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Nov
19

Stand in That River

Stand in That River


Notes on the Program


I Worried

Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

We live in uncertain times. The question of how we respond to a world full of upheaval is a deeply personal one. Perhaps we turn to acts of devotion, a plea to a higher power—or maybe we simply stand right where we are and remember that the sacred beauty around us, in our love for each other, and in our music, is enough. At least for now.

The Coolin

We open the program with an invitation. James Stephens’ poem begins with a flirtatious bid for a lover to come for a romantic picnic on a hillside. The pair’s enjoyment is suddenly interrupted by the recognition that it might not—or really can’t possibly—last forever. On this reckoning, the opening “Come with me” turns to a tender plea: “Stay with me.” Barber captures this tenderness in a softer and slower recapitulation of the piece’s opening melody.

Super flumina babylonis

This text is timeless. From its origin in the exile of the Jews in Babylonia in the 6th century BCE, to adaptations by contemporary pop musicians like Bob Marley and Leonard Cohen, Psalm 137 resonates as a profound question: How can we keep singing when we feel lost, displaced, and abused? Victoria’s setting is for two choirs, at times playfully handing phrases off to one another, at other times joined in chorus.

Yerushalayim Shel Zahav

Commissioned by the mayor of Jerusalem in 1967, Naomi Shemer’s song was written just three weeks before the Six-Day War broke out, while Jews were still barred from entering East Jerusalem and the Old City. The last line of the chorus, “Behold, I am a violin for all [Jerusalem’s] songs,” is a stirring answer to Psalm 137’s central question. Even in times of exile and unrest, we carry the spirit of home in ourselves and in our songs.

Kasar mie la gaji

The inscription on Grau’s original score attributes the title phrase—the only text in this piece—to the people of the Sahel, a region in Africa that marks the transition between the Sahara desert to the north and the savannah to the south. Our own research suggests the text is a variation on a phrase from the Hausa language. Residents of the Sahel are frequently faced with food shortages, and in a changing climate, their struggle is worsening. Grau’s mournful, moanful music captures the lament of a people reckoning with a land that may not sustain them much longer, and what that means for their future.

O frondens virga

Given that she lived 900 years ago, Hildegard’s enduring presence in the cultural zeitgeist is remarkable. Her plainchant compositions lend themselves, in their stark simplicity, to all manner of contemporary embellishment. We begin with the chant in unison, accompanied by shruti box (ours is named Tutti Shruti, by the way). The last line of the chant spins out into independent, disjointed meditation, as we each find our own higher power to invoke in our plea to save us from “the wicked habits of our age.”

O Oriens

When composer Melissa Dunphy attended one of our recent rehearsals, she told us she continued to discover profound meaning in this text’s climactic phrase, “sol justitiae,” typically translated as “sun of righteousness,” but just as correctly interpreted as “sun of justice.” Dunphy realized that the piece had taken on new meaning in our current setting as being explicitly antifascist. Like the Hildegard chant, which is echoed in the plainchant foundation of “O Oriens”, the text is timeless and universal, taking on new meaning in the context of modern challenges.

Stand in That River

We begin the second half of the concert with one possible response to the challenges posed in the first half. In the face of worry, we can choose to simply stand where we are and meditate on the beauty around us and within us. Though the second half is largely centered on the natural world, each text remains open to individual meaning-making.

In Beauty May I Walk

These words, translated from a Navajo prayer, are another deeply personal invocation, an appeal to find meditation and wholeness in the surrounding landscape. The central, repeated melody feels incomplete and fragile—perhaps like the text’s speaker—and only feels fulfilled when in the context of the harmony that grows to surround it.

Locus Iste

Bruckner’s beloved motet was composed for the dedication of a chapel in the New Cathedral in Linz, Austria. While the text explicitly names God, the ambiguous locale in the opening phrase—“This place was made by God”—leaves the interpretation open to honor whatever space feels sacred and perfect to the reader. 

Silence and Music

Ursula Wood’s fantastic poem names all the ways in which nature, and its wild forces, tell the earth’s story. Its last stanza expands on this message in two profound ways: that we singers contain all the multitudes of nature’s power in our music, and that all silence carries the potential for music to rise out of it. Vaughan Williams’ setting of Wood’s poem was dedicated “to the memory of Charles Villiers Stanford and his Blue Bird,” whose conceit of a soprano melody soaring over the other parts in homophony, will sound familiar within Vaughan Williams’ richly textured piece.

The Blue Bird

Although much of Stanford’s oeuvre fell out of favor in his declining years, “The Blue Bird” remained consistently popular in the immediate aftermath of World War I, with the quiet rejoicing of the text—“the sky above was blue at last”—made more poignant by the memory of darker days during the war. The poem functions here as another meditation on stillness in nature, recalling Ursula Wood’s message that it contains the potential for all meaning and emotion to arise from it.

Loveliest of Trees

John Chorbajian’s music is relatively unknown, and seldom performed, and we don’t really know why! He writes beautifully for mixed voices, which makes it easy for us to settle into the message of A.E. Housman’s poem, a tender echo of our opening piece, “The Coolin”: we are only here for a little while, and we really can’t know what the future will bring, so let’s go out and find some beauty while we can.

View Event →
Mar
6
to Mar 8

Always Singing

Always Singing

March 6, 2020: The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

March 8, 2020: St. Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Logan Laudenslager, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Andrew Shaw, Melinda Steffy, Kevin Vondrak, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Always Singing includes works by American composers and features the world premiere of Dale Trumbore’s “A Different Kind of Flight,” which is commissioned by and dedicated to the Chestnut Street Singers. The text is a compilation of various texts authored by current and former members of the Chestnut Street Singers. Taking inspiration from Dale Trumbore’s new piece, other works in Always Singing incorporate texts from a variety of sources. All mention singing in one way or another.

FINNEY: Spherical Madrigals
PUTS: “At Castle Wood” from To Touch The Sky
TRUMBORE: A Different Kind of Flight (world premiere)
WOLFE: Guard My Tongue
HAILSTORK: Nocturne
BARBER: Twelfth Night
BARBER: To be sung on the water
RODGERS (arr. AL-ZAND): My Romance
GERSHWIN (arr. OJEDA-GONZALEZ): Blah, Blah, Blah
WARLAND: Always Singing

On Turning Ten

Today we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Chestnut Street Singers. Whether you are with us for the first time or have seen every concert, we are thrilled to share this milestone with you. Happy birthday, Chestnuts!

Ten years ago, when Michael and Jen and I first gathered around some hand-me-down scores at the First Unitarian Church on—you guessed it—Chestnut Street, none of us were imagining this day. Starting a choir and asking people to sing with us for free—let alone listen to us, also for free!—felt impudent enough in this wonderfully musical city; we weren’t in a position to hope for longevity, too. In the years since, we have reflected on the irony of that upstart status: much of the ensemble’s greatest strength—its collaborative, inclusive music-making—grew out of our naivete. None of us had any previous experience developing the kind of vibrant, challenging choral community we wanted—nor had we managed a non-profit—so it didn’t occur to us to hew to the traditional artistic and administrative structures. And so we launched a grand improvisation: could this choir live up to our musical ambitions while also inviting the singers to voice their opinions, not just their notes? Could a roster of volunteer musicians also provide free conducting, accounting, design, catering—even program-writing? Could this choir be more than singing?

Every day for ten years, the answer has been yes. It has been shaped by more than sixty singers who have passed through our roster and refined through dozens of concerts and hundreds of individual works; through diction lessons from Icelandic to Xhosa; through whistling and throat-singing and a musical Monty Python quote. And through everything that we brought with us to this choir: marriages and divorces, new babies and ailing parents, ambition and uncertainty, cheese straws and apple cake and spare cough drops, and a ferocious willingness to engage, to learn, to try. Yes, this choir is more than singing. It is why we sing.

Given this legacy, our tenth anniversary season focuses naturally on musical collaborations of all kinds: perhaps you joined us in the fall for our Evensong collaboration with organist Michael Smith, and we hope to see you in June for our joint performances with the Glassbrook Vocal Ensemble, a traditionally directed choir based in New Jersey. But today’s program—the formal anniversary celebration—draws us inward, as we reckon with the ways in which this collaborative relationship challenges and enriches each of us. Just as the Chestnuts have a history of inclusivity, ranging from our traditional post-concert potlucks to our color-coded system for opining on program drafts, so too does this music bring together disparate voices—in song or plaint or prayer—all set by American composers exploring the very impact of those voices. 

The centerpiece of today’s program is a milestone of another sort: the world premiere of A Different Kind of Flight, commissioned from the award-winning composer Dale Trumbore in celebration of our tenth anniversary. We have been thrilled to work with Dale: a longtime choral singer herself, she had a keen appreciation for the significance of this ten-year achievement. And as delighted as we are to share her new work, we are especially grateful for Dale’s insight into the animating force behind the ensemble and, as a result, behind all of today’s program: she suggested that our own current and former singers write the text for her commission, centering again those voices that have propelled us, encouraged us, and asked us for more.

Yes, again, to all of us here and to all who have been part of these ten years. Yes, and thank you, and: more to come.

—Caroline Winschel, co-founder

Notes on the Program 

Spherical Madrigals (1947)

Ross Lee Finney was born in Minnesota in 1906 and educated at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota. Like many young composers of his generation, Finney spent time studying in Europe prior to World War II and was a pupil of the influential French composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger. After returning to the U.S., Finney embarked on a distinguished career in academia, holding positions at Harvard University, Smith College, and, from 1948 until his retirement in 1974, the University of Michigan. While Finney’s most lasting influence may have been as a teacher, he was also a highly regarded composer and the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Rome Prize, and membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Spherical Madrigals, presented in seven movements, sets texts by English metaphysical poets. Finney’s settings explore the different metaphorical meanings—literal, figurative, terrestrial, and astronomical—that can be assigned to circles, spheres, and orbs. Finney deepens the

musical connection to these shapes by incorporating musical devices into each movement that are themselves circular. Among these devices are canon, where two or more parts sing the same melodic line but are displaced from each other in time, and mirroring, in which two parts move in opposite directions while staying rhythmically together.

At Castle Wood (2012)

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his opera Silent Night, Kevin Puts has been hailed as one of the most important composers of his generation. “At Castle Wood” lies at the center of Puts’s multi-movement choral cycle, To Touch the Sky, written for Austin-based choir Conspirare. Puts describes the work’s inception from a discussion with Conspirare’s conductor, Craig Hella Johnson, who considered the Christian Magnificat and other similar texts to be a potential basis for a large-scale choral work. Building upon the longstanding compositional tradition since late antiquity of setting this Marian profession of faith in choral music, To Touch the Sky exclusively sets texts written by women, including Emily Brontë, Mother Teresa, and Hildegard of Bingen.

The piece starts from a place of emptiness—the hollow hum of an open fifth. With a steady and strict poetic meter, the music unfolds and expounds Brontë’s verse, from desolate beginnings through the dreariness of agony, grief, and despair. In the final stretch of poetry, this depressed outlook turns to an emotional plea, when the “fear of this despair” succumbs to the “mate of care.” For the first time in the composition, Puts breaks the rigid poetic flow and repeats a line of text. By omitting the first half of the line (“no wish to”) in each repetition, the meaning of the verse is radically changed. Over the span of a minute, the new mantra is repeated; a deep, yearning call to “keep my soul below.” 

Interestingly, Puts’s setting omits the last line of Brontë’s poem. In programming this concert, we took this omission as an opportunity to link this setting with the subsequent text. Where “At Castle Wood” rests after a grief-ridden journey, Dale Trumbore’s work picks up, reminding us that we are not alone.

WORLD PREMIERE
A Different Kind of Flight (2019)

commissioned by and dedicated to the Chestnut Street Singers

Although it is fairly common for choral ensembles to present programs about music, our early conversations about the commission with Dale Trumbore focused on the paucity of art about music-making. Commemoration our tenth anniversary seemed to call for a celebration not just of the milestone and its animating art bit also of all the behind-the-scenes process—the collaboration, the uncertainty, the love —that fueled this achievement. At Dale’s suggestion, current and former members of the choir contributed texts reflecting on their experiences with the Chestnut Street Singers; Dale then refined the compilation into a multi-part libretto. The distinct voices within the text underpin discrete musical themes: listen for melodies to recur and reshape as the narrative arc unfurls.

The highlight of our tenth anniversary season, A Different Kind of Flight is a special piece to our ensemble not just because of the vision and resources necessary to bring about its commission and premiere but also because it speaks to the heart of why we do what we do. In our own words, the mission of our singing is not just described but enacted. The distance between the authors of the text and the agents of its delivery is reduced to its most minimum. We give these words from the heart because they are our own. And though this concert falls on a weekend, for months now we have been coming together on Mondays to share in this song.

The world is chaos.
There seems to be more to fight against
and less to be proud of.

So much life happens,
and yet the singing continues.
We allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
It is not easy.

And yet, this is singing of the human condition:
Of loss. Of home, or of loss of home.
Of searching, with greater and lesser success.
Of love, in its many forms.

We are not alone.*

I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time,
a real sense of belonging.**

I’m a writer, a coworker, a sometimes painter,
A friend, a colleague, a boss, a neighbor.
But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.

I plan dinners, wash dishes, do laundry;
Change diapers, wipe tears, read stories;
Call clients, make changes, meet deadlines.
Manage money, manage time, manage feelings,
Misplace a sock, forget the milk, lose my patience.

But thanks to Mondays, I misplace my worries,
I forget my stress.
I may lose my place.
I may miss a note, a beat, or an entrance.

But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.***

I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time,
a real sense of belonging.**

Dear little one,

Here is what we know: Scientists say singing in a choir is good for the brain, like crossword puzzles and meditation.

