer, His Friend and Their Saviour

Originally published D-Day weekend, June 2019. But I thought it suited Holy Weekend. 

Imagine - if you will - having wandered into St Thomas' of Canterbury Cathedral, Portsmouth and happening upon what at first appears to be a run-of-the-mill Evensong service. It could be anywhere on the island. There is the usual smattering of greying elders peopling the pews, with maybe four or five in their fifties. There are - the greeting canon has told me excitedly - some Americans in, and an Italian family who are sat at the back (and later discreetly excuse themselves about halfway through). The hymns are pleasant and the intercessory prayers pass without controversy. I silently chastise myself (very Catholicly) for not having any loose change for the collection (they're certainly not getting the fiver, I resolve, much more Protestantly)

All so regular. All so expected. Until an intelligent female vicar takes the pulpit and begins what is part sermon, part explanatory lecture on what is to come. The anthem. Rejoice in the Lamb, by Benjamin Britten. A cantata  based on an 18th century poem, Jubilate Agno, by one Christopher Smart who found himself the victim of a smear campaign by his brother-in-law and ended up locked in an asylum. She explains how Smart's poem, despite - or because of - his incarceration expresses his seeing of God in all living things, most famously his beloved cat Jeoffrey ("For I am possessed of a cat, surpassing in beauty, from whom I take occasion to bless the Almighty God") and how the reverend who commissioned Britten to write the piece wasn't sure about Jeoffrey featuring in his cantata but Britten insisted. There is also a reflection on a male mouse - "a creature of great personal valour" - defending a female mouse from Jeoffrey. 

We meet Jeoffrey at about 4:08 mins here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JoTLDRhcH4 and the gallant rodent at 6:14. This is followed by a rapturous reflection on the place of flowers in our creation, "peculiarly the poetry of Christ" according to Smart. 

Then...the chorus. I can't do any better than to reproduce it here in full: 

For I am under the same accusation
With my Savior,
For they said,
He is besides himself.
For the officers of the peace
Are at variance with me,
And the watchman smites me
With his staff.
For the silly fellow, silly fellow,
Is against me,
And belongeth neither to me
Nor to my family.
For I am in twelve hardships,
But he that was born of a virgin
Shall deliver me out of all,

Shall deliver me out of all

I know almost nothing about music but anyone can hear the frightening crescendo on "For the Watchman smites me with his staff". It is at that moment that the tears burst from my lids and roll down my cheeks. It is partly because from my limited knowledge of scripture I know that Christ was thought "besides himself" even by his own mother, and so Smart joins that ever-expanding tribe of the dispossessed who have taken solace in the suffering example of Our Lord. But also it is thanks to that canny sermon delivered ten minutes prior: the vicar knew the value of telling us that Britten himself was also joining this via dolorosa of the ages, not for himself but on behalf of his friend and colleague Dimitri Shostakovich, who had faced his own smiting with the proverbial watchman's stick in Soviet Russia. The hidden tribute to his fellow composer would've been obvious to any that knew the latter's work; he uses Shostakovich's signature 'DSCH' motif throughout the chorus building to that fearsome watchman, and then again on the repetition of "silly fellow". (I use the term 'signature' quite literally, by the way; it's his initials: D, E flat, C, B natural  or, German transliteration, D, Es, C, H. So: D. Sch.)

It all ends, you'll be pleased to know, with an uplifting postlude replete with Hallelujahs, where even "the devils themselves are at peace". Because in the sacrifice of Christ there is always hope, and freedom.