News Flash! Symonds's Work Controversial and Edgy!
The eminent composer John Ireland
used Symonds's poem A Vista in his cantata These Things Shall Be. It was the coronation choral
commission of 1937, and now it has been considered offensively anti-Christian by a group of teenage Christian singers.
The controversial lyrics do hint at Symonds' hellenistic ideals, those based both on his enthusiasm for
Platonic love (ie, "passionate friendship") and Whitman's ideas of male comraderie. Even the name,
A Vista, is similar to that of a Whitman essay (Democratic Vistas)
in which the author described ideas of adhesiveness or passionate, pure male friendship.
However, These Things Shall Be has lived a long life as a United Nations hymn and a popular school hymn in England.
It is especially interesting that what was considered perfectly mainstream for 1930s Englishmen (royalty, no less) is too edgy for new millenium South Dakotans.
In fact, the reason that These Things Shall Be is no longer used as a hymn is because people find that the lyrics
naive -- almost eerily so. However, a quick search of the internet shows that people still find inspiration
in Symonds's vigorously optimistic lines. They have been used in sermons,
and by people espousing all sorts of very progressive ideas.
Two contemporary composers, John Mitchell and Ian Venables, have also written settings for some of
John Addington Symonds's poems. Mitchell
based a series of original compositions around Symonds's translations of Six Sonnets of Michelangelo. Venables, a major advocate of Symonds', has written accompaniments
for at least five of the hundreds of Symonds poems he has catalogued. These compositions include a song cycle which, according
to the liner notes of The Songs of Ian Venables, "reflect...aspects of Symonds' complex and sensitive personality.
They deal with his obsession with unrequited love, and his passionate love of Venice. Imagery and metaphor abound, creating
a highly romantic style of writing."
Love's Voice (A Song Cycle)
Fortunate Isles mp3 sample, 224K
The Passing Stranger mp3 sample, 188K
The Invitation to the Gondola mp3 sample, 200K
These Things Shall Be(adapted from Symonds's A Vista) mp3 sample,878K
The audio sample also contains this stanza:
Posted on Sat, Nov. 08, 2003
Students stage All-State chorus protest
Associated Press
RAPID CITY, S.D. - Students from Rapid City Christian High School withdrew from a weekend performance of the All-State Chorus and Orchestra, saying the words in a piece commissioned for the chorus clashed with their Christian beliefs.
Bill Bryant, choir director at Rapid City Christian, said the students pulled out two weeks ago after reviewing music for a piece titled "These Things Shall Be." The All-State Chorus and Orchestra, made up of the state's top high school musicians, was scheduled to perform Saturday night.
"The students chose not to sing the piece because they believe there's a strong contrast between the text's view of the perfectibility of mankind and the Christian position," said Bryant.
The piece is an adaptation from the poem "A Vista," written by John Addington Symonds, a 19th century socialist and gay activist in Great Britain.
Z. Randall Stroope, guest choral conductor for All-State, was commissioned to write the piece. A request to speak with Stroope was refused.
Bryant said the students considered their actions carefully and their decision was not reactionary. He said he reviewed the text with the eight students (four delegates and four alternates) when it arrived this fall.
"The basic philosophy behind the text is a belief that humanity will one day perfect itself and usher in a utopia on Earth," Bryant said.
Bryant cited the following phrase from the lyrics: "A loftier race yet known will rise, "And every life will be possessed with courage strong and firm. "And all the heavens praise the earth: All earth, paradise."
Bryant said Symond's homosexuality was a secondary issue for the students.
"The piece promotes a vision of the future that's diametrically opposed to what's been held historically by Christians," he said.
The school is sending a letter to the South Dakota High School Activities Association explaining its position.
Bryant provided a few excerpts: "The poet John Addington Symonds, who will no doubt be credited in the All-State concert program, was a pioneering advocate of "gay liberation" whose viewpoint (latent in the text chosen by Dr. Stroope, explicit elsewhere) we have no wish to endorse, even by implication.
"(The text's) view of man's perfectibility is contrary to the message of the Bible. No orthodox Christian can agree that 'a loftier race yet known will rise' or that 'all heavens' will one day 'praise the earth' a 'paradise.' Indeed, this utopian vision is entirely at odds with the central tenets of the Christian faith."
