Dialogues of the Carmelites

Dialogue 1: The Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is an enclosed Catholic Order founded in the 12th century by Saint Bertold on Mount Carmel, Israel, with the bretheren taking their name of the White Friars from their distinctive white cloaks. Increasing tension between East and West forced the Order to move to Cyprus and Sicily in 1238, and they were in England two years later. In 1250 a Carmelite Priory was established on the banks of the River Wensum in Norwich immediately opposite the city’s magnificent Norman cathedral.

The monastery was suppressed in 1543, the property was divided up, and over the intervening centuries virtually all traces of the priory have disappeared. But the presence of the Carmelites lives on in Norwich. The thoroughfare leading across the river from the cathedral and law courts is known as Whitefriars, and my photograph above shows the bland office building called Carmelite House on the far side of the bridge. This was built on the site of the monastery in 2003, and is where my day job is based. Clearly visible in the foreground is the only remaining fragment of the original Carmelite monastery. This is an arch from one of the two anchorite houses that were built in the grounds of the priory, and my heart lifts each morning as I pass this medieval fragement on my way to modern mayhem.

Dialogue 2: Speaking of mayhem, Francis Poulenc based his 1956 opera Dialogue of the Carmelites on historical events that took place in a Carmelite convent in Compiègne during the French Revolution. In the opera the French authorities dissolve the convent, and the nuns take a vow of martyrdom. In the immensely moving final act the nuns march to the scaffold singing the Salve Regina, and this changes to the hymn Deo patri sit Gloria (All praise be thine, O risen Lord). The opera was composed between 1953 and 1956, and during this period Poulenc suffered a nervous breakdown, reputedly due to his identification with the suffering of the nuns.

Dialogue of the Carmelites is one of the peaks of 20th century music theatre. It expresses profound psychological and religious insights through a musical language accessible to anyone familiar with Poulenc’s more popular works - if you know his Organ Concerto you will feel at home from the first bars of Scene 1 . There is extensive use of recitatives, and these contrast with some wonderful choral settings including the Ave Maria (Act II, Scene II) and Ave verum corpus (Act II, Scene IV). The opera is well served in the catalogue by the excellent Opéra de Lyon recording on Virgin Classics with a stellar cast under Kent Nagano.

At budget price this re-release is quite unmissable, and it helps reinforce Poulenc as a major 20th century composer. These words from the website of the composer's publisher are worth reflecting on - "Like his friends Honegger and Milhaud, he had the courage to resist the serialists’ diktats and remain true to himself. Now that the serialist terror has passed, those of us who love Poulenc’s music can hold up our heads in the most sophisticated company."

Dialogue 3: No serialists' diktats here, but I am a sucker for historical reconstructions which add colour and variety to potentially arid expanses of early music. In 1707 Handel visited Rome, and he was commissioned to provide music for the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel celebrated annually on 16th July. No information survives on Handel’s contribution, but Andrew Parrott has made a hypothetical reconstruction combining Handel’s music with Carmelite psalm settings, and all five antiphons are chanted before their respective psalms. This is a gorgeous 2CD set, wonderfully performed by the Taverner Consort and Players directed by Andrew Parrot, with balance engineer Mike Clements providing wonderfully airy sound in St Augustine’s, Kilburn. Highly recommended as a mid-price reissue from Virgin.

Dialogue 4: Although the Carmelites left Norwich more than four centuries ago the Order flourishes today in Quidenham, just 30 miles to the south. A Carmelite monastery was established there in 1948 by a group of nuns, and the photograph below was taken by me in the grounds last autumn. in the 21st century the nuns follow the Carmelite Rule in a balanced regime of prayer, work, intellectual study and recreation. This is an enclosed order, and the nuns only leave the monastery because of illness or for family reasons. The offices are celebrated with plainsong settings of the psalms, and the Carmelite nuns in Quidenham demonstrate the resilience of this remarkable Order in the face of the terrors portrayed so powerfully in Poulenc’s opera.


For more inspiration take An Overgrown Path to There is a green hill far away called Taizé
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November Woods by a brazen romantic

Photograph above taken at the Carmelite Monastery, Quidenham, Norfolk on November 18th 2006 by Pliable.

Now playing - November Woods (1917) by Arnold Bax, performed by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thomson (Chandos LP ABRD066). Bax described himself as a 'brazen romantic', so you won't find him on Sequenza21. His life and music were informed by literature and nature, and he drew on Celtic and Nordic mythology for inspiration. November Woods is a close companion to two other Bax tone poems, The Garden of Fand and Tintagel.

The legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table are linked to the Cornish castle of Tintagel, and Bax's eponymous tone poem is available on one of my nomination for the greatest records of the 20th century. This EMI recording was made in No 1 Studio, Abbey Road with Robert Kinloch Anderson producing in 1967. The coupling is one of the great 20th century symphonies, Vaughan Williams 5th, the score of which was completed in 1943, and is dedicated to Jean Sibelius 'without permission'. Both works are conducted by one of the great 20th century conductors, Sir John Barbirolli. As you may have guessed I recommend it. Also recommended is Bax's autobiography Farewell My Youth. Sadly it is now out of print, my copy is of a 1949 edition and expect to pay quite a high price if you find a copy.


The words on the crucifix at Quidenham in my header photo are: Wanderers stay and think of me here a while, how I hung on the cross so that thou could come to me. This message is reflected in Vaughan Williams' magnificent 5th Symphony which draws on material from his 1951 opera The Pilgrim's Progress which in turn was based on John Bunyan's 17th century allegorical novel. There is a classic EMI recording of the opera with Sir Adrian Boult conducting, and John Noble singing The Pilgrim. It was made in London's Kingsway Hall in 1972 with exemplary sound from the legendary producer and engineering team of the two Christophers - Bishop and Parker. My webname, Pliable, comes from one of the characters in Bunyan's novel. I have been married for 30 years today, and my wife thinks it significant that Pliable was one of the two residents of The City of Destruction in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The other was Obstinate.


That mention of The City of Destruction brings this Overgrown Path through more November Woods to its final destination. The two photographs above were taken yesterday as we walked through the campus of the University of East Anglia to the Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts to view their magnificent Francis Bacon exhibition. Bacon shared Celtic connections with Bax, and was born in Dublin in 1909, although he spent much of his creative life in London. The exhibition focuses on Bacon's work from the 1950s, and quite stunning it is. Just as even the very best audio system cannot realistically reproduce an orchestral fortissimo from a recording, so Bacon's paintings cannot be done justice on the printed page. They must be seen in the flesh. Some are massive, black statements from the City of Destruction, but others, by contrast, celebrate with colour Bacon's love of van Gogh and travel. And those contrasts brings me the end of this Path. It has travelled from the enlightenment, through romanticism to the modern, and is a reminder, if we neeed one, of how fortunate we are to live in a society of contrasts that can embrace equally Bunyan, and Bax, and Bacon, and beyond.

* Listen to a 43 minute BBC audio programme on Vaughan William's Fifth Symphony -

* For more recordings of Bax, Vaughan Williams and their contemporaries take An Overgrown Path to Treasure trove of 20th century composers

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk