Counterpoints to Lent

Counterpoints to Lent – A Meditation in Word and Music was Programme III of the Rudolf Kempe Society’s 2015 Songs of Apollo season: the Passion in poetry and prose of four millennia, set against polyphonic music for string quartet by Bach, Mozart, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Devised by Cordula Kempe for the actor Jeffery Dench, it was performed in his memory to mark the first anniversary of his death, on Palm Sunday, 29 March 2015, at 7.30 pm at St Gregory’s Church, Welcombe Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, in aid of the Rudolf Kempe Society International Young Artists Platform.

Dame Judi Dench, Patron of the Society and Jeffery Dench’s sister, sent her thanks for the dedication to her brother: once again she could not be there in person, “But I will be in spirit – as will Jeffery.”

Performers

Bergonzi Quartet

• Cordula Kempe – violin. The Society’s Artistic Director, she studied at the Munich State Academy and with Max Rostal, played in Karl Richter’s Munich Bach Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic, and taught at the Richard Strauss Conservatoire in Munich.
• Barbara O’Reilly – violin. Trained at the University of Birmingham and the Royal Northern College of Music, she played with the CBSO and Longborough Opera and was Head of Strings at The Kingsley School.
• Cristinel Bacanu – viola (RKS International Young Artists Platform 2013/2014). Romanian-born, he studied in Bucharest and on scholarships at Ohio and Arizona State universities and led several Midlands orchestras.
• Peter Wilson – cello. A Royal College of Music graduate and pupil of Anna Shuttleworth, he played principal cello with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and taught in Warwickshire and Coventry.

Readers

• Jennifer McEvoy – actress and director with RSC, National Theatre and West End credits, who had partnered Jeffery Dench in many Songs of Apollo programmes.
• Oliver Dench (RKS International Young Artists Platform 2014) – Jeffery Dench’s grandson, who had made his RSC début in The Witch of Edmonton in 2014.
• Sonia Ritter – actress, adapter and director, with RSC and Shakespeare’s Globe roles and much television work.
• Malcolm Storry – an Associate Artist of the RSC, with a long list of stage, television (The Singing Detective, Inspector Morse) and film (The Princess Bride, The Last of the Mohicans) credits.

Programme

Seven fugues, each paired by its composer with a prelude or introduction, stood for the Seven Last Words of Jesus from the Cross; between them the four readers took the voices of the four Evangelists.

Part I

• Cordula Kempe – Counterpoint
• J. S. Bach – Contrapunctus 1 from The Art of Fugue
• Yevgeny Yevtushenko – New York 1961
• Mozart – Adagio, K 546; note: Four Evangelists – Seven Words – Seven Fugues; Mozart – Fugue, K 546
• Ernesto Cardenal – Psalm 22; D. J. Enright – Museum of Atheism; anonymous graffito; Alfred Brendel – Philanthropist; note on theodicy
• Luke 23:33–34 – “Father, forgive them”; Stevie Smith – God Speaks
• Shostakovich – Prelude in C, Op. 21 No. 1 (arranged by H. U. Breyer)
• Luke 23:43 – “Verily I say unto thee”
• Shostakovich – Fugue in C, Op. 21 No. 1
• D. J. Enright – Disciple and Aria; Primo Levi – Another Monday; John Betjeman – Blame the Vicar
• Haydn – Menuetto, Trio and Menuetto from the String Quartet Op. 50 No. 4, with notes on a sense of humour
• Alex Austin – The Way of the Cross
• Haydn – Fugue from the String Quartet Op. 50 No. 4
• Matthew 10:34–37, Mark 3:34–35 and John 19:25–27 – family relationships; “Woman, behold thy son! Behold thy mother!”
• Anna Akhmatova – Crucifixion (1940–1943); note: under the Cross; Erich Fried – He that is without sin; tragedies; Joseph Brodsky – Mary to Christ; Erich Fried – Evasion
• Mark 15:34 / Matthew 27:46 – “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”; Gerard Manley Hopkins – No worst, there is null; Matthew 26:56 – “And all the disciples forsook Him, and fled”
• J. S. Bach – Contrapunctus 9 from The Art of Fugue

Interval

Part II

• Ernesto Cardenal – Psalm 131; on history; W. N. Ewer, C. Browne and “Sagittarius” – God, the Jews and We; Erich Fried – Constructive Self-Criticism; Stevie Smith – Recognition not enough; Book of Common Prayer / Sholem Aleichem – The Chosen; Erich Fried – Hear Ye Israel
• Mendelssohn – Capriccio (Andante), Op. 81
• W. B. Yeats – The Second Coming; Alex Austin – Bethlehem; Leonard Cohen – Israel
• Mendelssohn – Fugue (Allegro fugato, vivace assai), Op. 81
• John 19:28–29 – “I thirst”; Psalm 69:20–21 – “They gave me vinegar to drink”; Walter Jens – historical note; Revelation 7:16–17 – “They shall hunger no more”; Erich Fried – Before I die; Primo Levi – Passover; John 19:30 – “It is finished”
• Beethoven – String Quartet in C sharp minor, Op. 131: Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo (fugue) – attacca – Allegro molto vivace
• Osip Mandelstam – In the Haze; Alex Austin – Lithostrotos; Yehuda Amichai – For who is the judge; Luke 23:46 – “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”
• J. S. Bach – Contrapunctus 18 from The Art of Fugue; note on Bach’s last counterpoint; Bach – chorale Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (Before Thy Throne I Now Appear)
• John Donne – A Hymn to God the Father

Epilogue

• Failing; Samuel Beckett – No matter; debris; Martin Buber – The Answer
• Mozart – Finale (Allegretto) from the String Quartet in D, K 575

About the programme

Cordula Kempe described the programme as a new, “off-the-beaten-track” look at the Passion from the perspective of our time and from various, sometimes non-religious angles. The facts are told by the four Evangelists, the four actors’ voices alternating with the four voices of the string quartet in polyphonic music – a form she counted among mankind’s greatest cultural achievements in its blend of order, spirituality and sensual beauty. Seven fugues, ranging from tender intimacy to outbursts of fear and anger, illustrate the Seven Last Words; in Beethoven’s late quartet the fugue leads without a break into a serene, exuberant movement – for her a reflection of dying followed by the hope of resurrection.

The readings – from the Psalms and the prophets to poetry and prose of our own time by poets, musicians, theologians, dramatists, philosophers and songwriters of many faiths and cultures – formed “another polyphony in itself”. The booklet reproduced Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion (1938), Rembrandt’s The Three Crosses, Bach’s autograph of The Art of Fugue and photographs of the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and the Mount of the Beatitudes. Like her two other Lenten programmes, it was also dedicated to the memory of her brother, the Lutheran theologian Dr Friedemann Oettinger, a leading figure of interfaith work and the peace movement in Germany.

Credits

• Devised by Cordula Kempe
• Photographs of St Gregory’s Church by Richard Pearce; photographs from Israel by Charlotte Oettinger