Birtwistle's Last Supper and Adams's El Niño: Echoes of Old Beliefs

Author(s): Arnold Whittall

Source: The Musical Times , Winter, 2002, Vol. 143, No. 1881 (Winter, 2002), pp. 16-26
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1004442

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Musical Times

This content downloaded from

82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Birtwistle' Last Supper and Adams's El Nino

Echoes of old beliefs

Are Christian symbolism and practices still viable
subjects for modern art? ARNOLD WHITTALL considers
two recent musical instances of their appropriation.
Notes M CUSICALLY, the twentieth century ex- chosen subject-matter to resonate the more me-
1. See the
pired in a riot of pluralism: a diver-morably between the counter-poles of old and
notes with the
sity that, for some, represents un-new.
Kairos recording
0012252KAI settling cultural confusion, for others In El Nino some biblical and mystery-pl
(2001); also the joyous stylistic and technical freedom. Risking arean employed alongside a wide range of
programme for the enormous generalisation, I'd suggest that no late- and the story of Christ's birth (from th
London Sinfonietta
twentieth-century composition - not even And- ciation to the flight into Egypt) is counte
Concert, Queen
Elizabeth Hall, riessen's Trilogy of the last day (1993-97) - more by allusions to modern, South American
London, 3 February perfectly embodied that cultural diversity, in the In The Last Supper, Christ and the disc
1999. context of subject-matter focused on death, than summoned up, in the year 2000, by a pres
2. See the Gerard Grisey's starkly vivid last work, Quatre character, whose name, 'Ghost', suggests
discussion by stands for the spirit of the modern, secu
chants pourfranchir le seuil - Four songs for cross-
Michael Steinberg ing the threshold (1996-98). Grisey has said of - hisa mediator whose lineage can be trac
in the booklet 'musical meditation on death' that 'the chosen texts the Evangelists of baroque Passions thr
with the Nonesuch
come from four civilisations (Christian, Egypt- the narrators and 'choruses' of such twentieth-
CD recording,
7559-79634-2 ian, Greek, Mesopotamian) and share a fragment- century music dramas as Oedipus rex and The
(2001) ary discourse on the ineluctable nature of Death'.1 rape of Lucretia. In both The Last Supper and El
Nevertheless, the work's ending is neither dark Niio, nevertheless, the separation from, and rela-
3. In the published
libretto of The Last nor pessimistic, but what Grisey terms 'music for tion of, old to new is significant, as is the avoid-
Supper (Boosey & the dawn of a humanity finally disencumbered of ance of any 'straight' retelling of an old story.
Hawkes, 2000) the nightmare': a lullaby following the Epic of Gil- Without the Peter Sellars film that accompanied
Robin Blaser
gamesh's depiction of a devastating flood, and the stage premiere (and is also used on the DVD
acknowledges 'his
suggesting - or so the composer's rather enig- recording) El Nino is obviously more abstract, or
special indebtedness
to Jean-Luc Nancy's matic note implies - a new phase for a humanity timeless, and yet the diversity of the texts - the
The Inoperative freed of all taboos and nightmares, including those, way the biblical extracts are contextualised, and
Community [1986] one might surmise, of Christian-era religion. the way the particular associations with Messiah
and to Giorgio The possibility that, in the West, Christian sym- are given a very knowing, contemporary quality
Agamben's The
bolism and practices are still available for mean- (of which more below) - serve Adams's acknow-
Coming Community
[1990]'. For ingful modern art, whether to provide a context ledged purpose of attempting to 'find out' what
commentary on that evokes transcendence, or themselves to be he was 'saying' about his own religious beliefs,
the multivalent
transcended, as in Grisey's work, certainly cannot which were (are?) 'shaky and unformed'.2 Birt-
character of
be discounted. Two composers with avowedly wistle's long history of relish for ancient rituals
Blaser's libretto,
see Patrick Wright:
strong religious impulses, Jonathan Harvey and lays down a stronger background for The Last
'Facing up to John Tavener, explored apocalyptic Christian ima- Supper than the possible growth of any particular
the subterranean gery in two particularly powerful late-century Christian impulses, but the present-day setting of
stream', in Glynde- pieces - Death of light/Light of death (1998) and the work is underlined not simply by references
bourne Festival
Total eclipse (1999). But my focus in this article is in Robin Blaser's libretto to the Holocaust and the
Programme Book
on a pair of compositions, first performed in 2000, year 2000 but by the emphasis on self-analysis in
(2000), pp.124-28.
According to in which two very different composers not pri- the words provided for Christ and the disciples,
Wright, there marily associated with sacred music or religious including Judas. This is one indication of the ex-
are fragmentary imagery approach complementary Christian sub- tent to which Blaser's language has progressed
citations from or
jects: Harrison Birtwistle's 'dramatic tableaux' The beyond biblical formulae and pre-twentieth-
allusions to a range
Last Supper and John Adams's stageable oratorio century poetics, to resonate with images found in
of writers, including
Gerard de Nerval, El Nino. My argument is, in essence, that in these twentieth-century poetry and philosophy3 At the
George Steiner, treatments of 'old beliefs' both composers suc- same time, however, the regular shadowing of
Avital Ronell and
ceed in revitalising long-established ideas about English by Latin, and the frequent allusions to
Hannah Arendt,
compositional practice, thereby helping their the Bible - as well as the insertion of three Latin

