As Birds Do Sing: A Fifth Anniversary Concert

May 17, 2015
Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Lucy Harlow, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Eddie Rubeiz, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

arr. Matti Hyokki, “On suuri sun rantas’ autius”
Felix Mendelssohn, “Die Nachtigall”
Josquin des Prez, “El Grillo”
Edward Elgar, “My love dwelt in a Northern land”
Abbie Betinis, “Be Like the Bird”
Thomas Fredrickson, “Such a pretty bird”
Charles Villiers Stanford, “The Blue Bird”
Patrick Ressler, “Hope is the thing with feathers”
arr. Edward T. Chapman, “The Three Ravens”
Lester Jenks [Harvey B. Gaul], “A Ballad of Tree-Toads”
Robert Lucas Pearsall, “Lay a Garland”
Nils Lindberg, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”
Daniel Goldschmidt, “Haiku by Basho”
Manning Sherwin, arr. Gene Puerling, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”
John Chorbajian, “Loveliest of Trees”
Malcolm Dalglish, “Great Trees”
John Bartlet, “Of All the Birds That I Do Know”

Notes on the Program
The passage of time often feels as much a miracle as it does a constant. Despite the many springs we have each experienced before, every bright new blossom, beloved bird’s song, and lengthened day feels like a gift. As singers, we turn to music to celebrate this gift.

Today, we raise our voices in songs that pay homage to the springtime themes of birds and trees, to celebrate not only this spring but also our fifth year as the Chestnut Street Singers. To have not only survived—but thrived—as a small cooperative chorus is certainly cause for commemoration, and we thank you for celebrating with us today.

On suuri sun rantas’ autius
We open with a Finnish folk tune whose “lonely, lost” bird imagery evokes more than a touch of melancholy. But in this arrangement by accomplished choral conductor Matti Hyökki, the vocal lines encircle the melody with a warmth that feels like returning home.

Die Nachtigall
The nightingale has been a muse to many artists. Though she traditionally connotes lost love, longing, and sometimes melancholy, Mendelssohn’s setting of Goethe’s text is enchanting, with pleasing, soaring melodic lines. The simplicity of the song is highlighted by its homorhythmic structure. Here the nightingale, perhaps like us, is content to be at home and sing.

El Grillo
Josquin des Prez was a prolific Renaissance composer known for both sacred and secular works and, at times, a satirical sense of humor. In “El Grillo,” we celebrate the cricket. Josquin’s setting mimics the sounds of a cricket with its chirpy pairs of quarter notes, and it is thought to be a jab at the singing abilities of Josquin’s colleague Carlo Grillo; both were under the patronage of the powerful Sforza family.

My love dwelt in a Northern land
Although known primarily for his orchestral works, Edward Elgar composed a number of choral pieces throughout his career. He seemed to have enjoyed doing so as a form of relaxation between larger projects. One of his earliest choral compositions, “My love dwelt in a Northern land” was composed shortly after he married his wife, Alice. Perhaps this accounts for the pervading sense of joy in the music, despite the rather melancholy text by Scottish poet Andrew Lang. Alice, in fact, wrote an alternate text for the piece when it seemed Lang intended to refuse permission for use of the text––though thankfully, he finally relented, in Elgar’s words, “with a very bad grace.”

Be Like the Bird
In 1922, Abbie Betinis’ great-grandfather, Rev. Bates G. Burt, began a tradition of composing a carol each year and sending it to family and friends in his Christmas card. The tradition was continued by his son, Alfred Burt, whose carols remain well known to choral singers today. In 2001, Betinis––who is one of our favorite composers––revived the tradition, which had ended with Alfred’s death in the 1950s. “Be Like the Bird” was her 2009 carol. Its secular text is set to a deceptively simple tune, which, when sung in a round, develops layers of haunting beauty.

