In 1619 John Donne travelled to Germany as a ‘chaplain’ on a diplomatic mission. Before setting out he penned a poem entitled A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s last going into Germany. In 1940, when others were heading from England to Germany at considerable cost (I am not sure about the idea of war as a continuation of diplomacy by other means, but the resonance may sit here), that text was set to music for a 4-part choir. The composer was a woman sometimes overlooked on account of the men around her: Imogen Holst was the daughter of Gustav, pupil of Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan-Williams, and ‘assistant’ (initially) to Benjamin Britten; though to be fair the latter did make her a co-director of the Aldeburgh Festival.

The setting is deceptively simple, though one can hear the influence of her teachers as well as her father in the overall effect. She set only two verses of Donne’s four; were this a poetry blog I could discuss the lines: ‘Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:/ To see God only, I goe out of sight:’. However, those were not included in this setting, so perhaps the sacrificial element in the first two verses are more pertinent.

The first verse compares the traveller’s ship with the Ark, and the sea with the Blood of Christ. The second surrenders care of the island of Britain and all those the author there loves to the care of ‘th’Eternall root/of true Love’, who may be the only person the author knows in his final destination (whether that be Germany or Heaven – poetry allows both to be implied simultaneously).

The music is simultaneously comforting and restless, possibly reflecting the ambiguity of hope and loss in the wartime context. Those going away to war did not include the composer herself, so her tribute to those departing was a matter of comfort to those not travelling, rather than the surrender of those left behind by the author of the text.

The music, therefore, is, like the text, strongly bound to human feelings and human weakness. Is it nevertheless theological? I think we have to say that it is, and not only because the divine suffuses all humanity. Although a departure and not yet a homecoming, there is a sense of trust and a surrender of human love to the care of God.