16 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [J = c.60] 1 3 i
1 3 i
P A .

A - (A) (A) - - MEN

1 Pi : 3 I 3

A - (A) - - - (A) -MEN

Ex. la: Birtwistle: The Last Supper, bar

[J c.60]

,J I . ?c.J j _ . J,) [.J . j. L

mf p - p

~~~; >J . I X;; J jB) U etc.

Ex. lb: Birtwistle: The Last Supper, bars 1786-92 - viola cantus

[ = c.60]

mp i 3 i 3 3

Let us wel - come life_ the long - est last - ing rose.

Ex. Ic: Birtwistle: The Last Supper, bars 1891-94 - vocal line (Christ) only

motets as a cappella interludes accompanying the who are not

the stories and the contemporary moment of live
visionary tableaux (The Crucifixion, The Stations mentioned by Blaser
performance. In Britten, the monk who presents
in his note with the
of the Cross, The Betrayal) contribute strongly tothe dramas to the audience does not at the same
libretto. The most
the cumulative ritual intensity of the work. time attempt to distance himself from the otherextensive quotations
performers, or to interact with them as in some I have identified
Reviving the practice of the beginning of West-
ern drama, the two medieval Benedictine Latin sense the sole representative of the modern world.are from the
church dramas I have used arise out of a litur- Harvey's officiating priest helps to effect themetaphysical poets:
Richard Crashaw's
gical event, in this case the Eucharist, with seamless interaction of sacramental celebration
'On the bleeding
which the work begins and ends. 'Do this in re- and dramatic enactment. wounds of our
membrance of me'. The audience or congre- At first glance the Birtwistle/Blaser enterprise crucified Lord'
gation may participate in the singing of the plain- seems much closer to 'mainstream' opera. Yet The (1646), assigned
song hymns, Sing my Soul and The Royal Banners, Last Supper could well be performed very effect-to Judas, and
upon which the musical fabric is based, thus Thomas Traherne's
ively in a large church or cathedral, and while he
emphasising the ritualistic rather than the con- 'Thanksgiving for
was working on it Birtwistle said that he would the Body' (1699),
ventionally operatic nature of the work.4
like the premiere to be given in Durham Cathed- assigned to Christ.
These sentences form the beginning of Jonathan ral.5 Although its music is not explicitly rooted in4. See Harvey's
Harvey's programme note for his 'church opera in chant or Christian hymnody, Paul Griffiths's claimprogramme note
twelve scenes', Passion and Resurrection (1981), a after hearing the premiere (given in the Berlinin the vocal score
work whose central text is 'a translation [... ] of anStaatsoper) that 'one of the most remarkable fea- of Passion and
Resurrection (Faber
anonymous 12th century Latin Passion Play from tures of the piece is the absence from it [...] of any
Music, 1998).
the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino'. trace from the long centuries of Christian music'6
5. See Michael
Harvey's opera has some degree of kinship withdiscounts those echoes of chant-like melismas we
Hall: Harrison
Britten's Parables for Church Performance, notcan observe in Birtwistle's 'Alleluias' and 'Amens'
Birtwistle in recent
least that the musical basis in plainsong does (one instance is shown in ex. la), as well as theyears (London
not prevent the emergence of a 'modern' style - more pervasive reliance on narrow-intervalled 1998), p.150.
dissonant, declamatory, even, in Harvey's case, cantus-like melody: there are two particularly6. See Tempo
expressionistic. In Harvey's opera, as in Britten's striking examples in the closing stages, one or-no.213 (July 2000),
trilogy, the narrative unfolded does not seek to chestral (ex. b), the other vocal (ex. c). It is alsopp.41-42.
dramatise the gap between the 'ancient' time ofpossible to hear more of a background in late-

THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002 17

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
7. These lines are
Medieval or early-Renaissance polyphony in the questions which must be asked but cannot be
quoted from AM
three a cappella motets than Griffiths did at the answered. It might even be possible to categorise
Klein's poem 'Ballad
of the days of the premiere. Nevertheless, although like Harvey the drama as another 'quest' opera, after the pat-
Messiah' (1941). It Birtwistle sets Christ's biblical words 'in remem- tern of Gawain, in which Christ's last, spoken
may also be relevant brance of me', an actual celebration of the Eucha- words, after the 'betrayal' tableau, 'Whom do you
- and representative rist as part of the drama, along the lines of Passion seek?' (followed by the real sound of a crowing
of the densely
and Resurrection, is hard to imagine. cockerel) stands for the Ghost's modern embo-
allusive nature
of Blaser's text - diment of scepticism, uncertainty, yet openness
that the tanks of I N his brief but searching review of The Last to a continued search for answers to unanswer-
Tiananmen Square Supper Paul Griffiths attempts to plot a dis- able questions about the meaning of life and
