Some Definite Service: ‘It is good to be here’: Hymns and belonging in a Polish park

Sławcie usta Ciało Pana — Pange Lingua (‘Of the glorious body telling’)

Good things are always going on in the world, even if out of sight or over the horizon, and these days, it seems, many of them are happening in Poland. Here’s an example of something we should know about in Britain: enormous open-air hymn-singing concerts which every year draw great multitudes, people in their tens of thousands, to a park in the city of Rzeszów. As the feast day of Corpus Christi draws to its close, huge numbers of ordinary folk — young and old, married and single, lay and consecrated religious, public officials and plain citizens — gather in the Sybiraków park to sing and pray. There to lead them is a choir a hundred-and-thirty strong and an array of other musicians. Candle-light spreads and strengthens as evening falls: the multitude joins hands and sing hymns into the night.

These are the ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ concerts (the name means ‘Of One Heart, Of One Spirit’; the ‘c' in ‘Serca’' is pronounced ‘ts’ as in ‘dance’, the ‘ch’ in ‘Ducha’ as in ‘loch’), and I can find no evidence against the claim that they are Poland’s, and Europe’s, largest regular concerts of religious music. Last year 45,000 people were present, the greatest number since the events began in 2003. Even those who came up with the idea — Jan Budziaszek, a drummer, Fr. Andrzej Cypryś and Fr. Mariusz Mik — might be forgiven for some surprise at what they have created. And it is not only the high attendance that is remarkable: the concerts convey a definite and distinctive atmosphere, even over the Internet. Something is happening which Fr. Cypryś describes as a kind of transfiguration: “There are lots of events in which a crowd enjoys itself and goes crazy, for better or worse. But in this concert the crowd reacts differently; people are uplifted, spiritual. A spirit rises up out of the heart and, ultimately, to the Lord God.” Paraphrasing Simon Peter’s words at the Transfiguration of the Lord, he says, “Most likely what lies behind the phenomenon is this: 'it is good to be here'.”

Serce wielkie nam daj — ‘Give us a great heart’

Of course, the musicianship has a great deal to do with its success. There is no cutting of corners here. Members of the choir must first pass an audition and, if successful, learn their parts and words by heart. The orchestra is reinforced by players from the Rzeszów Philharmonic. Hubert Kowalski, who conducts the orchestra and creates the orchestral arrangements of many of the hymns, is a composer and prominent figure in Polish liturgical music. Marcin Pospieszalski, a bass guitarist, violinist and and composer of film music, also produces arrangements for the ensemble. His wife Lidia Pospieszalska, along with Tamara Kasprzyk-Przybysz, leads the choir. The solo singers and instrumentalists, too, tend to be prominent names in Polish music — Joachim Mencel, Poldek Twardowski, Viola Brzezińska — and some are international visitors, such as last year’s guests Levi Sakala (Zambia) and Fr. Stan Fortuna (U.S.A.).

For those of us who were struck by the quality of the music at the 2016 World Youth Day in Kraków (about which my tuppence-worth here and here), this all explains a great deal. For at Kraków too there was this same compelling recipe of familiar or singable tunes heightened by rich and colourful orchestration. The same musicianship, it turns out, is behind both phenomena — and by ‘musicianship’ I mean both the same individual musicians (Marcin Pospieszalski also contributed to the WYD hymn, for instance) and, more broadly, the same strong underlying musical culture. Now I see why, when the world came to Kraków, the youth of Poland rose so splendidly to the occasion.

Even so, the evenings are not meant to be thought of simply as as an aesthetic experience, as this article (translated here) explains. It is not for a performance that the multitudes have gathered. In fact, the distinction between stage and audience is relaxed: the soloists, however famous, are not announced by name when they come on stage to sing; instead, the words of the hymns are projected onto screens so that everyone can join in. There is a togetherness of music-making, itself in service of a togetherness of heart and spirit: “We believe profoundly that it is not only for an artistic event that we are gathered together,” says Hubert Kowalski; “but for deep prayer, in an expression of our belonging to God, and of our faith.”