In all these years, I never asked your mother why she wanted a choir. I stood close enough that we breathed the same sleeve of air, close enough that I could hear the humming of her thoughts. It was so much more than what the scientists say!

I think a choir is more like flying trapeze than crosswords. We time our flight against the limits of breath and the relief of consonance. We still catch you every time you launch; I’m learning again to trust my own flight.^

There was a nest
we each had left,
not exactly fledglings,
but eager
for some different kind of flight.

I don’t know who was first —
we opened our mouths
to tell our stories,
sketching out worlds between worlds,
remaking old patterns we learned,
inventing new nests we would build,
healing our bones with the songs we sang
Together.

More voices joined—
others, too, who had fallen
or jumped
or wished
or despaired
to tell a new story
to rejoice in the discovery of hope.^^
I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time.
And though I move and travel,
I would lay down most anything
to feel this way again.**

—Texts that form the libretto were written by the following current and former members of the Chestnut Street Singers:

*Jen Hayman, Reflections on Rumi

**Zachary Sigafoes, from Belonging

***Rebekah Reddi, from Thanks to Mondays

^Caroline Winschel, from Dear Simon

^^Sonja Bontrager, from Two Bluebirds

Guard my tongue (2009)

A founding member of New York’s celebrated music collective Bang On A Can, Julia Wolfe has carved out a place in contemporary concert music with works that recharge classical forms through patterns of minimalism and the energy of rock music. In the past decade, her vocal works in particular have earned recognition for their documentation of labor rights, notably the 2015 Pulitzer Prize–winning oratorio Anthracite Fields about Pennsylvania coal miners. “Guard my tongue” takes as its text a reading of Psalm 34. With patience, a small amount of material—one singular sentence of the psalm—is layered and looped until it is delivered in full. At its core, the text speaks of the potential power of one’s voice, and how we choose to employ that power.

Nocturne (1984)

With “Nocturne,” the second of Adolphus Hailstork’s Five Short Choral Works, we turn our voices to expressions of devotion rooted in the natural world. “Nocturne” illuminates Reverend Jim Curtis’s text through an opening aleatoric section that evokes the thick warm air of summer evenings and the halo of insects chirping in the night sky. The sopranos enter with expressive chant-like melodies hovering over the sonic landscape of the lower voices. As the piece unfolds, the poem reveals itself to be a love song in a homophonic middle passage, before returning to a final aleatoric section with soprano solo.

Twelfth Night (1968)

We follow Hailstork with two very different visions of devotion: “Twelfth Night” and “To Be Sung On The Water” were among Samuel Barber’s last compositions. Following poor critical reception of his 1966 opera, Antony and Cleopatra, which was commissioned to celebrate the opening of the newly built Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center, Barber fell into a depression and composed little during the ensuing years. The title of “Twelfth Night” (Opus 42, no. 1) refers to the eve of Epiphany and recounts the arduous journey of the biblical wise men, with a comparison of the birth of Christ to the rebirth of nature in springtime. The poem’s dark themes and hope for renewal may reflect Barber’s own thinking during a particularly low point in his professional career.

To Be Sung On The Water (1968)

“To Be Sung On The Water” (Opus 42, no. 2) features poetry by American poet laureate Louise Bogan. We have less clarity here than in “Twelfth Night”: rather than the sure—if grueling—approach of spring and salvation, Bogan’s text offers us a more ephemeral moment, guaranteed to pass us by. Barber paints the movement of oars through the water with a slow, lapping motive sustained throughout the piece, creating a peaceful backdrop to the expansive melodic lines with which it is contrasted. These musical ideas are traded between the upper and lower voices, representing the two characters whose vows have been lost to the night and the waves.

My Romance (1935)

As Trumbore and Wolfe remind us, the variation in our voices can carry great power and meaning. This gives us a good excuse to stretch the bounds of our traditional choral canon a bit, moving all the way from Finney’s madrigals to some of the twentienth century’s greatest jazz tunes. We begin with “My Romance,” by the famed Richard Rodgers, born into a wealthy Jewish family in New York City in 1902. Rodgers was among the most successful musical theater composers of the twentieth century, and his collaborations with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II produced such classics of the genre as Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. “My Romance” was written with Lorenz Hart for the 1935 musical Jumbo. Though Jumbo was not as successful as other shows composed by Rodgers, “My Romance” has become a standard in the world of jazz and pop music. It has been recorded by a wide range of musicians, from Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans to Mario Lanza and James Taylor.

Blah, Blah, Blah (1931)

George Gershwin was among the first “crossover” artists in American music, a composer whose early successes in popular music paved the way for later acceptance by the classical music establishment. Despite his tragically short life, Gershwin’s body of work has profoundly influenced music in the U.S. While Gershwin is known for iconic songs like “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” and “Summertime,” we’ve opted to program a lesser-known gem. “Blah, Blah, Blah” was written in 1931 with Gershwin’s lyricist brother, Ira, for the ultimately abandoned musical East is West.  The piece was later incorporated into the 2012 Broadway production of Nice Work If You Can Get It, a compilation of works by George and Ira Gershwin. “Blah, Blah, Blah” is a not-too-subtle sendup of the formulaic popular songs written by such contemporaries as Cole Porter—and perhaps also a cheeky reframing of all our heartfelt anniversary writings!

Always Singing (2009)

We close our program with American composer and conductor Dale Warland’s evocative “Always Singing.” The text is a paraphrased quote from Ronald Blythe’s 1969 bestseller, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, an account of the inhabitants of East Suffolk (about 90 miles north of London) in the 1960’s, featuring interviews with townspeople. Although life was difficult for 85-year-old retired farmer Fred Mitchell, he reflects upon the joy he gleaned from the presence of singing throughout his life. Warland, who was himself raised on a farm in rural Iowa, illuminates Mitchell’s reminiscences through rich sonorities and poignant musical vignettes that reflect on the power of singing to build community. Listen closely for the text, “O God our help in ages past,” in the lower voices, a nod to the chime of the Akenfield chapel bells.

Notes by Caroline Winschel

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Nov
15
to Nov 17

World Without End

World Without End

November 15, 2019: S. Clement’s Church, Philadelphia

November 17, 2019: St. Thomas’ Church, Whitemarsh

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Logan Laudenslager, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Andrew Shaw, Melinda Steffy, Kevin Vondrak, Michele Zuckman

with organist Michael Smith

BAIRSTOW: I sat down
PARRY: I was glad
WEIR: Love Bade Me Welcome (from Two Human Hymns)
HOWELLS: Behold, O God Our Defender
HILL: We Bloomed In Spring
HOWELLS: Magnificat (from Collegium Regale)
SMITH: Conversation in the Mountains (from Where flames a word)
HOWELLS: Nunc Dimittis (from Collegium Regale)
DURUFLÉ: Notre Père
FINZI: Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast (from 3 Anthems for Chorus and Organ)
WEIR: Life to the falling of a star (from Two Human Hymns)
WILLAN: Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One
EŠENVALDS: Trees

World Without End

Old wood, arching beams, and cavernous space. A hint of incense or pine. Calm and introspective quiet. Observations from an old pew in an empty sanctuary, or from the deep woods. These moments of pause draw us inward, to reflect in ways both grand and intimate. World Without End starts from this place—a contemplative atmosphere in which historical Anglican cathedral music is cast in conversation with contemporary settings and thought—guided by the ancient and enduring architecture of Evensong. Our program is intended for both the believer and non-believer alike, as a dialogue across spirituality, time, and musical lineage. Today’s concert, a collaboration with organist Michael Smith, is one of several cooperative performances through which we celebrate Chestnut Street Singers’ tenth anniversary season.

Our chosen structure of Choral Evensong is a service established by the Church of England’s first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, in which the canonical hours of Vespers and Compline were combined for communal, evening worship. The program is anchored in Herbert Howells’ setting of the evening canticles from Collegium Regale. Beyond that, we take some liberties with the standard progression of Evensong while maintaining much of the structure. In place of readings, we sing contemporary anthems based on lesson-like texts; the hymns are two “human” hymns that you won’t find in the hymnal; and instead of chanting a psalm, we sing an anthem with a psalm text.

The concert starts with an invitation: to pause, enter, sit, eat, and behold. The gestures range from understated to noble and juxtapose

the majesty of the organ with the intimacy of the human voice—two instruments powered by air and reeds. Once settled, it is on to the heart the matter: the lessons. The canticles, or biblical songs, of Mary and Simeon, relayed in the service music of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, alternate with contemporary “lessons,” setting texts from St. Teresa of Avila and Paul Celan. Next, the feast. With a prayer and an anthem, we consume as ritual. We eat daily bread. Inevitably, we also depart. In doing so, we participate in a grand cycle.

At the bookends of the program, our Introit and Benediction draw texts from the Song of Solomon. This vivid book of scripture describes a human relationship in strangely enchanting metaphors to the natural world, with lush language of vineyards and gardens. Its themes form a dialogue with our two “lessons” and the canticles, weaving together the words sung today into threads of contemplation: Can our feet stand at the gates of Jerusalem and understand that they Bloomed in Spring? Can we Behold and comprehend a language void of I and You? Will our Eyes suffer the apparent seasons of Life and Death? Who is it that gives, and how do we collectively receive?

At a decisive moment during the apex of the program, a nod to Song of Solomon—symbolized in the Rose of Sharon—emerges in the poetry. The suggestion is that the bounty may also be the guide:

“O rose of Sharon! O the Lily of the valley!
  How art thou now, thy flock to keep,
  Become both food, and Shepherd to thy sheep.” 

By eating, we connect and commune and consider. We gather, if only for a brief moment, to pasture our flock. The journey doesn’t answer the questions; it simply poses them. And in the beauty of ancient liturgy designed as both ritual and art, we may perhaps begin to discover a place along the way, in the deep woods or the sanctuary of the soul.

I sat down (1923)

After a series of appointments, including six years at Westminster Abbey, Edward Bairstow composed this miniature anthem in 1925 during his tenure as organist at York Minster Cathedral. Like many of his English contemporaries (such as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams), Bairstow draws upon modal harmonies and long, expansive phrases to create a sense of timelessness in this compact but potent psalm. With its text excerpted from the Song of Solomon, Bairstow’s a cappella setting undulates between a feeling of triple and duple meter, with the introduction of melodic and textual themes through the tenor voice. “I sat down” is one of the earliest publications of the Oxford University Press Music Department, one of the newest divisions of the second oldest and largest university publishing house in the world. 

I Was Glad (1902)    

While many composers have set the text of Psalm 122, C. Hubert H. Parry’s setting, known by the psalm’s incipit, or first line of text, is perhaps most recognizable. Parry captures the energy and jubilation of the text, from the opening notes of the organ to the choir’s first proclamation. Traditionally sung at the entrance of the English monarch into Westminster Abbey, “I Was Glad” has gone through several iterations. Parry initially composed the work for the crowning of Edward VII, but this regal premiere did not proceed entirely smoothly.  The conductor, having received word (prematurely) that the king had arrived, began the anthem before the procession had begun, ultimately prompting an encore. Nine years later, a revised version of the work was performed for the coronation of George V, resounding with the pomp and grandeur that we appreciate from this landmark piece. In this decade, “I Was Glad” has served as the anthem for the entrances of both Catherine Middleton and Meghan Markle as they walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey for the most recent royal weddings.

Love Bade Me Welcome (1995)        

Judith Weir’s place at the forefront of contemporary British music is well-established and rooted in the musical heart of the Anglican tradition. An alumnus, honorary fellow, and Master of the Queen’s Music at King’s College, Cambridge, she was honored as last year’s commissioned composer for their Choir’s worldwide Christmas broadcast. Weir composed Two Human Hymns as a set of two pieces for choir and organ for the Quincentenary of the University of Aberdeen in 1995. The present a cappella arrangement of “Love Bade Me Welcome,” the first of these pieces, was published by the composer several years afterwards and has since become a standard of the adventurous church choir. 

George Herbert’s poem, which appears as the last entry in a 162-poem collection from 1633 titled “The Temple,” is a simple conversation between God and the Christian Everyman; the anchor point of what its author calls “a picture of spiritual conflict between God and my soul.” Love—Herbert’s name for Divine Love, rooted in scripture and referenced in other texts on this program—has set out a banquet, yet the guest lingers timidly at the door. Saddled with guilt “of dust and sin,” the Everyman cannot comprehend sitting at a table made for saints.

Ultimately, Love’s case is built more on generosity than reason, and the guest has no words left to say, only mute action: “So, I did sit and eat.” Weir’s music illustrates the sides of this conversation with simplicity; Love’s voice maintains a gentle and lilting line while the guest’s misguided replies increasingly stray from the tonal center. Led by stern words and harmony, the guest has no argument and understatedly submits to the home key in a closing gesture, mirrored in the text.   

Behold, O God Our Defender (1952)

Behold, O God Our Defender was commissioned for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England and completed on Christmas Day, 1952. The work was first performed as the Introit to the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953—the coronation music included Parry’s I Was Glad, heard earlier in today’s concert. In the space of barely three minutes, Herbert Howells captures the wide range of emotions inspired by the coronation of a new monarch. The first section of the text alone, “Behold, O God our defender,” moves from quiet awe, to ecstatic exaltation, firm resolve, and a final tranquility, all in the space of an unbroken 12-bar arc. Throughout the anthem, the choir and organ overlap in dynamic waves, rarely finding themselves in the same place at the same time. Howells’s setting of the text plays down the importance of any one monarch, allowing only one glorious but fleeting mention of “thine Anointed” at the midpoint of the piece—perhaps a reminder that all things on Earth are transitory. The last half of the anthem is devoted to the portion of the text that Howells may have viewed as the work’s primary message: “For one day in thy courts is better than a thousand.”

