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Sixth Piece: Rest on a Verb

from R R B V E Ǝ T N Ƨ O A [album] by John Harvey

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‘Sixth Piece: Rest on a Verb’ is situated around the halfway point in the compositional suite. The choral introduction, which follows the acoustic drawing, proceeds slowly. Its mood is sombre and reflective, grand and yearning; the melody climbs upwards, like a prayer ascending. The listener cannot comprehend the choir’s words because the samples that make-up the melody are reversed. Consequently, the listener experiences only the emotions expressed through the music. Feeling is separated from semantic sense. The choir alone carries the burden of the composition for most of its length. Roberts’s voice is conspicuous by its absence. He is no longer on the scene, presently. Roberts enters close to the end of the composition, but as though changed. After the freneticism and fractured character of some of his previous articulations, the lyric restores, to a large measure, continuity of thought and intelligible meaning. Moreover, Roberts is no longer hectoring; his tone is more settled and sedate. The revivalist had rested.

Roughly halfway through the revival, in February 1905, Roberts withdrew from all his responsibilities to the mission and entered what he called the ‘seven days’ silence’. This was a period when he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak. Neither was he allowed to say why. However, he did provide the following statement: ‘But, one issue of this silence is: If I am to prosper at Liverpool [where God had called him to minister, he believed], I must leave Wales “without money”.’ (Carrying not even one ‘copper’, he stressed.) The ‘seven days’ silence’ provided an opportunity for convalescence following an intense period of ministry and prior to taking up God’s cause again.


Lyric
Choir: [unintelligible] [2 times]
[unintelligible] [reverse] [2 times]

Choir: [unintelligible] [2 times]
[unintelligible] [reverse] [2 times]

Choir: [unintelligible]
[unintelligible] [reverse]

Choir: [unintelligible]
[unintelligible] [reverse]

Choir: [unintelligible]
[unintelligible] [reverse]

Choir: [unintelligible]
[unintelligible] [reverse]

Choir: [unintelligible] [2 times]
[unintelligible] [reverse] [2 times]

ER: All eternity will not suffice.
He was brought naked.
What can we give God in return?
The needs of our valuables ­– only a copper.
God took up his cause; man cannot do less.
Men must keep their promise.

ER/Choir: Do you not hear?

credits

from R R B V E Ǝ T N Ƨ O A [album], released July 12, 2015

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John Harvey image

John Harvey Ceredigion, UK

I’m a practitioner and historian of sound art and visual art, and Emeritus Professor of Art at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, UK. My research field is the sonic and visual culture of religion. I explore the sonic articulations of the Christian religion by engaging visual, textual, and audible sources, theological and cultural ideas, and systemic and audiovisualogical processes. ... more

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