feature in the final
junction between the concerns of a libretto death. This would conveniently explain the Ghost's
section of Giorgio
where 'the obscurity, impenetrability and even veering between statements of non-belief and state-
Agamben's The
coming community
implausibility of the divine nature are central to ments of faith. If Birtwistle were a faith-seeking
(University of the action' and music which is 'atheological. This sceptic, or an exasperated non-believer fascinated
Minnesota Press, music leaves us asking not what we have seen but by the apparent immortality of those 'images of
1991, p.86). whether we have seen (as opposed - very opposed sanctity', this music would fit those circumstances
- to heard) anything at all': and that distinction as well as its possible role in evoking Greek or
between seen and heard leads on to the argument Teutonic gods, as suggested above. Even so, how-
that the orchestra is the repository of the work's ever, the Christ of The Last Supper is undeniably
prevailing images of power and command, not a star, a charismatic hero, and it would be interest-
the voices. Whereas, for much of the time, 'the ing to explore the extent, if any, to which his
libretto resembles a heavy curtain, painted with vocal style differs from other Birtwistle protago-
images of sanctity' the music is 'throbbing and nists - not least the self-declared non-hero Gawain.
punching' behind that curtain 'with its own ideas Any present-day dramatic treatment of a Christ-
of what gods are: [...] the real action [...] is in the ian story exists in an ambiguous context of con-
pit'. flicting ideals and realities - on the one hand,
What those ideas involve is not spelt out, but acknowledging the survival of the Christian
it might be that the orchestral music's forceful, at religion, and, on the other, observing its failure to
times implacable insistence has more to do with win universal acceptance and to transform hu-
Greek or Teutonic gods who bring retribution man behaviour. As far as Blaser's text is concern-
rather than salvation. In this vein, the march-like ed, the Ghost might therefore represent the voice
vigour of the opera's opening, with its peremptory, of the Western liberal as sceptical pessimist,
Stravinskian choral phrases, one group pre- acknowledging that 'God is the being we are not',
recorded, the other amplified, finds fulfilment appalled by 'the brutality and terror of our cen-
near the end in the Ghost's vision of the Messiah tury', summoning up Jesus and his disciples in an
'coming in his armour-plated tank' (the biblicaleffort to discover what role 'the mysteries of God'
image of Christ coming to bring not peace but a might have for us, and, near the end, apparently
sword could be behind this).7 The Ghost, accord- alarmed by the threat posed by a belligerent Mes-
ing to Griffiths, has at least one moment of un- siah 'coming in his tank'. But what, after the ac-
ambiguous atheism (from bar 1209): 'God isn't./tion, has been discovered? Is there a role or not?
God is never again./In this abyss, God is missing The Ghost is invited by Christ and the disciples
from the altar/with its victim. Seeking the eye to join them at the supper table, to learn about
of God,/I saw only a socket/huge, black, and the value of life and love 'where we find ourselves
bottomless'. Yet this could represent the Ghost's beyond ourselves', as if seeking for self-fulfilment
embodiment of the disciples' moment of doubtwere a kind of psychological therapy that is inde-
and fear, rather than the atheism of modern gene- pendent of religious faith and Christian practice.
rations. Shortly afterwards (from bar 1267), the But the Ghost does not remain with the disciples
Ghost again appears to act as the disciples' spokes- and leave with them. There is nothing here about
woman, introducing the foot-washing episode following Christ, nothing about any resurrection,
with a declaration of faith: 'And now, Jesus, bless other than the capacity to summon up these cha-
us all with the waters of life'. As the summoner, racters in the year 2000: and the final sound
the medium through which old relates to new, theimage, with its spoken question, blends the cock-
Ghost must somehow connect the experiences of crow of betrayal with wistful instrumental lyric-
actors and audience. ism (see ex.5 below). At the same time, the cele-
If, as Griffiths argues, Blaser's libretto focuses
brations that give texture to life - the ritual, the
on 'the obscurity, impenetrability and even im-dance, the ecstasy - these may never be more in-
plausibility of the divine nature', then the 'action'
tense than when combined with the anticipated,
of the accompanying orchestral music - and there or actual, presence of Christ.
is no extended, independent instrumental writ- This is where Griffiths's attempt to separate
ing in the work - embodies the turbulence of what is seen, and heard as text, from what hap-

18 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
