Audio & Text Alternative: Where Light Falls at Coventry Cathedral

'In a New Light' by Jane Commane

O sisters too, how may we do / for to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing / "Bye bye, lully, lullay"?
– from The Coventry Carol, 14th Century.

Lay down a blue thread of river and make here a city,
weave a busy tapestry of trades and guilds and merchants.
From castle and monasteries, the red sandstone walls form
and reform, and three spires rise to touch the hem of skyline.
Cappers, girdlers, dyers, weavers, city of hands building
chapels of industry that become churches, cathedrals,
streets where devout carnivals of mystery plays reflect back
in stained glass the crowd for the Shearman and Tailors’ pageant;
below, a glovemaker’s son from Stratford takes notes, above
a stonemason puts down his tools, whistles lully, lullay.

Our cathedral – a symbol of permanence, reassurance
in a city where buildings go up and buildings come down,
our spire still stands tall, a beacon to all.
With a mind of togetherness, how strong we can be.
Our cathedral of global visitors and lunchtime trysts,
place of peace, our intrinsic Coventry-ness.

Lay down your tools and clock-out at the factory whistle,
time turns on a crankshaft from cloth to clockwork, bicycles
to cars, the work-song of lathes turning swarf’s string of silver
from metal. Peace work turns to war work, the cathedral crypts
become shelters. November moonlight. Frost gleams white on lead
as firewatchers with broom and pitchfork, the Provost and Jock,
join others on the roof. Sirens, then hard rain of the raid
through the night, hand to hand, sweeping, quenching until buckets
of water and sand and all the brigade’s hoses run dry,
the city lit red in cross beams of radar and searchlight.

Our cathedral in bronze-coloured smoke, concentrated blaze.
All night the city burned and our cathedral burned with her.
Our cathedral of Corley stone, glass shatter.
Firefighting on the roof, grandad never forgave himself.
All this matters: our togetherness and our unity.
Our cathedral, laid open to the sky

Lay down the crossed beams of charred oak in the smoking dawn light.
All through the night the cathedral bells still rang the hours out
but from the channel the red ribbon on the horizon
was a city ablaze, citizens now emerging dazed
to morning: nothing left but the spire and the shell...
it makes you think it all a bad dream. In ash and rubble
three roof nails make cruciform, the Provost finds the right words.
But this poor youngling, the child who grips a mother’s hand tight
is heartful of fear at the bombsite’s empty eye sockets:
how does a city find the thread of a song and rise again?

Our cathedral - warm sandstone holding the remnants of heat
of November in her peaceful arms, fragmented voices;
this broken building, half a cathedral.
Our Cathedral for a blitzed city that would not give up.
Small voices echo; glass once shattered now illuminates,
symbol of hope, the open air now embraced.

Lay down threads of light on fallen city walls, rise again
with hands extended, friendships, twin cities: a stone restored
in the ruins becomes a cross made for the Frauenkirche.
Step for a moment from the carousel by the market,
a new city’s giddy spin of concrete arcades, mosaics,
and find the quiet embrace of the ruined cathedral
under the wing of the new, Spence’s act of faith. Oh
Sisters! Godiva on horseback, the sound of requiems,
sci-fi symphonies of sirens, the city catches a glimpse
of itself in new glass from the old cathedral steps.

Our cathedral, echoing with the sound of shuffling feet,
with the resonances of other people; I see, I hear,
then I open a new sense that I was not aware of.
Our cathedral, our community’s heart, reverberating
2-Tone town walls welcoming, celebrating our differences.
Do you feel better than when you went in?

Lay down your shades of blue in stained glass - let light shine through
on true blue, engineer’s blue, French woad blue, three spires sky blue
a tapestry of nine hundred colours – our warp and weft,
Hugenot weavers, rainbow rolls of silk on Foleshill Road,
your name on a Cash’s label at the nape of your neck,
the Ska rhythms in your step, and here, at Coventry’s heart
a living gift that belongs to us all, filled with art, sound
and colour, peace and reconciliation made concrete,
my story and yours woven together, from hand to hand,
lay down our threads of history and make here our city.

Our Cathedral, where we can see ourselves in a new light,
a building that seemed to say in quiet voice: I am
the sacrifice, now build for the future.
Our Cathedral, where we see our city in a new light;
we are not the building, we are the light streaming through it,
still here and enduring, the years returning back to us,
we are the echoing sound of old and new, we are one.

Audio Description of the projections

Scene setting and instructions

Written description of the soundscape

Site 1

Jane Commane, the poet who has written “In A New Light” reads the first two verses of her poem. The refrain beginning “our cathedral” are words and phrases taken directly from the community workshops led by Jane.

She reads:

Lay down a blue thread of river and make here a city,
weave a busy tapestry of trades and guilds and merchants.
from castle and monasteries, the red sandstone walls form
and reform, and three spires rise to touch the hem of skyline.
Cappers, girdlers, dyers, weavers, city of hands building
chapels of industry that become churches, cathedrals,
streets where devout carnivals of mystery plays reflect back
in stained glass the crowd for the Shearsman and Tailor’s pageant;
below, a glovemaker’s son from Stratford takes notes, above
a stonemason puts down his tools, whistles lully, lullay.

