nice saturday morning frost is gone it's breakfast time too good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 12th of february as we meet to say our morning prayers i have um uh earlier had a conversation with the primate of the indian ocean archbishop james wong about the conditions in madagascar which are madagascar the whole island in his province and they are very severe indeed there's been lots of life and so much loss of resources and and amongst people farming crops as we spoke of earlier on and we're trying to see what kind of help can be given and that will be a developing story but for the moment to have news from archbishop james about all of this archbishop james is very used to it here he's been to conferences of newly ordained bishops in canterbury here and is looking forward later in the year to being here again but for the moment of course his his responsibility for that huge province is something that we pray for but we also pray for our friends in madagascar and the diocese of canterbury has a special relationship with madagascar and so these are very dear friends and their situation is is is very much on our hearts day by day of course there are many other serious areas in the world and you will have them in mind and we have also in mind the serious situation the military buildup between russia and the ukraine and the attempt by leaders across the world to make wise decisions to help that and bring some kind of solution to that great tension which is happening on those borders but this in england here this morning is the most beautiful day and the sun has risen up over the wall on this saturday morning and we're having uh uh a time not of coldness really there's no wind whatsoever and the sun is shining down on us it's not got the warmth that it will have in a month's time but nevertheless it does have the brightness and that is very cheering on a morning of this sort we've come into the field again because of the three-part story of david and jonathan which is unfolding day by day so yesterday we began that in samuel 1 samuel chapter 20. today we'll continue that but let's begin our prayers first and as i always say bring your own prayers and intentions from across the world around us little um blue bells are sprouting up we've even got frogs born in the that the pond father in the garden but we can visit all that later in the week for the moment let's concentrate ourselves on the field and on david and jonathan and saul and samuel but first we begin our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 12th morning of the month is psalm 62 on god alone my soul in stillness waits from him comes my salvation he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold so that i shall never be shaken how long will all of you assail me to destroy me as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence they plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour lies are their chief delight they bless with their mouth but in their heart they curse wait on god alone in stillness so my soul for in him is my hope he alone is my rock and my salvation my stronghold so that i shall not be shaken in god is my strength and my glory god is my strong rock in him is my refuge put your trust in him always my people pour out your hearts before him for god is our refuge the peoples are but a breath the whole human race a deceit on the scales they are altogether lighter than air put no trust in oppression in robbery take no empty pride though wealth increase set not your heart upon it god spoke once and twice have i heard the same that power belongs to god steadfast love belongs to you o lord for you repay everyone according to their deeds so we turn ourselves then back to the 20th chapter of the first book of samuel and yesterday we read from verses 1 to 17 today i'm going to read from verse 18 up to verse 34. jonathan and david are speaking together in the field in hiding david has been living in a cave and with heaps of stones he's in a lone position where he knows deep within him that saul is intent on killing him jonathan is not so sure he's saying my father can't mean that but david is knowing that this is so and so jonathan is making a promise to david that he will go to find out whether this is so and in some way let him know then jonathan said to david tomorrow is the new moon and you will be missed because your seat will be empty on the third day go down quickly to the place where you hid yourself when the matter was in hand and remain beside the stone heap and i will shoot three arrows to the side of it as though i shot at a mark and behold i will send the boy with me saying go find the arrows if i say to the boy look the arrows are on this side of you take them then you are to come for as the lord lives it is safe for you and there is no danger but if i say to the youth look the arrows are beyond you then go for the lord has sent you away and as for the matter of which you and i have spoken behold the lord is between you and me forever so david hid himself in the field and when the new moon came king saul sat down to eat food the king sat on his seat as at other times on the seat by the wall jonathan sat opposite and abner the captain of saul's forces sat by saul's side but david's place was empty yet saul did not say anything that day for he thought something has happened to him he is not clean surely he is not clean but on the second day the day after the new moon david's place was still empty and saul said to jonathan