Mysticism and music 14: Evensong for Ash Wednesday, 1964 (Choir of King's College, Cambridge)

Gratis post

Lent began this past Sunday (March 2) in the Orthodox Church with Forgiveness Sunday. One traditional feature — among others on that significant day — was calling to mind the loss of Adam’s (and our) communion with God. At the heart of that communal act of anamnesis, the rich liturgical texts of the Orthodox Triodion bring us face to face with our mortality: “[I]n Adam all die…” From this point on, Lent will guide receptive Christian hearts and minds once more from that “Garden” whose gates are barred to us because of death’s apparent finality, to that other and better garden — that of Christ’s tomb and third-day resurrection: “[I]n Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

In Western churches, Lent begins liturgically this coming Sunday (March 9), but it will be preceded by Ash Wednesday tomorrow (March 5). Although the Ash Wednesday liturgy places less emphasis on Adam’s loss of Paradise than that of Forgiveness Sunday in Orthodoxy, the echo of it is still present in that day’s liturgy. It is to be heard when the priest puts the ashes on the foreheads of the faithful, repeating the words God addresses to Adam in Genesis 3:19: “Remember, O Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return” (“Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris”). The collective address “O Man” refers to Adam — he is the “homo” — generic “man” (equivalent to the Greek anthropos) — referred to in the pronouncement. It is not addressed to each individual who receives the ashes; it is addressing “humanity” itself, in which we all participate. In other words, everyone upon whose brow the ashes are applied is “Adam” at that dramatic moment — standing outside the gates of Paradise, mortal, and longing for the Resurrection of the “Last Adam.” (It’s also to be noticed that on the following Sunday, Lent I, the account of Jesus’ temptation is read at Mass; in it, the Son of God is, like Adam, outside Paradise, in the wilderness, and — in a spiritual sense — in search of the “lost sheep.”)

All that said, I share below a recording I’ve treasured for about half a century and revisit annually. It’s partly nostalgia on my part, of course, but I also happen to consider it one of the finest albums the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge ever recorded. It is their Ash Wednesday Evensong of 1964, directed by Sir David Willcocks. Here is the Spotify link (the selections directly below are only a preview; you will need to click over to the Spotify site to listen to the entire recording):