Our cathedral – a symbol of permanence, reassurance
in a city where buildings go up and buildings come down,
our spire still stands tall, a beacon to all.
With a mind of togetherness, how strong we can be.
Our cathedral of global visitors and lunchtime trysts,
place of peace, our intrinsic Coventry-ness.

Sites 2, 3 and 4

All three sites have a soundtrack to accompany them. It is intended as background and does not directly relate to any specific lines of poetry.

There is a low sound of a cello running throughout the piece, it sounds long notes and rises and falls in line with the higher pitched sound of violins. The two sounds weave in and out of each other. The overall affect is one of warmth and gentleness.

Site 5

At the start of the piece, the spire and ruins are shrouded in darkness. A church bell sounds out and the first image lights up the spire. The bell sounds out sharply, as if to gather people together and gain their attention.

At the same time, string instruments can be heard, playing in large, warm waves of sound. The sound is welcoming and unfurls out until the ruins are enveloped in sound. The first image on the spire appears, and with it the bell sounds again. Now high pitched, clear singing can be heard. The voices open up and are warm in tone. Worked into the melody is the sound of a church organ, reminding us that we are here to watch a piece that celebrates a religious building.

The poet, Jane Commane, announces the name of the poem “In A New Light” and the sound described above, continues. As the fragments of stained glass travel towards us, we can hear a fast paced, low bass rhythm is introduced. When Jane reads out “a busy tapestry” we hear the sound of people working, hammering and chipping, to evoke the “guilds and merchants” that made Coventry their home. This sound transforms into the fast ticking of clockwork, as if we are travelling through time with the poet.

As the words “a glovemaker’s son from Stratford” are spoken we hear a high pitched flute play a few bars of the famous sixteenth century “Coventry Carol” as the lyrics to the song “lully lullay” appear on the spire.

Then with the word “our cathedral” the sound of a church organ bursts forth, the tone is optimistic and positive “a beacon to all”.
As the words “our intrinsic Coventryness” appear on the spire, the strains of a harp dance across the words being read out. Strings are then heard, swelling and falling. As they rise, it feels like the piece is broadening out, as if a whole landscape is being taken in, the horizon of a city. Individual notes on a harp are picked out, undulating up and down to complement the strings.

The strings suddenly take a harsher, high pitched tone, and a ghostly piano is heard. We see orange, red and yellow stained glass appear on the spire. The piano is playing the opening bars from Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. This is significant because the Nazi’s planned the bombing raid on Coventry under the code name “Operation Mondscheinsonate”, after the piece of music.

As the piece continues, low choral singing can be heard in waves and a low reverberation of a gong accompanies at intervals. This subtly suggests the impact of bombs as they fell over Coventry. As the words “quenching with buckets of water and sand” we hear the shrill bell of a fire engine, ringing urgently. The string of violins can be heard intermittently, the effect is one of impending disaster.

“Our cathedral in bronze coloured smoke” the sound of a regular but faltering drum beat is heard. There is a sound of static breaking up the piece as high pitched strings sound out creating a feeling of urgency.

A note on a piano is played over and over again, linking the red, orange and yellow stained glass section to the images of the cathedral spire seemingly ablaze with orange and yellow glow. The static can be heard in the background throughout. As the black and white archive images appear the static ends and the piano plays out a mournful melody which is joined by a clear and crisp note of a wind instrument. The notes play creating a poignant atmosphere.

As the red, yellow and orange stained glass return to the spire, so to do the strings, ebbing and flowing, creating warmth and hope.

As the stained glass fades away and white lines of architectural drawings can be seen, the sound of chimes can be heard, dancing across the piece as if someone is sprinkling glitter. There is a hush at first but the sound builds, as if taking one faltering step at a time, more confident with each movement. It builds to create a high pitched, hopeful, soaring sound that envelopes us.

As the section continues with the line of poetry “Oh! Sisters” and the scene changes to illuminated stained glass. With this change of the organ music and a woman’s voice. The sound is sparkling and optimistic.

A magical, high pitched sound dances over the music and as the words “do you feel better than when you went in?” are spoken, a hush falls.

As the blue stained glass appears on the spire with the words “lay down your shades of blue” read out, we hear a choir start to sing, then an organ builds up and the rhythmic sounds of a church bell chime out again. This time the bell sounds as if it could also be the sound of building work, hammer striking iron. Notes from a harp can be heard and a fast rhythm underlines the whole piece, suggesting progress and pace.

The strains of the old carol and the new, hopeful rhythms intertwine just as the two cathedral buildings do today.

With the final words “we are one” the same melody from the beginning of the piece can also be heard as black and white images of the destruction of the cathedral, and the rebuilding are shown. As the new cathedral images are displayed, the singing becomes louder and strings accompany it, rising and falling. The tone is one of remembrance and hope before it fades with the last image.

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