Genre: Choral
Mood: Religious
Forces: SATB
Length: 5 Minutes
This choral piece, inspired by the windows at All Saints’ Church, Tudeley, sets The Windows by George Herbert, interspersed with quotations from Marc Chagall.
Chagall:
Blue is the colour of love
George Herbert:
Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?
He is a brittle crazie glasse:
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
Chagall:
Blue is the colour of love; red is the colour of joy
Colour is everything.
George Herbert:
But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy Preachers ; then the light and glorie
More reverend grows, and more doth win:
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.
Chagall:
If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing
George Herbert:
Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe: but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience ring.
Chagall:
My painting represents not the dream of one people but of all humanity.
First performance: Cantate Choir, Robin Walker, All Saints' Church Tudeley, 23 June 2018.