his son why has not the son of jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today jonathan answered saul david earnestly asked leave of me to go to bethlehem he said let me go for our clan holds a sacrifice in the city and my brother has commanded me to be there so now if i have found favor in your eyes let me get away and see my brothers and for this reason david has not come to the king's table then saul's anger was kindled against jonathan and he said to him you son of a perverse and rebellious woman do i not know that you have chosen the son of jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness for as long as the son of jesse lives on the earth neither you nor your kingdom shall be established therefore send and bring him to me for david shall surely die then jonathan answered saul his father why should he be put to death what has he done but saul hurled his spear at jonathan to strike him so jonathan knew that his father was determined to put david to death and jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and at no food the second day of the month for he was grieved for david because his father had disgraced him [Applause] the story is reaching a fever pitch and now saul's anger and rage is not only against david but against jonathan for siding with david showing loyalty to david even asking questions about so what has david done that you should be so angry and saul beside himself with rage but in that rage as with jonathan's far sightedness and as with the overarching not presence but the figure of samuel still at ramah there is a sense of prophecy in what the king is saying as long as david lives he says to jonathan your throne will not be established but jonathan has already realized that in what we read yesterday and when he made his covenant with david if you remember and much to david's puzzlement i'm sure jonathan said be loyal and faithful to my house and david promises to be so but i don't think he understands what jonathan is saying there is that prophetic visionary quality in all of the things that are going on so that you have that represented in the major theater of this piece by samuel not present today in this story by king saul by what he foresees in the quality of david even though it's not long since he called him a stripping but now is fearful of him and is wanting him dead and also in jonathan who's showing immense loyalty but he too has that prophetic quality of knowing that in some way his family will be beholden to david at some stage in their history together and then there's david who is really all alone and it's going to be three days before jonathan returns so david is facing loneliness and fear and one has that uh that sentence at the beginning on the third day um and that comes so often in the scriptures on the third day is we we're used to it because it comes of course in our creed but this now is jonathan saying so let me discover so on the first day of the feast saul doesn't mention it because people if they've been doing something which has caused them ritually to be unclean can miss a meal so surely he's not clean and says salt himself but on the second day that argument doesn't continue to hold good and then he throws himself in a rage at jonathan so monday when we take up this story again after the sunday break tomorrow monday begins on the third day and on the third day is something when things happen i think how that the story of the marriage at cana of galilee begins on the third day and we of course as christians have the third day as very much part of our liturgical calendar on easter day itself but here we're thinking of the loneliness of david he's hiding out in the field feeling just thrown aside by everyone it's saul who has the power with abner the commander of his armies sitting next to him and in david's vision he is in great danger and that's sure enough david's got it right but for the moment he places his trust in jonathan all his loyalty in jonathan and jonathan has has promised and so there is that thread of companionship and loyalty as david waits the hardest thing in the world to do especially in fear waiting waiting waiting and yet our psalm was very clear that there will be times like that psalm 62 if i go back to it verse 5 wait on god alone in stillness oh my soul for in him is my hope it's one of the hardest lessons for us as active humanity to learn wait and on the third day the promises jonathan will return and he works out this complicated plan as to how david will know safely whether he can come out and all is well or whether in jonathan's judgment all is very very much not well and the shooting of the arrows and the words that jonathan says to his attendant on that day about fetching the arrows will give the clue for david to come out from behind the pile of stones and make himself known or to flee away and hide well that's part of monday's story when we come back to this story for the moment we're thinking not only of that capacity of needing to wait but also the loneliness of david but also the sense of the loneliness of so many others in situations like that perhaps the loneliness of jesus himself in the garden of gethsemane where he is waiting for those to come and arrest and the loneliness is compounded by the fact that those who are nearest to him understand nothing and are asleep we can place ourselves in many different situations of that sort but it's an important lesson that we're learning this morning and we're seeing david who will become the