It has been some time now since I've made an update so here goes.
My friend Vigyan is a connoisseur of live music. He's a man who seems to spend almost his entire life in concert halls. So when he recently told me with great enthusiasm about a group called the Boyan Ensemble who were to stage an afternoon concert last week at Clifton Cathedral in Bristol I felt confident it would be a special event. The Boyan Ensemble are a male voice choir from the Ukraine. They sing Sacred Music from their heritage of the Orthodox Church. There are between twenty or thirty of them in number all of differing ages. I've listened to a lot of Sacred Music over the past twenty or so years and I've always loved the Music from Eastern Europe. It was therefore with a large degree of expectation that I took my place amongst the smallish gathering of senior citizens huddled together in the bright and spacious cathedral.
The winter's sun was sinking outside as the performance began with the mournful sound of a tubular bell repeatedly tolled. The ensemble entered carrying electric candles and all dressed in black robes that swished down to their feet. The choir humming a collection of very low notes that transmitted an uneasy harmony as they strolled forward to the alter of the church. The ensemble then turned to face the audience leaving one singer at the back of the cathedral. The dark atmosphere was intensified by this single male voice, also in a low register, that now rose above the ominous humming with an exquisite melody of deep longing. The sound seemed to reach into the innermost past and then up into some evacuated heaven. A melancholy yearning for some dormant Father God to awaken from his slumber and release us all from our suffering.
This sense of awe and mystery continued to surround and infiltrate the proceedings as different members of the ensemble came forward to take the limelight. One after the other of an incredible range of soloists who inhabited the choir emerged. The faces of the rest of the ensemble deep in a fretful meditation backing up whomsoever was leading any particular chant. Most notably the countertenor Mitryaynev whose incredibly high almost soprano like singing was particularly haunting. A most unusual sound that was at once beautiful and terrifying as are the manifestations of so many great works of art. He was an unusual looking bearded man, short in stature and of about thirty years of age with a kind of teddy boy haircut. His eyes black coals that burned with the relaxed fervor of a man who has found exactly his calling in life and is at that moment carrying out his destiny. I found big fat tears coming freely and easily to me. Perhaps to do with my own particular preoccupations with a sad and beautiful time but also I think because of the relief of hearing something of such undoubted authenticity and deep longing. Utterly free of the hedonism and self aggrandisement that so often passes as entertainment today and to which I find myself subscribing at times as a distraction from the deeper parts of myself I feel troubled to continue in confronting. To be brought back to myself and to witness and sense the humility of these singers as they embodied the Sacred Music of their own particular Orthodox tradition after what must have been hours and hours of practice was in itself a truly humbling and uplifting experience.
As I sat in the half empty (or is it half full ) cathedral at the interval I was able to reflect upon the Eastern Orthodox churches and the experiences I've had of them. I traveled a fair amount through Greece and Eastern Europe doing concerts over the years and have always been fascinated to visit Orthodox churches. From a very young man until today I have particularly appreciated the icon paintings that decorate much of the interiors of these places. These icons have always spoken to me. They ask difficult questions as they stare unwaveringly out of their mild eyes. They challenge me and show me the shallowness of so much of my thinking. I am fascinated with what it is they so clearly understand that seems just out of my reach and yet closer to me than my own shadow. I always feel, when I tear myself away from those faces, that I've missed the point somehow yet they keep on looking at me and no doubt will continue to do so.
I've also at times had the opportunity to witness Orthodox services carried out in echoing and unfamiliar tongues and most often entirely sung in stupefying monotone by impressive priests with huge black beards and richly elaborate costumes. These priests negotiate their way through extravagant and complicated rituals that are carried out in some places behind a painted screen and at others with their backs facing the congregation to whom they display a disinterest that is verging on the contemptuous. Like all the old religions I have witnessed over the years they are on the way out. It always seems to be just me and a few old ladies at any of the services I've attended. I remember being struck by the intensity of these priests as they surefoot their way through the mass blissfully, it seems, unmindful of the extremely diminished number of worshipers. As the ship goes down these guys are just carrying on doing their thing and making no attempt to try and win back congregations with people pleasing events or the suchlike. It's hard to imagine the Boyan Ensemble agreeing to perform The Songs Of U2 in order to boost numbers at their local church. I personally am not interested in such events myself and far prefer some eerie esoteric ritual in a crumbling candlelit church in Eastern Europe any day. For that I feel much gratitude to the stubborness of such people and their unflinching beliefs in their own tradition and have often felt like standing up mid service to applaud them and cry out a scream of solidarity, which I don't really have with them of course, although I've never had the bottle.
I understand that these religions with their dogma and bloody track records will go but to me there is some deep mystery within them that I feel is truly sacred and worth holding to, if only as a contemplation. Brought up as a Roman Catholic much of my life has been a movement away from religion that sways back and forth but I have found this. As I move away from the dogma and convention of religion I move closer to it's mystery. The recognition that this mystery is what has truly sustained me through what I suppose has been a troubled life, is why I feel protective as well as inspired when I experience it in any form whatsoever. And let's face it whale calls and synthesizers doesn't quite do it man. This mystery however is what I was able to encounter in the singing of The Boyan Ensemble and I hope that such groups will continue with their traditions carrying the beauty and wisdom of their ancestors alive and into the hearts of those of us with broken hearts who sense an absence that we long to redeem.
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