I just heard the choir of King’s College, Cambridge perform in our very own Hill Auditorium. It brought back memories of being in Cambridge last spring, the only place I’ve ever been apart from Jerusalem where I felt like Heaven was breaking into earth. It was a “thin place,” kind of like Battle Hill in Descent into Hell (but not nearly as scary). My first, unexpected sight of the College, while wandering aimlessly through the narrow, twisted streets of the commercial section of town, burst onto me like a foretaste of the beatific vision.
I went for the songs by Gibbon, Weelkes and Tomkins, but my favorite part of the concert turned out to be Benjamin Britten’s Antiphone, set to the words of this poem by George Herbert.
