lerusalem, lerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum

 

This rounding-turning music emerges from the concluding refrain of Thomas Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah I – made from my own automatic-singing as I traced canons of the original Tallis in meditation. I remember the first time I heard the Tallis Lamentations as a teenager; the choir singing from the back of the church in a dark service during Holy Week. I don't remember if I knew in that moment – the moment where Tallis' music pauses for the striking call to return – that the words meant 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn back to the Lord your God', or if I knew about the destruction of the First or Second Temple, or if I had any way to understand these ancient laments for Jerusalem: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!” (Lamentations 1:1)

 

What I do remember is the clarity of that message through the music. Tallis' setting of the word 'Jerusalem' is enough to make anyone yearn to come back to a long-forgotten god. I suppose I've become a non-believer over the years; always holding a vague but deep-felt sense that I might need to return one day. In my wanderings (certainly aimless when compared to my youth), I have turned to company and community in lieu of a spiritual life. This composition – with each duo and trio as a congregation of its own – celebrates that scenario, both for its beauty and its incompleteness.

 

CM