For The God Who Sings with Stephen Watkins

10.30pm Sunday - 12.30am

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Stephen Watkins presents music and texts that seek to enlighten the path untravelled, the idea unravelled. JS Bach leads. Others (and often the unexpected) follow. The seasons are reflected and the hour is respected with space and contemplation.

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Audio updates after 6.15pm Monday Syd/Melb time. Windows Media audio requires Windows Media Player vers.9 or later, with a 56k modem or better. Visit the ABC Streaming Media Players page for advice and links to find the software you need.

Sunday 7 March 2010

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Sunday 28 February 2010

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7 March: Tears of the Angels of Peace

Lenten Friday nights in mid-18th century Milan attracted Italian, Spanish and Austrian lay religious to subscription concerts to hear a sermon and cantata at a church founded by the Spanish Government in a city under Austrian rule. One of eight cantatas by Giovanni Sammartini for these concerts is 'The Tears the Angels of Peace'. The tears are of three angels, headed up by the Angel of the Alliance (the 'bearer of promise'). Political alliances were tenaciously held and just as tenuously maintained, as history reveals: Turkey threatened Europe, but Napoleon soon shattered borders; in Milan he declared himself 'King of Italy'. The other two angels in Sammartini's cantata are the Angel of the Testament ('Minister of Peace to the Children of Israel') and so-called Angel of Grace. Each shed tears over the 'beastly implements of death' that crushed the spiritual temple that Christians claim was then rebuilt at Easter. The cantata is introduced by Sir John Tavener's 'Tears of the Angels' for the suffering in the Balkans. All are set in the context of a garden, where the plight of a lone fig tree is dependent upon its good nurture, grace and autumnal fruitfulness: music by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Whitacre and Purcell.

28 February: Lament for Jerusalem

A 'mystical love song' compliments Lent's penitential cry, while Wales sings for Dewi Sant. In Sir John Tavener's 'Lament for Jerusalem', a Cosmic Lament embraces Christian, Judaic and Islamic texts in English and in Greek: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the City that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it: how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings". Bach's Cantata 46 on that text is compared in its beauty to Victoria's O vox omnes, "...see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow". And Arwell Hughes' oratorio St David exhorts the Patron Saint of Wales on March 1.

Music Details

Music played on For The God Who Sings with Stephen Watkins on March 7 | February 28 | 21 | 14 | For earlier dates, start at the index of Archived Music Details.