Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge

 

It is with profound sorrow  we record that Dr Mary Berry, having received the Last Rites, died on Thursday 1st May.

With our prayers Mary now sleeps in Christ and will find in His presence light, happiness and peace.

Mary had expressed in her Will a desire for a Requiem Mass to be celebrated in Cambridge and for her body to be buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Birinus, Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Her body was brought into the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Cambridge, on the evening of Friday 9 May, and this was followed by Solemn Vespers of the Dead. Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated on Saturday 10 May by His Grace, the Most Reverend Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow. Mary's body was then received into the Church of St Birinus on the evening of Sunday 11 May, once more accompanied by Vespers of the Dead. On Monday 12 May, Solemn High Mass, celebrated by Fr Guy Nicholls, Cong Orat, and assisted by Fr Richard Conrad, OP and Fr Thomas Crean, OP, was sung in Dorchester Abbey. After Mass we processed in brilliant sunshine, singing a Litany of the Saints, to St Birinus where Mary's mortal remains were laid to rest.

Requiescat in pace.

"Pray for me as I will for thee, that we may merrily meet in heaven" - St Thomas More

Homily preached by The Reverend Andrew Macintosh, D.D., Fellow and Dean Emeritus of St John's College on Saturday 10th May at the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Cambridge.

2 Cor.4:16-5:10

The lesson for Corinthians is one of those prescribed by the church for funeral sevices. A word or two of explanation may serve to bring it more directly into relationship with Mary Berry and with our memory of her.

St Paul is concerned to set forth the contrast between life now with its inevitable struggles and sadnesses and another life, a glorious life, in the presence of God. For St Paul, death or 'absence from the body', as he calls it, means presence with God in heaven. The apostle was by trade a tent maker and it is to his work that he turns for a metaphor. Our worn frail bodies, mere earthly tents, will be replaced by buildings of God, real proper houses, not flimsy and subject to decay, but lasting and eternal. It is for that permanent, abiding home that each of us eventually must come to long; our groans, our pains, our sufferings, our old age and terminal decline are properly understood as expressions of our yearning to find such shelter, to rejoice in such clothing of our weakness, our nakedness, as St Paul calls it, to rejoice in such swallowing of our mortality in life. All that is related to achievement, to things done, whether good or bad, for which each of us is accountable at the judgment seat of God in Christ.

'Though the earthly house of this tent is destroyed, we have a building of God, eternal in the heavens'. What Mary Berry was, what, with God's help, she stood for; what, indeed, of her is stored in the personal memory of each of us here today is not lost in the frailty of terminal illness nor in the decline of death. I mean Mary's devoted commitment to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Roman Catholic church; her enthusiastic fostering of the productive discipline of music, her infectious and remarkable qualities of leadership. And her achievement in promoting plainsong in this country and abroad so that her Schola Gregoriana is now a flourishing and viable organisation assured of a long future. Her ecumenical vision, too, is a further sign of the Spirit working in her, for the Schola is not restricted to Roman Catholics; she even appointed me as its Anglican chaplain. The Community of Jesus, Cape Cod, MA, also took her to their heart and she taught them to sing magnificent plainchant - with an American accent. The arrangement was mutually beneficial in that it evoked that typical American generosity which undertook, under Sr Alicia's devoted leadership, to care for Mary in her terminal decline. Mary's achievement, then, is not only measured by her recognition, by her appointment Commander of the British Empire by the Queen and her Papal Cross from the church, but importantly in what she brought forth from so many people with whom she came in contact.

But, in Shakespeare's famous words, we are here today to bury Mary, not to praise her, or not primarily. The commital of her corpse to obliteration is a solemn and necessary pre-requisite to the fulfilment of the hope expressed by St Paul. There is no resurrection without death. He, that is Christ, was cruxified DEAD and buried. Mors ultima linea rerum est, said one Roman poet. He means, Death defines everything, period. If death removes the frail tent (and, just consider: who wants to enter life eternal on a zimmer frame, or tormented by the pain of terminal illness, or impaired by the vacuum of dementia?) - if death removes the frail tent, then it elevates the values and worth of the deceased; it allows us to focus on those matters as supremely important.