We Bloomed In Spring (2014)

Edie Hill is a Minnesota-based composer whose works have been performed throughout the world. Particularly known for her choral music, Hill has enjoyed collaborations with such ensembles as the Dale Warland Singers, Cantus, VocalEssence, and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, among others. We Bloomed in Spring was composed in 2014 and is dedicated to Philip Brunelle, artistic director and founder of VocalEssence, and the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. The work is scored for a cappella chorus and captures a series of vignettes, following the structure of Daniel Ladinsky’s poem, “I Will Just Say This.” Hill’s setting of the text shifts frequently between textures and tempos, lending much of the piece an unsettled feeling. This makes the final homophonic arrival on the words, “we will never perish unless He does,” all the more comforting.

Collegium Regale (1945)  

Herbert Howells is a name well-associated with Anglican church music, through his accomplished range of liturgical works for organ and choir. However, his involvement in the Church of England was absent from his earlier career as a successful instrumental and art song composer, under the tutelage of C.V. Stanford. The circumstances of his eventual fate are coincidental: in 1944, Howells stepped in as temporary organist at St. John’s College, Cambridge in place of a war-bound colleague. In a chance conversation, the dean of King’s College, Eric Milner-White, made a bet with Howells to write a Te Deum hymn setting for the price of 1 guinea (approximately £1.05). This work sparked a creative fire in Howells, and the next year he composed a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for King’s College Choir (in latin, Collegium Regale). Together, these two canticles form the liturgical foundation for a Choral Evensong. They take their texts from biblical sources: The Magnificat reflects Mary’s words while pregnant with Jesus, upon her visitation with Elizabeth, then pregnant with John the Baptist. The Nunc Dimittis is a biblical account of an old, devout man, Simeon. After having seen the infant Christ, fulfilling a promise made to him by the Holy Spirit, Simeon can finally “depart in peace.”

In a letter to Howells several years later, Milner-White confessed:

“I personally feel that you have opened a wholly new chapter in
Service, perhaps in Church, music. Of spiritual moment rather
than liturgical. It is so much more than music-making; it is
experiencing deep things in the only medium that can do it.”

Perhaps the words of Milner-White take their shape from the directness of Howells’ text setting within a masterful context of harmony, counterpoint, and mood: the Song of Mary, filled with innocence, wonder, and trust, contains the power to “put down the mighty from their seat.” The Song of Simeon, a single voice, weary yet content, transforms into the voice of all of Israel. Milner-White must also have referred to the “Gloria”—at once profoundly simple, majestically grand and reverently desperate. Here, the sopranos sing a soaring descant above the rest of the choir in forte unison while the organ, at full force, interweaves with the choir’s melody; both parts grow and expand until they reach a triumphant conclusion on the final phrase, “[W]orld without end. Amen.”  

Conversation in the Mountains (2009) 

Kile Smith is a Philadelphia composer with a wide and rapidly increasing catalogue of choral music that is frequently performed nationally and internationally. “Conversation in the Mountains” is the middle movement of a larger work, Where Flames A Word, written in 2009 and premiered in Philadelphia by The Crossing. Its text comes from a translation of the 20th-century German poet Paul Celan, in which two travelers ruminate on the nature of nature and, in a delightfully esoteric way, our relationship to one another and the earth. As the one traveler’s thought wanders in a long, run-on sentence, it spills into the realm of words themselves, pondering “a language not for you and not for me.” The music adeptly weaves individual, lyrical melodies into lush, dense textures, flowing and accelerating toward an epic tonal shift on the phrase, “opened up in the middle,” before drifting back into contemplation.   

Notre Père (1978)

Published in 1977, Duruflé dedicated his final work, ”Notre Père,” to his wife and performing partner, Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. The duo often performed together at the organ until a serious car accident in 1975 left Maurice Duruflé nearly bedridden for the rest of his life. Originally published for unison voices and organ, “Notre Père” was intended for congregational singing. While the work is one of just a few that Duruflé did not base on Latin chant, the stylistic similarities to plainchant are evident. One year after initial publication, this setting for four-part mixed voices was published.  

Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast (1951)

Gerald Finzi’s erudite approach to text-setting is on display in this choral exploration of the Christian sacrament of communion. Published toward the end of the composer’s all-too-short life in 1953, this choral poem builds from British Commonwealth and late metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan’s (1621–1695), “The Holy Communion,” adding depth and dimension to the poet’s expansive meditation on their intimate relationship with the divine. Finzi utilizes terraced, soloistic vocal entrances to weave long, poetic lines across the choir, contrasted with stunning chorale phrases that anchor the work’s thematic explorations. “Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast” is a fine example of the composer’s poetic sensibility, reminiscent of the composer’s earlier approach to the metaphysical in his Dies Natalis for Voice and Orchestra (1939), and at its heart is a poignant and artful approach to the sublime, regardless of religious creed or belief.

Like to the falling of a star (1995)

The second of Weir’s Two Human Hymns, “Like to the falling of a star,” playfully presents Henry King’s elegiac verse on the humility and futility of the human condition. Composed within a seemingly Neo-Baroque style, Weir employs syncopated rhythms partnered with harmonic sequencing, giving the piece a dancing, ornamental texture. This musical vocabulary highlights the stylish Elizabethan form and content of the text, which flows during the body of the piece to suggest the exuberance of our pursuits and abruptly falls off at the end—an ironic commentary that mimics King’s closing poetic turn.

Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One (1929)    

Born in London and trained at the Royal College of Organists, Healy Willan emigrated to Canada in 1913 and is known as one of the nation’s preeminent church composers and educators during the first half of the twentieth century. There, he assumed positions as the head of the music theory department at the Toronto Conservatory and as organist at the largest church in the Toronto Diocese, St. Paul’s Church, Bloor Street. However, the majority of his music-making would occur through the smaller, more Anglo-Catholic parish of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, whose liturgical practice resonated with the composer’s love for Renaissance church music. Willan composed over 800 vocal works, both sacred and secular, all exhibiting his unique, antiquarian yet ageless aesthetic. This a cappella motet, “Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One,” flows elegantly like plainchant, allowing the text from Song of Solomon to soar.

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Jun
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2018-2019

The Silent Forest

The Silent Forest

June 1, 2019: Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church, Philadelphia

June 2, 2019: Old Saint Joseph’s Church, Philadelphia

Sam Barge, Sonja Bontrager, Cory Davis, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Joshua Glassman, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Jessica Matthews, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)

Wie lang, o Gott Hieronymous Praetorius (1560-1629)

Nachtwache I Johannes Brahms (1833-1987)

Nachtwache II

Sechs Geistliche Leider Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)

  1. Aufblich

  2. Einkehr

  3. Resignation

  4. Letzte Bitte

  5. Ergebung

  6. Erhebung

Lockung Fanny Hensel (1805-1847) 

Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald

Litanei vom Hauch Hanns Eisler (1898-1962)

Vier doppelchörige Gesänge Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

  1. An die Sterne

  2. Ungewisses Licht

  3. Zuversicht

  4. Talismane

The Silent Forest is a meditation on sacred and secular German music, featuring works that span the 16th through the 20th centuries. Throughout this program, we explore two primary themes: spirituality and nature. 

 

We start our spiritual voyage with a hymn by Samuel Sheidt (1587-1654) that celebrates the coming of Jesus. A piece by Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629) echoes this yearning in a more desperate tone and begs for mercy and patience as the world waits for its savior. The spiritual character of our program shifts to a more romantic mood with Johannes Brahms’s (1833-1897) Nachtwache compositions. The text requests that we open a loving heart; “And if none opens, [we allow] the night wind [to] carry [us away].”

 

We would like to think that this phrase foreshadows the passage that inspired the very title of our program. Taken from Hugo Wolf’s (1960-1903) Sechs Geistliche Lieder, the following excerpt depicts the night as a haven from the wearying day:

 

O comfort of the world, you silent night!

The day has made me so tired,

The wide sea is already dark,

Let rest from lust and distress,

Until that eternal dawn

The silent forest is shining through.

 

These words were penned by Prussian poet Joseph von Eichendorff. His poems have been set to music by many, including Schumann, Brahms, and Hensel—three of the composers featured on today’s program. 

 

In fact, the themes from von Eichendorff’s poetry carry through to the second half of our program, which explores nature—a familiar theme in Romantic music, art, and literature. In Fanny Hensel’s (1805-1847) Lockung and Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald, von Eichendorff refers to the forest yet again, but this time, the woodland is not so silent. The poet illustrates sounds and scents of the forest that seem to intensify in the moonlight.

 

Next, we turn to composer Hanns Eisler with text by Bertolt Brecht. This duo collaborated on many works, including Litanei vom Hauch. Again, the text is descriptive of a silent forest with “not a breath in the trees”—a calm depiction meant to juxtapose against the horrors of human existence. We close our program with Robert Schumann’s Vier doppelchörige Gesänge. As you listen to the lush texture of Schumann’s double-choir setting, keep in mind this passage from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who provided the text for the fourth movement, Talismane: “In breathing, there are two graces, breathing in and breathing out. One constrains us and the other refreshes us; this is how wonderfully life is mixed.”

 

 

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

Born in Halle, Germany in 1587, Samuel Scheidt became one of the most prominent composers of the early Baroque era. Like most composers of the day, he served as music director at multiple churches, including Halle’s famed Market Church. His compositional style is most known for variation and syncopation. Set for double choir, Nun komm, der Heiden Heilandcelebrates the coming of Jesus. The source material, Veni redemptor gentium, was translated by Martin Luther during the Reformation.

 

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,

der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt,

des sich wundert alle Welt,

Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt.

 

Now come, Savior of the gentiles,

recognized as the child of the Virgin,

so that all the world is amazed.

 

Wie lang, o Gott

Like Samuel Scheidt, Hieronymus Praetorius was a compositional influencer during the early Baroque period. Though he had no relation to the more famous Michael Praetorius (the composer of Lo, how a rose e’er blooming), his works were among the first written in north Germany in the progressive Venetian style.

 

Wie lang, o Gott, in meiner Not

willt lassen mich?

Erbarme dich über dein Knecht,

der Gnad begehrt und nicht das Recht.

 

Verzag, Herz, nicht, Gott wird dein Bitt'

erhören bald,

er hat Gewalt zu rechter Zeit,

sein Hülf er allen Frommen gibt.  

 

How long, o God,

will you leave me in my affliction?

Have pity on your servant,

who desires mercy and not justice.

 

Despair not, heart, for God will soon

hear your prayer.

He has power at the proper time

he gives his help to all the righteous. 

 

Nachtwache I & II

Johannes Brahms was one of the most prominent composers of the Romantic era. He combined his reverence for traditional music structures with harmonic innovations, providing a compositional model for other composers without abandoning past methods. Both Nachtwache pieces set stanzas of a poem by Friedrich Rückert and were composed concurrently with Brahms’s choral-orchestral masterpiece, Ein deutches Requiem (A German Requiem). In the first piece, the speaker sends their declaration of love upon the night-wind to their love interest, and declares that if it is unrequited, they will move on resolutely and confidently. The antiphonal, overlapping harmonies illustrate the night-wind’s sighs. The second piece employs large leaps in the voices to depict the horns of watchmen announcing the end of the day.

 

Nachtwache I

Leise Töne der Brust, geweckt vom Odem der Liebe,

Hauchet zitternd hinaus, 

ob sich euch öffn' ein Ohr,

Öffn' ein liebendes Herz, und wenn sich keines euch öffnet, 

Trag' ein Nachtwind euch seufzend in meines zurück.

 

Quiet sounds of the breast (heart), awakened from the breath of love,

Breathe, tremblingly, forth/out.

If you open an ear, 

Open a loving heart,

And if none opens to you,

Let the night wind carry you, sighing, back to me.

 

Nachtwache II

Ruh'n sie? Rufet das Horn des Wächters drüben aus Westen, 

Und aus Osten das Horn rufet entgegen: Sie ruh'n!

Hörst du, zagendes Herz, die flüsternden Stimmen der Engel? 

Lösche die Lampe getrost, hülle in Frieden dich ein.

 

Are they resting? The horn of the watchman calls from the West.

And from the East the horn calls a reply: They rest!

Do you hear, apprehensive heart, the whispering voices of angels?

Extinguish the lamp confidently, and cover yourself in peace.

 

Sechs Geistliche Leider

Hugo Wolf’s Sechs Geistliche Lieder is a cycle of six sacred, unaccompanied songs for SATB chorus, all of which are set to poems by the great German Romantic writer and literary critic Joseph von Eichendorff. Completed in 1881, Sechs Geistliche Lieder was written around the time that Wolf’s fiancée, Vally Franck, broke off their engagement, plunging the composer into despair. This traumatic event may have contributed to the existentialism and profound sense of loss expressed in his music. Each piece in this cycle reflects upon the speaker’s longing for meaning, comfort, and eternity in the face of death and mortality. Despite near-constant homophony and relatively simplistic rhythmic writing, each work in this set is marked by distinct color and complexity. Wolf’s rich, intensely chromatic harmonies bring each piece on a winding—sometimes disorienting—journey through many keys, before eventually concluding definitively in its home key. Though each of the six pieces stands well on its own, they were likely meant to be performed together as a set. The final piece closes simply and quietly in C major on the word “prayer,” which encapsulates the final refuge for the speaker’s despair.

 

I. Aufblick

Vergeht mir der Himmel von Staube schier

Herr, im Getümmel zeig' dein Panier!

Wie schwank' ich sündlich, lässt du von mir:

unüberwindlich bin ich mit dir!

 

The sky of dust almost goes by

Lord, in the fray show your banner!

How do I sway astray?

