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concert
Yesterday we took the train into Manhattan to attend a concert. In person, physically in the same room with the performers, which hasn't happened often in the past five years. The concert in question was the world premiere of Sequentia's "Gregorius: the Holy Sinner", a sung-spoken-harped rendition of Hartmann von Aue's 12th-century tale in Middle High German (with English supertitles, which was good because I could only make out an occasional few words in the German).
It's a strange and disturbing story. (The following is all from memory, and I may have some details wrong.)
The Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine have twins, a boy and a girl, who grow up beautiful and healthy and well-behaved. But the mother dies in childbirth, and the father dies of illness ten or so years later, leaving the twins in the protection of the Duke's advisors and one another. Still, they step up to the plate: the twins support, love, and protect one another admirably. The Devil sees this idyllic situation, grows jealous, and as they reach puberty, inspires the boy to have sex with his sister -- not a big stretch, as they've been sharing a bedroom and everything else all their lives, and neither is terribly clear on the whole incest-taboo thing. The girl is surprised, but goes along with it, and after the first time, they discover they enjoy it and keep doing it. Naturally, she gets pregnant, and by the time she starts to show, they've figured out that they're in serious trouble, both with God and with the public. She arranges to give birth in secret, under the supervision of an advisor's wife, while he for penitence goes on a long pilgrimage or crusade or something. Their son, named Gregorius, is beautiful and healthy, but can't be kept around, so the girl and the advisor's wife put him in a box with silken cloths and an ivory tablet explaining his story, put the box in a boat, and push it out to sea.
Gregorius is found by fishermen and raised jointly by a fishing family and an abbot. Being of noble (albeit anonymous) birth, he gets an education at the abbey, and the abbot sees a career for him in the priesthood, but he also hears tales of knighthood and chivalry and leans that direction. At one point he discovers by accident that he's a foundling; he's ashamed, and goes to the abbot to announce that he's leaving to seek his own fortune, perhaps become a knight, and escape his mysterious past. The abbot fills him in on as much of the story as he knows, gives him the silken cloths and ivory tablet, and sends him off on a boat, which he directs to go "wherever the winds may blow us".
Naturally, he ends up in Aquitaine, where the now-adult Duchess is running things alone as best she can (her twin brother having died of heartbreak on his pilgrimage), but under pressure from a neighboring noble to marry him. She doesn't want to, so he invades with military force, laying waste to the countryside and its people. Gregorius, not realizing that this is his homeland and its Duchess his mother, decides to join the resistance; he trains long and hard, becoming a brave and skilled fighter, meets the neighboring noble in single combat, bests and captures him, extracts his promise to leave Aquitaine alone forever after, and saves the day. Gregorius is celebrated throughout the land, the Duchess meets him and notices that his silken robe looks awfully familiar, almost like the cloths in which she wrapped her baby... but no, that's impossible. They get married, and have great joy of one another.
But Gregorius knows that he's the child of incest, and spends some time every day re-reading the ivory tablet and ruminating on his shame in secret. A maidservant sees him doing this and reports it to the Duchess, who finds the ivory tablet, realizes that she has now had sex with not only her brother but her son too, and tells him the whole story. Gregorius assures her that no sin is beyond redemption if you're truly penitent, but this is a big one and it will take a lot of penitence, and obviously they can never see one another again. Gregorius goes off to become a hermit, while she becomes the most penitent Duchess imaginable.
Gregorius finds a fisherman who offers to "help" him in his penitence by taking him to a bare rock in the middle of the ocean, locking his legs in irons, throwing the key into the ocean, and leaving him there, saying "if I find this key in the deeps of the ocean, I'll believe that you're without sin." Grigorius is left with no food, no shelter, no clothes but a hair-shirt, and only a bit of water from a slow spring in the rock.
Seventeen years pass; the Pope dies, and there's a great conflict among the powerful interests in Rome, each family wanting its son to be Pope. Two senior clergy, on the same night, dream that God tells them to find a holy hermit named Gregorius in Aquitaine and make him the Pope. So they set off to Aquitaine to do that; unfortunately, Aquitaine is a big place, and God didn't give them precise directions. They end up at the home of a fisherman, who seeing their rich clothes figures he should treat them well and profit from them. He offers to cook them a fine fish that he's just caught that day, and while cleaning it for them, finds the key he had thrown into the ocean years before. Abashed, he tells them about the hermit he left on a rock, and all three set off in a boat to find him.
