Christmas On The Benches

I grew up in the Quaker church (not nearly as exotic in my home state of Pennsylvania as it is in the Midwest,) so the kind of extravagant Christmas celebrations that so many religious traditions observe were foreign to me. My religion emphasized simplicity over ceremony, to the extent that normal Sunday services were conducted in silence, the whole congregation gathered together on hard wooden benches in a building that resembled a renovated barn, with no officiant or minister leading us. The closest thing we had to a religious authority figure (other than God, who, our tradition held, was to be found not in the sky above, but on the Earth, within each of us,) was the elected clerk of the meeting, who would indicate that the service had concluded by shaking hands with the person next to him/her, at which point we would all do the same, and then go have coffee.

My first Christmas at Gwynedd Meeting came when I was eleven, shortly after we'd moved to the area and begun attending services. I'd attended Catholic Christmas masses before, with members of my extended family who observed that tradition, and being a child with little exposure to such things, found them to be hugely intimidating, if gloriously extravagant. But I had no idea what to expect of a Quaker Christmas service. In my world, Christmas was about two things - presents and music, in that order. My brothers and I all played string instruments, so we were in heavy demand around the holiday season for cheesy little mini-performances in front of relatives, friends, and even real audiences. Moreover, we had a stately old Baldwin upright in the living room, and my mother, an accomplished amateur musician herself, was only too happy to spend an hour or two teaching us carol after carol from the worn green Christmas songbook that resided in the piano bench.

But in a church known for silence, how could Christmas be Christmas? I remember being seriously worried about this. Our services were never exactly austere and forbidding, but they were certainly solemn, and to a kid, solemnity just doesn't go with Christmas. So I was surprised when one of the elders of the meeting approached my parents to ask whether my brother, Drew, and I would be available to participate in a musical portion of the Sunday service on the weekend before Christmas that year. It would be a simple matter of performing a few understated carols in between hymns and testimonies, and we were both agreeable. We had a stockpile of such arrangements at home, and knew it wouldn't take more than an hour or two to whip them into acceptable shape.

I don't know who selected the repertoire, but I do remember thinking that some of it seemed to have little to do with Christmas. The operative theme seemed to be quiet murmuring music, rather than anything particularly festive. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring was an obvious choice, as was a movement of the Corelli Christmas Concerto that we'd been playing together for years. But somehow, Simple Gifts (a hugely important hymn in the Quaker church, albeit one without a single connection to Christ or the holidays) got into the mix, and then came the selection that made my brother's face fall the minute he heard it - Pachelbel's Canon in D.

See, my brother was a cellist, and I know from experience that the very mention of Pachelbel's name inspires that same grimacing reaction from all cellists, regardless of age or ability. The ubiquitous canon is actually a lovely (if severely overused) piece of music, and the instruments playing the melody line really have little to complain about. But for whichever instrument plays the bass line, Pachelbel is ten minutes of quiet hell. A canon is really nothing but endless variations on the same set of chords (that's why the various lines can enter one after the other and not sound dissonant,) which means that, while the melody might be changing and evolving, the chord structure stays absolutely static. Since chords are built from their lowest note, the upshot of all this is that the cellist plays a sequence of eight notes a total of 54 times in Pachelbel's Canon.

I don't know how many times my brother had to bang out the Pachelbel bass line over the years, but I do know that he was never happy about it. That Sunday at Gwynedd, I distinctly remember the change in his face when we transitioned from Corelli to Pachelbel. He went from a studious young performer hoping not to screw up, to an automaton in a trancelike state, calmly repeating his two bar bass line like a machine, his mind somewhere far, far away as he waited for me to finish noodling around on the melody line. In the years since, I've seen this look from countless other cellists at weddings, funerals, and religious ceremonies of all kinds, at which the celebrants never seem able to resist the siren song of Pachelbel.

Afterwards, I must have made some vaguely mocking comment about his demeanor during the canon, because I distinctly remember him turning to me, eyes flashing with anger, and hissing, "It doesn't even have anything to do with Christmas!"

He was absolutely right, of course, and yet, I'll bet the Canon in D is being played even as I type this on Christmas-themed radio stations across the country. So Drew, this one's for you: may you never again have to play those eight cursed notes...