pens in the orchestra seems most questionable. If, lish words to music': and Steinberg also notes 8. CD notes, see
note 2 above.
as he suggests, the drama begins when 'ghosts are that, 'taking a cue from Handel's Messiah, Adams
reinvested with life, through music that expresses does not lock his three soloists into specific 9. Tempo no.216
the exertion of rebirth but also the confidence', it roles'.8 But Steinberg is less forthcoming on dif- (April 2001),
pp.37-38.
is possible for the vocal characterisation to draw ferences. Messiah, after all, is less a work about
more specific expressive and semantic nuances 'the inexaustible miracle of birth' than about the
from 'the continuous volcanic flux of the orchestra'. full Christian 'package' of the redeeming majesty
Griffiths argues that it is not Birtwistle's way to of the 'triune' God, and the revelations of the
provide 'a Christ who, though coming from right relation between God in heaven and God made
outside the tradition of Christian music, yet sings man. The nativity portrayed in Messiah is very
with terrifying command'. The implication (follow- much a means to an end. But in Adams's 'con-
ing, presumably, the impression at the premiere) templation and celebration of birth' the nativity
is that Christ's vocal line fades into insignificance remains at the centre throughout, as it does in
beside the power of an orchestra with no precise LEnfance du Christ.
commitment to word or meaning other than that This Jesus is to be loved for his innocence and
'volcanic' embodiment of the life force. But this purity, not worshipped in awe for his Divine power,
and although Adams's contexts and comment-
does less than justice to the way in which the solo
voices - predominantly, the Ghost, Judas and aries do not erase all sense of suffering and death,
Christ, but also several of the other individual the association between the massacre of the inno-
disciples - engage in eloquent statement and dia- cents and later social injustices (mainly in the
logue: and because there is no substantial generic setting of Rosario Castellano's poem 'Memorandum
or stylistic difference between the nature of those on Tlatelolco', which links the last battle between
vocal lines, the effect is of a common humanity, the Aztecs and the conquistadors in 1521 with
capable of leaving the collective power of ritual to the Mexican riots of October 1968) is set aside by
be interpreted and reinterpreted by each and the reinforced vision of the infant Jesus, miracu-
every individual observer. And the more human lously mature - 'do not consider me a child; I
Christ appears, the more mysterious the super- have always been a perfect man and am so now'
human role religion assigns to him becomes. - and able to make water flow from a dry palm
This renders the role of ritual spectacularly tree. These picturesque, whimsical, even primitive
ambiguous. The Last Supper is strongly built images from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 'ex-
around four fundamental actions - the assembling hibit[s] delightfully sharp human perception',
of the disciples, the building of the table, Christ's and also, as Steinberg observes, reinforce the
washing of the disciples' feet, and the last supper feminist perspective of the textual materials: but
itself. The musical design works with evolving, they signal a retreat from the grandly alarming,
rhythmically fractured repetitions and refrains exalted vision of a redeeming Messiah in Handel-
whose cumulative intensity - what Griffiths terms ian mode. There is no trumpet sounding the rais-
its 'characteristic rolling clamour' - is relieved ing of the dead, no Day of Judgement. As a honest
only by the more dance-like episodes and, in the sceptic, if not an instinctive agnostic, who envies
end, by the quietening necessary to allow the those with strong religious beliefs, Adams leaves
Ghost's final reflections to be heard. While the visions of Resurrection and Eternal Life to others:
individual vocal lines tend to draw on a common and Robert Stein's objection to Sellars's accom-
stock of rhetorical and motivic devices, with a lot panying movie, that 'you end up making the
of the close-position space-filling basic to the extraordinary ordinary, rather than the other way
cantus-derived Birtwistle arioso, the polyphonic around'9 could be precisely what was intended.
layering, in which texts in English and Latin are El Nino begins with an earthy account of the
often superimposed, create density only to frac- annunciation, in a style which has enough of the
ture it. A little later on, some of the technical con- brash commercialism of Jesus Christ Superstar to
sequences of these tensions will be discussed. make some listeners nervously anticipate a more
protracted presentation of the pop idiom of the
xT x"E TTHETHER or not there are even 'songplay' I was looking at the ceiling, and then I
fewer echoes from 'the long cen- saw the sky (1995). The technical prowess, and
turies of Christian music' in El longer-range thinking, of a 'serious' composer soon