For some reason, the clergy expect to find a handsome, well-dressed man with clear eyes and blond hair. They don't, as Gregorius has been living on the grace of God for seventeen years and looks like hell, but at least he answers to his name. He doesn't believe their story, and says he'll believe it only if the key to his leg-irons turns up by miracle; the fisherman pulls out the key and unlocks his legs, they take him back to shore and presumably give him a bath and some clothes. On their trip back to Rome, Gregorius heals a bunch of sick people with his touch, confirming that yes, he really is the right guy. Before they reach Rome, all the church bells in Rome start ringing of their own accord to celebrate his arrival. He's installed as Pope, and quickly develops a reputation for exceptional skill at comforting penitent sinners.
One of those is the Duchess of Aquitaine, who is still tortured by the shame of her double incest. She goes to Rome to confess her sins to the new Pope (who I presume took a different name as Pope, so she doesn't know it's Gregorius). She's been through the wringer in the past seventeen years too, and he doesn't recognize her until she tells her story. He strings her along for a while:
"Do you know whether your son lives?"
"No."
"Would you recognize him if you saw him?"
"Yes, certainly."
"If you saw him, would it be with joy or with sorrow?"
"With the greatest of joy."
"I have spoken to him, and he said his truest friend was you."
"You have spoken to him?"
"He is near. Would you like to meet him?"
and so on. Eventually he reveals himself, they're joyfully reunited, and they never part again. I presume they're not "together" as husband and wife, since that would look really bad for a Pope.
I guess one moral of the story is the usual Faustian "no sin is beyond God's forgiveness, if you seek it sincerely." A more troubling moral is "no matter what suffering you're going through, or how little you've done to deserve it, it's all part of God's plan and all for the best." Or, perhaps more troubling (and definitely not what Hartmann meant!), "all their suffering was self-inflicted through shame at breaking religious taboos; if they hadn't believed in God and penance, they would have lived perfectly happy, healthy lives, aside from perhaps producing some badly-inbred children."
The performers were Benjamin Bagby, who's been doing this sort of voice-and-harp performance for forty-mumble years; Jasmina Črnčič, a young Slovenian singer/harper; and Lukas Papenfußcline, a young Brooklyn-based singer who goes by the stage-name Leiken. The original poem survives in several 12th-13th-century manuscripts, but without music, so Bagby reconstructed a plausible repertoire of melodic and modal gestures found in Hartmann's 14th-century successor "Frauenlob", whose poems do survive with music. Most of the time there's one singer at a time, with or without harp, but occasionally two or all three singers in parallel 5ths and/or octaves (an early form of organum known to have been used in church music in the 12th century, IIRC).
It's a strange and disturbing story. (The following is all from memory, and I may have some details wrong.)
The Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine have twins, a boy and a girl, who grow up beautiful and healthy and well-behaved. But the mother dies in childbirth, and the father dies of illness ten or so years later, leaving the twins in the protection of the Duke's advisors and one another. Still, they step up to the plate: the twins support, love, and protect one another admirably. The Devil sees this idyllic situation, grows jealous, and as they reach puberty, inspires the boy to have sex with his sister -- not a big stretch, as they've been sharing a bedroom and everything else all their lives, and neither is terribly clear on the whole incest-taboo thing. The girl is surprised, but goes along with it, and after the first time, they discover they enjoy it and keep doing it. Naturally, she gets pregnant, and by the time she starts to show, they've figured out that they're in serious trouble, both with God and with the public. She arranges to give birth in secret, under the supervision of an advisor's wife, while he for penitence goes on a long pilgrimage or crusade or something. Their son, named Gregorius, is beautiful and healthy, but can't be kept around, so the girl and the advisor's wife put him in a box with silken cloths and an ivory tablet explaining his story, put the box in a boat, and push it out to sea.
Gregorius is found by fishermen and raised jointly by a fishing family and an abbot. Being of noble (albeit anonymous) birth, he gets an education at the abbey, and the abbot sees a career for him in the priesthood, but he also hears tales of knighthood and chivalry and leans that direction. At one point he discovers by accident that he's a foundling; he's ashamed, and goes to the abbot to announce that he's leaving to seek his own fortune, perhaps become a knight, and escape his mysterious past. The abbot fills him in on as much of the story as he knows, gives him the silken cloths and ivory tablet, and sends him off on a boat, which he directs to go "wherever the winds may blow us".
Naturally, he ends up in Aquitaine, where the now-adult Duchess is running things alone as best she can (her twin brother having died of heartbreak on his pilgrimage), but under pressure from a neighboring noble to marry him. She doesn't want to, so he invades with military force, laying waste to the countryside and its people. Gregorius, not realizing that this is his homeland and its Duchess his mother, decides to join the resistance; he trains long and hard, becoming a brave and skilled fighter, meets the neighboring noble in single combat, bests and captures him, extracts his promise to leave Aquitaine alone forever after, and saves the day. Gregorius is celebrated throughout the land, the Duchess meets him and notices that his silken robe looks awfully familiar, almost like the cloths in which she wrapped her baby... but no, that's impossible. They get married, and have great joy of one another.