Ciebie całą duszą pragnę — ‘For you I long with all my soul’, Psalm 63 (62)

And hymns are sung from every age and corner of the Church. Taizé, nineteenth-century patriotic hymns, plainsong, seventeenth-century German melodies, American worship songs, the oldest known Polish hymn (the ‘Bogurodzica’) and even a rap, to whose lyrics presumably nihil obstat, performed by its author, a priest in full cassock — now I’ve seen it all!. All sorts, then, which is another sign of a concerted effort to unity. Perhaps not all the music will be to everyone’s taste, but everyone will like at least some of it. I don’t think either traditionalists or innovators could complain of being left out, and I have to say I find most of it very appealing, especially with the choir’s open, unaffected, even raw way of singing. But maybe it is the idea itself that matters more, the idea that people might willingly choose to spend some hours in each other’s company, and their Creator’s. This is perhaps why, in 2010, when a terrific rain-storm caused flooding in the region and threatened the concert itself, those without long journeys to face decamped to a car park, hurriedly set up a new stage, and carried on singing under the deluge.

Chrystus Pan karmi nas — ‘Christ the Lord nourishes us’.

‘Serdecznie zapraszamy,’ they say — ‘we cordially invite’ all people to join the gathering in the park. Even from afar, watching online from here in England, it is impossible to resist being drawn into this spirit of togetherness, and to notice certain heartening things: the sheer variety of the people who are there, the roughly equal numbers of men and women, the presence of families and children, the breadth of ages, the large number of young priests and religious. Then there are other surprising details, other refreshing sights, like natural ornaments of celebration and goodwill (as simple as flowers in the ladies’ hair, or exuberant balloons and banners among the audience), bishops’ bonhomie, John Paul II look-alikes, and people holding hands, or couples with their arms gently around each other, quite ordinarily and unshowily. Everyone is quite obviously having a good time. The young in particular are visibly uncynical, relaxed and actually youthful in spirit. This is the youth that Benedict XVI knew is ‘not as superficial as some think’, and surely it is precisely because of the concert’s sincerity and authenticity — no artificial emotion, no pseudo-intellectualism, no smarminess, all those fakeries that young people can smell a mile off — that they come in such huge numbers. Here all that is good about modern music and the modern world are taken and elevated to their highest purpose. It is enough to make anyone ask why we are agonising and dithering over the New Evangelisation. This is what it looks like and how it is done: some of this music could evangelise a potato.

‘A spirit that can rise up from the heart’… ‘an expression of our belonging to God’… The unison of lifted voices begets the unity of many lifted hearts and lifted spirits: one voice, one heart, one spirit. It is what it says on the tin, then, and how sad it is that most of us in Britain can scarcely imagine it. Yet what should be more natural than this, than gathering in a park to pray and sing? Hymns were made to be sung anywhere, as much at home, at work, or to candlelight in the park as in church. The concerts are astonishing to us not, then, because they are strange in themselves, but precisely because they are so completely natural that they should be commonplace, and yet are not. Of course, the concerts are not meant as a substitute for going to church, or the sacraments, or the ordinary practice of the faith — the organisers suggest nothing of the kind — but as the natural expression of a certain moral and spiritual culture, as well as a musical one, a culture that knows the meaning of purposeful worship, it is a great sign of hope.

In other words, it is the reality of the occasion that is so startling: startling both because it is rather astounding that a gathering like this should happen in real life, and also because it is such a real, such a genuine thing to do, a thing so refreshingly free of illusion or falsehood. There’s nothing forced or self-conscious about it. Really, the broadcasts and videos of the occasion show for themselves what is going on. The Holy Spirit is not very easily faked.

Dziękuję wam, organizatorzy, muzycy i śpiewacy koncertu ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’, za takie wydarzenie, tak podnoszące na duchu!