V Ninio than in The Last Supper, become apparent, however. Not only is there the
there are abundant and intended generic echoes, generative potential of rhythmic displacements
arising from Adams's desire to write 'a work about and shifts of accent, but the move away from
birth' and also 'to write a Messiah'. Michael Stein- tonal centredness and consonance in the first
berg has said that 'El Nino is deeply Handelian in movement's final stages adumbrates the motion
two senses: in the simplicity and directness with between the celebration of joy (heaven on earth)
which the words convey their message of belief, and the depiction of violence (hell on earth) which
and in the joy the composer takes in setting Eng- is the work's main dramatic feature.

THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002 19

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 · = 156

Piccolo 1

Piccolo 2
vQ

Glockenspiel

Celesta
9) J3 3i 1 3 J
1 Ca. sempre
A
Sampler
8 'Star'
) 1 3 J
3-
PP

Chorus
sopranos

Violin I
9)
p

A I 3 I 1---31 I

9) r

a . a.

I) 3 1 I 3 I 3 i I 3

A
9) 'I
I 3 I 3 i

O-) . I K( Tl
A lit - tle girl comes

Ex.2: Adams: El Nino, no.11, 'The Christmas star', bars 1-10

20 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 vJ I 3 1 I 3 I I 3 l
PPP

r J - - J I

3 I 3 ~ I 3

runjb b-- . _
runa - -nig secuhan cr- ries a? star. 7

run -ning, she caught and car - ries a star._

@ r^TLrrfrr^ rf rrTAr
Nevertheless, the move from
Steinberg claims medieval
that the poem 'The Christmas star' English
to twentieth-century Spanish
by the Chilean Gabriela Mistral texts
(set in English will seem
translation) 'evokes
merely politically correct unlessthe mixed ecstasy
the andmusic
pain of adjusts
its range. For Robert religious
Stein, revelation'. There is certainly a striking
reviewing the first per-
formance, Adams's setting
shift here from the emphasisof Castellanos's
on the human pain 'La
and pleasure of childbirth
anunciacion' is 'less successful. Itwhich is hasa governed
poem of rich
imagery, troubled but the work to this point. On
rather the face of it 'The
prolix, and Adams
draws attention to eachChristmasof star' isits 400
a surreal account words
of the special by omit-
susceptibility of the innocent young
ting the musical thoughtfulness that to intense
has earned
him the status of the world's
experience, most
and - by extension - of thefrequently
total trans- per-
formed living composer'.
formation (a purgation by fire) which such expe-
rience can visit for
This seems a little severe, on all humanity.
although The images the text
which appear
is indeed 'rather prolix', to determine the music,
Adams's settingat least in thought-
fully follows its basic tripartite
the early structure,
stages, are those of running and flying. each of
the three sections (lasting
An F# major modenine-and-a-half
is set out in a layered contra- minutes
puntal texture, piccolo and violins
in total) tracing an intensifying marking theof faster
curve
speeds, widening registers and
fast crotchet beat (156) bolder
while glockenspiel, ce- shapes in
the vocal line, supported by
lesta and sampler denser
cut across accompani-
this with triplet
mental harmonies. At the
rhythms and asame time,
few dissonant pitches (ex.2).Stein
Even is right
to view the work's best moments as those which when the girl 'falls headlong' there is no sudden
are 'drawn precisely from the strategy of distillingdescent to the bass, but a simple enharmonic shift
complex ideas that is at the heart of The Death of(F#/Gb) and a change of basic harmony to Al7
Klinghoffer as well as Nixon', and to praise 'The with strongly dissonant Dhs - the eventual tonic
Christmas star', the movement which ends Part 1.an alien presence here - all the time with elabo-
Here, 'distilling complex ideas' does not imply theration of the accompanying polyphonic layers
steady-state exuberance of a 'pure' minimalism,embodying transition and intensification.
but an intensifying superimposition (enhanced, The second phase of the 241-bar movement
of course, when stage action and silent film also begins at bar 67. Here the mode has shed all its
contribute). accidentals except for Bb, and the texture has
This seven-minute movement contains the most briefly thinned down. Triplet counterings of the
purely ecstatic music in the whole of El Nino. insistent duples have disappeared, and the main

THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002 21

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 agent of counterpuntal layering is vocal, since a mother with your fruit', a more flowing texture
second text is introduced. Hildegard of Bingen's emerges, with falling ostinato figures in wind and
'O quam preciosa' is an extraordinary hymn to percussion counterpointing ascending arpeggia-
the magic of the Virgin birth, likening the birth of tions, tremolando, in the strings. This musical
Christ to a dawn which offers access to paradise. portrayal of flowing water turns towards the
Adams's choral setting, initially in octaves, with genre of the berceuse as the movement's second