'He/she lives on in our memory' we are accustomed to say. Memory is the facility by which we honour and eternalize the worth of those we love but  see no longer. That goes a very long way but, of course, not far enough. For the larger, deeper vision, I invite you to look up this church at an altar on which, for many years, bread and wine have constituted the sacramental memorial of the one person in all history who, in teaching personal discipline, love for others and unselfish obedience even to death, and death on a cross, got it totally right.

And here is my main point. He is supreme in our memory but not only so. He is also supreme in the memory of God, the father. That, God's memory bank, is one of quite enormous, indeed, of infinite gigabytes. Today we pray that our beloved sister Mary departed may, with us, be found worthy to be remembered in that ultimate, absolute and decisive way. For to be in the memory of God is to live for ever, to have a permanent, abiding home which will never be destroyed.

May she rest in peace and be raised in glory.

Grey Macartney, Chairman of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, gave the following panegyric at the end of the Requiem Mass at The Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs on Saturday 10th May 2008.

For many years the Readers’ Digest ran a series of articles entitled  “The most unforgettable person I ever knew”.   If I were ever called upon to write such an essay my subject would be Mary Berry.

I first met her in 1977 following an article in the Daily Telegraph reporting on one of Mary’s chant weekends in Cambridge.  Encouragingly it said beginners would be welcome. Despite my complete inexperience in any kind of singing, let alone Gregorian chant, I was warmly welcomed by Mary, who invited me to join the other 80 participants.  And everyone else on that weekend told me what a wonderful warm hearted welcome they had received from Mary.  I found that this generous  disposition towards those who came into contact with her was one of her traits, which meant that she always had an immense circle of friends and supporters.  By her example this spirit of welcome and concern for others has permeated the Schola, so that we have become a community united in our common purpose of encouraging and fostering the chant as a form of worship.

I rapidly found that she was a gifted teacher; her enthusiasm for the chant was so infectious that even for someone knowing nothing of the subject she would kindle their interest and get them to perform things they never realised they were capable of.

Wherever she went, even to the most unlikely places, this roving ambassador would fire enthusiasm for the chant.  When holidaying on the Isle of Mull, she called at a remote farm. Over tea and scones in the farmhouse kitchen the farmer and his wife became engrossed in a spontaneous chant workshop, and have since never forgotten their extraordinary visitor.

How did it come about that Mary will be remembered above all for rescuing the chant in Britain from virtual oblivion ?  Mary loved to tell the story how the spring which was the source of the Schola was actually a warm bath in which her associate Rosemary McCabe was reading the journal “Early Music”.   Noting that there was not a single reference to the chant, the very foundation of early music, and prompted or prodded no doubt by the Holy Spirit, Rosemary jumped out of the bath, and summoning Mary with the urgency that this serious lacuna deserved, Rosemary exclaimed that she must take urgent steps to rescue the chant from what appeared to be a terminal decline.

However, the Holy Spirit would not have inspired Mary through Rosemary to begin her work purely fortuitously.  Both women, devout Catholics, were endowed with formidable talents which complemented each other and which they would employ to the full in founding and developing the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge.  Rosemary as a lecturer in mediaeval history and subsequently bursar of Queen’s College, Cambridge, was a superlative administrator who would be able to ensure suitable venues were booked and imaginative programmes devised attracting the maximum number of participants.  With Rosemary’s administrative backing  Mary was able to deploy a whole host of talents with which she was gifted.

Mary learnt music in Paris from Nadia Boulanger, considered the most influential music teacher of the 20th century.  The Catholic Church, the influence of Boulanger, and other musicians specialising in Gregorian chant, and her joining the  novitiate of the Canonesses Regular of St.Augustine based in Belgium, and finally chant courses at the Institut Gregorien in Paris, engendered in Mary a profound knowledge and love of Gregorian chant. In 1968 she was awarded a doctorate for her thesis on the performance of plainchant in the later Middle Ages and the Sixteenth Century.

She coupled her total mastery of chant with exceptional teaching ability. Her instruction was always peppered with entertaining anecdotes; one often remembered something she had taught by reference to the anecdote that accompanied it.  As you will know the Office of Tenebrae is both long and dramatic, reciting the events of the Passion of Our Lord. By the end, all lights and candles have been extinguished, leaving the church in darkness.   Mary told us how on one such occasion her loyal helper Margaret Aitken was to switch off the remaining single light.  But Margaret was operating a newly installed system of switches, and instead of pervading darkness, a whole series of lights began to flash on and off in all directions resembling a kind of firework display. Mary turned to her neighbours and gently observed:  “Bebe s’amuse”.

The pleasure that Mary gave to others in performing and teaching the chant she received in equal measure.  After a successful performance she would exclaim:  “That was fun, wasn’t it !”   Mary always maintained:  “Plainchant is music of such beauty, and the root of all our Western music.  But for far too long people have held it in too much veneration.  What I try to convey, both in my teaching and performance is how much fun it is.”  That reminds me that one evening after dinner Mary suddenly called out to us “Let’s sing some chants from the Requiem Mass !” She especially enjoyed the superlative  music of the Requiem Mass; I am sure she is listening to us avidly today, with a keen ear for any slips; for she never, ever let standards drop.

She always expected perfection in whatever she or others did. Further, she was a born leader; it was she who led her community from Belgium across France in advance of the German Army at the beginning of the war, across the Pyrenees and Spain into the safety of Portugal. As a conductor she was always in total control of her musicians; people always did exactly what she demanded.  Once, in France our coach was blocked by a lorry.  Our coach driver remonstrated with the lorry driver, who refused to budge.  Then Mary got out of the coach and after a few words with the lorry driver he meekly climbed back into his cab and reversed for us.

In conversation Mary’s remarks were never trite. A lively interest in a wide range of subjects ensured she could converse knowledgably on any subject. She was constantly in demand as a speaker on the chant, and whenever any question arose related to the chant, it was from Mary that the authorities sought advice.

Her energy was astounding.  While everyone else was flagging after an intensive day’s concentration on the chant, Mary would call out “Come on, or you will be late for Compline”.  All her weeks and weekends of chant instruction were action-packed. There was no room for wilting.  She used to refer to the after lunch class as “the sleepy session”; there was only one person in the room as perky as ever – Mary.

Thinking of the parable of the talents recorded in the Gospel of St.Matthew, Mary was endowed with a quiverful of talents:  Ability to teach, leadership, goodwill, a sense of humour, an incisive brain, and a deep religious conviction.  All these talents she wholly devoted to the good of other people, and has left us a lasting foundation to build upon and foster her exemplary work.

Oration given at the funeral of Dr Mary Berry, CBE, Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester on Thames, 12th May 2008 by Patrick Maddams, Trustee of The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge.

After a lifetime of studying mediaeval manuscripts it will come as no surprise to learn that Mary was not an early aficionado of the Internet and I am not sure she wholeheartedly approved of the Schola's recent decision to launch a website. Nevertheless I am sure she would be amused to learn that on Googling her name we find the encouraging news that her books are selling very well in Tesco  – until, that is,  we realise that we have been reading about her namesake who is famous for cakes and salad dressings rather than tropes and quilismas.

Add the word “Doctor” to Mary Berry and then we find just how widespread Mary's reputation has become. Her doctorate was awarded in the 1960s by Cambridge University for a ground breaking thesis on the performance of Gregorian Chant. It was written in French and Mary once told me that her supervisors had to find a fluent French reader to assess it. This they did at the great Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes whose unbroken tradition of singing the chant over many centuries was maintained for a while at the Isle of Wight when, a hundred years ago or so, the monks had to decant during one of France's occasional anti clerical outbursts. A Benedictine community remains there to this day.

