The Tower and the Garden

LCCE + Volti perform Gregory Spears - The Tower and the Garden

The Tower and the Garden is a deep meditation on themes of humanity and the environment, composed by Gregory Spears for voices and string quartet, with texts by Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, and Keith Garebian. It was commissioned by a consortium of four vocal ensembles: Volti, Cantori New York, The Crossing, and Notre Dame Vocale, with funding provided by The Ann Stookey Fund for New Music. This video is of the West Coast premiere performance by Volti and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, November 19, 2018.The Tower and the Garden is a setting of three poems for choir and string quartet. The texts juxtapose the dangers of technological hubris (the tower) and the need for a place of refuge (the garden) in a world threatened by war and ecological disaster. Each text suggests ways in which Catholic thought and imagery might challenge the status quo.The first text, poem 80 from the collection “Cables to the Ace,” was written by Trappist monk and social activist Thomas Merton. It is an eschatological meditation on the garden of Gethsemane, where Christ’s disciples slept on the eve of his crucifixion. Merton compares their slumber to society’s indifference to the destruction of our natural world by potentially dangerous new technologies and war.The second text was written by poet and Catholic activist Denise Levertov. It is a meditation on the Tower of Babel and the tendency for technology in the information and nuclear age to serve only its own growth and to potentially destroy our lives in the bargain.The third poem, written by Keith Garebian, is an homage to queer filmmaker Derek Jarman and his cottage garden at Dungeness on the English coast. Situated precariously between a towering nuclear power plant and the sea, the garden was Jarman’s austere refuge during the final months of his struggle with AIDS. While an atheist and highly critical of the church, Derek Jarman was intrigued by the role religious and hagiographic narratives could play in his filmic indictments of Thatcher-era Britain. This is most notable in his film The Garden, which was shot on location in Dungeness. https://youtu.be/Dc0UcNo7z8AAll texts are under copyright, all rights reserved, used with permission.I. / IV.“80” from Cables to the Ace or Familiar Liturgies of Misunderstanding by Thomas Merton (1968). Used with permission.Slowly slowlyComes Christ through the gardenSpeaking to the sacred treesTheir branches bear his lightWithout harmSlowly slowlyComes Christ through the ruinsSeeking the lost discipleA timid oneToo literateTo believe wordsSo he hidesSlowly slowlyChrist rises on the cornfieldsIt is only the harvest moonThe discipleTurns over in his sleepAnd murmurs:“My regret!”The disciple will awakenWhen he knows historyBut slowly slowlyThe Lord of HistoryWeeps into the fire.II.“In the Land of Shinar” from Evening Train by Denise Levertov (1992). Used with permission.Each day the shadow swingsround from west to east till night overtakes it,hidinghalf the slow circle. Each yearthe tower grows taller, spirallingout of its monstrous root-circumference, ramps andcolonnadesmounting tier by lessening tier the way a searchingbird of prey wheels and mounts the sky, drivenby hungers unsated by blood and bones.And the shadow lengthens, our homes nearby aredarkhalf the day, and the bricklayers, stonecutters,carpenters bivouachigh in the scaffolded arcades, further and furtherabove the ground,weary from longer and longer comings and goings.At timesa worksong twirls down the autumn leaf of aphrase, but mostlywe catchonly the harsher sounds of their labor itself, andthat seems onlyan echo now of the bustle and clamor there waslong agowhen the fields were cleared, the hole was dug, thefoundations laidwith boasting and fanfares, the work begun.The tower, great circular honeycomb, rises andrises and stillthe heavensarch above and evade it, while the great shadowengulfsmore and more of the land, our livesdark with the fear a day will blaze, or a full-moonnight definingwith icy brilliance the dense shade, when all theimmenseweight of this wood and brick and stone and metaland massiveweight of dream and weight of willwill collapse, crumble, thunder and fall,fall upon us, the dwellers in shadow.III.“Dungeness Documentary” from Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems by Keith Garebian (2008). All rights reserved by the author. Used with permission.Timbers black with pitchshiver on the shingle.Gulls wheel,squabble over the fishermen’s catch,quicksilver of the sea.The tide invadesthe arid strand,home to larks and tough grasses,cormorants skim the waves.A cottage with two prospects(the old lighthouseand nuclear plant)both lit by sights and sighs.Barbed wire around your gardencannot keep melancholy at bay.