RICHARD DOVE hails the healing power of music

Our current fractious world needs – indeed, yearns – for more harmony, more togetherness, more joy. On the 20^th of June, at All Saints Church in Maidstone, we had all those qualities in abundance. Our spirits were encouraged to soar in a concert by Maidstone Wind Symphony and The Maidstone Singers Extended Choir on a gloriously balmy evening.

A Buddhist meditation by David Maslanka opened the concert sensitively conducted by Roger Graham with the Maidstone Wind Symphony (all talented amateur musicians) drawing us into a state of calm reflection as the music drifted around this stunning grand church. This piece, entitled ‘Give Us This Day’, set the spiritual tone for the evening. 

‘O Magnum Mysterium’ by Morton Lauridsen is a “quiet song of profound inner joy”. The Wind Symphony was led gently and precisely by Roger Graham through this popular piece.

The first half closed with the surging, uplifting ‘Alleluia Laudamus Te’ by Alfred Reed, raising spirits to the ornate gilded roof – a triumphant recitation leaving us in need of interval refreshment to feed the body after the soul had been sated.

And what a second half! Karl Jenkins’ ‘The Armed Man’ was sung with passion by The Maidstone Singers. The piece is almost a musical documentary which traces both the bravery of soldiers and the utter futility of war. The choir marching on the spot set the tone. It is not simply an anti-war diatribe. It is much more subtle and, therefore, persuasive. Jenkins composed the piece as he daily watched the unfolding genocide in Kosovo. This Muslim-majority now independent country no doubt inspired him to include ‘The Call to Prayers’. This was a particularly poignant moment as Adi Usmani took to the pulpit to sing the Call in Arabic. A Call to Prayers in an Anglican church – what better message of tolerance, mutual understanding could there be rather than blind, ignorant hatred? Fly a flag for that alone.

The ‘Kyrie eleison’ was sung with great feeling by the Maidstone Singers with all eyes on their conductor, Kathryn Ridgeway, who did seem to live every nuance, every twist and turn. Her direction of the percussionists as they created an ambience of hope and horror was masterful. 

We are then with the soldiers (helped by war images projected on a screen) as they prepare to go over the top almost certainty to their deaths. This is the slow, brutal horror of All Quiet on the Western Front as in the film a twisted bloodied hand in the mud slowly stills of life.

The ‘Agnus Dei’ was sensitively sung with strident dignity and we are with the soldiers who have survived staring at their dead mates. Has there ever been a more beautifully composed cor anglais solo for the Benedictus? Jenkins was himself a skilled oboist (listen to Soft Machine Six) and this solo is played beautifully. 

A panoply for peace closes ‘The Armed Man’ with Tennyson’s words “Ring out the thousand wars of old, ring in the thousand years of peace”. As we all headed home in the warm evening air with hope renewed by this performance maybe we could see a new light in these dark times. Music matters more than ever. Thank you to all the performers.