Seven Churches Of Easter, Richmond 1984 (2002)
Tayloe Harding
About this work:
The Seven Churches of Easter
Richmond, 1984
(2002)
Saxophone Quartet #2
Sunday morning, April 22, 1984 was Easter. I woke up that morning intent on celebrating the day by going to church for the first time since moving back to Richmond, VA the previous August. I had just completed eight months of work at my very first job out of graduate school, at Virginia Commonwealth University. But, I already knew Richmond well, as it was my boyhood home where I lived the first 8 years of my life before moving to Florida when my father retired in 1966. Now I was back there in my first job.
I drove to All Saints Episcopal Church on River Rd in the West End that morning, and went to a fine service. I was drawn to it that day for some reason—perhaps because it was where my family of the 1960’s called our church home, or maybe it was because my Uncle Charles had baptized me there (though admittedly that had happened at the OLD All Saints, Richmond which was downtown and later torn down after the parish moved out to the suburbs in the early 60’s). For whatever reason, All Saints is where I celebrated Easter 1984.
About 24 hrs later, on Monday morning, April 23, 1984, I was awakened by that call a young man with an older father never wants to get—the one where mother forlornly reveals the news of father’s surprising and peaceful passing that very morning, in his sleep.
I was close to my dad. In fact, I revered him like no son could revere a father. His loss was devastating to me when it came, though I had mentally prepared myself for many years for life without him. Perhaps these feelings were made more acute because he was not ill and had squeezed so much life out of his 82 years, only to see it gone in what appeared to be an instant. In any event, the days and weeks which followed that day have played an important part in every single moment of my life since, and it is now time to express what I felt and feel about them in a way most personal for me—in my music.
I came home to Richmond from dad’s interment in his birthplace of Washington, NC that next Saturday resolutely set on finding a spiritual home in Richmond among its amazing collection of beautiful and profound Episcopal churches. I had known of many of them, been in very few of them, but set about to make a plan for which ones I would visit and how I would decide which one to select.
As I thought more deeply, it became clear to me that visiting these churches during the Easter season would allow me to see them at their best, and to really see what the various clergy were like. I had wanted to try every church in the West End, Fan district, downtown area, and near southside, but that accounts for about 15 or so and that would just take too long—I wanted Pentecost to begin with me and my family at home in a parish. So I decided to visit seven different churches, one each on each of the seven Sundays of Easter.
My parents and their families were well connected to Episcopal churches in Richmond. I wanted to make sure that their connections played an important role in my selection of the seven. Besides All Saints, where I went on EASTER 1, there was St. James’ in the Fan on Franklin St where my father had first gone upon arriving in Richmond in 1944 and where he had a Sunday school room named for his first wife following her passing. There was St. Matthew’s on Patterson at Forest where my parents were married in 1956, and Church of the Holy Comforter on Monument at Staples Mill where my Uncle Charles had been rector in the 1960’s.
And there were, of course, the two most historically famous of the Episcopal churches in Richmond: St. John’s Church Hill, where Patrick Henry made the speech which included “give me liberty or give me death,” and St. Paul’s on capitol square where everyone from Jefferson Davis to Robert E. Lee worshipped at one time or another. These had to be on my list, if for no other reason but that they were historic.
Here I had six for sure. But, I was not sure what to do for the seventh. There were many more to choose from: St. Stephen’s, St. Mary’s, St. Mark’s, St. Luke’s, St. Michael’s, St. Andrew’s and numerous others. But, it was the location of Grace and Holy Trinity on the VCU campus where I worked that got me interested in trying it, and I decided it would be the seventh.
As I then set out to decide where to go on Easter 2, I arranged the trips so that I would alternate one of my parent’s churches with one of the two famous ones. Then I would anchor them all with Holy Comforter, Uncle Charles’ church, in the fourth week and finish with my new interest, Grace and Holy Trinity. So, the next day, I set off for St. John’s. And then, in order, St. James’, Holy Comforter, St. Matthew’s, St. Paul’s, and Grace and Holy Trinity. Churches not named after saints then fell into the spots of 1, 4 and 7 while all other Sunday visits would be to saints’ churches. A perfect mix of logic and spiritual order, I thought.
This composition for saxophone quartet is a setting of the experiences I remember in each church. The music reflects a multitude of observations about people and buildings, facts about history and structures, and feelings about all of it and life without my dad. And now, it more further reflects my love for my family and the special place my dad, Charles Tayloe Harding, Sr. and my uncle, Charles Powhatan Moncure had when they were in my life as well.
There are a number of hymn and chant references in various movements. These are interwoven with original themes. There is also a great deal of physical wandering required of the saxophonists in the work as well. These wanderings have both a symbolic significance and also represent characters of some of the churches.
The Seven Churches of Easter
Richmond, 1984
(2002)
I.
All Saints
An imposing contemporary dark red brick building amongst a forest of trees on a hill overlooking the James River, All Saints is a special place. It is the only one of the seven churches where I actually had memories from my earliest days. It is as impressive now as it was in the 1960’s and just as it probably was in its earlier life, on Franklin Street in downtown Richmond. The parish goes back to the 19th century and attracted a great deal of attention from west Richmonders of the age who felt St. Paul’s was too far away. My dear Uncle Charles, whose life and memory are also emblazoned in this work, began singing in the boy choir of the OLD All Saints in the 1930’s.
A meandering setting of a 14th century hymn tune captures my impression of All Saints.
II.
St. John’s
St. John’s is the first of the regal 18th century Episcopal churches in Richmond. Made entirely of frame, this unimposing structure dating from 1741 sits a top Church Hill, named after it, where scores of east Richmonders came on Sundays in the city’s early days. A place of worship has probably sat atop this hill since 1611 when the land was first deeded to Virginia. It was also the site of many colonial gatherings of political and social conscience, further illuminating the fact that it may have had more in common with the fine churches of Boston’s North End than it does with the brick and stone giants of near-west Richmond.
St. John’s sports its own graveyard, a fact that is not unique to Richmond churches, but is unique to the ones I visited that Easter season. Another unique interior feature: a number of the old family-style walled-pews with wooden gates dot the historic cross-shaped nave.
The music here is designed to celebrate, in some small way, the great social awareness and diversity of this noble place and its neighborhood through the centuries. A selected saxophone-celebrant “preaches” to the others throughout.
III.
St. James’
St. James sits under some of the most grand of shady oak trees in all of Richmond on Franklin Street just northwest of the VCU campus. Surrounded o
Year composed: 2002
Duration: 00:30:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Saxophone Quartet
Instrumentation: 1 Soprano Saxophone, 1 Alto Saxophone, 1 Tenor Saxophone, 1 Baritone Saxophone