Christus
Passion Symphony 

Francis Pott

Jeremy Filsell

Two CD Set

Programme

Christus (1986-1990) owes little to the French  tradition of the organ symphony. Its concern with motivic unity and evolving tonality arises principally from a deep interest in the (orchestral) symphonic methods of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, while certain harmonic habits relate more specifically to his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. It would be rash to suggest such a kinship were Christus not a determined exercise in cyclical integration.

The five movements of Christus trace respectively the Coming of Christ; Gethsemane; the Via Crucis / Golgotha / the Deposition; the Tomb; and, finally, Resurrection, portrayed not as a prolonged psalm of victory already attained but as a vast struggle towards ultimate triumph. Any narrative dimension applies principally to the central three movements, which together approximate to the length of either the first or the last. The music may be described as fundamentally tonal, though listeners may sympathise with a treasured dry comment by the composer Patrick Gowers, who observed that he did not think he would care to be asked to sing doh. Tonal character resides more in long-term destinations, and in individual notes as gravitational points, than in conventional diatonic relationships. Triadic shapes are often in conflict with their harmonic bass, and embrace elements of bi- or atonality as a consequence of chromatic voice-leading. The first four notes of the work (D-E-C sharp-F; fig.1) articulate a progression which both dictates an overarching tonal cycle and becomes a continual motivic presence.

The first movement responds to this motif by ultimately reaching the tonal centre F (the motif’s fourth note). The second movement, opening with the motif transposed to start on F, duly ends on A flat. Repeated application of this principle (p.8 fig.2) brings about a fresh start from D at the outset of the finale.

However, this movement eventually breaks the cycle by distorting the motif to D-E-C natural-F sharp. C natural is then enharmonically absorbed as a sharpened fourth of the transposed Lydian mode and the work ends in F sharp major (fig.3).

The first movement, Logos [ logoV ] evolves into a listless fugato after a strict exposition, evoking a world as yet devoid of any affirmative or elevating impulse. After a brief climax a succession of ideas is heard. The mood becomes restlessly expectant and the tempo accelerates. After the first substantial climax in the Symphony (still based on the four-note motif) an extended Allegro is launched. Its rhythms inhabit a conscious middle ground between mediaeval and modern practices, while the intermittent presence of a pedal C sharp undermines an ostensible D tonality. Eventually a further climax occurs, temporarily consolidating C sharp. After a more spacious passage the dynamic level drops. A chorale theme (fig.4) is heard for the first time, ornamented by fragmentary patterns beneath.

This is destined for increasing significance throughout the work as a whole, assuming many harmonic guises and ultimately crowning the Resurrection finale. Insofar as there exists any specific ‘Christ motif’, the chorale may be felt to provide it.

There follows an extended free development of material heard hitherto. In due course the Allegro is recapitulated, but rising tension is dissipated by a remote chordal statement of the chorale (which shows a tendency to remain open-ended until its apotheosis near the close of the work). The resumed Allegro presents a steady escalation through successive restatements of the ‘motto’ four-note theme, beginning in the depths with an unceremonious interruption and rising inexorably towards the final bars. Fitfully dramatic and beset by sudden contrasts, the movement seeks to convey some impression of the Holy Spirit [Logos] contending with a resistant pagan force. Its peroration retains some austerity, as if not yet free from the shadow of the opening fugato.

Gethsemane begins monodically with the motto theme, soon introducing a very slow procession of chords. These are in effect a non-vocal ‘setting’ of the word ‘slowly’ in the quoted text by Thomas Merton, whose vision depicts Christ as a spectral visitant embodying all the despair of human suffering. Eventually motivic counterpoint asserts itself in a transient chorale prelude (the chorale being sounded by the pedals). The chordal material returns, now silent on the first beat of each bar to allow a pedal development of the four-note motif to show through. An anguished climax intervenes suddenly, subsiding at length until the chordal texture is regained. The music becomes both more meekly accepting and more other-worldly thereafter, though perhaps not before Merton’s vision has exposed the ineluctable humanity of Christ’s frailty and defeat: that hairsbreadth of salvation which Christian perception of the resurrection as ‘fait accompli’ threatens largely to obscure.

Via Crucis is an exercise in contraction. Its Passacaglia ‘ground’ sounds five times beginning on A flat, then four on A natural, three on B flat, two on B natural and one on C - the furthest point in the chromatic scale from ultimate ‘resurrected’ F sharp. Meanwhile, the ground itself begins to distort rhythmically, to admit rests and to unfold in fewer bars, as if unsteady beneath hostile buffeting. The flow of ancillary counterpoint progressively features a descending chromatic motif (fig.5) from the previous movement, as well as the chorale outline and ironic mimicry of the ‘ground’ notes, whose final reiteration (by now reduced almost beyond coherence) ignites a jagged scherzo.