I'm invincible with you!

 

II. Einkehr

Weil jetzo alles stille ist

und alle Menschen schlafen,

mein' Seel' das ew'ge Licht begrüßt,

ruht wie ein Schiff im Hafen.

Der falsche Fleiß, die Eitelkeit,

was keinen mag erlaben,

darin der Tag das Herz zerstreut,

liegt alles tief begraben.

Ein andrer König wundergleich

mit königlichen Sinnen,

zieht herrlich ein im stillen Reich,

besteigt die ew'gen Zinnen.

 

Now that all is quiet

and everyone asleep,

my soul greets the eternal light

and rests like a ship in harbor.

Misplaced industriousness, vanity,

which bring nobody solace

but distract the heart by day,

lie buried deep.

Another king, a wondrous one, 

whose spirit is truly royal,

enters the silent kingdom in majesty,

climbs the eternal battlements.

 

III. Resignation

Komm, Trost der Welt, du stille Nacht!

Wie steigst du von den Bergen sacht,

Die Lüfte alle schlafen,

Ein Schiffer nur noch, wandermüd',

Singt übers Meer sein Abendlied

Zu Gottes Lob im Hafen.

 

Die Jahre wie die Wolken gehn

Und lassen mich hier einsam stehn,

Die Welt hat mich vergessen,

Da trat’st du wunderbar zu mir,

Wenn ich beim Waldesrauschen hier

Gedankenvoll gesessen.

 

O Trost der Welt, du stille Nacht!

Der Tag hat mich so müd' gemacht,

Das weite Meer schon dunkelt,

Laß ausruh’n mich von Lust und Not,

Bis daß das ew'ge Morgenrot

Den stillen Wald durchfunkelt.

 

Come, comfort the world, you silent night!

How do you gently get off the mountains,

The skies are all sleeping,

A skipper just 'wandering',

Sing his evening song over the sea

To God's praise in the harbor.

 

The years go like the clouds

And let me stand here alone,

The world has forgotten me,

Since you were wonderful to me,

If I'm in the forest noise here

Sat thoughtfully.

 

O comfort of the world, you silent night!

The day has made me so tired,

The wide sea is already dark,

Let rest from lust and distress,

Until that eternal dawn

The silent forest is shining through.

 

IV. Letzte Bitte

Wie ein todeswunder Streiter,

Der den Weg verloren hat,

Schwank' ich nun und kann nicht weiter,

Von dem Leben sterbensmatt.

Nacht schon dekket alle Müden,

Und so still ist's um mich her,

Herr, auch mir gib endlich Frieden,

Denn ich wünsch' und hoff' nichts mehr.

 

Like a miracle fighter,

Who has lost the way

I sway now and cannot continue,

Dead from life.

Night already covers all the tired,

And it's so quiet around me,

Lord, I too can give peace,

Because I wish and hope nothing more.

 

V. Ergebung

Dein Wille, Herr, geschehe!

Verdunkelt schweigt das Land.

Im Zug der Wetter sehe

ich schauernd deine Hand.

O mit uns Sündern gehe

erbarmend in’s Gericht!

Ich beug' im tiefsten Wehe

zum Staub mein Angesicht.

Dein Wille, Herr, geschehe!

 

Your will, sir, be done!

Darkened, the land is silent.

See the weather on the train

I shiver your hand.

O go with us sinners

mercy into the court!

I bow in the deepest pains

to the dust my face.

 

Your will, sir, be done!

 

VI. Erhebung

So laß herein nun brechen

Die Brandung, wie sie will,

Du darfst ein Wort nur sprechen,

So wird der Abgrund still.

Und bricht die letzte Brükke,

Zu dir, der treulich steht,

Hebt über Not und Glükke

Mich einsam das Gebet.

 

You can only speak one word,

So the abyss is quiet.

And breaks the last bridge,

To you, who stands faithfully,

Lift over misery and fortune

Lonely the prayer.

 

Lockung / Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald

Fanny Hensel was one of the most prolific female composers of her era, having composed over 460 pieces of music. Much like her younger brother, Felix Mendelssohn, her prodigious musical talent and wealthy family’s aristocratic connections afforded her unfettered access to the finest musical education. But, unlike her brother, she was dissuaded from professional musical pursuits, instead expected to relegate herself to a more house-bound, “womanly” role. Although Fanny’s family did not want her to publish her own works, Felix sought her insight on his own pieces, and published a few of her works under his name. In 1846, in what would be the last year of her life, Hensel finally decided to publish under her own name, without her brother’s input. Both of Hensel’s pieces featured in this program come from one such collection of settings of poetry by J. V. Eichendorff. Lockung contemplates the sounds of the forest, including the calls of mermaids that lure the speaker into the refreshing river. Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald illustrates the forest’s sounds and its silence, and describes the calm that such tranquility brings to the speaker’s heart.

 

Lockung

Hörst du nicht die Bäume rauschen

Draußen durch die stille Rund?

Lockts dich nicht, hinabzulauschen

Von dem Söller in den Grund,

Wo die vielen Bäche gehen

Wunderbar im Mondenschein

Wo die stillen Schlösser sehen

In den Fluß vom hohen Stein?

 

Kennst du noch die irren Lieder

Aus der alten, schönen Zeit?

Sie erwachen alle wieder

Nachts in Waldeseinsamkeit,

Wenn die Bäume träumend lauschen

Und der Flieder duftet schwül

Und im Fluß die Nixen rauschen -

Komm herab, hier ist's so kühl.

 

Can’t you hear the forest rustle, 

outside through the silent round?

Aren’t you tempted to listen down from the balcony to the ground,

Where the many brooks flow, 

wondrously in the moonlight,

And the silent castles look 

into the river from high rock?

 

Do you remember the mad songs 

from old, beautiful times?

They all awake again at night, in the loneliness of the forest,

When the dreaming trees are listening,

and the lilac has a sultry scent

And in the river the mermaids murmur, ‘Come down, here it is so cool.’

 

Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald

Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald

Aus den tiefsten Gründen,

Droben wird der Herr nun bald

An die Sterne zünden,

Wie so stille in den Schlünden,

Abendlich nur rauscht der Wald.

 

Alles geht zu seiner Ruh,

Wie die Welt verbrause

Schauernd hört der Wandrer zu,

Sehnt sich tief nach Hause,

Hier in Waldes grüner Klause

Herz, geh edlich auch zur Ruh!

 

Beautiful evening breezes rustle the forest from the deepest grounds,

Above the lord will now soon light the stars

How silent in the chasms, just evening breezes in the wood.

 

Everything goes to its rest, how the world is spent,

Shuddering, listens the wanderer, yearning deeply for home,

Here in the forest-green hermitage, heart, go at last, too, to rest.

 

Litanei vom Hauch

Hanns Eisler was a remarkable composer of Austrian descent who created a large body of music in Europe and in America in the 20th century. Sadly, he is mostly unknown in our era. His long association with Bertolt Brecht, the great German author of the same era, resulted in much music, and he was a prominent composer of movie scores (including eight Hollywood films, two of which were Oscar-nominated). His association with political left causes resulted in his deportation from the United States in the Red Scare years; only two decades earlier he had been forced out of Germany by the Nazis. Eisler’s Litanei vom Hauch is a setting of Brecht’s impressive prose: It is an allegorical piece that is at times a cruel depiction of human tribalism, and a warning written in an almost fairy-tale fashion. The German word “Hauch” in the title adds a level of ambiguity in translation as it can mean “breeze” as easily as “breath.”  

 

Einst kam ein altes Weib einher,

die hatte kein Brot zum Essen mehr.

Das Brot, das fraß das Militär!

Da fiel sie in die Goss', die war kalte.

Da hatte sie keinen Hunger mehr.

Darauf schwiegen die Vöglein im Walde!

Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,

in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch!

Da kam einmal ein Totenarzt einher,

der sagte: Die Alte besteht auf ihrem Schein.

Da grub man die hungrige Alte ein.

so sage das alte Weib nichts mehr!

Nur der Arzt lachte noch über die Alte

Auch die Vöglein schweigen im Walde,

über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh.

 

Da kam einmal ein einz'ger Mann daher;

der hatte für diese Ordnung keinen Sinn.

Der fand in der Sache einen Haken drin.

Der war eine Art Freund für die Alte.

Der sagte: ein Mensch müsse essen können, bitte sehr, ein Mensch!

Darauf schwiegen die Vöglein im Walde.

Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, un allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch!

 

Da kam einmal ein Polizist daher,

der hatte einen Gummiknüppel dabei.

Der zerklopfte dem Mann seinen

Hinterkopf zu Brei!

 

Da sagte auch dieser Mann nichts mehr!

Doch der Polizist sagte, daß es schallte:

So! Jetzt schweigen die Vöglein im Walde!

Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch!

 

Da kamen mit einem mal viele rote Männer einher,

die wollten einmal reden mit dem Militär!

Doch das Militär redete mit dem Maschinengewehr

und da sagten die roten Männer nichts mehr,

doch hatten sie auf ihrer Stirne noch eine Falte!

 

Darauf schwiegen die Vöglein im Walde.

Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, ist Ruh!

Da kam ein großer roter Bär einher,

der wußte nichts von den Bräuchen,

denn er kam von überm Meer,

und der fraß die Vöglein im Walde!

 

Da schwiegen die Vöglein nicht mehr!

Über allen Gipfeln ist Unruh!

In allen Wipfeln spürest du jetzt einen Hauch!

 

Once an old crone came walking along, no bread no more.

Military ate it up, ended in the gutter cold and wet,

no hunger no more. Silent the birdsong, not a breath in the trees.

 

Death doctor comes walking along: 

the lady insists on documentation.

hungry old crone buried,

no words no more,

doctor still laughing,

and silent the birdsong, not a breath in the trees.

 

One man comes walking along, 

refusing to toe the line,

something's wrong here, 

standing up for the lady.

A body has to eat, she's human too.

Then the birdsong was silent, not a breath in the trees,

in all the forest barely a breeze.

 

A policeman comes walking along,

carrying his billy club,

beats his brain to mush.

For the man no words no more.

Policeman yelling his words,

Birdsong be silent! In all the trees barely a breeze.

 

All at once a red crowd comes walking along,

wanting some words with the military.

Military answer with machine guns,

for the red men no words no more,

still with a crease on their forehead.

Now birdsong is silent, not a breeze in the forest, 

not a breath in the trees.

 

And once a big red bear comes walking along,

not knowing the lines, coming from distant lands.

Ate up the birds in the trees,

birdsong not silent no more.

Breath stirs in the forest, breeze in the trees.

 

Vier doppelchörige Gesänge

Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, in 1810. The fifth and youngest son of an author, translator, and book dealer, Schumann’s middle-class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interests in literature and music while also briefly studying law. After a hand injury forced him to abandon a planned career as a concert pianist, Schumann made significant contributions to 19th century music as a composer, critic, and champion of younger composers—notably, Johannes Brahms. All of this was achieved despite life-long struggles with mental illness, culminating in a suicide attempt in 1854 and eventually his death in 1856 at age 46.

 

The year 1849 was one of the most productive years of Schumann’s life and saw the completion of almost 40 compositions. Among these works is the final composition on today’s program, Vier doppelchörige Gesänge, Op. 141, a set of four “part songs” for double-choir. Part songs are typically simple, secular works for unaccompanied voices, and many were composed by the likes of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Here, Schumann significantly expands the form, giving us four independent songs that are each cast on a large scale.

 

I. An die Sterne

Sterne in des Himmels Ferne!

die mit Strahlen bessrer Welt

ihr die Erdendämmrung hellt;

schau'n nicht Geisteraugen

von euch erdenwärts,

daß sie Frieden hauchen

ins umwölkte Herz?

 

Sterne in des Himmels Ferne!

träumt sich auch in jenem Raum

eines Lebens flücht'ger Traum?

Hebt Entzücken, Wonne,

Trauer, Wehmut, Schmerz,

jenseit unsrer Sonne

auch ein fühlend Herz?

 

Sterne in des Himmels Ferne!

Winkt ihr nicht schon Himmelsruh'

mir aus euren Fernen zu?

Wird nicht einst dem Müden

auf den goldnen Au'n

ungetrübter Frieden

in die Seele tau'n?

 

Sterne in des Himmels Ferne,

bis mein Geist den Fittich hebt

und zu eurem Frieden schwebt,

hang' an euch mein Sehnen

hoffend, glaubevoll!

O, ihr holden, schönen,

könnt ihr täuschen wohl?

 

Stars in the distant heavens!

who brighten the twilight of Earth

with the beams of a better world;

Are there not ghostly eyes

looking from you towards the earth,

breathing peace into clouded hearts?

 

Stars in the distant heavens!

Is the fleeting dream of life

dreamed even in that far-off place?

Are there hearts beyond our sun

which are also lifted

by delight, joy,

sorrow, melancholy, anguish?

 

Stars in the distant heavens!

Do your twinkles not signify heavenly peace

to me from far off?

Will you not melt peace

into the soul of weary men

one day in golden meadows?

 

Stars in the distant heavens,

until my spirit takes wing

and flies to your peace,

I pin my longings on you,

hoping, trusting.

O you lovely, beautiful ones,

is it possible for you to deceive me?

–Friedrich Rückert

 

II. Ungewisses Licht

Bahnlos und pfadlos, Felsen hinan

stürmet der Mensch, ein Wandersmann.

Stürzende Bäche, wogender Fluß,

brausender Wald, nichts hemmet den Fuß!

 

Dunkel im Kampfe über ihn hin,

jagend im Heere die Wolken zieh'n;

rollender Donner, strömender Guß,

sternlose Nacht, nichts hemmet den Fuß!

