Oxford Centre for Spiritual Growth Event – Saturday 28th June 2025
An Afternoon with Richard Pantcheff, the Director of Music at St Michael at the North Gate Church.
Session: 2
Welcome everyone to the second part of the talks this afternoon.
Speaker’s Handouts for the event can be downloaded using the following link:
https://smng.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/EVENING-CANTICLES.pdf
You can find information for these talks here:
https://www.ocsg.uk.net/event/music-and-the-evening-canticles-in-the-anglican-church/
If you would like to know more about St Michael at the North Gate, please look here: https://smng.org.uk/
okay Shall we start part two of the talk I hope you’ve had a chance to have a cup of tea and um uh and or some water or something to get a bit of refreshment Um in this second part I’m going to build on some of the themes from part one So this idea of the inheritance of these texts um and what the antecedants for them were Uh so in other words they’re not exclusive to us much as we Anglicans would like to say that they are They’re not they’re not ours by invention They’re ours through adoption and also the timelessness of the words and uh interestingly in the interval some discussions around the way that the language has changed and the way language has been used over time all very interesting points but nevertheless in whatever language these texts talk of future revelation so in the second part I wanted to look a little bit at why would we have music as part of this deal when we know perfectly well we could go anywhere and go to a service of evening period and it would be said and what would be wrong with that answer nothing at all would be wrong with it So why are we why are we going to have the music at all Well we touched on it briefly when we looked at the monastic services in part one So a sense that texts were easier to learn um in a group than on your own And the idea that music simple music a simple melody would be one that unites people and brings people together So if anybody’s been to a football match lately you’ll know exactly how that works You cannot stand in the Stretford End at Old Trafford and not be transported by the singing Now it might not be King’s College Cambridge but the fact is that for sheer spirit um you can’t beat it And why is that Well because it’s a communal effort with a goal a goal in front of us uh which is hopefully not an own goal um a goal in front of us which is our adoration really of this team whichever team it happens to be So music firstly uh as a communal activity and a way of sharing and a way of learning The other thing is that as a form of communication music actually transcends language Now we could go on for a very long time this afternoon about how that works but let me just try and summarize what I mean So tiny babies for example can hum tunes long before they can say any words or know any language at all And I know this for a fact So if they can then there is something about the communication of music which I think goes a great deal deeper than words and we also have to think about the baggage that comes with the words I mean when you think of the uh arguments in the church of England in my lifetime over is this old language or new language Is this colonial language Is it some other kind of language Is it AI Is it um I don’t know inclusive language is it exclusive language contemporary language What does it meant by contemporary So there’s a lot of baggage that comes with language um that isn’t always easy to get to terms with There are people who find contemporary language whatever that means deeply off-putting as a as a means of worship There are others who find traditional language if that’s the opposite also deeply off-putting So language itself is compromised And if you work if you go through Africa for example um everybody speaks English but the fact is it’s not their first language in a lot of instances And how did they get to speak English And is that a good thing or a bad thing Well it’s very good in the sense that communication is easy But what of traditional languages I actually um have set the jubili deo believe it or not in Zulu because I was asked to strangely enough by a choir in Oxford And that’s a fascinating experience because the whole concept of Zulu language is so utterly different from our own And I had to go away with a couple of Zulu friends in South Africa to help me understand how the language works and how the translation of the jubilate which is Psalm 100 from our prayer book found its way into the Zulu language in about I think the 1870s And it’s a fascinating thing because the music then has to represent and has to be allied with and unified with a language that is most uncommon for for me not for the Zulus but for me So how does that work So maybe the music is a form of transcending some of those difficulties and getting to something deeper And I want to head off at the parts immediately Uh you’ll see where this is going but Uh I’m going to put my cards really firmly on the table here Um and I’m I believe that the music goes deeper than emotion And we hear a lot about emotional responses to music and that is true Very often some music is there to appeal to our emotions and there’s nothing wrong with that as such But not all music stops there and a lot of music goes much further than the emotions Which is why I wanted to say this to the Oxford Center for spiritual growth not the center for emotional growth Because it is about the growth of the spirit We are talking about the way that music can express things that words cannot express on their own and which appeal to us at a much deeper level than merely our emotions Now we’re going to listen to a piece