At its height three abruptly recessed quiet passages occur, each followed by related and dissonant outbursts embodying the crudely obvious symbolism of hammered nails. The intention is to suggest the gulf already separating hideous extremities of outward, physical torment from the silence of the soul’s struggle within. The third outburst escalates further. Momentary silence intervenes before the central climax of the Symphony, headed ‘CRUCIFIXUS’ in the published score and bearing words from Revelation: ‘Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him’. This insistent climax finally collapses into an unsettled darkness, from which upward harmonic progressions offer an unashamedly literal suggestion of suffering ended and a winging of the spirit out of this world into another (influenced by Paul Nash’s watercolour, The Soul Visiting the Mansions of the Dead). The chorale returns, harmonised with extreme simplicity in quasi-Renaissance fashion. The poetic lines quoted in connection with the third movement relate to this passage especially and were set by Samuel Barber amongst his Hermit Songs.

Viaticum, the dramatic low point of Christus, provides extended repose between the inexorable treadmill of the third movement and the explosive opening of the last. Its title, meaning ‘wages for a journey’, symbolically denotes prayers attending the departure of a soul from this world into the next. At first the music makes as if to recapitulate the work’s opening in a new key, thereby evoking a spiritual regression to that world before Christ. This is short lived, and after a static chordal passage (balancing that of Gethsemane) a lengthy movement evolves in the time signature of 5/4, its principal melodic idea being a free inversion of the chorale’s later stages (fig.6). (This recurs momentously in the finale, where it signifies satanic opposition to the true chorale’s determined upward progress.)

Viaticum evokes a world locked in sleep or buried in some deep midwinter of the spirit. Its rhythmic tread bears some resemblance to the tenor solo in the Agnus Dei of Britten’s War Requiem. The music remains confined to modest dynamic levels and pursues its hibernatory course to the prescribed tonal point, D. Far-distant references to the chorale conjure a faint memory of the living world reaching into an entombed stillness. The music embodies two momentary homages to the much mourned Robert Simpson, one of the great symphonists of this or any age.

Resurrectio attempts formal balance with Logos while articulating a great struggle toward the light. It begins with a thunderous declamation of the motto theme and a stormy, cadenza-like introduction which comes to rest on a chord of F sharp (anticipating but not forestalling the work’s peroration). The movement ‘proper’ then embarks from the tonal point E and gives prominence to a new, irregular motif (fig.7).

Logos is recalled rhythmically, without specific recapitulation as yet. The chorale reappears (sereno), leading to free development of itself and the motto theme. A chromatic outline, first heard in Gethsemane, appears in inversion, climbing with each recurrence. A moto perpetuo of detached chordal symbolism of hammered nails. The intention is to suggest the gulf already separating hideous extremities of outward, physical torment from the silence of the soul’s struggle within. The third outburst escalates further. Momentary silence intervenes before the central climax of the Symphony, headed ‘CRUCIFIXUS’ in the published score and bearing words from Revelation: ‘Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him’. This insistent climax finally collapses into an unsettled darkness, from which upward harmonic progressions offer an unashamedly literal suggestion of suffering ended and a winging of the spirit out of this world into another (influenced by Paul Nash’s watercolour, The Soul Visiting the Mansions of the Dead). The chorale returns, harmonised with extreme simplicity in quasi-Renaissance fashion. The poetic lines quoted in connection with the third movement relate to this passage especially and were set by Samuel Barber amongst his Hermit Songs.

Viaticum, the dramatic low point of Christus, provides extended repose between the inexorable treadmill of the third movement and the explosive opening of the last. Its title, meaning ‘wages for a journey’, symbolically denotes prayers attending the departure of a soul from this world into the next. At first the music makes as if to recapitulate the work’s opening in a new key, thereby evoking a spiritual regression to that world before Christ. This is short lived, and after a static chordal passage (balancing that of Gethsemane) a lengthy movement evolves in the time signature of 5/4, its principal melodic idea being a free inversion of the chorale’s later stages (fig.6). (This recurs momentously in the finale, where it signifies satanic opposition to the true chorale’s determined upward progress.)

Viaticum evokes a world locked in sleep or buried in some deep midwinter of the spirit. Its rhythmic tread bears some resemblance to the tenor solo in the Agnus Dei of Britten’s War Requiem. The music remains confined to modest dynamic levels and pursues its hibernatory course to the prescribed tonal point, D. Far-distant references to the chorale conjure a faint memory of the living world reaching into an entombed stillness. The music embodies two momentary homages to the much mourned Robert Simpson, one of the great symphonists of this or any age.

Resurrectio attempts formal balance with Logos while articulating a great struggle toward the light. It begins with a thunderous declamation of the motto theme and a stormy, cadenza-like introduction which comes to rest on a chord of F sharp (anticipating but not forestalling the work’s peroration). The movement ‘proper’ then embarks from the tonal point E and gives prominence to a new, irregular motif (fig.7). Logos is recalled rhythmically, without specific recapitulation as yet. The chorale reappears (sereno), leading to free development of itself and the motto theme. A chromatic outline, first heard in Gethsemane, appears in inversion, climbing with each recurrence. A moto perpetuo of detached chordal

A work such as Christus seems to choose its composer, rather than vice versa, and is almost certainly a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. Fifteen years on, a remark borrowed from Ralph Vaughan Williams (on his own Fourth Symphony) best rises to the challenge of an honest self-assessment: “I don’t know whether I like it - but it's what I meant at the time”.

Francis Pott