But Gregorius knows that he's the child of incest, and spends some time every day re-reading the ivory tablet and ruminating on his shame in secret. A maidservant sees him doing this and reports it to the Duchess, who finds the ivory tablet, realizes that she has now had sex with not only her brother but her son too, and tells him the whole story. Gregorius assures her that no sin is beyond redemption if you're truly penitent, but this is a big one and it will take a lot of penitence, and obviously they can never see one another again. Gregorius goes off to become a hermit, while she becomes the most penitent Duchess imaginable.
Gregorius finds a fisherman who offers to "help" him in his penitence by taking him to a bare rock in the middle of the ocean, locking his legs in irons, throwing the key into the ocean, and leaving him there, saying "if I find this key in the deeps of the ocean, I'll believe that you're without sin." Grigorius is left with no food, no shelter, no clothes but a hair-shirt, and only a bit of water from a slow spring in the rock.
Seventeen years pass; the Pope dies, and there's a great conflict among the powerful interests in Rome, each family wanting its son to be Pope. Two senior clergy, on the same night, dream that God tells them to find a holy hermit named Gregorius in Aquitaine and make him the Pope. So they set off to Aquitaine to do that; unfortunately, Aquitaine is a big place, and God didn't give them precise directions. They end up at the home of a fisherman, who seeing their rich clothes figures he should treat them well and profit from them. He offers to cook them a fine fish that he's just caught that day, and while cleaning it for them, finds the key he had thrown into the ocean years before. Abashed, he tells them about the hermit he left on a rock, and all three set off in a boat to find him.
For some reason, the clergy expect to find a handsome, well-dressed man with clear eyes and blond hair. They don't, as Gregorius has been living on the grace of God for seventeen years and looks like hell, but at least he answers to his name. He doesn't believe their story, and says he'll believe it only if the key to his leg-irons turns up by miracle; the fisherman pulls out the key and unlocks his legs, they take him back to shore and presumably give him a bath and some clothes. On their trip back to Rome, Gregorius heals a bunch of sick people with his touch, confirming that yes, he really is the right guy. Before they reach Rome, all the church bells in Rome start ringing of their own accord to celebrate his arrival. He's installed as Pope, and quickly develops a reputation for exceptional skill at comforting penitent sinners.
One of those is the Duchess of Aquitaine, who is still tortured by the shame of her double incest. She goes to Rome to confess her sins to the new Pope (who I presume took a different name as Pope, so she doesn't know it's Gregorius). She's been through the wringer in the past seventeen years too, and he doesn't recognize her until she tells her story. He strings her along for a while:
"Do you know whether your son lives?"
"No."
"Would you recognize him if you saw him?"
"Yes, certainly."
"If you saw him, would it be with joy or with sorrow?"
"With the greatest of joy."
"I have spoken to him, and he said his truest friend was you."
"You have spoken to him?"
"He is near. Would you like to meet him?"
and so on. Eventually he reveals himself, they're joyfully reunited, and they never part again. I presume they're not "together" as husband and wife, since that would look really bad for a Pope.
I guess one moral of the story is the usual Faustian "no sin is beyond God's forgiveness, if you seek it sincerely." A more troubling moral is "no matter what suffering you're going through, or how little you've done to deserve it, it's all part of God's plan and all for the best." Or, perhaps more troubling (and definitely not what Hartmann meant!), "all their suffering was self-inflicted through shame at breaking religious taboos; if they hadn't believed in God and penance, they would have lived perfectly happy, healthy lives, aside from perhaps producing some badly-inbred children."
The performers were Benjamin Bagby, who's been doing this sort of voice-and-harp performance for forty-mumble years; Jasmina Črnčič, a young Slovenian singer/harper; and Lukas Papenfußcline, a young Brooklyn-based singer who goes by the stage-name Leiken. The original poem survives in several 12th-13th-century manuscripts, but without music, so Bagby reconstructed a plausible repertoire of melodic and modal gestures found in Hartmann's 14th-century successor "Frauenlob", whose poems do survive with music. Most of the time there's one singer at a time, with or without harp, but occasionally two or all three singers in parallel 5ths and/or octaves (an early form of organum known to have been used in church music in the 12th century, IIRC).
no subject
That sounds like a neat show! I did not know this story/poem.
no subject
The start reminds me of folk ballad The Sheath and the Knife, though the latter ends in two killings, not the put-the-highborn-baby-in-a-box-on-the-sea trope.