Tobias column: Chorale concert will pierce your heart with beauty

I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of singing with my friends in the Albemarle Chorale for seven years. We’ve sung a lot of wonderful music.

But this spring’s concert, I think, will be the loveliest and most meaningful. In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Edenton Resolves (which was a revolutionary action of defiance against the British Crown by 51 courageous women who did not hide behind disguises), the Chorale is singing 11 works either lyricized or composed (or both) by female poets and musicians.

We are performing two times. The first is tomorrow (Sunday, April 28) at the Edenton Methodist Church at 4 p.m. The second is next Sunday (May 5) at the First Methodist Church in Elizabeth City at 4 p.m.

I’ll tell you my favorites of the program straightaway: two compositions by the great Gwyneth Walker — “I Thank You God” (after a poem by e e cummings) and “The Tree of Peace” (after a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier).

Whittier’s poem is surely a song for our time: “Walk with reverence in the steps of those who have gone before, where forgiveness and wisdom have stood. … Then shall all shackles fall. The violence of war shall cease. Love shall tread out the fire of anger, and in its ashes plant a tree of peace.”

“I Will be a Child of Peace” — an old, touching, Shaker hymn arranged by Elaine Hagenberg. It is a simple prayer: “O Holy Father I will be a child of peace and purity, for well I know Thy hand will bless the seeker after righteousness.”

Beauty is not just “in the eye of the beholder,” a mere matter of individual taste. Beauty is a gift. A garden is poetry for the eyes. Music is poetry for the ears. Beauty is poetry for the heart.

The music of this concert in particular is a gift — a gift of over 25 composers and lyricists, 41 singers, two accompanists, and one inimitable director, and many Monday evenings of rehearsal. It is a gift of a different view of things — a view that is more poetic than usual, a view that is humble and meek, that recognizes the lissome glow of “A blue gate, a rainbow on dishwater, candlelight on butter ….”

That last line is from the song “Vision,” a poem written by the great naturalist poet May Thielgaard Watts (who invented the “rails to trails” concept), with music composed by Andrea L Ramsey. As has happened so often, I started out disliking this piece — but challenging, beautiful music wends its way into my stultified self. And now I love this song, and you will too, especially when you hear its last, clinching line.

Which I will not divulge here. I don’t want to spoil the frisson of so lovely a revelation.

Beauty — like this concert’s beauty — is a gift of the spirit to the human heart.

I’ve saved the most heartbreakingly poignant piece of all for last. “Requiem” was written, lyrics and music, by the inestimable American folk singer Eliza Gilkyson and arranged by Craig Hella Johnson). I’ll give you a small taste of this soul-melting threnody:

”In the dark night of the soul

Bring some comfort to us all

Oh Mother Mary come and carry us in your embrace

That our sorrows may be faced

Let us see your gentle face.”

Gilkyson wrote this piece after the horrific tsunami in December 2004. Remember the news back then? All the heart-rending reports of the loss of a quarter-million lives in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific.

Honestly, there have been moments in our Monday night rehearsals when I almost broke down from the utter weight of glory of this music. As C.S. Lewis wrote of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” I’ll say the same of this program:

“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.”

It is a good thing to have our hearts pierced by beauty, by a smile or a kind embrace, by a rose or by a song. Indeed, by “your gentle face.”

You need to come, listen, and let your heart sing.