sprig from the root of jesse fulfilling the prophecy of isaiah but for the moment he looks anything but that he is dejected feeling in massive danger and also puzzled as to why all this is happening and the only one he can trust who can help in any way at all at the moment is jonathan but jonathan has gone and there's a time of three days of waiting if we go to dates on this particular morning some mornings you look around and there are a few things that you can pick on this morning there's a whole quantity of folk that we could settle on and some of them are great names some we've done before and um others are huge names which we could spend the whole of our reflection on this is the day february the 12th in 1804 when the very famous philosopher emmanuel kunt was died and he set out in systematic form a comprehensive philosophy at that time of the enlightenment 1804 so he lived at the end of the 18th century and in just into the 19th century but we remember him as a towering figure of systematic philosophy and thinking and all sorts of scholarship and at the root of so much that came after him we could have stayed with him we could have gone to uh friedrich schleiermacher who who died on the 12th of february 1834 a very very famous and influential protestant theologian who tried to make a a systematic and comprehensive reconciliation between the ideas of the enlightenment as set forward by someone like kant and the theology that he himself was a minister of so we could have gone there there's another foundation stone for so many who came after him and uh so we are resisting that for to other people but i could also have gone to charles darwin who was born on the 12th of february in 1809 in the mount house in shrewsbury and frozeweep of course was the place where i served my currency and i know it well and coming out of the station as you walk up past the castle there is the statue of darwin sitting outside what used to be the school but his his father's house is on the other side of showsbury up the hill from the river seven but i'm not going there we've done uh darwin and fitzroy and the beagle many times i'm going instead to two maybe surprising characters but i want to link them with what david himself is suffering in terms of loneliness and disturbance early in life and the first of these is the filmmaker and opera set designer um and theater designer in many ways franco zepharelli who was born on the 12th of february 1923 in florence just on the outskirts of florence now he was born as the result of an affair between his mother the fashion designer ada garrozzi who died when he was only six years old and his father otorino corsi a woolen silk dealer from venice both of whom were married and so zephyrelli had no name at the beginning and his mother chose to give him a surname from mozart's opera a domineo of the little breezes that appear zephyretti but in the register book it was written down as zepharelli and so he became franco zepharelli and although his father continued to send resources he didn't acknowledge him in that way so he couldn't take his father's name and his mother died at the age of six and so he was brought up in florence firenze by an expatriate british community which he chose to show us in a semi-autobiographical film which many of you will know really well it's called two with mussolini and that's a 1999 film it's later on in his career but he is in effect luca who is brought up by the actress joan plowright and resources come from father from time to time but that semi-autobiographical film is set at the time when mussolini is beginning to take control and when luca is old enough i'm saying luca franco zephorevi is old enough he is sent with resources from his father to study art and architecture at the university of florence but war breaks out and immediately and you can go back to the film uh uh franco zepharelli joins the partisans and as the armies of the allies go up through italy he fought first as a partisan and then between 1942 and 1945 he found himself as the interpreter to the soldiers of the first battalion scots guards and so his life was utterly thrown into complete turmoil going everywhere and you can get that from the film when luca reappears uh and is is really the salvation of of the ones who are the scorpioni at that time but for the moment let's go back to zephirelli uh and after the war of course he thought he would go back to the course at the university for art and architecture but he'd been through too many experiences and in 1945 he saw the lawrence olivier film henry the fifth with lawrence olivier making that great speech and was captivated by the shakespearean film which led him into film and opera design and he began to work first of all with visconti but after that he thought i can begin to do this by myself and his first film of that sort was another shakespeare the taming of the shrew it was starring elizabeth taylor and richard burton and as he was editing it the horrendous flooding of florence took place so that the river arno flooded and destroyed so much of the city he loved and the artwork of it a tragic loss of life and a tragic loss of so much in the city of florence and he paused to make a short film florence days of destruction said that people would know the effect at that time but for the moment he then edited the taming of the shrew and went on in 1968 now this may be a film you know i know it very well he made the film romeo and juliet uh he made it with an uh two young people