H, P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: ROVERE

 G.: Powell has returned, I take it, with that small exile of a book under his arm. S.: Quietly, as moral requirements do. G.: Exactly. He has asked me to set one of Rovere’s Inni sacri to music, which is the sort of request that arrives dressed as culture and leaves dressed as labour. S.: You sound touched. G.: Only in the sense in which one is touched by a tax. S.: Then you have opened the volume. G.: I have. And the first nuisance is perfectly simple: what was the first inno sacro? S.: A reasonable question, though perhaps not one singers ask before they begin emoting. G.: Singers rarely ask reasonable questions before emoting. That is what keeps them singers. S.: And what does the evidence say? G.: The surviving order usually begins with A Santa Geltrude. That is the first hymn listed in the collection as transmitted. [it.wikisource.org], [books.google.com] S.: So Powell has brought you not theology but sequence. G.: Sequence is already a species of theology in such books. One saint before another is never wholly innocent. S.: Then the first hymn is to Saint Gertrude. G.: Yes, as far as the collection’s order goes. One should add that the bibliographical tradition around these hymns is slightly untidy, which only improves it. The title page evidence points to the Paris edition of 1832, and later printings follow. [books.google.com], [archive.org], [fr.wikipedia.org] S.: Untidy books are often more alive than tidy ones. G.: That is because tidy books have usually been dead longer. S.: Then what is the opening line of the first hymn? G.: That is the next difficulty. The index clearly gives A Santa Geltrude as first, but the full page readily available in the material I found shows, in extenso, Alla Chiesa Primitiva. Inno primo, not the beginning of Geltrude. So I can tell you the first hymn in order, but the fullest verified opening line presently visible to me from the text on hand is the opening of Alla Chiesa Primitiva. Inno primo. [it.wikisource.org], [it.wikisource.org] S.: Which is not the same as saying Geltrude does not begin the book. G.: Quite. It only means that the page I can verify immediately is not the first page of the first item. S.: A small but useful distinction. You are becoming almost editorial. G.: Necessity degrades us all. Now, the verified opening line I can give is this: Com’uom che la sua vita ultima spende Tra i letti e le vivande, ansio più sempre Degli osceni trastulli e duramente Grave a sè stesso, con dolor rimembra... [it.wikisource.org] S.: That is rather good. G.: It is more than rather good. It opens as if sacred hymn were going to confess that old age, appetite, memory, and disgust are all already in the room. S.: So not quite the chapel harmonium. G.: No. More like a moral baritone with literary ambitions. S.: Then you could set that. G.: I could, though Powell would sing it as if holiness were chiefly a matter of open vowels. S.: He would also insist on pronouncing every Italian syllable as though it had been educated at Rugby. G.: Very likely. Still, the line has shape. It begins in lived weariness, not merely in official piety. S.: Which already supports your suspicion that these hymns are public things rather than private prayers. G.: Entirely. A hymn is almost never for God alone. It is for God with an audience watching itself feel. S.: That is severe. G.: Accurate enough to deserve severity. Rovere is writing lyrics for shared sincerity, not minutes for angels. S.: Yet Powell said exile was itself a key signature. G.: He did. Singers always think biography improves intonation. S.: Does it? G.: Only in programmes. S.: Then what sort of music do you imagine for the opening? G.: Something too serious for parlour piety and not serious enough for liturgy. A measured tread, perhaps, with an unexpected tenderness at rimembra. S.: So memory before doctrine. G.: Exactly. The line begins in recollection, not proclamation. That is musically useful. S.: And philosophically. G.: Of course. Sacred writing becomes interesting the moment it remembers that the soul arrives with history attached. S.: Then Rovere is not merely writing a hymn, but staging a return. G.: Yes, a return to an earlier purity, or what he wants to market as one. S.: Market is perhaps ungenerous. G.: Publicly circulate, then. Though I do not repent market. S.: You think these hymns are for an audience wanting God, Italy, and its own sincerity in one draught. G.: Precisely. That was my thought even before Powell brightened at the mention of Cristina di Belgiojoso. S.: He likes names. G.: As choirboys like incense. S.: Then perhaps the first hymn matters less as theology than as placement. G.: Very much so. To begin with a saint already tells us that sanctity will be handled as a public object, not merely as inward disposition. S.: Why Geltrude first, do you suppose? G.: One would have to see the actual text of that hymn before making grand claims. But sequence in such collections often balances devotion, variety, and implied programme. S.: You are restraining yourself admirably. G.: Lack of evidence occasionally makes one virtuous. S.: And what do you make of Alla Chiesa Primitiva appearing twice, in two hymns? G.: That is one of the most revealing things. The primitive church is not merely an object of devotion but an organising fantasy. S.: A return to origins. G.: Yes, and therefore also a criticism of the present. Any hymn to the primitive church is already half a complaint against the contemporary one. S.: So even the sacred is polemical. G.: It usually is when printed. S.: Then perhaps your setting should make that audible. G.: Not by banging the keyboard, if that is what you mean. S.: No, by letting nostalgia carry a slight accusation. G.: Exactly. A clear line, unencumbered, but with enough gravity to suggest that the singer is not only worshipping but comparing. S.: Comparing the church that was with the church that is. G.: Yes, and perhaps the Italy that might be with the Italy that still requires too much permission. S.: Powell will not hear that. G.: Singers hear feeling before structure. It is one of their few