its transposed Dorian mode on G, starts close to text, Rosario Castellanos's poem 'Una palmera', is
Hildegard (ex.3) and evolves into a kind of fan- introduced (for preference) by a children's choir.
tasia on the original responsory. Set against the This apostrophises the palm tree as the source of
continuation of Mistra's English, and the diverse nourishment, and something to be worshipped -
ostinato patterns in five distinct layers (strings, possibly a symbol for the Mother of God herself,
harp, piano, metal percussion, woodwind), the but in any case further evidence of the earth
shimmering texture very gradually intensifies, 'coming to the aid of the child'. The final passage
first with greater rhythmic diversity (from semi- from the psudo-Matthew narrative is super-
quaver patterns to crotchet triplets). The soprano imposed on the sung poem as a speech-song line
and mezzo soloists abandon Mistral for a while to for the solo baritone, and it is this passage which
join with the chorus in increasingly high-reach- brings back the image of paradise, referring to
ing lyric lines to Hildegard's text: and then, at barJesus's words about the trees 'which are in my
153, a strong bass D, doubling octaves below the Father's paradise'. Pseudo-Matthew and Castel-
middle D which was introduced in violas, then lanos converge most directly with the image of
soft trombones (from bar 136), roots the har- 'fountains of water' beginning 'to pour out
mony securely for the first time. through the roots' (Matthew), and of the 'cup in-
In the third and final phase of the movement to which the skies/pour one by one' (Castellanos).
this bass D is 'composed out' by way of two large- But Adams does not simply provide an accu-
scale Plagal cadences - another 'archaic' device mulation of 'pouring' shapes in the music which
that underpins the move to a more complex text-gradually fade away A sustained, dissonant chord
ural layering, as the last lines of the Mistral poem is assembled in brass and divided violins against
appear against those of Hildegard's responsory in the flowing lines, and crescendos to a treble forte
the voices, and the full orchestral ensemble is at cut off as the guitars and voices begin their final
its most stratifed, ranging from semiquaver oscil- stanza (ex.4). Does this dissonance invoke the
lations to broadly flowing lines, some doubling'dark land of men' of the Castellanos poem? Does
the voices, most independent. In this way Adams it shadow the innocents' massacre (by Herod, by
matches the textual conjunction: 'the entire earth Mexican police) and foreshadow the death of
is burning' (Mistral), while the birth of Christ has Christ? Its musical effect is to make the gentle end-
'opened paradise' (Hildegard). As will also be theing all the more poignant, of course. Innocence is
case at the end of Part 2, however, Adams gradu- there to be lost - even if you believe in miracles.
ally shades the texture down so that the final
whispers of 'paradisum', fading against the sus- TH wOW you hear the balance of moods in
tained D bass and the remaining fragments of El Nino, and whether you feel the end-
ostinato, can be heard as a vision that grows more ing heals and resolves the earlier ten-
elusive rather than more secure. The distillation sions or simply sets them to one side,
dissolves, the fire dies down, the last song-like will naturally determine the extent to which you
oboe phrase unresolved on C#. judge it an essentially 'feel-good' work. What feel-
After the miracle, and radiant promise, ofings emerge at the end of The Last Supper? Adams's
Christ's birth in Part 1, Part 2 of El Nino culmi-closing image seems to involve the capacity of
nates with a more down-to-earth miracle, invol- nature and religion to nourish body and soul.
ving the live-saving fertility of the unpolluted
But, as suggested earlier, Robin Blaser's text for
natural world. While the episodes depicting theBirtwistle is, with its metaphysical pretensions, a
massacre of the innocents might bring with themgood deal more ambivalent than the combination
associations with the violence of the crucifixion of Castellanos and pseudo-Matthew, or of Gab-
for some listeners, it is hard to see the final stagesriela Mistral and Hildegard of Bingen.
as anything other than an affirmation of the para- Birtwistle determines that the opera's final stages
disal innocence which belief in the virgin birth begin (around bar 1786) after Christ's climac-
requires. The text does not superimpose modern tic declaration (from bar 1760): 'I am the good
English and medieval Latin, but juxtaposes theshepherd/I am./You invited me/Whether you
ancient Gospel of pseudo-Matthew with modern believed in me or not,/I was there./I'm inside
Spanish. In the first part, a pseudo-Matthew nar-you./I talked of sheep and lambs/of fishing, of
rative is initially set in relatively plain recitativemustard seeds/That was before we entered the
style. But after the infant Jesus has instructed thecity to seek justice/a human skill like love'. The
