A Musical Pilgrim's Progress in Stained Glass

1 Come down, O love divine, seek now this soul of mine,

and visit it with your own ardour glowing.

O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,

and kindle it, your holy flame bestowing.

2 O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn

to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

and let your glorious light shine ever on my sight,

and clothe me round, my onward path illuming.

3 And so the yearning strong with which the soul will long

shall far outpass the power of human telling;

for none can guess its grace, till love creates the place

wherein the Holy Spirit makes its dwelling.

Music: Ralph Vaughn Williams tune: Down Ampney (1906)  Voices United 367

How much do I know about composer Ralph Vaughn Williams? Precious little, other than he was a great musicial figure in the first half of the 20th century. He was very English in his expression through many forms of music, including spiritual. There is a hymn with a tune by Vaughn Williams that I really like with the title Down Ampney. It turns out that Down Ampney was the parish where his father was the rector and where he began life. 

There is a relatively new commemorative window in this church by artist homas Denny which is gloriously light-filled. It reflects the seasons and the 17th century Pilgrim's Progress, a literary work that fascinated RVW throughout his life. In speaking about his creation Denny noted that the composer felt that in heaven he would no longer hear music but be music. Wonderful. 

Here is a description of the window, or windows, and below that an excerpt from his Sea Symphony.

Down Ampney Stained Glass Window Unveiled

A newly commissioned stained glass window by artist Thomas Denny has been unveiled at All Saints, Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, at a service of dedication in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.

The window is a memorial to the composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose father was Rector of Down Ampney, and who was born in the Rectory there in 1872.

This design is intended to suggest something of Vaughan Williams’s life pilgrimage, of the doubts, hopes and revelations of his life and his music. On the right his nostalgic affection for the music traditions of the English nation on the left; his great cycle of symphonies starting with the sea and passing through the stresses of both world wars to the unknown future on the right; and, in the centre, his lifetime preoccupation with the journey of the soul reflected in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. 

RVW's first encounter with The Pilgrim's Progress was, as a young child in the late 1870s, when the story was read to him. The gripping story and vivid imagery stayed with him and over seventy years later the complete opera (or 'Morality') of the same name was first performed at Covent Garden.

Thomas Denny is a stained-glass artist and painter, educated at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1970’s. Denny has concentrated on stained-glass and has now made some fifty windows for churches and cathedrals. He says: 

"Stained glass is not music. But one can experience it in musical terms — movement, orchestration, light and dark, colour, narrative. It is hoped that the texture and the character of this window might be a homage to the experience of listening to the music of Vaughan Williams."

#RVW150 11 December 2022

• Movement 2: "On the Beach at Night Alone"

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all, ...
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, ...
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, ...
All nations, ...
All identities that have existed or may exist ...,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

                                                                    Ralph Vaughn Williams 1920