Mary's unique vision was based on the integration of scholarly research, performance, practice and an unshakable belief that Gregorian chant was divinely inspired. She was fond of quoting St Odo of Cluny who said that chanting was the easy road to perfection, but as those of us who have studied and sung with her will know, perfection for Mary was not an abstract concept. Hard work, diligent practice, attention at all times during rehearsals, a sharpened pencil (she even prescribed a HB4 as being the most suitable as the lead didn’t break but rubbing out was easy) and a view of unison singing that had no place for the individual voice.

Indeed teaching the chant to opera students, as she did at the Royal Academy of Music in the early 1990s was  a particular challenge. As she exclaimed when one young man made the “Regina Caelia” sound like a Don Giovanni seduction – “The trouble is you are acting the part. Chanting is about forgetting it ˮ.

Well those of us who have studied, toured and performed with Mary have had the privilege of forgetting who we are and letting the chant become that easy road. The experience of singing these glorious melodies and not being able to hear your own individual voice is a unique experience indeed. You also become acutely aware of your surroundings and our appreciation of cathedral and church architecture  has grown as a result. And have we sung in some special places – Fountains Abbey, Beverley Minster, Chester Cathedral, Notre Dame, recently the Temple Church to name but a few and perhaps most special of all, the austere, beautifully lit and near perfect acoustic of the Cistercian abbey church in Pontigny, nestling among the lush vineyards of Burgundy.

I have mentioned Mary's strict rehearsal regime, but some of our happiest moments were in those Burgundian restaurants after our sacred concerts when the chanting of the “Benedicite” as we always did before meals, signalled the beginning of enjoyable feasting, as indeed it always did at those countless weekends in Oxford and Cambridge colleges that were the doorway for so many people’s first taste of singing the chant.

Apart from Pontigny and a memorable tour to Montreal and Quebec in 1995, I never travelled abroad with Mary but I am acutely aware that her reputation spread far beyond these shores. As a Canoness of the Order of St Augustine I sometimes wondered if she saw her role as being like the saint but in reverse, taking the chant from Britain to places where it had been forgotten.

Her long and happy association with Brian Johnson at Herald records ensured a world renowned discography that did much to promote her work and reputation at home and abroad. This culminated in the recording made in one of the Vatican's most beautiful chapels, of “Tu es Petrus” a series of chants about the life of the first pope, Saint Peter of the Keys, “ad vincula”.  The first copy was sent to Pope John Paul II, whose secretary graciously replied by saying the Holy Father enjoyed listening to it immediately before his daily siesta. Perhaps because of this, Mary was awarded, in the millennium year, the highest Papal award that can be bestowed on the laity – “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice”  , for Church and Pope.

After this it was perhaps inevitable that her own country should honour her and Mary was awarded a CBE in the 2002 New Year Honours list. According to Mary the Queen asked her if this was the first ever honour given by a monarch specifically for the teaching of Gregorian chant . “Well” said Mary with a twinkle in her eye and perhaps remembering that her name, while in Religion, had been Sister Thomas More “certainly the first since the Reformation”.

I should also mention Mary's long association with the Community of Jesus in Massachusetts and whose members cared for her so lovingly in her later life and during her last days. I think it was thirty years ago that 70 of them turned up for a Gregorian chant tour and I was press ganged, as a young man of 27,  into being a tour guide. What a remarkable trip it was, across the length and breadth of Britain from Canterbury to Iona and back again. I still remember all the places we visited, singing the chant at every stop. Even the coach drivers joined in, or at least listened with attention.

It is therefore especially pleasing that members of the Community of Jesus are here today.

These few words I have been asked to say by the trustees and Associates of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, which Mary and others founded in the early 1970s, and it has been our privilege to be associated with it's tremendous work ever since. All inspirational leaders need a certain amount of management back up these days and this we have tried to provide. Trustee meetings were always held at her warm and welcoming home in Barton outside Cambridge and, although she would look at the accounts, it was discussion of forthcoming music projects that would light her up.

That light continues to burn bright .

May She Rest In Peace.

For an account of the Requiem Mass and subsequent burial at the church of St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames

Photograph gallery of the Requiem Mass in Dorchester Abbey