Such a Pretty Bird
The poetry set to music on today’s program is lovely, evocative, reverent of nature––and much of it is rooted firmly in the male-dominated canon of Western literature. Gertrude Stein deliberately sets herself and her poetry apart from that canon. Stein’s “Patriarchal Poetry,” excerpted in this piece, reads like a meditation, with repetition bordering on absurdity. But in its many lines, Stein has composed a criticism of the male-dominated canon, using excess to parody and question its foundations.
Just as Stein’s poetry challenges the canon of literature, composer Thomas Fredrickson deviates from the choral canon by making his setting of the text a spoken word piece. In rehearsing this piece, we first found the lack of notes to be as unsettling as the poetry itself, but we came to enjoy its percussive nature. As Virgil Thomson wrote in the preface to the volume in which “Patriarchal Poetry” appeared, “Gertrude Stein’s lines do sometimes give up their secrets over the years.”

The Silver Swan
We return to the Western canon now to cleanse our musical palates. As do many of our selections today, Orlando Gibbons’ “The Silver Swan” mixes beauty with sadness in its bird imagery. The tale depicted in this song is the quintessence of such juxtaposition: the swan song. Although the swan does not sing until her death, the song she sings in that moment is beautiful, even as it expresses a readiness for death and a disdain for the world she is leaving.

The Blue Bird
Though brief and fairly straightforward, Mary Coleridge’s poem “The Blue Bird” paints an incredibly vivid scene. Over his career, Charles Villiers Stanford set eight of Coleridge’s poems to music, though most of his oeuvre fell out of favor after his death. “The Blue Bird,” however, thrives as a choral favorite and inspiration to many, including Stanford’s student Ralph Vaughan Williams. With the soprano line soaring like a bird over the still waters of the chorus, Stanford perfectly captures the reflective nature of the poem.

Hope is the thing with feathers
We are thrilled to present the world premiere of this commission by Patrick Ressler, an extraordinarily multitalented local artist and recent alumnus of the Chestnut Street Singers. Ressler writes, “Emily Dickinson’s ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ struck me as the perfect fit for a concert celebrating the natural world, including birds and trees—and the fifth anniversary of the Chestnut Street Singers. I was excited by the challenge of musicalizing ‘hope,’ a word that shouldn’t be understood as unequivocally positive or simple. In setting this text, I sought to reflect the uncertainty of hope, suspended and resolved, and ascending ever so slightly over time (note the chromatic bass line of the first four chords). Hope isn’t easily pinned down, and has a tendency to change us more than the object of our hoping.”

The Three Ravens
Birds are not always symbols of hope or harbingers of a beautiful spring. Here, we meet three ravens who are disappointed to have lost out on their intended breakfast: a slain knight. He is too well protected by his hawks and hounds and a “fallow doe,” likely symbolizing his pregnant lover. “The Three Ravens” is a traditional English folk tune that first appeared in a published collection in 1611 but is likely much older than that. This dynamic arrangement by Edward Chapman highlights both the sinister and the beautiful moments of this chilling tale.

A Ballad of Tree Toads
This light-hearted tune returns us to the bright, sunny side of our springtime program. Lester Jenks was one of many pseudonyms used by Harvey B. Gaul, a prolific composer and arranger based in Pittsburgh at the turn of the twentieth century. Silly though it may be, the song allows our talented men to show off their chops with tight-knit barbershop harmonies and tongue-twisting diction.

Lay a Garland
“Lay a Garland” is one of the most beloved English songs in the choral canon. Robert Pearsall revived the Renaissance tradition with this adaptation of text from The Maid’s Tragedy, an early seventeenth-century play by Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625). In the play, the text is spoken by a heartbroken maiden whose betrothed is being forced to wed the king’s mistress. Out of layers of harmony and dissonance, with individual vocal lines vying for the spotlight, Pearsall creates beautiful warmth from the tragedy of betrayal––which, to a young maiden, may as well be death.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
Within other texts on today’s program, nature is exalted above the fickle, tragic lot of humanity. In his famous eighteenth sonnet, however, The Bard exalts his loved one over the harsh, fleeting seasons of the natural world. Swedish jazz composer Nils Lindgren published the suite O Mistress Mine in 1990, featuring a collection of poems written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I set to music. “Shall I compare thee” was, understandably, the best-selling choral score in Sweden the year its arrangement was released. It has also been a favorite of the Chestnut Street Singers since we performed it on our first concert in June 2010.