and unknown people and that was his way really but it became one of the most popular films of romeo and juliet the story romeo and juliet juliet that has been made it's got lovely music and it's got a wonderful style and atmosphere to it and we remember that well it's still very much available of course but that set him onto a shakespeare path and then he turned to religious themes he felt he could show that first of all in 1972 the film brother sun and sister moon the story of saint francis of assisi and sinclair of assisi and a very beautiful film not so well known though as his 1970s long mini-series jesus of nazareth now that really was a venture and it involved so many famous names playing the characters as they went along and again that is still available but it was shown as a series on television and then reawakened at different times and you have robert powell playing jesus through it and i think lawrence olivier appears as as nicodemus but so many great names coming in the story and zepharelli of course having to pick and choose what he's showing and taking artistic license for the sake of the story with certain characters who don't appear in the gospels among them a man called zera who uh is is very much a prompter for judas's temptation of sorry betrayal of jesus and zera appears right at the end again with his henchmen looking into the empty tomb but from there from that miniseries of course zepharelli we know went on to design opera sets and stage sets and so many of the opera houses of of the world still use those sets and one thinks of the vast stage of metropolitan opera in new york which still i think uses zephyrella's labo m sets some of the ones he did tosca and turin dodge have have now gone but others are still there and so we give enormous thanks for the way in which he was to to take things and with his own experience and his vision give them to us so that we might imagine those scenes in all reality and that came from that early time of total turmoil and feeling alone someone without an acknowledged father and his mother had died at the age of six brought up by others war disturbing even what he wanted to do and throwing him into that traveling and dangerous life with the partisans and then the scots guards as they fought their way up through italy before he could continue his career so we're looking at the early years and the numbers of times that he must have felt as david did totally lonely and in fear and danger and for him to give us such a beautiful and humorous film of that semi autobiography um in tea with mussolini is a lovely thing now the other character is equally odd though um i think that i mean for me to choose uh but i always think of saturday mornings is a time when people are quite often looking at cookery programs on the television and there's a chef talking to others and cooking and and saying what about this and what about that and on the 12th of february 1935 auguste escoffier the very famous french chef died at the age of 88 in february 1935. now he is well known for having popularized and updated traditional french cooking methods so that he simplified and modified mari antoine elaborate and ornate styles and codified for us to understand and perhaps even try the five what are called mother sources of french cooking and he ended up of course fated by the world as did um zeferelli in his long life in the end honoured and fated by his own country and even by by uh english honors and and and french honors and all of that but for the moment uh he uh escoffier is is a youth but at the end he's known as de cuisine a cuisine that means the king of chefs and the chef of kings and he worked in london and paris and and uh at the ritz hotel in paris and the savoy hotel in london the cartoon hotel in london but let's start with him for he was born at vilniube near nice and art was his passion at school but at the age of 12 his father took him out unceremoniously of school and put him into the kitchen of his uncle's restaurant in nice where he was quite small and where he was bullied and swatted by his uncle and had a very very rough apprenticeship but for all that his interest in what he was creating became all-consuming and somehow the the rough treatment he was receiving that didn't matter so much is what he was creating and how he could give that to others but just at the age of 19 when he was going to go off and and do this in in kitchens that he would respect him and were beginning to notice him he was pulled out think back to zephirelli for military service in 1865 and he found himself because he could cook in army barracks cooking with what he had canned food and bits and pieces and certainly not the exotic food one thinks of but at that time he made the best of it and uh for five years he was in the barracks cooking here and there and then war broke out between france and prussia at that time which became soon after in 1870 the german empire and he was then still cooking for the army but in battle lines and it was 1878 all those years later that he opened his own restaurant in khan and it was called the golden pheasant and in 1903 he published his guide to modern culinary his cooking he set it down systematically and also in his kitchens he'd learned a sort of military discipline that the only way to do it now kitchens in those days um almost uh um apes the the nadia is in in in les miserables they were places of of of complete chaos and foul language and all sorts of things going on and escoffier insisted on