Central Italy. The Angelus bell tolled across the dusky hills. Its plangent tone added a tenor to the crystal-like tinkling of the goat bells as the animals scratched their way around the olive groves. The setting sun incarnadined the white-washed facade of the little church on the hill. In the distance, beyond the undulating hills, the cupola of a large cathedral stood out against the blooded sky.
A gravelled terrace extended in front of the church. Down one side of it a clerical figure in biretta and long gown paced up and down. With both hands he held a breviary. Mouthing the words silently Father Antonio read a meditation. In his forties, the priest’s hair was greying but his sharp jaw and distinct eyebrows imparted an impulsively youthful appearance to his face.
To the right of the church a wrought-iron gate gave way to a small inner courtyard festooned with vines rising up from serried ranks of terracotta pots. Father Antonio pushed aside the unlocked gate and entered within. A black-and-white cat with a somewhat torn ear glided up to him and stroked his face against the priest’s cassock.
“Good evening, dear Barnabas, and has the maid given you your supper yet?”
The purring of the cat intimated to him that this was, indeed, the case. To the side of the courtyard a narrow flight of stairs led to an upper room. Up the flights went the chaplain, opened a creaky oak door and retired into his study. Bare-walled, except for a picture of the Virgin and Child, the room was as monastic a cell as one could find. One side of its minuscule dimensions was taken up by a low bed. The other side was largely filled by an inordinately ornate sacristy cupboard with little angle putti attempting to fly from its corners. The Father opened the cupboard’s large door which disclosed shelves upon shelves of large flat-laid folios. From the top shelf he took out an unfinished manuscript and read out the opening bars of a score penned in a cursive but neat hand.
Softly he sang the opening syllables of his new motet: Salve Regina, mater misericordiae, Hail Holy Queen Mother of mercy. The notes, written with the time signature alla breve, gave away their origin in the archaic melodies of plainchant. However, on the four lower staves, which were assigned to the stringed instruments, the busy quaver figurations full of rushing arpeggiandos and crescendos showed that this composer was fully aware of le style galant and the spreading influence of the Neapolitan school.
Salve Regina Hail Queen.
Antonio sharpened his goose quill. “One more section and then it will be finished”, he thought.
The pen etched its notes on the paper. To the words O clemens Father Antonio added sound, harmony to make the words fly even higher, to fill his congregation with the intimations of a higher life, more perfect and purer than anything one could ever hope to experience on this earth.
The cat came in the open door. He found a goose quill on the floor and started to play with it, toying with his claws and tossing it hither and thither: the smell of a featured creature was too strong for its instinct.
Engrossed in the activity the cat did not even wink at the motionless presence of the Father leaned over the half-written sheet of manuscript.
In an Edwardian inner-London suburb the May wind rustled through the plane trees bordering the row of red-bricked villas. John placed his record of eighteenth century motets on the turntable. It was one of his favourites from his large collection of vinyl and was the crowning achievement of his pet project.
He cast his mind back to its genesis. It was during a holiday in Italy. He was seeking shade in the empty porticoes of a white-hot and deserted northern Italian city. Was it Turin or Bologna? He couldn’t quite remember. Anyway, taking a side turning he found a shop with its shutters still unfolded. He though it strange that, with all the other blinds down for the couple of hours the whole town fell asleep exhausted from the searing heat of the summer afternoon, this place should still be open.
It was a second-hand shop. Entering into its crepuscular gloom from the blinding light outside he almost crashed into a large piece of church furniture. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he noticed its ornate carvings with angels on the corners. An elderly gentleman shuffled towards him.
“May I help you”, he asked.
“What an extraordinary cupboard,” replied John.
“Yes, it is rather nice,” he replied, as he opened one of the doors.
A whiff of mildewed parchment hit John’s nostrils as he did so. Inside, on one of the shelves he could discern an untidy pile of what appeared to be large folio manuscripts, music manuscripts as they turned out to be. At the top of one sheet was written in a shaky but neat hand Padre Antonio incipit. In the hand of Father Antonio.
Back in London John, a lecturer in the history of music, presented news of his find to the Music library of the British Museum. They agreed to take the manuscripts for conservation and storage. One of them had particularly attracted John, It was a motet, unfinished, to the words of the Antiphon Salve Regina. What drew him to it was the enticing mixture of plainchant and intermezzo style. The flattened Neapolitan seconds and sevenths gave to the piece the seductive quality of a dark southern beauty calling to him like the evening waters on the shore of a mythological sea town. Later, with a band of amateur singers recruited from his church choir, he had made a private recording of a selection of these manuscripts.
Although unfinished, because of its great beauty John decided to also include the Salve Regina. He took the record and placed on his turntable.
An E minor chord intoned by the choir started the Marian antiphon. Vita Dulcedo et spes nostra salve. Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.
Hope, yes hope indeed. And the sweetness, the recollection of those arcadian days of youth and high expectations flourishing among the grassy banks and tender kisses of his loved one. How their bodies had quivered to the touch of each others fingers, her tongue in his exploring each other like an hidden sea grotto whose entrance was only uncovered when the tides went down.
Ad te clamamus. To thee do we cry poor banished children of Eve. Yes cry. He had done that many times. Internally too. It was no longer necessary to waste visible tears on this. Gementes and flentes, mourning and weeping. Mourning and weeping for my lost love for her radiant body, so confident so proud, her nipples erect on her perfect breasts. O to be one of her babies and suckle on her teats. What a mother she would be! In hac lacrimarum valle. In this vale of tears. Stroking the cat he felt her hair between his fingers: her raven hair thick and flourishing cascading over his skin. Turn then, thine eyes of mercy…eja ergo.
I though it unfinished. But it plays to the end.
The O clemens O pia..o merciful o loving..o dulcis Virgo Maria! O sweet Virgin Mary. A rainbow of iridescent colours seemed to flow swirling round his eyes. A golden light appeared to penetrate his brain. A delicious feeling spread through his body. Bliss, bliss o this was too much, too much to bear.
Sarah came into the room. Across the sofa she found his lifeless body draped down one side of the sofa. A cat was licking John’s face and nuzzling into his neck.
