Early Wednesday morning, Arne texted me a strange ad. It was for a “Secret Byrd” performance having something to do with early music featuring the Wildcat Viols and Gesauldo Six. It didn’t appeal to me. Ever persistent, later in the day, he played me a clip of the six men singing. Their sound was phenomenal, their voices perfectly blending. “Well,” I said, “I would like to hear them.” So, Arne got tickets for us. The early 6:30 performance the next night was sold out, so we were set to go to the one starting at 9:30. Arne warned me he fades by 10:30, so we’d have to leave at intermission. Fine with me since I still wasn’t sure what to expect.
The next night, we started our mother-son night out with dinner in Berkeley at Julia’s Cafe in the Berkeley City Club. It was a fine choice with a beautiful elegant atmosphere my mother would have loved with fresh roses on the table, plus the food and service were outstanding. The dessert pear poached in wine with ice cream and whipped cream with lemon sauce topped with a jolly sprig of minted was the best! Just at sunset, we headed off for Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill in the City where the performance was to be. Parking seemed a problem, so he dropped me off across the street. I climbed with many up to the stairs to the left side entrance to stand in a line in shadows. I didn’t know what to expect. It all seemed very mysterious in the dark. There was an air of excitement and anticipation of what was come. By time the line started moving, Arne had joined me.
Entering the cathedral, the first thing I noticed was the strong smell of candles burning, a definite churchy smell. It was almost totally dark and as we got to the front of the line, we were told to go with Josh in a small group. Standing in front of us, holding a lit candle and dressed in a costume from the 1600s, he was a great introduction to the evening. He spoke with an English accent and a hushed excited voice (in fact, he was one of the singers) telling us what to expect during the performance. This was going to be a reenactment of a secret Catholic Mass from the 16oo’s in England. Everybody there would have been terrified because practicing Catholics were beheaded. Here and now, we were part of the performance. We could move about, stand or sit in the chairs arranged irregularly around the area. The centerpiece was a large table with 12 chairs standing on a raised platform in the back part of Cathedral. It was lit with maybe 30-35 candles so its brightness called our attention right away. There were many flickering shadows cast by the candles on the towering stone walls. The smell of incense began to overpower me. As I stood there, getting my bearings, I was transported to a different time and place. I heard what sounded like an organ playing but it was the viols, three on each side, playing early music on their ancient instruments.
At 9:30 the six men, who had all acted as the ushers, moved to the center table and asked some people to join them. This was not just a music performance, it was participatory theater. The men began to sing. Their voices were incredible. I especially love the endings of phrases in Early Music that resolves the chords. It makes me sigh and feel everything is going to be ok. As the music went on, it was hard to tell where one piece ended and another began except when I heard them all sing“Amen”. In the silence that came, I could hear the last sounds reverberating off the shadowy stone walls of the dimly lit Cathedral. It was all very mysterious and very beautiful. I have never experienced anything like this before in my life.
After about an hour, they began to sing the“Agnus Dei”, the last part of the Mass. I recognized the words from singing them myself when I was taking singing lessons at the San Jose Church. And then suddenly there was a very loud crashing and banging on the front door. We’d been warned at the beginning this would happen, but a woman standing in front of me began to flee in terror before she remembered this was a planned part of the experience. The men blew out all the candles. Then asked us all to help. I blew out several candles behind me. And then we all sat in the dark totally silent thinking about those Catholics long ago who might get caught and die. It was a very dramatic moment. Only very slowly did they relight the candles and proceed with another Agnus Dei for 4 voices. When that was over, the singers walked around the area. One of them passed out slices of bread to each of us. “Ah, communion,” I thought and I walked over to get a little glass of wine they had put out. As we ate the bread in silence, it was a very poignant moment for me. But it was 10:30 and Arne and I made our way to the exit.
This performance, and it was a performance, pushed the line between worship and theater for me. When I led worship, I was always sensitive about the service not being a performance, but a leading of worship for the glory of God. But I know many people see a church service as a performance. William Byrd wrote his Masses for Catholic worship. But this experience was not religious for me except for communion where I thought about consecrating the bread and wine as I partook them. Since everything was done and said in Latin, I didn’t understand a thing. That was how it was for the worshipers for centuries. Was God present in their performance of William Byrd’s music? Of course, one can’t get away from our mysterious God, but I didn’t feel the actors/singers involving or magnifying God’s presence. They did create a beautiful movingly mysterious experience.
When I got home, I looked at the program sheet for the first time. It was too dark in the Cathedral to see it. In the program notes, the writer and director Bill Barclay wrote, “ ….William Byrd’s message for today is to live and let live. …..I’m sure you share my belief in universal human rights. When we as a society learn to stop trying to convince people they’re wrong —about values, politics and preferences of all kinds —only then can we experience the next stage of our evolution: working together to protect a world where we each get to choose our own fate.”