Haiku by Basho
Although we may recall haiku from our school lessons as poems with strict syllabic structures, they are in fact more defined by the juxtaposition of two opposing ideas and also usually contain a seasonal or natural reference. Basho, considered the father of the haiku, offers a wry, mournful depiction of the changing seasons. The unassuming beauty of the text is rooted firmly in the world around the poet, yet Goldschmidt’s setting beautifully captures its transcendence with unusual but stirring tonal progressions.

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
We return now to our friend the nightingale. Though sometimes a symbol of melancholy, here she is planted firmly in her role as a muse for poets and lovers, appearing in each instance of a nostalgic reflection on a past love affair. “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” was published in 1940 in London, becoming and remaining a standard both in England and the U.S. It has been performed by such legends as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Harry Connick Jr., and even Rod Stewart. Today’s version is a Grammy-winning arrangement by Gene Puerling, as performed by a cappella jazz group, the Manhattan Transfer.

Loveliest of Trees
A recent favorite of the Chestnuts, John Chorbaijan’s “Loveliest of Trees” perfectly captures the poet’s dilemma. Faced with both the beauty of the world around him and his own harsh mortality, he determines to take inspiration from the changing seasons and more fully embrace his remaining years. Such a bittersweet tone, especially for a speaker of only 20, is typical of A. E. Housman’s work; despite a brilliant career, he was plagued by a lifelong unrequited love.

Great Trees
In this excerpt from his larger work Hymnody of Earth, Malcolm Dalglish expresses the utmost reverence for the world around us with his setting of Wendell Berry’s moving tribute to trees. The praise and awe the poem offers to the mighty sentinels of our earth is expressed through nuanced, lilting rhythms and the bright, folksy harmonies of the American tradition. Although much of The Hymnody of Earth features accompaniment from percussion and hammered dulcimer (Dalglish’s instrument of choice), “Great Trees” is far more hymn-like, paying special attention to Berry’s text. The choir’s sound crescendos in pace with the gentle growth of the trees themselves, and the deliberate pauses within each verse hearken to the green stillness of the woods.

Of All the Birds That I Do Know
We close our program with this light-hearted tribute to a noisy pet bird––or so it seems. Madrigals are known to be rife with innuendo, and this one is no exception, leaving the listener without doubt that “Phillip” is not a bird at all. In spite of the rather indelicate subtext, English composer John Bartlet’s setting is quite delicate, and whether it leaves you with birds or other subjects on your mind, we hope it sends you cheerfully into this spring evening.

The Elements of Song

November 9, 2014
Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Lucy Harlow, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Eddie Rubeiz, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Ralph Vaughan Williams, “Silence & Music”
Thomas Morley arr. John Leavitt, “Fyer, fyer!”
Morten Lauridsen, “Quando son più lontan,” “Amor, io sento l’alma,” and “Se per havervi, oime” from Madrigali
Harry T. Burleigh, “Deep River”
John Bennet, “Weep, O Mine Eyes”
Alberto Grau, “Kasar mie la gaji”
William Billings, “Euroclydon”
Williametta Spencer, “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”
William Horsley, “Come gentle zephyr”
Abbie Betinis, “Jerusalem Luminosa”
Claudio Monteverdi, “Ecco mormorar l’onde”
Loreena McKennitt arr. Jon Washburn, “Tango to Evora”
Ola Gjeilo, “Northern Lights”
Michael John Trotta, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind”

Notes on the Program
Across continents and history, a worldview based on the four elements––earth, air, fire, and water––pervades many philosophies and religions, from China to ancient Greece. The system of elements provided a basis for comprehending the natural world around us: our ancestors believed everything was made up of some combination of these elements. Though now perhaps less scientifically relevant, the elements still figure in our reckoning of the natural world, especially through our arts. Music and poetry are, like the classical elements, a universal experience through which we try to make sense of our world.

Some philosophies included a fifth element, known in ancient Greece as “aether.” Aether was thought of as pure essence or the breath of the gods. As singers, this concept resonates strongly with us. Though many of the pieces on today’s program explicitly reference one or more of the tangible four elements, the fifth is with us whenever we sing. We hope these pieces both connect you to the world around you and lift you up into the aether. With our powers combined, we offer you the elements of song.