now and you’ve got the words for this on the back of your sheet I just want to mention briefly about this This is a piece by the Scottish composer Robert Ramsey 16th century and it is not an evening catech This is an extract from the book of Samuel in the Old Testament And the reason I’ve chosen this is because I’d like you to try and think about what I’ve just said about the spiritual response to music Let me just give you the context of this anthem Bearing in mind Ramsey lived as you can see at the end of the 16th century So we’re talking about a long time ago And what’s happened and and this this passage that he said for for a start you can see how there is an opening how are the mighty fallen and you can see that the last verse also starts with how are the mighty fallen and the context for this this is David King David speaking and he is speaking upon hearing the news for the first time of the death of Jonathan Now many of you will know the story of David and Jonathan but if you don’t just very quickly So Jonathan was the son of King Saul and Jonathan and David had a very close relationship And you can see that their love for each other passed the love of women And that has become a very controversial phrase in recent years which we will not dwell on But the fact remains that these two individuals were to each other as no other individuals were to them And you and we can perhaps imagine ourselves in a similar situation And this is the response of David to the catastrophic news of the death of the person that he most loved in the world the death of Jonathan who he describes as my brother I mean wasn’t his actual brother in a family Brother in the sense of companion very kind has thou been to me Now if you listen to this piece there are some incredible subtleties to listen out for in the music Some of the harmonies for one thing are quite extraordinary for that period But there are two words that I would really like you to concentrate on And the choir singing it here which is the choir at Clare College Cambridge absolutely get this right The first is just listen to the way they sing Jonathan that word Jonathan And just see if you can’t imagine that that’s how David might have said it bearing in mind who Jonathan was And the other word that’s really worth concentrating on is in the third verse when he describes Jonathan’s love to him as wonderful And that is also a tremendous word and you should listen up for the way that that is So I in a way I’ve got a little challenge for you here because in this piece uh I think is an illustration of how music goes beyond words and goes beyond emotion to something very very much deeper So deep that it is expressing the uh the loss the catastrophic loss being felt by one individual on hearing on the death of the death of another So this is how the mighty fallen by Robert Ramsey [Music] might [Music] be [Music] of the [Music] forest [Music] My heart [Music] [Music] My heart [Music] Heat Heat [Music] is for [Music] I love [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hallelujah [Music] Heat Heat [Music] [Music] Lord [Music] [Music] might [Music] be is [Music] [Applause] the glory is glory for [Music] the Christ [Music] Glory to you [Music] Glory [Music] Lord [Music] That was How are the Mighty Fallen by Robert Ramsey describing David’s response to the news of the death of Jonathan um an extraordinary piece of music for its time and something which conveys the power of music and why I think music was desirous and was brought into this question of the use and how to be used with the evening canacles as a way of deepening our spiritual experience um quite why music has got this capability of course has been the subject of a great deal of research and speculation over the years apart from the fact that as we’ve discovered that it’s a very fundamental part of our communication more fundamental even than our language and our words I wanted to spend just a second getting a little bit into a little bit more detail around um what the role of music really is in our lives And of course it has many roles and this is just um some ideas In 1964 um the composer Benjamin Britain was awarded an award the Aspen Award um in the United States the Robert O Anderson Aspen Award in the humanities was established in 1963 Britain uh at that time the greatest living composer in the United Kingdom uh was the first recipient of this award The purpose of the award is to honor the individual anywhere in the world judged to have made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the humanities And Britain is the first recipient of this award The citation to him reads to Benjamin Britain who as a brilliant composer performer and interpreter through music of human feelings moods and thoughts has truly inspired man to understand clarify and appreciate more fully his own nature purpose and destiny So that was the citation to him that he Britain had been a significant figure in music achieving that in the lives of other people and anybody who knows Britain’s music knows that it’s true Ian Foster the novelist was around at the time of the uh citation and the award and he was a friend of Britain and Britain wrote a speech in response to the award um and which has been published and Ian Forester in 1964 wrote of the speech that Britain had given that had been published that it was a confession of faith from a great musician which should awake a response in the hearts of the rest of us whether we are musicians or not and whether we are great or small that was foster’s reaction to Britain’s speech Now there’s a section in here that I would just like to read because I think it helps us with this question of well what exactly is music trying to express This is just