constitutional limitations. S.: Yet he did hand you the book. G.: He did, and that deserves some gratitude. A singer bringing a philosopher a slim Paris volume is one of civilisation’s quieter spectacles. S.: You sound almost fond of him. G.: Only in moderation. He prefers to think of himself as an instrument rather than a category. S.: And you prefer to think of categories as instruments. G.: Better than most people do, yes. S.: Then if the first hymn is A Santa Geltrude, but the longest verified opening you can presently give is from Alla Chiesa Primitiva. Inno primo, what will you tell Powell? G.: I shall tell him the truth, which is already more than sacred music always asks. I shall say: the collection begins with A Santa Geltrude, but the opening lines I can presently verify in full are those of Alla Chiesa Primitiva. Inno primo. [it.wikisource.org], [it.wikisource.org] S.: He will ask whether that matters. G.: I shall say: bibliographically, yes; musically, not at once. S.: Because a good opening line can be set even if it is not the first item in the contents. G.: Precisely. One composes to the line, not to the table of contents. S.: Though the table of contents does flatter the line by position. G.: It flatters the whole economy. Titles and order are the diplomacy of books. S.: That is good. G.: Keep it, but do not let it become too quotable. S.: Never intentionally. Now, is there anything amusing in the publication line? G.: Always. Paris, Per li torchii di Éverat. It is already halfway between exile and typography. S.: And your old question whether Éverat is French for Everest. G.: Which Powell ignored, proving again that singers are excellent at identifying which questions are merely conversational. S.: Not every conversational question requires uptake. G.: True. Though the good ones deserve it. S.: Then tell me what you think a hymn is, in your driest mood. G.: A hymn is a public utterance in which explicit doctrine is rarely the whole point, because the chorus supplies what the solo line delicately leaves distributed among piety, memory, aspiration, and civic self-recognition. S.: That is almost an article. G.: Heaven forbid. It is merely a defence against sentimentality. S.: And how would Rovere fare under it? G.: Respectably enough. He is not writing bad theology; he is writing the politics of the soul under sacred cover. S.: Set to a tune. G.: Exactly. Which is why Powell is happier than I am. S.: Yet you will accompany him. G.: I did once and may again, out of what my mother taught me was better than piety: good manners under duress. S.: That sounds almost like one of your maxims. G.: A remark, at any rate. S.: Then let us return to the opening line. Com’uom che la sua vita ultima spende. It is not a bad first bar. G.: No, because it begins in temporal exhaustion. One hears at once a late life, a spending out, a human register before sanctity has begun to preen. S.: And then letti e vivande. G.: Which is splendidly awkward in a sacred context. Beds and viands are not the expected furniture of a hymn unless one is about to moralise appetite. S.: So the line begins almost in satiety. G.: Or disgust at satiety. That is why it is musically better than a mere invocation. S.: Better than Salve, perhaps. G.: Far better than Salve, if one wants a mind in the room. S.: Then Rovere’s real gift may be not piety but entry. G.: That is well put. He knows how to begin from a recognisable human condition and rise from there toward the sacred without pretending the distance was never there. S.: Which makes the hymn public again. G.: Entirely. The public likes to be led from itself toward devotion, not dropped into heaven without luggage. S.: Powell would call that expressive. G.: Powell calls everything expressive once he can sustain it above middle C. S.: You are merciless. G.: Only to singers I know. S.: Then how will you set the line? G.: With restraint. If one over-harmonises it, one makes memory sentimental. Better to let the words do the first work and bring the accompaniment in as if recollection itself were finding footing. S.: Almost as if the music remembered before the singer did. G.: Yes, that is not bad. S.: Keep it? G.: Reluctantly. S.: Then what does the hymn imply, before it states anything? G.: That renewal begins in disenchantment. One remembers a purer life only after finding the present over-furnished. S.: Beds and viands again. G.: Yes. Appetite made tiring. That is the hinge. S.: So the sacred emerges through criticism of excess. G.: As it often does in serious verse. Sanctity is rarely interesting until the world has become slightly overupholstered. S.: Oxford understands that. G.: Oxford is built on it. S.: Then perhaps you like Rovere more than you pretend. G.: I like the line, which is not the same thing. S.: But it is the beginning of the same thing. G.: That is too singerish. S.: I have been in bad company. G.: Powell contaminates by proximity. S.: And you, by precision. G.: A better contagion. Now, one more bibliographical point. The search evidence also shows later editions and inclusion in collected Poesie, which confirms the hymns had some afterlife beyond the original Paris moment. [archive.org], [it.wikisource.org], [fr.wikipedia.org] S.: Exile followed by republication. G.: The usual fate of serious Italians. S.: And of not a few English ones. G.: Less elegantly, perhaps. S.: Then your public-class conclusion would be? G.: That the first inno sacro in the collection is A Santa Geltrude, while the fullest verified opening line I can presently place before the piano is from Alla Chiesa Primitiva. Inno primo: Com’uom che la sua vita ultima spende... and that the line is worth setting because it begins not in abstract sanctity but in a human disgust that seeks purification. [it.wikisource.org], [it.wikisource.org] S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Parisian, with a little choir-stall dust. S.: And the punchline? G.: If sacred hymns are the respectable form of implicature, then Powell has done the Christian thing by bringing me the book and the unchristian thing by expecting me to set the theology without first settling the contents page.