The 12 Ensemble in St James’s, Piccadilly, Twentieth-Century Music
Like ghosts refusing to waver because
They are in a church, strings abandon form.
An eeriness gripped, disabused of laws,
A tremoloed intensity, not warm
By any means, gnashes, sails, gnaws and slides
Against the chancel walls. A calmness broods
As briefly as a phantom moth that glides
To death unheard. This formlessness eludes
The ear’s desire to bring a slight embrace,
What melody’s inherent, pitched salute
Implies, a strength as of pale parchment lace
Embedded in crescendoes of the lute.
..The man who drew the building’s plan could not
…..Have dreamed of violins without a plot.