Silence & Music
We open with one of our favorite pieces by Ralph Vaughan Williams, composed in 1953 as part of an effort by ten British choral composers to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Vaughan Williams dedicates the piece to his teacher, composer Charles Villiers Stanford, and the legacy of Stanford’s choral work “The Blue Bird.” Like Stanford’s earlier piece, “Silence & Music” builds upon lush harmonies and a soaring soprano melody. Birds themselves are another repeated motif: the later piece’s text––by Vaughan Williams’ second wife, Ursula––carries us from sea to earth to sky to the realm of music. Vaughan Williams paints this text exquisitely: listen especially for our voices mimicking the four weeping winds. “Silence & Music” reminds us of the centrality of the physical world in art: “wind and sea and all of winged delight lie in the octaves of man’s voice.”

Fyer, fyer!
The late sixteenth century found Italian-style madrigals very much in vogue in Elizabethan England. Thomas Morley capitalized on this popularity by becoming, and remaining, the best-known English secular composer of his time. This song is actually a “ballett,” a dance-like cousin to the madrigal. The lively music can seem at odds with the despair presented in the text: the speaker’s heart is burning, presumably from the consuming effects of unrequited love, and no one comes to help him. The piece nonetheless maintains its dance-like character at times, perhaps referencing the dancing flicker of real flames.

Madrigali
Morten Lauridsen’s Madrigali draws inspiration—and text—from the earliest madrigals, but the effect is worlds away from Morley’s. Madrigali, a six-part song cycle from which we have excerpted three movements, is also known as the “Fire Songs”: each text that Lauridsen selected makes reference to fire, whether the sweet fire of passion or the cruel, burning fire of obsessive, unrequited love. Like Morley and his contemporaries, Lauridsen uses text painting to bring the fire to life: listen for our growing flames (“Cresce la fiamma”) in our first selection and the smoldering burn at the end of the second. Throughout the cycle, Lauridsen blends the stylistic qualities of early madrigals with his own contemporary harmonies, including his signature “fire chord”: a minor triad with an added second, which recurs throughout the cycle.

Deep River
In this arrangement of the spiritual “Deep River” by Harry T. Burleigh, we turn from the potential danger of water to its spiritual significance. Though the origins of the song are unknown, Burleigh learned many spirituals from his grandfather who had once been enslaved. Burleigh’s arrangements of the tune for both chorus and solo voice were published in 1916 during his flourishing career as a composer and soloist in New York City; it is largely these arrangements that have made the song still so beloved and recognizable today.

Weep, O Mine Eyes
We remain with the element of water with this dark, melancholy madrigal by John Bennet. Here, however, we focus on seemingly innocuous tears. Their owner, looking to curtail his torment, begs his tears to grow as treacherous as the sea and thus end his life. Bennet composed the piece as an homage to John Dowland, a Renaissance composer known for his melancholy songs such aslike “Flow My Tears.” Similar to today’s other madrigals, Bennet’s piece employs text painting through lines that literally swell along with the tears.

Kasar mie la gaji
Water is starkly absent from Venezuelan composer Alberto Grau’s dramatic composition––instead we focus on the earth. The single repeated line, “Kasar mie la gaji,” loosely translates from the Hausa language of the African Sahel region to “The earth is tired.” In a quasi-minimalist style, Grau repeats the text over sections of repetitive phrasing, with a driving sense of rhythm throughout. The piece’s dissonance and vocal effects—including sighs and slurs—vividly depict the harshness of life in the world’s largest desert. And despite the distance and difference of the Sahel, this message applies to all our lives, as Grau wrote the piece as an environmental rallying call.

Euroclydon
William Billings, largely regarded as the father of American music, takes us on a musical journey through a storm of Biblical proportions. Here we experience the dangerous side of water and air as the sea and wind torment the poor brave sailors. Listen as the agitation of the music grows with that of the sea and the sailors and then finally calms down as the storm and the song end with grateful, hymn-like phrases.

