Spiritual

Today

At the moment I am immersed in preparations for our next concert, which will be based on American themes, including "I Got Rhythm" and a range of American Spiritual settings.

Among them is a setting of "Steal Away" from Michael Tippett's "A Child of our Time". I find myself suffused with the longing, despair and fearful hope of the music. "Steal away to Jesus, steal away home. I ain't got long to stay here"

In My Day

I think that these songs were called "Negro Spirituals" when I was a child and the first one I encountered was "Swanee River" which would have been in our News Chronicle Song Book.  Daddy would explain that the song was about the ending of slavery when the slaves became effectively homeless, although the tune always seemed a little jaunty. I almost had an idea that the ending of Slavery in America was a bad thing; that was until I became more aware. I used to sing this song at home and at school without much thought.

(Actually, Daddy was wrong, this song was written in 1851 when slavery was still legal) 

Later, in a number of choirs, I sang settings of bible stories "Li'l David Play on yo' Harp" and, even worse, "Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jericho". These were all arrangements by white Western  musicians and somehow we had to sing this approximation of plantation black patois. The songs seemed to me then and now, a failure, in terms of capturing the  passionate adoption of Christianity by the slaves as their only hope, and thoroughly patronising. And it's a rare white western choir that can make much sense of these pieces.

The Tippett settings are so different, and seem both respectful and relevant to today.

What is depressing is that nothing has changed; people are being bullied and oppressed all over the world and it's no wonder that so many believe in a religion that can offer them a future when this life doesn't.