palm tree to 'Bend down, tree, and refresh mymixture of past and present tenses here throws

22 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [J = 156] intensely
A F M NI I PM I I _ I

Mezzo soprano - I- J J ItJ J JJ JJIJ JJJ 1- H

Peo -ple shout at her_ and she won't let go;_ her
mf
Countertenors
2&3
@ bt t' b; t ib 11 b; i1
ah o ah o a ah ah o ah o

s: - I - I - i P I
Chorus
sopranos & altos
0

Chorus
tenors & basses 9:t - I - I'- fr I I '
o

Simplified nmf
accompaniment

(c v r sbf t fS bs r S f

--- 3 --
i L k

~rw!-' ^rr r- lf I- l'-i:~lfr

hands are cov -ered with bums,_ she won't let it go, she won't re-lease the star.

ah o ah o ah o ah - o ah o ah- o

4 j IJ i- r I-
: f r r r' ir r -1' ir ' f It ; -
l7( M ! $ $$ 9 f$ s< s$ b

Ex.3: Adams: El Nino, no.11, 'The

down and the disciples (who echo

challenge a which Christ's - English - the re
intensifies. Musically,
words in Latin). But just as this enactment the
looks next
is built around
set to continue as if in the broodin
'historical' reconstruction,
stepped cantus
with Peter displayinginagitation atviolas,
the mention of (la
horns), shown
a betrayer, Christ in
turns to theEx.lb,
Ghost: 'Ghost, dear with
above and below which settle on a sustained C in heart, I've [we've] discovered your name. Come,
the bass. It begins with a solemn representation join us here at the table'. Is the Ghost, the repre-
of the sharing of bread and wine between Christ sentative of modern humanity, thereby identified

THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002 23

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 (Inaudible at first, but gradually
emerging as the orchestra gets softer.)
[J. = 68] v

Soprano

Se-o - ra de los
p

Alto

Se-nio - ra de los

Guitar
g# # - - - 9# r^T"- § r##r #1
{ g 8
Piano

8 #i ##i ## 9 ##8 \ 8 ##fi ##

continue crescendo

4 ^LI - I 19 I r 9 ^ I
vien - tos, gar - za de la lla - nu - ra,

vi J 4 - - I d la 11a- n JI - r
vien -tos, gar - za de la lla - nu - ra,

') r r 6 I r t * I #

14 "#e ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~~~~~~ 19

9)
OAtt^it^ tti tt: B
Brass cuts off, leaving only tremolo strings

Ex.4: Adams: El Nino, no.24, 'A palm tree', bars 206-1

as a betrayer? As lier, the

already Ghostthe
noted, haslat
re
ary tableau of completes
Christ in the and depar
Garden o
mane, and the
sound of the
'clothed in cockcrow d
a rose I ex
other birdsong at this
the context,
very end, migh
Christ's
contrived the questions
to leave the incomplete, of unfu
what
is, who is betrayed, and who
(capable of does the n
love but b
as open as and questions
the parallel to assure concern
humani
is seeking whom, andthere are is
what things
being'bey
sou
ser's text is an exegete's paradise,
The final wordsor ofnig
th
simply because and theological
both appearing as a s
and
certainties are so difficult to distill
audience, afterfrom it
the 'b
Christ's final sungare as follows:
words (from 'Here
bar 18 w
ex. c) are the most lives. Deathof
enigmatic is all:
not'Let
ou
where
come life/the longest we rose./Dear
lasting find ourse
part with this./[to ourthe disciples]
own'. Perhaps Com
th
walk among the oliveability
treestoin aspire - th
the garden
of the joy she kept./[to Ghost, and
to the visionary pros
at the
Your heart is not yet same
totally time,
yours'. o
Slig

24 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [J c.60] Flute

t4 "-- I-3---. I ._
Pp p y pp

(Viola)

P--- - -- S4 b._ p~
p (Bas
(Bassoon)

9:to -J bo Lo (b)o
„ o - -0--
(ve)(oublI
--1 I__
I
th
H < Y
(Double bassoon)

Ex.5: Birtwistle: The Last Supper, bars 1925-28 - orchestral parts only

believing humanity to accept Supper's ending is

- with a distillation
regret of the opera's
- the
absence of immortality, and to acknowledge,
predominant genre, what we might term ifthe 'pro-
not succumb to, the appeal cessional' of religion, if
arioso, which the fact
is open-ended enough to
that neither love nor death are ours to determine transmute into antiphonal motet-like vocal/choral
is accepted (humanism being a 'shadow' religion ensembles (the remnants of that 'background'
where love and death are concerned). Neverthe- Mass which Birtwistle once considered providing
less, Christ ('the Messiah coming in his tank') can for the work) or into more dance-like or other-
be regarded as a threat to stoic, liberal humanism, wise active strophe and refrain forms. It is the
for little remains of the Christian vision if it is ghost of the strophe/refrain dialogue that survives
seen merely as confirming the knowledge that into the coda from bar 1914, with instrumental
most humans tend to aspire in ways which leaves layers that emphasise repetition and evolution
them sensing a degree of unfulfilment - even if respectively, and a vocal line that unfolds, with-
they also accept this as inherent in the human out obvious motivic processes, using a scheme of
condition. structurally, and therefore expressively significant
While this verbal action is being played out, spanning tones - centres with their shadows - for