 

Endlich, ha! endlich schimmert's von fern!

Ist es ein Irrlicht, ist es ein Stern?

Ha! wie der Schimmer so freundlich blinkt,

wie er mich locket, wie er mir winkt!

 

Rascher durcheilet der Wandrer die Nacht,

hinnach dem Lichte zieht's ihn mit Macht!

Sprecht, wie: sind's Flammen, ist's Morgenrot,

ist es die Liebe, ist es der Tod?

 

Without a path, without a trail,

the man, the wanderer storms up the cliffs:

Plunging streams, a roaring river,

Booming woods, nothing breaks his stride!

 

Warring in darkness above,

Clouds pursue him in armies;

Rolling thunder, streaming torrents,

a starless night, nothing breaks his stride!

 

At last, ha! At last it glitters in the distance!

Is it a phantom, is it a star?

Ha, its sparkle is so friendly,

How it entices me, how it beckons to me!

 

Faster now the wanderer hurries through the night,

Drawn by the power of the light.

Tell: is it a flame, is it the sunrise?

Is it love, is it death?

–Joseph Christian von Zedlitz

 

III. Zuversicht

Nach oben mußt du blicken,

gedrücktes, wundes Herz,

dann wandelt in Entzücken

sich bald dein tiefster Schmerz.

 

Froh darfst du Hoffnung fassen,

wie hoch die Flut auch treibt.

Wie wärst du denn verlassen,

wenn dir die Liebe bleibt?

 

You must look up,

oppressed, wounded heart,

Then your deepest agonies

Will soon turn to delight.

 

"You may cling to hope gladly,

however high the flood rises.

How can you be lost

if you still have love?

–Joseph Christian von Zedlitz

 

IV. Talismane

Gottes ist der Orient!

Gottes ist der Okzident!

Nord und südliches Gelände

Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände.

 

Er, der einzige Gerechte,

Will für jedermann das Rechte.

Sei von seinen hundert Namen

Dieser hochgelobet! Amen.

 

Mich verwirren will das Irren;

Doch du weißt mich zu entwirren,

Wenn ich handle, wenn ich dichte,

Gieb du meinem Weg die Richte!

 

Ob ich Ird'sches denk' und sinne,

Das gereicht zu höherem Gewinne.

Mit dem Staube nicht der Geist zerstoben,

Dringet, in sich selbst gedrängt, nach oben.

 

Im Atemholen sind zweierlei Gnaden:

Die Luft einziehen, sich ihrer entladen:

Jenes bedrängt, dieses erfrischt;

So wunderbar ist dasLeben gemischt.

Du danke Gott, wenn er dich preßt,

Und dank ihm, wenn er dich wieder entläßt.

 

The East is God's!

The West is God's!

Northern and southern lands

rest in the peace of his hands.

 

He, the only one who is just,

wants justice for everyone.

Of his hundred names,

Let this one be highly praised! Amen.

 

Errors try to confuse me,

But you know how to disentangle me.

If I act, if I compose poems,

Give direction to my path.

 

Although I think on earthly things,

that stands me in higher stead.

The spirit that doesn't disperse with the dust

is forced back into itself, and ascends.

 

In breathing, there are two graces:

breathing in, and breathing out.

One constrains us and the other refreshes us;

This is how wonderfully life is mixed.

Thank God when he presses you,

and thank him when he releases you again.

Amen.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

View Event →
Mar
15
to Mar 17
2018-2019

Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

March 15, 2019: Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

March 17, 2019: St. Mark’s Church

Sam Barge, Sonja Bontrager, Jon Cronin, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Amy Hochstetler, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Jesse Scheinbart, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Kevin Vondrak, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman


Morning Prayers, Philip Moore (b. 1943)

from Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

Sibylla Libyca, Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594)

from Prophetiae Sibyllarum

Psalm 67, Charles Ives (1874–1954)

✦

Even When God Is Silent, Michael Horvit (b. 1932)

Prayers in Time of Distress, Philip Moore

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, traditional African American arr. William Dawson (1899–1990)

✦

Sibylla Samia, Orlande de Lassus

Ave Verum Corpus, William Byrd (1538–1623)

Whispers, Steven Stucky (1949–2016)

Sibylla Erythrea, Orlande de Lassus

✦

Evening Prayers, Philip Moore

Sibylla Agrippa, Orlande de Lassus

Steal Away, traditional African American arr. Michael Tippett (1905–1998)

from A Child of Our Time              


Behind Closed Doors is a program of music and texts that were originally written for private consumption. The music on this program approaches this theme from a few different directions, incorporating works that were written without a public performance in mind as well as several musical compositions or texts that were truly created in secret.

 

The program is built around two larger-scale pieces, Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Philip Moore and excerpts from Prophetiae Sibyllarum by Orlande de Lassus. Moore’s 1980 work sets texts by the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was an opponent of the Nazi regime and spent the last two years of his life in a Nazi prison before being executed. Lassus’s motets, which look forward to the early twentieth century in their explorations of tonality, were composed for private performance in the 1550s but were considered so unusual for the time that they were not published until after the composer’s death, nearly a half-century later. Lassus’s texts, prophetic poems about the coming of Christ, are arranged to respond and comment on Bonhoeffer’s prayers.

 

The remainder of the program includes nineteenth-century experimental music by Charles Ives; a setting of a poem scrawled on a wall by a Holocaust victim; several arrangements of coded African American spirituals; and a contemporary work combining an illicit Elizabethan Catholic anthem with a poem by Walt Whitman.

 

Central to the program, though, are the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) as set by Philip Moore. Bonhoeffer was born to a well-off family in Breslau, Germany, and showed early promise as an academic. After completing a Doctorate in Theology at Berlin University in 1927 (at the age of 21), Bonhoeffer came to the United States for further study at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a prominent critic of the Nazi regime and spent the next several years lecturing, writing, teaching, and resisting Nazi influence within the church. Ultimately, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis for his involvement with the German resistance and executed in 1945.

 

Philip Moore (b.1943) is an English organist and composer. Following studies at the Royal College of Music in London, Moore embarked on a forty-year career in church music that included positions at Canterbury Cathedral, Guildford Cathedral, and York Minster. Moore’s music is firmly rooted in the English church music tradition, and the Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer draw particular inspiration from the music of Benjamin Britten and Herbert Howells.

 

The composer writes: “[Dietrich Bonhoeffer] wrote several books, of which one of the most well-known is Letters and Papers from Prison, written in 1943. Amongst the papers are seven poems entitled Prayers for Fellow Prisoners. Even in translation they are vivid, passionate, and intense, and spring from a deep sense of compassion, and a love and understanding of humanity. Although Bonhoeffer’s writings reflect his triumph of hardship and suffering, there is also a depth of despair that is perhaps only fully reflected in his poetry. This is particularly apparent in Morning Prayers and Prayers in Time of Distress. Evening Prayers, however, breathes a spirit of tranquility and acceptance; a spirit by which he was known and through which he gave comfort to his fellow prisoners.

 

“I first encountered Bonhoeffer’s Prayers for my Fellow Prisoners in 1966, and immediately felt drawn to the idea of setting some of them to music. The opportunity arose in 1980 when a newly formed vocal quartet, Equinox, commissioned me to write a work. The prayers were first performed on September 25, 1981, and the commission was funded by a grant from the South East Arts Association.

 

“Musically the construction of each Prayer is straightforward. The first two are each dominated by a particular interval––the first by a minor second and the second by an augmented fourth. Bonhoeffer frequently draws parallels between musical counterpoint and life, and because of this the third Prayer is in the form of a fugue. The subject is based on the first two phrases of the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland [‘Savior of the nations, come’], which Bonhoeffer actually quotes in one of his letters. The complete chorale appears at the very end of the movement at the words ‘into Thy hands I commend my loved ones.’” 


Sibylla Libyca

“Sibylla Libyca” is the second movement of Lassus’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum, one of the most enigmatic works by the great Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer. The piece is set in twelve movements, each declaiming the text of one of the ancient Greek oracles, who were believed by some to have foretold the coming of Christ. Though Lassus wrote the work when he was only 28 years old, Prophetiae Sibyllarum constitutes some of the most extreme, inventive, and chromatic music of his entire output: centuries before the arrival of atonal music, Lassus was experimenting with writing in all twelve tones and exploring rapid harmonic movement through chords foreign to the mode. The entire piece is set for four-voice, a cappella choir, and likely would have been sung one- or two-voices on a part during the composer’s time.


Psalm 67

Charles Ives (1874–1954) was born into a musical family in Danbury, Connecticut. The composer’s father, George, had been a bandmaster in the Union Army during the Civil War and following the war made his living as a musician and teacher. Ives inherited not only his father’s interest in music generally but also his interest in musical experimentation. Ives began composing at an early age, eventually going on to study with Horatio Parker at Yale. Following Yale, Ives embarked on a career in the insurance industry, all the while composing music that pushed beyond the niceties of late nineteenth-century music. Working largely for his own enjoyment, Ives was free to write music that was not bound by the expectations of a concert-going public or the technical limitations of performing musicians. Although Ives’s compositional activities largely ceased by the 1920s, his music did not begin to receive regular public performances until the 1930s. Indeed, many of his most significant works were not given their first performances until decades after they were composed. 


Ives’s first instrument was the organ, and he worked as a church organist from the ages of 14 to 28. Not surprisingly, church music makes up a large portion of Ives’s early output and the traditions of Protestant church music, particularly hymnody, are a significant influence even on Ives’s later secular music. Ives’s 1898 setting of Psalm 67 is firmly rooted in the traditions of church music, based as it is on homophonic, chordal Anglican chant. The experimental side of Ives’s musical personality is also evident in this setting, however, as Psalm 67 is a study in poly-tonality, in which the women and men of the chorus sing simultaneously in different keys. The technique became a favorite of Igor Stravinsky in ballet scores such as Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring, composed 15 years after Ives’s Psalm setting.


Even When God Is Silent

“Even When God Is Silent” is a setting of a poem found in 1945 on the wall of a basement in Cologne, Germany, by Allied troops. The poem is believed to have been written by someone hiding from the Gestapo. Composed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, Horvit sets the text simply in C minor; each voice part declaims the text in turn before joining in homophony. In each phrase, the repetition of the words “I believe” underscores the power of hope even in isolation and darkness.


Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

William Dawson was an African American composer and choir director from Alabama whose arrangements of African American spirituals have cemented his place in the standard repertory for American music for generations. His setting of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is known for its simple yet rich harmonies and sweeping soprano solo.


Sibylla Samia

“Sibylla Samia” is the fifth movement of Lassus’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum. Though brief, this movement exhibits the same wild inventiveness and extreme chromaticism as the other movements of the larger work. Known for his multilingual fluency in text setting, Lassus was and still is celebrated for his remarkable ability to declaim text with all the power and rhetoric of the spoken word.


Ave Verum Corpus

William Byrd, a student of Thomas Tallis and one of the most prominent English composers during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, is remembered today for his prolific output of Latin church music during a time when English Catholics were subject to harsh persecution for practicing their faith. “Ave Verum Corpus,” an SATB a cappella setting of a text central to Catholic worship, is one of his most well-known motets. It was published in 1605, in Byrd’s first collection of Gradualia. Set in G minor, the text unfurls largely in homophony with the frequent cross-relations and chromatic motion that characterize Byrd’s compositional style.


Whispers

Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Steven Stucky was widely recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation. Commissioned for Chanticleer’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 2002, his piece “Whispers” juxtaposes Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus,” sung by a distant semichorus, with an original setting of lines from Walt Whitman’s “Whispers of Heavenly Death.” In Stucky’s description of the work, he writes, “Thoughts and images of death are so transmuted by the power of great art that the result is not sadness, but instead a kind of mystical exaltation.” Whitman’s text, sung by the main chorus, is set in undulating, chromatic waves that increase gradually in intensity and clarity, and through which snatches of Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus” drift, phrase by phrase.


Steal Away

The English composer Sir Michael Tippett (1905–1998) wrote the oratorio A Child of Our Time during the first years of World War II. The oratorio tells the story of a young Jewish refugee who assassinated a Nazi official in 1938 and the resulting government crackdown, famously known as Kristallnacht: the “Night of Broken Glass.” Tippett breaks up the story with settings of African American spirituals, which function much the same way as the Lutheran chorales in Bach’s passion oratorios: providing moments of self-reflection within the narrative arc of the all-too-familiar, all-too-inevitable story. His arrangement of “Steal Away” comes at the end of Part I of the oratorio, one of the darkest moments in the narrative, after the soprano soloist despairs over the state of the world: “How shall I feed my children on so small a wage? How can I comfort them when I am dead?”

 

Tippett’s setting of “Steal Away,” though very much composed for public performance, brings together several themes that have emerged in this program. Like the pieces by Moore, Horvit, and Byrd, Tippett’s “Steal Away” is a response to religious and political oppression. Like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” the spiritual “Steal Away” dates from the time of slavery in the United States and is imbued with multiple layers of meaning. Finally, Michael Tippett was gay and a pacifist––two things which were either unpopular or illegal in England for much of his lifetime. Tippett would have understood as well as any other composer on this program what it means to compartmentalize and stifle certain aspects of his own self-expression. 