Deb Glasscock, the mother of one of the students, said she stood behind the decision.
"We have raised our daughters to stand on principle, even to their own hurt," she said.
Jump to These Things Shall Be
With Venables' permission I have included audio samples of some of the pieces from The Songs of Ian Venables:
The Winds behind me in the thicket sigh,
The bees fly droning on laborious wing
Pink cloudlets scarcely float across the sky
Septmeber stillness broods o'er everything.
Deep peace is in my soul: I seem to hear
Catullus murmuring "Let us live and love;
Suns rise and set and fill the rolling year
Which bears us deathward, therefore let us love;
Pour forth the wine of kisses, let them flow,
And let us drink our fill before we die.
Hush! in the thicket still the breezes blow;
Pink cloudlets sail across the azure sky;
The bees warp lazily on laden wing;
Beauty and stillness brood o'er everything.
Back
There are islands, there are islands
On the ocean's heaving breast
Where the honey-scented silence
Broods above the halcyon's nest;
Where the sands are smooth and golden,
And the flowers bloom, one by one,
Unbeloved and unbeholden
Save by the all-seeing sun.
I shall ne'er with friend or lover
Wander on from glade to glade
Through those forests, or discover
Silvery fountains in the shade:
But another's foot shall linger
Mid the bowers whereof I dream,
And perchance a careless finger
Strew the roses on the stream;
Happier men shall pluck the laurel
For the tresses that they love,
And the passionate pale coral
Wreathe round brows I know not of.
Back
Of all the mysteries wherethrough we move,
This is the most mysterious - that a face,
Seen peradventure in some distant place,
Wither we can return no more to prove
The world-old sanctities of human love,
Shall haunt our waking thoughts, and gathering grace
Incorporate itself with every phase
Whereby the soul aspires to God above.
Thus are we wedded through that face to her
Or him who bears it; nay, one fleeting glance,
Fraught with a tale too deep for utterance,
Even as a pebble cast into the sea,
Will on the deep waves of our spirit stir
Ripples that run through all eternity.
Back
Come forth; for Night is falling,
The moon hangs round and red
On the verge of the violet waters,
Fronting the daylight dead.
Come forth; the liquid spaces
Of sea and sky are one,
Where outspread angel flame- wings
Brood o'er the buried sun.
Bells call to bells from the islands,
And far-off mountains rear
Their shadowy crests in the crystal
Of cloudless atmosphere.
A breeze from the sea is wafted;
Lamp-litten Venice gleams
With her towers and domes uplifted
Like a city seen in dreams.
Her waterways are a tremble
With melody far and wide,
Borne from the phantom galleys
That o'er the darkness glide.
There are stars in the heaven, and starry
Are the wandering lights below;
Come forth! for the Night is calling,
Sea, city, and sky are aglow!
Back
Love, felt from afar, long sought, scarce found,
On thee I call;
Here where with silvery silent sound,
The smooth oars fall;
Here where the glimmering water-ways,
Above yon stair,
Mirror one trembling lamp that plays
In twilight air!
What sights, what sounds, O poignant Love
Ere thou wert flown,
Quivered these darksome waves above,
In darkness known!
I dare not dream thereof; the sting
Of those dead eyes
Is too acute and close a thing
For one who dies.
Only I feel through glare and gloom,
Where yon lamp falls,
Dim spectres hurrying to their doom,
And love's voice calls:
'Twas better thus toward death to glide,
Soul-full of bliss
Than with long life unsatisfied
Life's crown to miss.
Back
THESE things shall be, -- a loftier race
Than ere the world hath known shall rise
With flame of freedom in their souls,
And light of knowledge in their eyes.
They shall be gentle, brave, and strong
To spill no drop of blood, but dare
All that may plant man's lordship firm
On earth and fire, and sea, and air.
Nation with nation, land with land,
Unarmed shall live as comrades free;
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.
Man shall love man, with heart as pure
And fervent as the young-eyed throng
Who chant their heavenly psalms before
God's face with undiscordant song.
New arts shall bloom of loftier mould
And mightier music fill the skies,
And every life shall be a song,
When all the earth is paradise.
They shall be simple in their homes,
And splendid in their public ways,
Filling the mansions of the state
With music and with hymns of praise.
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