the discipline of the kitchen cleanliness discipline silence most of the time so people knew what they were doing and if an instruction was given they could hear it and go on from that and that was his way so if we look at the books that he set out so that other people could copy in simple forms the recipes for he'd had to use recipes with just the things around seasonal things and tinned food or canned food and at the same time beautiful food and later on when he had all the resources still that discipline of seasonal food and simplicity was there in what he did and his guide to modern culinary has been translated in a different way as 2000 french recipes translated into english in 1965 but the the book which speaks most of him looking back autobiographically is one that was published in 1934 the year before he died he died on the 12th of february this day in 1935 and he published a book simply called my cuisine my cooking a personal testimony to what he was offering people in terms of nourishment and delight that they could try themselves and uh in um he had married delphine his wife who was a a poet herself a french poet and and very well respected in 1878 she died six days before him on the 6th of february in 1935 and he at the age of 88 died on the 12th of february and was taken back to be buried at the place he was born villeneuve lube near nice so two perhaps strange people to think of both eminently creative using the gifts not only the gifts that god had given them despite all the turmoil and loneliness of uh franco zepharelli there at the beginning in those wartime years and at the same time auguste escoffier in those years when he was being pushed about and and despised in his uncle's kitchen despite all of that they used their own personal gifts in an imaginative way and shared them then with us using the creator's gifts zepharelli the people around him the film sets around him the the the way in which he would say let's shoot this here let's shoot that there you'll be best for this and this coffee with the ingredients and also those around him helping him to cook young and old and receiving his discipline of the kitchen all that set out in my cuisine and all that set out in the films of zepharelli let's go back to that long film uh series of uh jesus of nazareth i was talking about that the character zira who is a character ill-disposed to jesus and his henchmen of the same and they are instrumental in the film of pushing judas towards that betrayal but at the end the whole series ends if you remember with zero and his henchmen looking into the empty tomb and saying now it begins it all begins every end a new beginning and certainly that was the right way to end before the third day brought enormous joy to christians and that day becomes our easter day year by year so let's say our prayers on this particular morning and we're thinking this morning of the diocese in our anglican commune and the diocese of karnataka north in the united church of south india we are praying also for the province of the indian ocean for archbishop james after our conversation this morning with him and also for madagascar and all our friends there suffering so much and needing so much resources following drought and cyclones and terrible damage and loss of life and in the diocese as we pray for archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambis were praying for the parish church christchurch ramsgate and the position there of the parish priest is is listed here as vacant so we'll pray for those who have to appoint a new priest there so let's say the collect for this week for the last time the fourth sunday before lent and join your own prayers and intentions with that oh god you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer that jesus taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men moment of reflection now on this morning do [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen i'm laughing because the robin which you probably saw appeared just here and the minute he appeared we had our friends stalking back across the garden here so the robin's wiser than to stay around at that but ah here he is again little robin hello uh so he's he's very very brave but leo is a bit near so robin i wouldn't come quite yet we'll take leo in a moment uh there we go um i was going to say that at the end now fletcher is going to put on a film which was made by our director of music david newsham having done the the the anniversary of father henry willis and talked about the organ some of you have inquired more about the organ and you may want to stay on now to look at this film or of course return to it later because this shows the the grand organ in a very good way and uh with david newsham um giving that kind of commentary and playing so enjoy your day and we'll do our best to do the same and i'm going to take you away so that the robin isn't troubled by you but he's sitting well up there looking down on you at the moment leo good evening it's a great pleasure to welcome you to canterbury cathedral i'm talking to you from on top of the medieval choir screen where an organ has stood at two points in the cathedral's history first from the 15th century for 100 years or so and second between 1784 and 1827. in more recent years the choir screen has been home to the organs console the first of these was built here in 1949 and this was subsequently replaced by a three-manual console built by normander's company as part of their 1979 overhaul of the