View Event →
Nov
9
to Nov 11
2018-2019

We Who Believe

We Who Believe

November 9, 2018: Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

November 11, 2018: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Joshua Glassman, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Brian Middleton, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman


Hope, Ysaÿe Maria Barnwell (b. 1946)

Spiritual, Ysaÿe Maria Barnwell

A ship with unfurled sails, Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)

Advance Democracy, Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)

What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?, Melissa Dunphy (b. 1980)

Mu isamaa on minu arm, Gustav Ernesaks (1908–1993)

El pueblo unido, Sergio Ortega (1938–2003), arr. Gene Glickman

she took his hands, Nicholas Cline (b. 1985)

Te Quiero, Alberto Favero (b. 1944), arr. Liliana Cangiano

we cannot leave (from Privilege), Ted Hearne (b. 1982)

Ella’s Song, Bernice Johnson Reagon (b. 1942)

Hold On! traditional spiritual, arr. Moses Hogan (1957–2003)


If you were hoping that a choir concert might represent the last apolitical space in our public sphere, you might be disappointed today. But this program is only as topical as you need it to be: singing together about revolutions isn’t especially revolutionary, as evidenced by this music that spans continents and carries the voices of earlier generations. The history of societal progress echoes with song, drawing as much from our faith in deliverance as from our need to keep motivated during the struggle.

In this context, returning to this music of progress isn’t simply affirming: it’s crucial. Raising our voices together is both our birthright and our responsibility; it is among the most intimate of public acts and one of the strongest, simplest forms of community-building. And although we are presenting these works formally, we ask that you receive them viscerally, with your whole selves. Your voice––your belief, your power, your faith, your fear––is needed if we are to grow together in community. When the call comes, sing out.

Hope

Today’s program would not be feasible without the ongoing work of Black and African American artists and teachers whose wisdom and talents infuse our contemporary understanding of both music and progress. Chief among these is Dr. Ysaÿe Maria Barnwell, a founding member of the internationally renowned vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock and a celebrated composer, choral clinician, and master teacher in the African American musical tradition. She summed up much of her teaching and composing in 2016, addressing a workshop audience in Massachusetts: “I see songs as armor when you need it. And I see songs as a blessing. We’re back to the beginning. Songs have a function. That’s what I want people to understand. They come to you when you need them.”


Viewed then as a kind of mantra, Barnwell’s “Hope” builds out of complementary layers of influences, with her timeless text juxtaposed against polyrhythms that hearken to African drumming. The repeated structure makes it easy for any of us to call upon the song when it’s needed—or even to add new calls to action.


Spiritual

With its title defining both its genre and its cultural resonance, Barnwell’s anthem “Spiritual” explores the all-too-familiar uncertainty that comes to those living through unrest. Recorded by Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1993, Barnwell’s references here are to the headlines of the late twentieth century, like the global AIDS epidemic, South African schoolchildren protesting apartheid-fueled educational policies in Soweto, and the Los Angeles police force’s brutal beating of Rodney King. The repeated refrain takes us out of time, framing our shared vulnerability against this backdrop of systemic injustice.


A ship with unfurled sails

“A ship with unfurled sails” places us in similarly uncertain territory, but here the dividing line between possibility and hope seems more tenuous, with nightfall now presaging a new beginning. The text, by Estonian poet and translator Doris Kareva, is colored by the Soviet occupation of Estonia, which achieved modern independence only in 1991. That Kareva’s long-awaited ship comes sovereign, unclaimed by any nation, indicates how deeply the strife of occupation had cut—no flag at all would be better than the standard of a hated occupier.


Gabriel Jackson’s setting of this enigmatic text grounds the poet’s own experiences in striking text painting. The haunting wavelets in the alto line keep the melody off-center, unsure, and the recognition that something glorious may be to hand––Imperceptibly all is changed. All arrives so secretly.––comes in phases, allowing for a surprising expression of pure joy before the narrator can collect herself.


Advance Democracy

In contrast to Jackson and Kareva’s uncertainty, Benjamin Britten’s “Advance Democracy” offers us pure bombast and a more direct call to action. Written in 1938, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II, “Advance Democracy” pleads for an alternative to war, with stirring text by the British poet Randall Swingler. Britten’s own pacifism is well known from his War Requiem, composed in 1962, and though “Advance Democracy” clearly reflects the composer and poet’s own pre-war anxieties, there’s a grim familiarity to the mechanisms of violence and fear as political ploys. Framed with that resonance, Britten’s darker moments carry great weight: listen for the contrast between the disjointed, staccato chant and the soaring, eerie obligato in the other voiceparts.


What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?

Of course, Britten and Swingler’s pleas didn’t account for the genocidal horrors being wrought elsewhere in Europe, and the world did go to war for the second time that century. That war included Philip Spooner, a Maine native who served as a medic and a chaplain between 1942 and 1945. Decades later, in 2009, Mr. Spooner shared a glimpse of his wartime experiences before the Maine Judiciary Committee while testifying in support of marriage equality. In reference to the atrocities of the war, he said, “I have seen with my own eyes the consequence of a caste system and of making some people less than others or second class. Never again. We must have equal rights for everyone.”


After a video and transcript of his remarks went viral, Philadelphia composer Melissa Dunphy crafted this intricate choral setting of Mr. Spooner’s address. Although the rhetoric is lofty, Dunphy’s speech-like rhythms hold us tightly to Mr. Spooner’s hesitant, sometimes-shaky delivery, with the sweetness of the setting inviting us to consider that a man who has “seen much” may still be nervous about addressing his state legislators.


A few months after Mr. Spooner’s speech, Maine voted in favor of marriage equality. It might be tempting to ascribe this achievement in part to his testimony—as Dunphy herself laughingly admitted recently, the words of an octagenarian Nazi-fighting veteran are “pretty unimpeachable,” and the extraordinary digital reach of his remarks reveals the impact of a single person’s voice. Still, Mr. Spooner’s insistence on the equality of all people would suggest that his particular contribution to the discussion might as easily have come from someone else. And indeed, that may have been what he intended to share that day with the committee: after Dunphy’s composition received international attention, she was contacted by the canvasser quoted in Mr. Spooner’s remarks. As Dunphy explained recently, the canvasser suggested that all the viral transcripts had captured Mr. Spooner’s central question inaccurately: though his delivery was halting, he had actually asked, “What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?” Viewed in this light, we must wonder anew about just what Mr. Spooner has seen in his many years: not only about the losses he may have suffered during the war but also about the fears and grief he may have confronted afterwards as a partner and a father. He doesn’t betray any evolution in his own views—he was “raised to believe that all men are created equal”—and so we are left to wonder about how much this man has seen, and about how much he himself has sacrificed in the name of his ideals.


Mu isamaa on minu arm

In the same era as Mr. Spooner’s service, freedom and equality were at risk in Estonia, which was newly under restored Soviet control after only 26 years of independence in the early twentieth century. The Soviet Union was intent on destroying the cultural identity the Estonians had begun forming, and part of their imposed censorship included banning Estonia’s national anthem from being sung in public. 


During the 1947 Laulupidu (the once-annual national song festival), the first since the war’s end, composer Gustav Ernesaks debuted a new setting of the poem “Mu isamaa on minu arm,” an ode to the country written by the famous Estonian poet Lydia Koidula in the mid-nineteenth century. Taken up by the Estonian people as a new anthem of sorts, it too was soon banned, but it continued to be sung and was eventually allowed back on concert programs. In 1969, during the song festival celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Laulupidu, Ernesaks’s piece was performed by a choir, after which the audience—estimated at 100,000 people––and the choir on stage began singing it again in a burst of patriotic fervor. The choir stood firm when they were ordered to leave the stage, and a Soviet military band attempted to drown out the anthem, to no avail.


As referenced in Kareva’s poem, the power of Estonian singing was finally realized in the late 1980s, when it won its independence through the non-violent “Singing Revolution,” thanks to mass demonstrations at which people sang pro-independence songs by contemporary Estonian rock bands. Laulupidu still recurs every five years; in 2019, for the festival’s 150th anniversary, “Mu isamaa on minu arm” will return as the central theme.


El Pueblo Unido

From Chile comes another twentieth-century anthem, here by the storied Leftist composer Sergio Ortega. Ortega worked closely with President Salvador Allende, composing both his electoral theme song (“Venceramos,” or “We Shall Triumph”) and “¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” in the same period of Allende’s brief tenure before being assassinated during a coup. Ortega was exiled from Chile in the early 1970s, but “El Pueblo Unido” remained part of the Latin America vernacular, known and sung by progressive forces throughout the region. This arrangement by the New York-based arranger Gene Glickman centers the piece’s title as if proclaimed by demonstrators.


she took his hands

“she took his hands” is a setting of an excerpt from a 2007 Washington Post article about the arrest of Elvira Arellano, an immigrant from Mexico who worked for seven years in the United States and took sanctuary in a Chicago church to remain near her U.S.-born son, before ultimately being arrested and deported by U.S. immigration officials for her illegal status. Chicago-based composer Nicholas Cline sets the text in sparse, haunting repetitions that carry the strength, fear, and faith of Elvira’s words to her son. 


Te Quiero

Another vision of activism and faith comes to us from “Te Quiero,” a bone-deep love song by the Argentinian composer Alberto Favero setting a much-beloved poem by Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti. Favero is known in Latin America primarily for his compositions of popular music; this choral version, by the Argentinian arranger Liliana Cangiano, captures Favero’s inherent expressiveness as he treats the lyrical text. Benedetti’s refrain—“Somos mucho más que dos”––can be a lover’s caress or a revolutionary’s cry; we like that it also speaks to the power of intertwined voices. 


we cannot leave

Ted Hearne’s music blends rock-inspired minimalism with social consciousness. Although educated on the East coast and based for much of his career in Brooklyn, Hearne now lives in Los Angeles and teaches composition at the University of Southern California. Hearne is best known to Philadelphia audiences through his association with the new music choir The Crossing, with whom he has collaborated on numerous occasions. Among these collaborations was Sounds from the Bench, premiered by The Crossing in 2014, which was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music.


Privilege, composed in 2009 for the San Francisco choir Volti, was one of the composer’s first major successes and has been performed by dozens of ensembles throughout the United States. Privilege is a collection of five short pieces for a cappella chorus: the first and third movements are settings of “little texts” by the composer that question a contemporary privileged life (his own). The second and fourth movements are settings of excerpts from an interview with TV producer and journalist David Simon, creator of the television series The Wire. Simon’s words are answers to questions about economic and educational inequality. The final movement, “we cannot leave,” which we share here today as a standalone piece, is a setting of As’ Kwaz’ uKuhamba, a Xhosa anti-apartheid song from South Africa.


The composer writes: “The first four movements are of course most closely related to contemporary America. Because the fifth takes a text from an outside culture (black South African) and is more removed historically (because the era of Apartheid is over we are able to process it as a chapter that has been closed), it can provide relief from texts that are more ‘close to home.’ But also […] there are common themes running between the movements, and in a way the distanced perspective makes the last movement the saddest or most tragic of all. One thing that should not be overlooked is the parallels between social and economic injustices in Apartheid South Africa and America.”


Ella’s Song

In addition to her role as the founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bernice Johnson Reagon is a celebrated composer, arranger, teacher, and theater artist. In 1981, she was commissioned to compose the title song for Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker: the result was “Ella’s Song.” Although the lyrics seem shockingly familiar today, they are drawn from Baker’s decades of writings and activism against exploitation, racism, and injustice. As Reagon writes, “The first verse is from a statement Baker made about the murder of three Civil Rights Movement workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman during the Mississippi Campaign in the summer of 1964. A search was mounted after their disappearance that involved dragging the rivers of Mississippi. As they searched the muddy waters, they turned up bodies of Black men who had never been looked for because they were Black.” Although the call-and-response pattern means that only a few singers give voice to Baker’s words, Reagon’s score cautions that “all harmony lines must carry the emotional responsibility of the song.”


Hold On!

“Hold On!,” sometimes known as “Gospel Plow,” is a traditional American spiritual recorded by such artists as Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, and Bob Dylan. The text implores us to live life to the fullest, committing ourselves to work for meaning and justice in this world.  Hogan's arrangement features small groups of voices sharing each verse while the rest of the ensemble emphatically supports them.


View Event →
Jun
1
to Jun 3
2017-2018

For Cherishing

For Cherishing

June 1, 2018: Proclamation Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr

June 3, 2018: First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Zachary Sigafoes, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Dan Widyono, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Versa est in luctum, Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611)

Introitus from Missa pro Defunctis, Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410/1425–1497)

Nymphes des bois, Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455–1521)

Selig Sind die Toten, Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672)

Songs of Farewell, Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848–1918)

1. My soul, there is a country far beyond the stars
2. I know my soul hath power to know all things
3. Never weather-beaten sail
4. There is an old belief

Funeral Ikos, John Tavener (1944–2013)

Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing, Herbert Howells (1892–1983)

The Beautiful Land of Nod, Robert Convery (b. 1954)


Versa est in luctum

“Versa est in luctum” is a six-part motet by the great Spanish renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. It is one of several pieces that comprise the last publication of Victoria’s life: the Officium Defunctorum, a collection of funereal works that Victoria composed upon the death of his longtime patron, the Dowager Empress Maria, sister to the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Philip II. The text of this motet links two passages from Job: the first making evocative musical reference to the harp and flute, whose voices have been turned to grieving, and the second asking forgiveness before death––“Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing.”

Introitus

Johannes Ockeghem is widely acknowledged as one of the great masters of the early Renaissance. Ockeghem’s fame during his lifetime (as evidenced by Josquin’s memorial to the older composer, “Nymphes des Bois,” next on the program) was a testament not only to his compositional skill but also to his comparatively wide travels. While Ockeghem was born at Saint-Ghislain, in modern-day Belgium, he travelled through the Netherlands, France, and Spain while holding positions in Antwerp, Moulin, and Paris. Ockeghem’s incomplete Missa pro Defunctis, or Requiem, from which this Introitus comes, is believed to have been composed either following the death of France’s King Charles VII in 1461 or that of his son and successor, Louis XI, in 1483. Ockeghem’s Requiem is the earliest surviving polyphonic setting of the Catholic Mass for the dead.

