Page 214 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year

chorus makes. In and out, in and out: the symphony ahead, MacMillan seems to be
saying, will bring change, and will also be different from what we might have been
expecting. Deep breaths, and then, here goes…

Breathing is relevant to the piece because it is inspired by, and centred on, the
aspect of God sometimes referred to as breath: the Holy Spirit. The spirit element of
the Trinity is the hardest to imagine or personify: we can conjure up images of a
Father, and of a Son, but the Holy Spirit remains out of reach, disembodied,
mysterious. As, indeed, S/He is meant to, but as a result art has tended to focus on
the other two aspects of God, and the Holy Spirit has had a poor showing.

So MacMillan’s sixtieth birthday present is for the Holy Spirit: his Fifth Symphony,
commissioned for his sixth decade milestone, is a musical examination of what the
Spirit might mean, and be, and represent. As well as helping to right the balance
(“Veni Creator Spiritus”, in the first setting of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is one of the
few attempts to capture the Holy Spirit musically), MacMillan is also making a point
about the role of the third person of the Trinity in modern life. There is, he writes in
the concert programme, a “genuine burgeoning interest in spirituality in our
contemporary post-religious and now post-secular society, especially in relation to
the arts. At a time when so much of the fabric of organised religion has been
dismissed by so many, especially in the Western world, could the Spirit be one of the
few elements of the traditional Church that still has the power to move, to captivate
and to inspire?” MacMillan, clearly, believes it does.

He was put on to the idea originally by his patron, investment banker and
philanthropist John Studzinski, who gave him a copy of The Holy Spirit, Fire of Divine
Love by the Belgian Carmelite theologian Wilfrid Stinissen. “It was a good point of
entry, theologically,” writes MacMillan, “but it drew to my attention some visionary
poetry by St John of the Cross, and this particular line from the book drew me in:
‘Even his name reveals that the Holy Spirit is mysterious. The Hebrew word ruah, the
Greek word pneuma and the Latin spiritus mean both “wind” and “breath”. ’ ”
No surprise, then, that the first part of the symphony is named “Ruah”; the second is
“Zao” (ancient Greek for “living water”) and the third is “Igne vel Igne” (Latin for “fire
or fire”). So each section has connections to the elements associated with the Holy
Spirit (wind, water, fire), and the breathing is only one aural echo of the relevant
section sounds.

The premiere was performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and The Sixteen,
which on this occasion seemed to number nearer 60; its leader, Harry Christophers,
conductor for the symphony’s premiere, often jokes that he was never much good at
maths. Both he and The Sixteen, and MacMillan, have a big fan in Cardinal Vincent
Nichols, who was there in the auditorium at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall for the premiere,
which will be broadcast on Radio 3 later in the year. The symphony has its second
performance at London’s Barbican Centre on 14 October.
MacMillan’s new work contrasts dramatically, at least in its subject matter, from its
predecessor, a composition on the Stabat Mater that was performed in the Sistine
Chapel in the spring of last year, and live-streamed across the globe on the internet.
Its story is one of the most frequently told, and most easily understood narratives of
Christianity: how a mother was torn apart by her son’s violent death. It speaks to us
easily, across the generations and across the cultures: we can all grasp the

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