instrument today as you can see the loft is empty safe for various bits of cabling and equipment related to the cathedral sound system which you might be able to hear humming away in the background the old manda console has been taken away and replaced by a brand new one situated in the north choir aisle which you might just be able to make out behind me and so this is where we're heading now you join me now in the north korea isle standing next to the newly constructed organ loft built by architect firm caruso sinchen this structure is conceived as an independent little building with a vertical proportion and a tight asymmetrical arrangement of its parts more pertinent from a musical point of view is that it is positioned almost directly behind the cantorus choir stalls making communication with the singers much more comfortable and enjoyable than ever it was when the console was cited on the quiet screen now a great plus of giving this tour by video is that i'm able to take you to spaces which might otherwise be out of bounds to large groups so before i show you up into the organ loft i'm going to climb up to the triphoria for a look at some of the pipe works of course one of the great benefits of pre-recording material is that you'll never know how long it took me to get my breath back so here we are in the north triforium a long way above floor level i'd love for you all to be here in person to appreciate the extraordinarily high quality of the work which has been done by harrison and harrison's i'm presently standing in front of the transept division built primarily to support congregational singing at the east end of canterbury's huge choir since last march the vast majority of cathedral services have taken place in the nave and so we haven't yet had opportunity to use this division extensively to my left a situated the solo division which is enclosed and the not with canterbury available and a love of the organ this is a particularly pleasurable sight since the previous organ following its rebuilt by mandarin 1979 contained no 32-foot flu stops whatsoever in fact photographic evidence exists of some of willis's original 32-foot flues being sworn up in the late 1970s i've crossed the building now and i'm in the triforium on the south side whilst the site of organ pipes in the north triforium is a novelty here in canterbury this is the original site of the entire father willis organ of 1886 and the subsequent iteration by mandus the willis instrument contained five stops from the 1784 samuel green organ one of those organs i mentioned earlier as having been situated on the choir screen following the manda rebuild only one rank from the green instrument survived it had been intended to retain this rank on the quiet division of our new instrument however it was found to be too much altered and subsequently rather bland and so the decision was taken to retire the stop rather touchingly these pipes have been kept and are displayed together with an explanatory plaque just behind me here further down the south triforium are the great and swell divisions of the organ as well as the majority of the pedal pipes finally here we are in the organ loft sitting at harrison and harrison's magnificent new four manual console we are extremely fortunate that when they rebuilt the willis organ in 1979 mandas treated the original father willis pipe work with good care this pipe work has now been restored by harrisons and returned to service in the newly rebuilt ill instrument it can be heard in the great chorus [Music] and in that of the swell [Music] around 40 of the pipe work in the present instrument is brand new uh including where should we start the orchestral oboe on the solo [Music] and his partner the 16 foot core enclave [Music] we were on the choir out of the makeup and over on the swell this rather lovely vox umana which you can hear here with the tremulens [Music] [Music] and a 16-foot oboe [Music] this rather delightful leebly flute [Music] finally on the great is a magnificent gamba for you to [Music] now all of these stops are based on extant examples by father willis the harmonic flutes on the solo division are also new and these are scaled midway between other examples by harrison's and father willis being neither as wide as those typically built by harrisons nor as narrow as examples by willis here you can hear them [Music] [Music] [Applause] the instrument is further enriched by a handful of unashamedly harrison and harrison stops including the narrow scaled string section on the solo [Music] [Applause] and an enclosed clarinet on the solo whose creamy character rather contrasts with the father willis which is on the choir here's the solo clarinet [Music] and here's the corner di bassetto [Music] finally on the solo division we find the french horn based on the wonderful example at durham cathedral and also an offer clyde both of these stops are voiced on 20-inch wind pressure the highest on the entire organ here's a bit of the french horn [Music] and here's some of the offer clyde [Applause] now this off clyde rather well complements the brassy willis tubers and together they project marvelously well down the nave despite the fact that the tubers are situated right at the east end of the choir you can hear them together all three stops [Music] and so ends our whittlestop tour of the organ at canterbury cathedral originally by father willis and magnificently rebuilt by harrison harrisons i hope very much that you've enjoyed this short introduction