One of the greatest pleasures for me in writing these music posts lies in finding out about choral composers who are active today. Yes, it’s always rewarding to find out more about the creative geniuses of the past, and I’m typically surprised when diving into the life of someone such as, say, Antonio Vivaldi or Robert Schumann. So fascinating! But guess what? I can’t go onto those guys’ websites and use the contact form. I can’t message them on Facebook. It’s very gratifying to get info straight from the composer’s mouth, as it were, as I’ve been privileged to do a number of times.
So I was pleased to find out that we’re singing a piece by Elaine Hagenberg for the October 2021 concert of the Cherry Creek Chorale, my beloved community choir. Our conductor, Brian Leatherman, had told us previously that a consortium of choirs had commissioned a 20-minute piece from Hagenberg which will be premiered in May 2022, but I didn’t know until the music list came out that we were also performing an already-published short work of hers. The title led me to believe that we were singing the Randall Thompson version, which we have done before and which is seriously, seriously great. But so is the Hagenberg piece! My take, as a totally underqualified music analyst, is that Thompson is . . . sturdier? And Hagenberg more . . . lyrical? Or is that too gender stereotypical? What I think is really interesting is that Thompson’s piece is more than double the length of Hagenberg’s but that he uses only the single word “alleluia,” while Hagenberg has a middle section in which she uses text from St. Augustine. Very different approaches, totally masterful results.
I guess I should explain who Elaine Hagenberg is. According to a 2018 interview on Iowa Public Radio, Hagenberg, who is a graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, had gotten more and more interested in the possibility of composing and started “sending in her music to publishers.” Her first published piece dates to 2013, an arrangement of “I Will Be a Child of Peace,” an old Shaker hymn. She’s been very busy in the years since then, having produced over 50 published pieces. I’ll do a deeper dive into her life and work when we perform the longer commissioned piece next May.
But I must hasten on to the text of this piece, written by St. Augustine a l-o-o-o-n-g time ago:
All shall be Amen and Alleluia.
We shall rest and we shall see.
We shall see and we shall know.
We shall know and we shall love.
Behold our end which is no end.
-St. Augustine (354-430)
The poem is often called a “resurrection prayer” and is sometimes used today as part of a funeral or burial service. But as far as I can tell, Augustine didn’t write it in this exact form; the original text comes almost at the end of his theology treatise The City of God:
There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. [He then adds this further thought: For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?]
It may be that Augustine later included the “amen and alleluia” line and recast it in the way it’s usually written, but I haven’t been able to find that version in his actual works. So the issue will have to stay unresolved. But I can’t resist including the final sentences of COG, as Augustine has a twinkle in his eye as he writes:
I think I have now, by God’s help, discharged my obligation in writing this large work. Let those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God. Amen. (both quotations taken from NewAdvent; originally from St. Augustine’s ‘The City of God, Bk. XXII, Chap. 30)
Let me share some info from a discussion guide that Hagenberg graciously shared with me about her inspiration for the piece:
One summer evening, I took a manuscript notebook and this beautiful text by St. Augustine and visited the rose gardens at dusk. I remember sketching all the ways I could sing the word “Alleluia.” As the sunset filtered through the trees, I envisioned the light and beauty of eternity.
Note that the text is all in the future tense. (No idea exactly what the original said; ancient languages have, like, 75 verb tenses.) “Amen” means “be it so.” If a pastor’s sermon elicits amens from the congregation, they’re really saying, “yes, I agree” or “yes, you’re right.” “Alleluia” or “hallelujah” comes originally from Hebrew, הַלְלוּ יָהּ or “hallĕlūyāh,” and means “praise to God!” Note the exclamation point; the word is meant as a shout of praise. In heaven, all things will be the way they should be and God will be praised at all times.
The next three lines show a progression of ideas. Four concepts are chained together, linked by repetition. First, “rest.” The initial use of this concept in the Bible occurs after God has created the world and then “rests”—”And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.” (Genesis 2:2 ERV) Near the end of the Christian New Testament the same concept is applied to the people of God: “God rested after he finished his work. So everyone who enters God’s place of rest will also have rest from their own work just as God did.” (Hebrews 4:10 ERV) It’s not really a put-your-feet-up-on-the-coffee-table kind of thing but more of a sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment. The next step is to “see,” or look at, what has been done. But seeing isn’t enough; we must “know,” or understand. And when that happens we will love. As I Corinthians 13, the “love chapter,” says,
For now we see obscurely in a mirror,
but then it will be face to face.
Now I know partly; then I will know fully,
just as God has fully known me.
But for now, three things last —trust, hope, love;
and the greatest of these is love.
(I Corinthians 13:12-13 CJB)
And this state of affairs will never end. We will have no sense of time in eternity, because there is no time. We can’t possibly imagine this state of affairs because we are temporal creatures. Heaven is the last stage or the end, but it has no end. And there Augustine ends. So should this post, I guess.
For the performance video to be included, I chose one that is fully anchored in time, one that was made during the COVID pandemic, completely with masks, social distancing, temperature taking, and Zooms. It’s always hard for me to understand how people can sound so great when they’re singing through masks, but they do.
And here’s a link to the article about the Thompson “Alleluia.”