one possibility but I think a very important one that it gets to something much much deeper than words alone can provide Britain wrote as follows But by the way he was no speech writer and he would much rather have written a canarta for them than write a speech And I imagine this went through quite a lot of spinning before it got to the point where he actually stood up and read it because he did not really like communicating with words He felt the music was the way to communicate with people Anyway he says as follows It is arguable that the richest and most productive 18 months in the in our music history is the time when Beethoven had just died when the other 19th century giants vari I mean the period in which France Schubert wrote his song cycle vintterizer the great C major symphony his last three piano sonatas the C major string quintet as well as a dozen other glorious pieces The very creation of these works in that space of time seems hardly credible But the standard of inspiration of magic is miraculous and past all explanation I’ll just read that again The standard of inspiration of magic is miraculous and past all understanding Though I have worked very hard at Dinttervisor these last five years every time I come back to it I’m amazed not only by the extraordinary mastery of it for Schubert knew exactly what he was doing but by the renewal of the magic each time the mystery remains This magic comes only with the sounding of the music with the turning of the written note into sound And it only comes or it comes most intensely when the listener is one with the composer either as a performer himself or as a listener in active sympathy Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape machine or a transistor radio That dates it for you doesn’t it A transistor Anyone remember those transistor radio He says it demands some preparation some effort a journey to a special place saving up for a ticket some homework on the program perhaps some clarification of the ears and sharpening of the instincts It demands as much effort on the listener’s part as the other two corners of the triangle this holy triangle of composer performer and listener So that’s what Britain thought that this The music has this ability to go deep into our spirits in a way that is almost impossible in any other way And that I believe is true of the evening canacles And I believe that is why so many composers myself included have set these words to music because the words are familiar enough We can read them in the book But when people come to hear them some particularly they are to be taken beyond their current understanding of the words And exactly like Britain says about the poetry in Debindadiser it’s different for us every time we hear these pieces There is something different that we notice and that particularly comes to our attention every time we hear these pieces because we are never finished with them and they are never finished with us Somebody once said that the definition of a classic was something where it has still not finished saying everything that it has to say to everybody And that is true of this music Even the very simple settings even the settings that we take for granted We’re going to hear a bit later on We’re going to hear Stanford Charles Stanford setting of the magnificant We’re going to finish with that because it’s just so absolutely glorious We can’t do anything else Dear old Stanford I mean he was a songsmith He was he was a a brilliant brilliant composer brilliant writer He wrote settings of the Eden canacles and the majesty and the glory just comes out in these pieces every single time And I cannot tell you how many times in my life I’ve done something with Stanford and see either conducted it or sung it or something There’s something different in it every time because of his artistry because he has given it this music So historically then what happened of course was that composers started to write settings of these canacles for particular times and places with the musical forces that were available to at the time And of course that started to change We started to get a system of of government in Europe of sponsorship of the by the church or by landed gentry or the aristocracy or by royalty and these were the people who were able to pay for musicians to come and write these settings We get to a point where if we had sat here listening to a setting written at the time of Robert Ramsey in fact he also wrote the magnificant and nimmitus which we didn’t hear we would have been sitting here for probably 5 minutes in total to hear the whole thing And yet by the time we reach the great reach the great JS Bach his magnificat is 30 minutes long And where is that going to fit in the liturgy You’d have an awful lot of complaints from the congregation if you put that into the song But the point is however a bit like Finy he’s taken the words and it is an act of worship It is meant to be liturggically performed even despite its length But of course he has put into it the inimitable genius of JS Bart We’re not going to hear all 30 minutes but we are we cannot resist just listening to the first opening movement of the Bath Magnificat [Music] Hallelujah [Music] We are God God [Music] [Music] Hallelujah [Music] Forgive us [Music] Forgive us [Applause] [Music] Hallelujah [Music] Happy [Music] Hallelujah Hallelujah [Music] So that was the first movement of Bark’s setting of the Magnificat We’re in a different world here aren’t we Orchestras big choirs whole barack splendor but all with the same purpose with the idea of projecting the words and endowing their words with that particular magic of the music that Britain talked about Of course since then then then we’re not going to go