Elizabeth Poston was a multifaceted musician, pianist, teacher, and musicologist. Not only was she a well-known composer, she was quite active as an academic, and wrote for the Arts Council of Great Britain, gave lectures, and was the president of the Society of Women Musicians from 1955 until 1961. Another interesting part of her career was that she was a secret war agent during World War II, and worked for the BBC using gramophone records to send coded messages to allies in Europe. Curiously, the exact nature of her work as a secret agent still remains unknown.

Today’s offertory anthem, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, is her most well-known choral work. I remember hearing this piece many eons ago, on a recording I owned of the American Boy Choir. What draws me to it is its simplicity. The first thing you hear is a seemingly sweet and simple soprano solo, unaccompanied, yet wickedly difficult to sing.

Can you imagine what it takes to sing such an exposed line of music, totally alone with no “help” from the organ or from others? When you hear this anthem sung properly, it’s spine-tingling. Curiously enough, the printed music doesn’t have much on it. The rhythm is basic, it’s in C major with no accidentals, and the score is pristine. It looks like it should be easy to sing. When you get into the details of transforming the music into sound, it doesn’t take long to learn that you need some real skill to make it sound right. From this perspective, one can appreciate the bewitchingly rare abilities it takes, when you hear it done properly.

In the words of one verse, you’ll hear how Christ’s beauty excels. This music excels in beauty, but through a kind of simplicity that is elusive, and vocally demanding. To turn a simple composition into the right kind of an aural result demands a lot.  But that’s what our lives as Christians are like. The concepts of Christianity are simple, but the demands are quite high. Love, forgiveness, and charity are hard concepts to put into daily application. They require practice. The concepts of Christ are simple. The application of a Christ-like life, not so simple. This anthem parallels that truth. On paper it’s a piece of cake. In reality, it takes practice and skill, and it requires much effort to apply those skills. But wouldn’t it be worth it to get closer to the perfection of Christ, just a bit more every day? We can certainly try. The result would assuredly yield a better world if we did. Soli deo Gloria!