At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners
John Donne’s dramatic poem, set here by contemporary American composer Williametta Spencer, paints the scene of Judgment Day. As in “Euroclydon,” the elements––in this case, floor and fire––in the hands of a higher power bring destruction to humankind. The poem’s speaker brazenly calls for the Last Judgment, only then realizing that he may not yet merit a heavenly pardon. Listen as the music’s character changes from bold trumpeting to meek supplication.

Come gentle zephyr
English composer William Horsley was known for his glees, which were a cappella pieces composed for men’s singing clubs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The texts were often idyllic, like “Come gentle zephyr,” so that they could be sung in the delicate company of women. Many editions of the score mysteriously attribute the text to Raunie, but the poem is identical to one that appears in the comic opera libretto The Prude, written in 1777 by Irish author Elizabeth Ryves. The speaker here appeals to a zephyr, named for Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind. In traditional mythology, Zephyrus serves Eros; our suitor therefore hopes the gentle wind will carry his sighs to his beloved’s ear.

Jerusalem Luminosa
Innovative Minnesota-based composer Abbie Betinis is a favorite of the Chestnut Street Singers. In “Jerusalem Luminosa,” the element of light represents peace. Though one might expect a piece about peace to have a gentler, placid sound, here the two voice parts intertwine, playing off one another with occasional dissonance. Betinis explains that she presents here “another vision of true peace: not a peace that pacifies, but one that engages in the act of peace-making––of compromise, and of joy in collaboration.”

Ecco mormorar l’onde
Claudio Monteverdi’s importance to music is difficult to overstate: he is regarded as the father of modern opera, his work marked the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque period, and most importantly to our purposes, he was a prolific composer of madrigals. He composed nine books of madrigals; our selection today comes from his second volume. Monteverdi’s work and that of his contemporaries provided the inspiration for Lauridsen’s pieces, and here the text painting referenced in Madrigali is abundant. The poem beautifully describes the rising dawn, and Monteverdi’s music exquisitely brings it to life. Our voices paint the murmuring waves, the singing birds, and the golden light upon the mountain. Monteverdi’s work not only inspires many composers but is also a pleasure to experience.

Tango to Evora
Canadian singer-songwriter Loreena McKennitt originally wrote “Tango to Evora” for the soundtrack to The Burning Times, a 1990 Canadian feminist documentary on the witch trials in early modern Europe. McKennitt’s version features harp and wordless vocals; this choral arrangement maintains the sultry rhythms and gradual build of the original. This is a mournful tango, commemorating the more than 60,000 people, mostly women, who were murdered during the Great Witch Craze. Like Morley’s “Fyer fyer,” “Tango to Evora” evokes images of flames, and the piece’s sensuality leaves us with a sense of yearning.

Northern Lights
Composer Ola Gjeilo was born in Norway but has made his home in New York since 2001. He composed “Northern Lights” while on a wintertime visit to Norway, during which he found himself reflecting on his newfound love for American life and the strange sense of feeling like a foreigner in his native land. Gjeilo’s use of a text from the Song of Songs grounds his longing in physicality on a human scale, while the evocative title draws our thoughts to the wider heavens. Like the composer’s sense of home, the aurora borealis is both familiar and foreign, sweet but “terrible” in its beauty. The music echoes this feeling, merging the familiar with the ever-changing. At the end, as the aurora fades into the cold, black sky, the music fades faster than we expect—as do so many other fleeting moments.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
Composer Michael John Trotta, now based in Virginia, previously lived in the Philadelphia area after studying and teaching at Rowan University. His setting of Shakespeare’s “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind,” from As You Like It, paints the scene of a growing winter storm, using our voices to musically and literally imitate the wind. Even the harshness of nature’s wrath, however, cannot compare to humankind’s cruelty to one other. The speaker of the poem, Amiens, is the attending musician to the court of Duke Senior, whose members have been exiled from their rightful court and are living in the forest; his bitterness towards his fellow man is perhaps understandable. Nonetheless, Amiens intersperses his commentary with a rollicking–if sly–wintry carol. This juxtaposition of the elements and emotion reminds us of our own ability to influence the world around us.