alleluja

At my church every Sunday, the choir gets to go up to the altar first for communion. The choirmaster goes ahead even of us, and when he gets back, he sits at the piano and starts playing the communion music. He told me once that he was hired at one of his first choir direction jobs for a Lutheran church because he used to be a Baptist song leader. So, he sits at the piano and does what he does best: he starts playing communion songs that are only one or two bars long repeated over and over again, with quite a bit of improvisation in the accompaniment between verses.

At the altar rail, my fellow choristers and I join in with his strong mellow baritone (as I mentioned, these songs are not hard) and the congregation joins in as well. But a most magical and wonderful thing happens as we are filing back to our seats.

The first back are the sopranos, myself included, and as we take our seats, the melody grows slowly and sweetly stronger. Next come the altos. One by one, the add their lovely rich harmony to our voices.

“In the sweet (in the sweet) by and by (by and by)…”

Then come the tenors. We have a very strong tenor section and they revel in complex and complementary harmonies, sometimes even making up their own. By this time, the sound has swelled greatly from its humble beginnings. The congregation are making their way up to the altar, and a few are still singing along, but we, the choir, have most certainly taken over the music making by this point.

“Eat this bread, drink this cup. Come to me and never be hungry!”

Finally, the basses join us. We only have two, but they valiantly anchor us to the root of the chord and the sound becomes complete. It’s an amazing thing that hymns as simple as the ones we sing can be as deep and rich and complex both in musicality and in meaning as these hymns are. And the sound is immense. Our voices thrill and swell effortlessly with the Baptist piano stylings of our fearless leader. We decrescendo tenderly to the last note.

It’s a marvelous ritual, and I’ve never before quite felt its like.