The Angels' Song
The Angels' Song, one of Opus Anglicanum’s meditative programmes on spiritual themes, celebrates angels as invisible companions and guardians, as spiritual warriors, as muses of creativity and as messengers, heralds, warriors and healers of God.

PROLOGUE The extract from Eliot’s ‘Wasteland’ stands at the head of the programme as symbolising the Guardian aspect of angels, and descibing what is possibly the most usual experience of ‘angels’.

MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL. Alcuin's poem which draws together various biblical descriptions of Michael was possibly composed in the court of Charlemagne where he was Master of the Schools. Howard Skempton's 'And there was war in heaven' was composed for Opus Anglicanum in 2006 setting a text from Revelation.

ANGELS OF HEAVEN represents the most frequently celebrated aspect of angels in the liturgy, the celebration of the vision of Isaiah in which the choir of cherubim sing the Thrice-Holy song, which is at the centre of the Western and Eastern eucharistic liturgies. The verses from Spencer’s ‘An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie’ describe the choir of heaven.

ANGELS OF THE GOSPEL brings together three key moments: the Annunciation - the appearance of Gabriel before Mary; the angel and the angel choir of Christmas; and the angels of the Resurrection, who greet the women at the tomb of Christ. These angels are messengers, and in all we find the initial terror which their unexpected appearance inspires; their first task is to say “Don’t be afraid”. Byrd’s brief and sublime setting of Gabriel’s greeting is from Gradualia. The original words of Gibbons well known hymn tune ‘The Song of the Angels’ paraphrase the Gloria in Excelsis. Matthew’s account of the women at Christ’s tomb is followed by Palestrina’s setting of the same text. The section ends with Francis Thompson's 'In no strange land', and the hymn 'Custodes hominum' for the Feast of Guardian Angels, words by Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621) to a Salisbury tune.

ANGELS AND PEOPLE, celebrates a few post-biblical accounts and experiences, The 14th century German mystic Henry Suso heard and saw the carol ‘In Dulci Jubilo’ sung and danced by the angels. Traherne in a poem based on the better-known prose evocation of his childhood sense of wonder gives an intimation of the psychological perception of angels as muses of creativity. Patrick Larley sets Herbert’s antiphonal poem between men ‘here below’ and the angels ‘above’, who sing a two-fold song which ultimately is ‘one’. This work has been composed especially for this programme. The delightful story of Dunstan's vision of angels singing the Kyrie Rex Splendens is followed by a Respond from his office which repeats the story and includes the well known Kyrie.

GUARDIAN ANGELS LEAD THE SOUL HOME TO HEAVEN. The final part celebrates the presence of angels at death. The words of the Gaelic prayer to a Guardian Angel wonderfully evoke the notion of journey and of sleep with that of death; the chant from the burial service sung during the ‘journey’ to the cemetery asks that the ‘angels may lead you to Paradise’ and that the ‘choir of angels may receive you’.

PROGRAMME

Prologue: T S Eliot: ‘The third’ (The Wasteland)

ANGELS OF HEAVEN

Heruvimskaya pesn The Cherubic Hymn, Stro-Simonov Monastery chant arr. Hieromonk Victor
Reading: Edmund Spencer ‘An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie’
Praefatio & Sanctus G P da Palestrina (Missa O Magnum Mysterium)

MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

Reading: Alcuin: ‘A Sequence for Saint Michael composed for the Emperor Charlemagne’
Factum est silentium Chant: Respond for the Night Office of St Michael
And there was war in heaven Howard Skempton b.1947 (Opus Anglicanum Commission)

ANGELS OF THE GOSPEL

Reading: Gabriel greets Mary
Ave Maria William Byrd
Reading: The angels of the nativity
The Song of the Angels Orlando Gibbons
Reading: The women at the tomb
Angelus Domini G.P da Palestrina
Reading: Francis Thompson ‘In no strange land’
Custodes hominum psallimus angelos Chant: Hymn at Vespers on the Feast of Guardian Angels

ANGELS AND PEOPLE

Duo Seraphim T L da Victoria
Reading: Henry Suso dances with the angels
In dulci jubilo German 14thc
Reading: Traherne ‘How like an angel came I down’
Antiphon Patrick Larley b.1951, words George Herbert (Opus Anglicanum Commission)
Reading: Dunstan is visited by the angel choir singing‘Kyrie Rex Splendens’
Dunstanus Archiepiscopus Chant: Respond for the Night Office of St Dunstan
Reading: Charles Wesley: Wrestling Jacob
Da molchit fsiakaya plot Kiev Chant arr. Miliy Balakirev ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’

GUARDIAN ANGEL

Reading: Thou Angel of God, Gaelic trans Alexander Carmichael
In Paradisum deducant te angeli Chant

Programme sequence devised & produced by John Rowlands-Pritchard.