through every era but of course the composers have tried at every generation to find ways of expressing the miracle of these words in a way that will make an impact on the listener in the way that Britain was talking about in that speech The next example I’m not even going to tell you what it is I’m going to ask you what it is Um and I’m going to ask you what occasion you think it was written for because again this is a piece which is um superbly associated with one particular place at a particular time and um it’s a remarkable piece and quite different from anything we’ve heard before Let’s hear the next one It’s an image by the way [Music] [Music] Lord [Music] God my [Music] [Applause] [Music] reach [Music] Oh we [Music] [Applause] We are all [Music] glory to God [Music] shall be [Music] [Applause] worthy Amen [Music] [Laughter] [Music] So question one it isn’t Richard Panchchef Who was the composer Does anybody know the piece Okay It was written by Elizabeth Lutchens Elizabeth Luchens was the daughter of Edwin Lutch Sir Edwin Lutchams the great architect If you’ve been anywhere in colonial India or Africa you would have come across Luchen’s architecture He built the Parliament building in New Delhi and also the Union buildings in Pritoria in South Africa Um as you can gather something of his meticulousness has passed on to his daughter who rebelled against him in every other manner possible She uh became a composer she said because it was the only art form that the rest of the family couldn’t interfere with Um and uh she was a trailblazer So in this day and age when we celebrate women composers as we should but we don’t remember that in the 1960s which is when that was written people like Elizabeth Lutchkins were at the top of the the top of their game Next question Who would have commissioned it Where would it have been written for Sorry Churchill Not far not far from here Coventry Cathedral Coventry Cathedral That extraordinary iconic 1960s building I mean almost unimaginable nowadays to think that that building was built If you think of the stained glass the tapestries the sculpture the architecture the warrior was written for that to be open Britain’s warrior Lutons wrote that for Coventry Cathedral shortly after its opening The whole idea of the statement of this extraordinary avantgard building coming up out of the ashes of the wall in a place like Coventry um was a groundbreaking thing and she responded to it absolutely brilliantly So that just shows you that there’s a very wide range of expression adopted in the music to to give it the sense of time and place and the occasion Sometimes specific to a place sometimes more generally Okay we’re going to close now Um I’m just going to quickly kind of sum up what I think we’ve been trying to say Um that the evening are a prominent part of Anglican liturgy that we’re grateful for because they express to us a revelation They are something we’ve inherited They’re not uh ours by design We have rather made them into something greater than they might have been We are not alone in that Other musical traditions have done similar things but we have taken them very much to our heart This city is in has got more places where you can go and hear these evening canacles being sung than pretty well in any other city Uh all the college chapels most of whom have these magnificent choirs now are singing all of these different settings through turn And of course there is our own church the city church itself where we sing precisely this We even sing the morning canacles at masses which no one else really does these days Similarly settings by composers of the morning can pacles But the evening canacles appeal to us particularly because they speak very directly to us of salvation and of revelation And composers have been stimulated by that And the music they bring to it is an attempt to take us into a journey beyond what the language itself can tell us by reading into something even beyond our initial emotional response and into something much more spiritual which is in fact the purpose of the canvas in the first place So I hope I know many of you do anyway but I hope you will come to this church and hear us singing these cancles as we do And all of the examples today are you can get CDs of them and you can find them on Apple Music and all these things They’re all available in there for you to to enjoy They can be purely artistic like the finsy or they and poetic or they can be spiritual and liturggical as well Either way round they are remarkable little sections of scripture that have been turned into a major recognizable part of Anglicanism and of and of the Christian church generally for which all the work of the composers over the years I think we’re grateful Thank you [Applause] I’d be very happy to answer any questions If there are any questions or people want to throw rotten eggs or or or dispute what’s said uh please feel free to do so Just before we have the question moment which I think would be great uh I think thank you so much those at home who have joined us We found over the years that the Q&A doesn’t often work on the streaming So we might finish the streaming now Uh not that we’re going to say anything confidential in the Q&A here but that might just be be smoother Thanks so much at home for joining us Uh maybe a good moment also as to say a huge thank you to Richard I loved so much Well I loved all of it of course but a particular moment that the music is designed to go further than just the emotional And I’ve been pondering that a lot as we’ve been listening Uh so another big round of applause please And [Applause] shall we listen to the Stanford setting I think we should Yeah let’s listen to the Stanford and then move up