Birtwistle's music moves to an ending which not its successive phrases: D/AK: DA/Ab: F/Ab: Ek/D~:
only echoes old devices, but does so in ways com- A/A.
parable to the endings of both parts of El Nino. Birtwistle's use of ostinato in this coda is
The old devices are cadences, with a dissonant another example of technical common ground
version of a perfect cadence in D occurring as with Adams, and of the kind of shared belief in
Christ exits (bar 1909), and a dissonant version the continued viability of long-established tech-
of a Plagal cadence in D as the ghost exits (bars nical procedures, which reaches over the obvious
1927-28). It would be possible to introduce a and extreme stylistic differences - not rendering
narrative at this point which considered the those differences insignificant, of course. El Nino
evidence for D as a focal pitch-centre, intermit-
and The Last Supper offer very different perspec-
tently but decisively present throughout The Last
tives on the genres of hymn, or canticle, or motet:
Supper, from the first unambiguous cadence in and Adams's melodic manner, at least when he is
bar 6, as part of an 'old/new' dialectic between depicting violence and terror, is not as different
centred and non-centred music. But the last three from Birtwistle's as might initially be assumed. I
bars of instrumental music in themselves neatly would not wish to end with singing a song of ulti-
illustrate the balance Birtwistle has established mate convergence, however. Of the two, it must
between centres and their shadows - D with both be Adams who comes closest to matching Grisey's
DM and Eb, and the final horn Ab echoing the start- 'music for the dawn of a humanity finally dis-
ing point of that recurrent ascending figure, span- encumbered of the nightmare' - or is it for a hu-
ning Ab to D (ex.5). These three bars conclude manity able to pretend that the nightmare does
the Ghost's fifteen-bar coda, and however con- not exist? Birtwistle, grappling with the semantic
clusive the musical content, there seems to be no complexities of Blaser's Ghost, creates no sense of
a new beginning, rather the possibility of con-
more 'resonant' generic association here - at least
if the comparison is with El Nino's final cradle tinuing with the old doubts in a spirit of stoic
song. Yet the musical character of The Last humanism.

THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002 25

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
10. See Michael IT DOES NOT take much thought about the Adams and Birtwistle on the one hand, Harvey
Fuller's review
nature of the interaction between centred- and Tavener on the other, have much to do with
of Brian K. Etter's
From classicism to ness and its opposite in Birtwistle's music tothe differences between sceptics and adepts. The
modernism: western render redundant simplistic assertions aboutsceptics' message seems to be that we can learn
musical culture and associations between the avant-garde and 'an ex- from the Christian story, and from its regular re-
the metaphysics pression of a fundamentally nihilistic perspective telling: but what we believe about life and death
of order, in The
Musical Times
that denies the notions of progress and of goal- is another matter. If, in El Nino, Adams turns
(Summer 2002), orientation, and hence of metaphysical goodness aside from the shadow of the void beyond human
pp.79-80. and of meaning in general'.10 Birtwistle's music experience, Birtwistle's The Last Supper - not nihil-
may be, by traditional standards, 'unremittinglyistically, but realistically - brings that shadow to
dissonant and unmelodic'. But that does not make centre-stage.
it 'the fruit of a metaphysic that denies the good-
Arnold Whittall's ness of any actual existent', and Michael Fuller The extracts from The Last Supper are © Copyright
new book, has already indicated the flaws in Brian Etter's 2000 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd,
Exploring twentieth- 'pessimistic view of the ability of works of the and those from El Nino are © Copyright 2000 by
century music,
twentieth-century avant-garde to speak to a wide Hendon Music, Inc. A Boosey & Hawkes Company.
will be published
by Cambridge
audience', a view which is 'unjustified, given such Copyright for all countries. All rights reserved.
University Press in counter examples as Berg's Violin Concerto or They are reproduced by kind permission of Boosey
Spring 2003. Wozzeck'. The differences between the work of & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Be sure to the visit the

Musical Times
website at

www.musicaltimes. co.uk
where you will find extracts
from articles, book reviews,
selections from our extensive
archive, the 1998-2000 index,
free access to the listing service
concert-diary.com, and a convenient
means of placing, renewing or
monitoring your subscription.

26 THE MUSICAL TIMES / WINTER 2002

This content downloaded from
82.49.19.160 on Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:40:41 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms