I am caught up in a week of music at the Dartington International Summer School, and find myself rehearsing to sing Haydn’s Harmoniemesse . Happily I am with a particularly strong group of tenors because it is a late piece by the indefatigable master, and full of musical invention, cunning twists and turns, tricky fugues and unusual syncopations to catch the unwary, but also includes in plain four line harmony containing the text of these particular Latin words and delivered with simple and absolute certainty.
Unam Sanctam Catholicum – despite Haydn as an old man experiencing the savagery of revolution having witnessed the siege of
Except I am brought to a juddering halt these last days in our weekly conversations here by the presence of the twelve million people – or is it more – made homeless by the floods in Pakistan, and – the report broadcast last night using these words – being “under the threat of the fear of death”. It was meant as a journalistic phrase to be used by the television reporter in situ speaking to camera to add weight to his report, but I quickly realized after hearing the words that I lacked the imagination to understand them. It was and is simply too many people for me to bring to mind at one time, and all of them under the threat, not of death itself because it is certain that not all of them will die as a result of the floods, but under the fear of the threat of death; this certainty – unam – all of them, one and all, in fear.
Our humanitarian response to natural disasters being one of the abiding ways we continue to act together– unam, one and all – in fear, and I have placed this remark by the television reporter alongside that other more perplexing phrase which I had previously referred to, the one used by Tony Judt in his ongoing NYRB ‘Series of Memoirs; “The Democracy of Fear”. And also besides another reference – Hopes and Utopias. Jose Saramago gave this heading for his blog for 30th September 2008, which year of blogging by this other indefatigable master now forms a book that I am reading currently, one of his last published before his death last June. It is called The Notebook. Saramago was no friend of the Catholic church, and this transcribed blog entry (along with several others in the book) delivers an attack on the very partial – not unam – compassionate hand of the church.
And yet, in a way I am unable to explain (and I am not a member of the Church of Rome), I find myself singing with heart and conviction as we rehearsed today – Et unam sanctam catholicam.