EILEEN BATTERSBYon Joseph Heller, Hildegard of Bingen and Lent
EASILY BORED AND as famously tetchy as he was witty, Catch-22author Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was rather philosophical though never claimed to be particularly spiritual. The sacred was not something that interested him, possibly because he had seen enough death as a bombardier during the second World War to have consolidated the innate cynicism of his Coney Island boyhood.
However about five years before his death at the age of 76 he discovered a piece of music that was to become, much to his own surprise: "My very favourite tune." Heller's choice was not a Gershwin hit but was instead The Miserereby Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652). Composed in the 1630s for two choirs, one of five voices, the other of four, this setting of Psalm 51 was intended to be sung during Holy Week and has become part of the Passion litany. That it is astonishingly beautiful with its soaring phrases is only to be expected, the sacred music of lamentation from earliest plainsong to the Renaissance and on to the Baroque is among the most glorious ever written. But that a major work of Renaissance polyphony should have so beguiled the wily Heller amused him no end, doubly when he discovered the translation is "Have Mercy on Me, God".
Allegri was from Rome and, after beginning his musical life as a choirboy, studied for the priesthood before joining the papal choir in 1629. His immortality rests on this one work, so revered by the Vatican that the printed copies were zealously guarded, although, Mozart, or so the story goes, having heard it sung while attending a service in Rome, secretly wrote it down from memory – very Catch-22, that image of Mozart pirating music. Any opinions held by Heller on the subject of honorary doctorates are unrecorded, although having attended university under the GI Bill through which he took a BA before completing a masters at Colombia, he is likely have been critical of degrees being handed out like bouquets.
Writers don’t tend to take honorary doctorates as seriously as those more humble members of community, such as bankers and businessmen who are often suddenly transformed from “Mr” to “Dr” as if by a fairy godmother’s wand. One honorary doctorate that will be applauded is soon to be granted to the medieval German composer Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic and visionary who composed more than 70 works which form an innovative cycle challenging the boundaries of traditional chant. She was born in 1098, the 10th child of a nobleman and was entrusted to a Benedictine community near Bingen in what is now southern Germany. In time she would establish her own convent.
Known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, she died in 1179. Regarded as a scholar, healer, seer and feminist icon as well as a composer, she will be canonised in September by Pope Benedict XVI who will also make her a doctor of the church.
Hildegard's compositions feature regularly on Tim Thurston's Lyric FM Sunday morning marvel, Gloria, which draws on a thousand years of European sacred music – sublime fare with which to experience the current Lenten season.
