Just occasionally in life one stumbles across something so uplifting and life affirming it can reduce a tired, cynical old hack to tears. Such an moment occurred at the end of the Sunday service at our church; it wasn’t divine intervention but a pianist and the organist combining with immense vigour and inspiration for a version of JS Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
Instantly recognisable from its frequent use in horror films (e.g. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1931, The Black Cat in 1934), the piece almost immediately - to my mind in any case - conjures up an image of a demonic, possessed organist, with an evil glint in his wild eyes, and a hideous, maniacal, cackle about to burst forth, playing on a giant instrument in a dark, candle-lit gothic cathedral. Think along the lines of Nosferatu on the organ in Chartres Cathedral. This performance, though, couldn’t have been more different. Full of lightness, joie de vivre and humour, the piano and organ had a conversation with one another, exchanging lines, finishing each other’s sentences, almost completing the other’s jokes.
St Stephen’s Church, in Dulwich, is unusual. The subject of a painting by Camille Pissarro, one of many he did in the vicinity, it is perhaps unique in that the contemporary scene has barely changed since he filled the canvas in 1870.
The area still retains the air of the countryside. Sydenham Hill wood rises up from the station embedded deep in a lush green valley. Ian Nairn, describing the station and area in his delightful Nairn’s London, wrote:
”This is the quintessence of true suburbia, the illusion of rurality more effective here than the real thing would be. From College Road, there is no sign of platform or signals, just a tiny entrance surrounded by trees. This is a covered way which drops down through a steep wooded valley to the station itself, the unlikeliness of the site reinforced by self-conscious boarding in. Only the walls and roof keep tigers from eating late passengers for the eight fifty-seven. At the bottom, the modest wooden platform buildings are part of a complete private world, even though buildings are peering over the side. A huge elliptical tunnel bores through towards Penge East, and God knows what animals live in there. Best in summer, naturally, but astonishing at any time.”
Our family lives near Penge East, as it happens. And it was from there that we travelled to Sydenham Hill, shortly after the Covid lockdowns had ended as we ventured out to explore the area. We dropped into St Stephen’s, designed by Charles Barry Junior (son of the architect of the House of Parliament) and boasting a fine mural by Sir Edward Poynter, depicting the trial and martyrdom of St Stephen, almost by accident. It was a bright day and it was open. After years when singing was actively discouraged, with dire warnings that such activity was terrible for spreading Covid, it was rebuilding its choir and our two daughters have been members ever since.
At about 9.50 on Sunday mornings, a lone bell rings out, echoing across the area, calling the neighbourhood to worship. It has a robust and welcoming community but, under Director of Music Oliver (‘Olly’) Lallemant, it is creating one of the strongest, most committed, musical heritages of almost any church I know. Not only are there thriving children and adult choirs, there are also regular concerts by some of the country’s leading classical musicians, the vicar - Reverend Canon Bernhard Schünemann - is an accomplished cellist who, during services, occasionally joins in with other musicians. And, to step it up a tier further, they are preparing to launch an appeal for a new pipe organ.
Every service contains moments of musical joy. On the first Sunday my children joined the choir, the main anthem was Brahms’ How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings, a piece I remember fondly singing when I was a child chorister in St Peter’s Choir in Nottingham, under the masterful stewardship of Kendrick Partington. Another Sunday featured a haunting performance of Arvo Pärt’s Da Pacem, with its repetitive, bell-like soprano line still echoing in my mind.
And so, for this latest treat, I was in, perhaps, the best spot to enjoy the music and the interplay between the two musicians, sitting on the back row of the pews (the musicians in the church are at the back of the church for a variety of reasons), my view entirely unimpeded. Olly was on the organ and Thomas Hewitt Jones - Tommy - on the piano. It was Tommy, I understand, who adapted the music for the two instruments, with hand written musical directions written on the score. The interplay between the two performers was a delight; sitting on stools opposite each other, both craning their necks to peer at the other across their music stands. At times it brought the Dueling Banjos scene from Deliverance to mind though with substantially less menace and with a lot more shuffling of musical papers.
The congregation was silent, barely anyone had moved, entirely rapt in the moment. The choir, who had processed behind the officiating party, as the performance began, were all standing, near their robing room, transfixed.
To my shame, while he was clearly an outstanding musician, I hadn’t previously been aware of the standing of Hewitt Jones. Organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, winner of the BBC Young Composer of the Year competition in 2003, and composer of Fantasy on David Cameron: arranged for high/low solo instrument(s) and piano based on the little ditty the former prime minister hummed after he announced his resignation in 2016. He is also the mastermind behind Funny Song, 8 billion streams on TikTok as of July 2022 and counting (so Wikipedia tells me anyway).
In just a few short moments, my relationship with this very familiar piece of music has been completely redrawn, and entirely for the better. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to film the occasion but it is available in its entirety here (from about 1:06:24).