Ockeghem’s Introitus is based on a cantus firmus: a simple melody, often derived from Gregorian chant, around which other voices are added to create polyphony. In this case, the cantus firmus is the plainsong melody that would have been chanted during funeral masses prior to the emergence of polyphony. Ockeghem’s Introitus, set for only three low voices, is simple and austere. This simplicity and austerity allows space for meditation, by both listener and performer, on life, death, and the mysteries of existence.

Nymphes de bois

One of the most famous motets of the Renaissance, “Nymphes des bois” pays homage to Ockeghem, the master composer who was Josquin’s teacher. The text is an elegy by Jean Molinet, which combines figures from classical antiquity with contemporary mourners of Ockeghem’s death––among them Josquin and his peers, the composers Perchon, Brumel, and Compère. The piece is scored for SATB choir atop a tenor cantus firmus singing the Requiem plainchant.

Selig Sind die Toten

Heinrich Schütz is a transitional figure in music history, having lived and worked at a time when the elements that would come to define Baroque music were just beginning to emerge. Schütz was born in central Germany and spent virtually his entire career at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. While based in Dresden, Schütz was able to travel and spent time in Venice studying with Monteverdi, another key figure in the emergence of Baroque music. Schütz is among the most influential German composers of the early seventeenth century, and his influence can be heard in the music of Buxtehude, Bach, Telemann, and even as late as Brahms and Bruckner. Indeed, the most famous setting of the text “Selig Sind die Toten” is in Brahms’ 1868 Ein deutches Requiem, a setting which itself draws heavily on the influence of Schütz and other early German composers. Schütz’s setting of “Selig Sind die Toten” first appears in the composer’s Geistliche Chormusik, a collection of 29 sacred motets published in 1648. “Selig Sind die Toten,” like much of Schütz’s music, contains many elements of the emergent Baroque style: frequent changes of texture, dynamic, and intensity; alternation between contrapuntal writing, with all six voices moving independently, and homophonic music in which all of the voices sing together; and a clear connection between the meaning of the text and the drama of the music. Nowhere is this last element clearer than in the second section of the piece, where the declamatory music of “Ja, der Geist spricht” is followed by the meditative “Sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit.”

Songs of Farewell

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry’s song cycle Songs of Farewell, comprised of six a cappella motets, is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century English choral music. With its rich harmonies, intricate counterpoint, and evocative setting of English text, the cycle bears all the hallmarks of the English choral renaissance, of which Parry has long been credited as one of the progenitors. Parry composed the cycle between 1913 and 1915, at the height of World War I and just a few years before his death in 1918. The texts and music reflect both a time of unimaginable loss from the war and also perhaps the poignancy of Parry’s personal farewell: by this point the heart trouble which had persisted most of his life had developed into a serious condition, and he may have known that he did not have much time left to live.

The six motets in Songs of Farewell occur in order of increasing complexity, with the first two scored simply for SATB choir and the final and longest motet set for eight voice parts. This program features the first four motets in the cycle. The first motet, “My soul, there is a country far beyond the stars” is probably the best-known piece in the cycle, set for unaccompanied SATB choir to text by the seventeenth-century poet Henry Vaughan (1622–1695). The frequently changing keys and meters do not disturb but rather enhance the lyricism of the text, showcasing Parry’s love for the English language and his skill in bringing it to life through this medium. The second and shortest motet, “I know my soul hath power to know all things,” is a setting of two stanzas from “Nosce Teipsum,” a philosophical poem on human knowledge and the nature of the soul by Sir John Davies (1569–1626). Also scored for four voice parts, this motet is nearly completely homophonic, with each phrase punctuated by dramatic pauses. The third motet, “Never weather-beaten sail,” scored for five voices, begins in homophony but quickly expands into a lush, lyrical polyphonic setting of the eponymous poem by Thomas Campion (1567–1620).

The fourth motet, “There is an old belief,” is a six-voice setting of poetry by John Gibson Lockhart (1794–1854). The first half of this motet unfolds through lyrical polyphonic writing very much like the preceding number. On the final sentence of the text, all six parts join in a unison proclamation of the plainsong Credo on the text “That creed I fain would keep” before returning to the lush harmonic writing that closes the piece.

Funeral Ikos

This setting of text from the Orthodox service for the Burial of Priests, here translated into English by Isabel Hapgood, is quintessentially Tavener. The setting, simple and elegant in equal measure, alternates between sparsely harmonized chants and a four-part Alleluia. While this Alleluia is musically unchanged through each iteration, it goes through several significant contextual transformations, being a song of mortal commemoration, heavenly praise, mourning, and comfort––possibly all at the same time.

Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing

Herbert Howells had a long and productive life with a great deal of professional success, including a sixty-year teaching career at the Royal Academy of Music. Howells’s life was also marked by several tragic incidents, however, and chief among them was the sudden death of his nine-year-old son Michael in 1935. Loss and grief are frequent themes in the composer’s music, and rarely are they more overt than in the motet “Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing.” Howells first set portions of Prudentius’s Hymnus circa Exsequias Defunctis as a study for his mammoth 1949 oratorio Hymnus Paradisi. Although the text was not incorporated into the finished oratorio, it remained in Howells’s mind, and the composer recalled it when he was asked to compose a memorial work for President John F. Kennedy in 1964. In “Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing,” Howells sets Prudentius’s poem in an English translation by Helen Waddell. The motet is episodic in its construction and consists of nine continuous sections. The first section begins with a subdued unison chant, reminiscent of plainsong and the Tudor church music Howells studied as a young man. This chant, which might symbolize a mourner’s inner sense of loss and grief, returns in fragments at points throughout the piece as a unifying motif. The second section (“Guard him well, the dead I give thee”) is a more extroverted expression of grief and begins with one of Howells’ signature harmonic devices: the choir sings a B Major chord, but then all of the voices but one move chromatically away from their notes and then back. The sound is akin to an uncontrollable wail. This section and the several that follow are harmonically searching and unstable. They could be heard as moving through stages of grief, from anger to acceptance, searching for some sort of consolation. Eventually we begin to hear the first hints at hope and redemption: “Open are the woods again, that the Serpent lost for men.” The piece finds its resolution, musically as well as dramatically, with an arrival on B Major and the words “Take, O take him, mighty Leader.” Although the harmonic wandering continues through the end of the piece, our “home” of B Major is never far away. The final section of the piece repeats the first lines of the poem, and the work ends quietly with a final repetition of the poem’s first line and title.

The Beautiful Land of Nod

Robert Convery was born in Kansas and raised in California before coming to the East Coast to study at Westminster Choir College, The Juilliard School, and Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Although now based in New York, Convery has enjoyed long associations with many Philadelphia musical organizations, including The Crossing and its predecessor, The Bridge Ensemble. The composer writes about “The Beautiful Land of Nod”: “Poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, famous for lines like ‘Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone,’ wrote lyrical and affecting works. Unfortunately, for composers looking for poems rich in musical treasures to be excavated, Ms. Wilcox’s poems are too long to sustain themselves in single musical settings. Therefore, I took Ms. Wilcox’s ‘The Beautiful Land of Nod,’ pretended she approved, hung my head in blasphemous shame and whittled down her long poem into a practical length for a musical setting. I also focused the poem, eliminating tangential strayings. While doing this, I kept in mind the musical form I intended to use for the setting, the simple, sturdy Bar Form (A, A, B, A). I then elongated the form slightly (A, A, B, A, A extension, coda) to accommodate my shortened adaptation of the poem.

“The commission for ‘The Beautiful Land of Nod’ came in 2015 from The Crossing for a project called The Jeff Quartets. Fifteen composers were commissioned to each write a short choral work for this project. All fifteen works were then performed on a single program. Being a short work, I wrote it immediately upon receiving the commission, let the music sit a few months, rewrote it, let it sit for a few more months, rewrote it again, let it sit for a few months more, then copied it out neatly during a third rewrite, before sending it to The Crossing for rehearsal and first performance on July 9, 2016.”

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Mar
24
to Mar 25
2017-2018

Where the Truth Lies

Where the Truth Lies

March 24, 2018: Historic St. George’s United Methodist Church

March 25, 2018: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Joshua Glassman, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Eddie Rubeiz, Lizzy Schwartz, Zachary Sigafoes, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Conquest

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.” –Hopi proverb

Windham, Daniel Read (1757–1836)

La Guerre, Clément Janequin (c. 1485–1558)

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis, Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

The Dying Soldier, American folksong (c. 1863), arr. Nigel Short and Mack Wilberg

La Guerra, Mateo Flecha the Elder (1481–1553)

Hanacpachap cussicuinin, Inca hymn (c. 1631)

Devotion

Hymn to St. Cecilia, Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)

I am the Rose of Sharon, William Billings (1746–1800)

Love, Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)

I love my love, Gustav Holst (1874–1934)

History’s Stories, Dale Trumbore (b. 1987)


For thousands of years, we have created stories to chronicle, to educate, to entertain, and to explore our identities. This program begins by exploring stories of conquest and loss through the music of colonialism and warfare. We weave together the programmatic songs of Clément Janequin and Mateo Flecha, bookended by American and Spanish colonial hymns, to show how music can be used as a vehicle of conquest itself. Meanwhile, through the heartbreaking music of Maurice Ravel, Nigel Short, and Mack Wilberg, we feel how war destroys us by cutting short our stories with the people we love.

Selections by Benjamin Britten, William Billings, Bob Chilcott, and Gustav Holst then take us on a transcendent exploration of devotion, showing us how stories of love, both human and divine, have intertwined and nurtured each other through the ages. As with music and conquest, here we experience music as a vehicle for love, and love as an integral ingredient in music: no more so than in Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, a complicated love story about music itself. We begin and end our program with the same musing: how do stories take shape—in the telling or the retelling? Our journey closes fittingly with this phrase by American poet Diane Thiel, beautifully set in a final piece by Dale Trumbore:

       Our voices rise and leave, traveling, raveling, veiling

       currents across the sea, longing to reach each

       Atlantis, locate shapes that sounds recall––call

       back the world, as it was first encountered, heard

Windham

We open with “Windham,” a shape-note hymn set to a text by Isaac Watts with the more-interesting subtitle “The Almost Christian, The Hypocrite, or The Apostate.” More dogma than narrative itself, the angular sonorities and strident singing emphasize the piece’s Puritanical pessimism. Listeners, take heed: the forthcoming tales of love, triumph, and other frivolous things may wrench you from the narrow road of wisdom and salvation.


La Guerre

Clement Janéquin is one of our favorite composers, and “La Guerre,” his onomatopoetic depiction of the French victory over the Swiss at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, perfectly illustrates why. Listen carefully as the battle intensifies: what begins as a nationalistic song meant to stir up comrades evolves into the sounds of charging cavalry, sackbuts, and cannonfire. This was a decisive and unexpected victory for the French: after decades of Swiss supremacy, the French forces had taken an unprecedented stand, hauling hundreds of pieces of artillery––including dozens of huge cannons––through the Alps before the battle. The French army’s shock and delight will be apparent in their declarations of “Victoire!” at the end of the piece.


Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

“Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis” is the second of Maurice Ravel’s Trois Chansons, which together consist of the only a cappella choral music he ever published. Ravel wrote the music and texts for all three pieces between December 1914 and February 1915, while waiting to be enlisted in the army. The other two songs in the set employ light, whimsical music and texts, but “Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis” is unmistakably the product of a man contemplating war. A woman greets three birds of Paradise, each representing a color from France’s tricolored flag and each bearing something from her lover, who has gone to the war. The woman’s anxious vigil at home is embodied by a soprano soloist, and the blue, white, and red birds of Paradise are sung by tenor (here a low alto), mezzo-soprano, and baritone soloists respectively. The three birds bring the woman snatches of her beloved’s voice and fragments of a story which she, far from the front, cannot access. Ravel’s heartbreaking music and evocative text invites us to contemplate the ways in which war and separation unravel our narratives with the people we love. 


The Dying Soldier

Exploring another perspective on the same theme, the titular narrator of “The Dying Soldier” is an American Civil War soldier who has been mortally wounded while fighting far from home. Lying on the cold ground, he shares final thoughts with his friend, Brother Green, relaying both his deep love for his family and his faith that they will reunite in heaven. The baritone solo carries most of the text, while the choir provides harmonic support and an ethereal quality.


La Guerra and Hanacpachap cussicuinin

Linked across time and hemispheres by imperial conquest, “La Guerra” and “Hanacpachap cussicuinin” will be performed together as a set. “La Guerra” is a sixteenth-century ensalada by Mateo Flecha the Elder that vividly recounts a heroic battle between the forces of Christ and the forces of the devil. An ensalada, which literally translates to “salad,” is named for its mix of textures: such pieces are comprised of quotations from popular melodies and texts set in varying meters, rhythms, and even languages, at the free discretion of the composer. The second piece, “Hanacpachap cussicuinin,” is an anonymous processional hymn to the Virgin Mary written in Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire. Printed in 1631 in Peru, “Hanacpachap cussicuinin” was the first piece of vocal polyphony to be published in the New World, and it remains a relic of a time and place in which Spanish Catholicism and native Inca belief systems had begun to fuse together in a new and unusual religious environment.


By the time Flecha was writing his ensaladas in the 1530s, a Golden Age of arts and literature was dawning in Spain; at the same time, the Spanish Empire was at its height overseas, and the Inquisition was still underway at home. As a story about Spain’s holy war, “La Guerra” is very much a product of this time period. The piece has five sections: a call to battle; an interlude of fifes and drums; a song within a song, in which Christ’s assistance is requested and granted; the battle scene; and the final victory. The piece is fast-paced, rousing, and somewhat comic in character. Yet the subject itself––the supremacy of Christ over infidel forces and the conquest of Christianity over the entire world––is meant seriously. Flecha’s intent comes through clearly in the slower, less-jocular sections of music; in his use of formal language rather than vulgar or vernacular text; and in the sudden switch to declamatory Latin for the piece’s final stanzas: “This is the victory that conquers the world: our faith.”


Fittingly, “Hanacpachap cussicuinin” speaks to the ways in which the same era’s Spanish conquistadors used music as a tool for conversion in the New World. It also points to the fluidity of both Christianity and native belief systems in seventeenth-century Peru. The text is nominally a prayer of supplication to the Virgin Mary, but it features imagery that relates instead to the Inca goddess Pachamama, the Earth Mother, who was commonly incorporated into Marian devotion. Although the composer’s identity is lost to history, it is likely that they were an indigenous American musician writing in the Spanish polyphonic style: first, because the hymn was written in Quechua, and second, because of its use of syncopations and a 3-3-4-3-3-4 phrase structure––both features that were common in native music but unusual for European compositions of the time. 


Taken together from a time that saw both great change and great resilience within art, society, and religion, “La Guerra” and “Hanacpachap cussicuinin” give us a lively but deeply unsettling portrait of music itself as a tool of war and conquest.


Hymn to St. Cecilia

St. Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians, and composers from Purcell and Charpentier to Mahler and Howells have written works in her honor. Hymn to St. Cecilia by the English composer Benjamin Britten, born on St. Cecilia’s feast day in 1913, opens the second half of our program. Britten completed the work in 1942, during an extraordinary period of creativity that coincided with the height of World War II. Britten was an avowed pacifist; notably, he produced some of his best-known works between 1939 and 1945, including not only today’s selection but also A Ceremony of Carols (1942), Rejoice in the Lamb (1943), and the opera Peter Grimes (1945).

 

In Hymn to St. Cecilia, the composer sets a poem by his friend and early mentor, W. H. Auden. The conductor Robert Shaw writes that the poem “is certainly more than occasionally obscure, but it is clear that it mixes erotic imagery (Blonde Aphrodite) with artistic and even religious symbolism.” At the time, Auden was encouraging Britten to embrace his own homosexuality, in hopes that this personal development would lead to even more artistic freedom. Shaw continues, “There is little doubt that in the beginning of Part II (‘I cannot grow, I have no shadow to run away from…’) Auden is urging Britten to begin to have ‘a past’––a ‘shadow’ from which he can grow.” 

 

Hymn to St. Cecilia is in three large sections, separated by settings of the refrain: “Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions / To all musicians, appear and inspire.” The first section sets the most literal portion of the text with lilting music. The harmonies expand and contract as the “innocent virgin” constructs an “organ to enlarge her prayer” and the saint’s music reaches its first climax and quickly calms as “around the wicked in Hell’s abysses the huge flame flickered and eased their pain.” The first refrain sounds, set almost entirely in unison. The second section, a scherzo of sorts, builds upon this unison with a sprightly canon between the sopranos and tenors layered over slow octaves in the altos and basses. The section ends still in unison but with a much more intimate statement: “Love me.” After the second refrain, now fully harmonized, the third section of the poem begins as a passacaglia, with a repeated bass line. This music leads to a series of solos, beginning with a soprano voicing St. Cecilia herself. Other soloists impersonate instruments––a violin, a drum, a flute, and a trumpet––to convey Auden’s coded messages to Britten, using the saint’s own powers to reckon with this musician born on her feast day. After this outpouring of emotion, the final refrain returns to the music that began the piece, bringing the work to a quiet close. 


I am the Rose of Sharon

Revolutionary-era American composer William Billings was also a successful singing teacher, church musician, and leatherworker. A self-taught yet prolific composer, Billings produced six volumes of Psalms, hymn settings, choral anthems, and fugues.“I am the Rose of Sharon,” his choral setting of texts from the Song of Solomon, was first published in 1778 and remains one of his best-known works.  Billings juxtaposes choral solos, duets, and full chorus textures, creating charming interplay between the voiceparts and allowing each new idea in the text to receive its own distinct melody. Through tempo and meter changes, he evokes playful and dance-like moods to illuminate passages that still bring joy today: “For lo, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone!”  


Should this setting inspire you to similar musical outbursts, Billings also included a bit of advice for aspiring singers in the same 1778 publication: “SING that part which gives you the least pain, otherwise you make it a toil, instead of pleasure; for if you attempt to sing a part which is (almost or quite) out of your reach, it is not only very laborious to the performer; but very disagreeable to the hearer, by reason of many wry faces and uncouth postures, which rather resemble a person in extreme pain, than one who is supposed to be pleasantly employed. And it has been observed, that those persons, who sing with the most ease, are in general the most musical.”


Love

In contrast to the rollicking good cheer of “I am the Rose of Sharon,” Bob Chilcott’s “Love” feels markedly unsettled. Chilcott relies heavily on an Impressionist technique called harmonic planing: throughout the piece, the top three voices move in the same direction, by the same interval, at the same time. With the voice parts remaining constant relative to one another, the chord moves through the scale but never changes. The result creates a feeling of seasickness, as the chords plane out of the major scale but remain relatively consonant. The bell-like soprano and tenor solos, sounding in unison against the choir’s undulating chords, remain as constant as the title, drawing us close against the “deep night” to assure that “all is well.”


I love my love

“I love my love” is one of Gustav Holst’s Six Choral Folksongs, published in 1916. A setting of a Cornish folksong, this piece tells the story of Nancy, a young woman whose lover was sent to sea by his parents, presumably in an effort to break up their relationship. As a result, she is so distraught with heartbreak that she has been sent to Bedlam, an old nickname for London’s St. Mary Bethlehem hospital, the oldest-known psychiatric institution in Europe and a place made infamous by its historic mistreatment of the mentally ill. Holst, who is still well-known today for his beautiful settings of English folksongs, alternates between the different voiceparts in the choir to illustrate the dialogue between Nancy and her lover and to switch between first- and third-person narration of Nancy’s story. We cannot help but wonder whose version of the story this is: is Nancy truly able to speak freely, or does the text come from the community that both condemned and redeemed her? But even as Nancy questions her immediate circumstances, she never wavers in her devotion to her beloved or her confidence in his reciprocation. At least the story seems to end happily, with both love and madness cured at once.


History’s Stories

Dale Trumbore is among the emerging generation of choral composers. A native of New Jersey, she is now based in Los Angeles, where she was a student of Morton Lauridsen at the University of Southern California. Trumbore’s works have been performed by The Esoterics, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, New York Virtuosos Singers, and VocalEssence, among many others. 

 

“History’s Stories” is actually three pieces in one: two separate pieces for women’s chorus and men’s chorus that can be performed simultaneously to create a third piece. This structure is derived from the poem by Diane Thiel, which can likewise be read three different ways: the body of each line makes one poem (set for men’s chorus), the final word of each line forms a second poem (set for women’s chorus), or the poem can be read in its entirety (the combined third piece). This structure is further highlighted in Trumbore’s setting, where the sopranos and altos echo the final word or syllable of each line sung by the tenors and basses. Trumbore’s evocative approach to Thiel’s plaintive text challenges us to consider the ripple effects of the stories we tell and hear: though the men and women sing simultaneously, they are functionally isolated, telling the same tale from very different perspectives. Listen for the distinct characters between the gendered choruses as the two stories unspool past each other, each hoping that art and music will bridge the chasm left by narrative.


View Event →
Nov
18
to Nov 19
2017-2018

The Northern Wild

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The Northern Wild

Saturday, November 18 at 8 PM
Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
8855 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia

Sunday, November 19 at 5:30 PM
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
2125 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia

Concert Program

In programming The Northern Wild, we searched for a musical kernel that would make a concert of a wide range of styles hold together in a compelling way. In that search, we realized that our favorite music by composers like Veljo Tormis, Jean Sibelius, and Eriks Ešenvalds simply sounds like it couldn’t come from anywhere else in the world. This is not to say that all the music we’ll sing sounds the same—far from it. Tormis’ folk roots could not be more different than the cerebral soundscapes of R. Murray Schafer, while Sibelius and Elgar teeter on the threshold between the late romantic and early modern. But despite all the differences, the wild North is the irreplaceable central character in all of the pieces. This music is grounded in visceral explorations of what it’s like to be in the North, to have the wild earth beneath one’s feet and to be in the unwavering watch of the same celestial bodies for months on end.

There is a loneliness in the way much of this music stretches out like the untouched lands and vast skies it evokes. But in regions still dominated by primal forces, there is great joy in making singular human connections—with a neighboring cowherd across acres of pasture, with a lover thought lost over the hillside, or simply with oneself in the stillness of the pines. These connections are why we sing together, and why we’ll be so glad to have you join us.


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Jun
3
to Jun 4

Mother Tongue

Mother Tongue:

Kodály’s Hungary

June 3 and 4, 2017

Sonja Bontrager, Conrad Erb, Amy Hochstetler, Nicandro Iannacci, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Brian Middleton, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Eddie Rubeiz, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Norvég leányok                                          Zoltán Kodály (1882—1967)

Akik mindig elkésnek

Köszöntő

Hymns from the Old South                    Virgil Thomson (1896—1989)

·       My Shepherd Will Supply My Need
·       The Morning Star
·       Green Fields
·       Death ‘Tis a Melancholy Day

Pange lingua                                               Zoltán Kodály (1882—1967)

Pange lingua                                                      György Orban (b. 1947)

 Intermission 

Matrai Kepek                                              Zoltán Kodály (1882—1967)

Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit             arr. William Dawson (1899—1990)

Shenandoah                                                 arr. Steven Sametz (b. 1954)

Elijah Rock                                            arr. Moses Hogan (1957—2003)

 

Notes on the Program

Zoltán Kodály was a prolific composer, philosopher, linguist, and music educator whose pedagogy remains in use throughout the world. Today, however, we celebrate his legacy as a champion of folk music. With his colleague Béla Bartók, Kodály traveled his native Hungarian countryside cataloguing local folk songs. His work as an ethnomusicologist helped elevate folk music from a peasant genre scorned by classical musicians to a valid and vital source of musical inspiration––not just in Hungary but around the world.

Kodály sought to understand and value his own Hungarian cultural roots through his work, but his legacy gives value to vernacular music in any and every community. He wrote, “What is universally human can be approached by all peoples only through their specific, national characteristics.” Today we approach “what is universally human” not only through Kodály’s own compositions and arrangements of Hungarian folk melodies but also through American musical traditions from the same period. Kodály’s work spotlights the value of music grown organically from the experiences of everyday people.

We begin with a range of Kodály’s Hungarian works treating very distinct themes but each with the composer’s typically evocative melodies. Norvég leányok takes us to faraway Norway, with a heavy undercurrent of melancholy and homesickness. Composed in 1940 with a contemporary text by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres, the piece has been interpreted as support for the Norwegian people suffering under Nazi occupation. The local girls give their smiles to “a foreign lad,” presumably a sailor, and they are left with no laughter for themselves at home. Kodály’s lilting melodic lines suggest both the girls’ unheard sighs and the ever-present sea breeze; the gentle persistence of raindrops––in both sound and text––throughout the piece situates us completely in this misty fishing village. Akik mindig elkésnek has an even darker feeling, alternating between the tired sadness evoked by the poem and fiery sixteenth-note figures that offer brief glimpses of hope before ultimately flickering out.

Köszöntő is actually Kodály’s arrangement of a well-known Hungarian folksong. Its title means “toast,” and it is traditionally sung as a birthday greeting in Hungary. Kodály takes the traditional tune and embellishes not only with harmony but also with a slightly unsettling counterpoint: listen for the tenors almost echoing the melody, but off by a beat and in a different key.

Kodály’s contemporary in another culture, the American composer Virgil Thomson spent time in Paris, where he studied Satie and befriended Gertrude Stein, later setting her writing to music. Many of his works were avant garde, and he was a critic and something of a cynic––he famously defined music as “that which musicians do.” But his Hymns from the Old South betray his traditional side and his Missouri roots with their loving treatment of American folk hymns. Thomson’s arrangements are simple, honoring the original hymn tunes without much in the way of arranging beyond harmonizing. Both My Shepherd Will Supply My Need and Death, ‘Tis a Melancholy Day have texts by Isaac Watts, who is known as the father of English hymnody. The former’s American pedigree goes even deeper, as it is set to the hymn tune “Resignation” from the 1835 Southern Harmony. Similarly, the text of Green Fields was written by Anglican clergyman John Newton, who is better known as the author of “Amazing Grace.” The Morning Star also uses a text that hails from Europe––it is an English version of the hymn Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Phillipp Nicolai, which J. S. Bach used for one of his choral cantatas. But these European texts became distinctly American when they were set to music in Southern Harmony and similar popular hymnals. For the people in the American South who gathered to sing these hymns, they were––and are––as much an expression of community as of religious conviction.

Kodály valued the cultural traditions of sacred music as well as secular folk music. Pange Lingua takes the hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas and expands it with a contrapuntal treatment whose result is evocative despite its simplicity. Like Kodály, Romanian-born Hungarian composer György Orban draws from Renaissance techniques, but in contrast, Orban also draws inspiration from jazz and adds intricate rhythmic elements that are anything but simple.

Kodály’s folk focus is perhaps best encapsulated in Mátrai képek, or Mátra Pictures, a boisterous compilation of folksongs from the Mátra region of Hungary. Composed in 1931, the piece features five folksongs from the mountainous northern region. Kodály’s setting emphasizes the narrative aspect of each tune, with stark emotional and dynamic contrasts: a depiction of the famous outlaw Vidróczki, a nineteenth-century bandit; an exchange between a village boy who yearns for a more cosmopolitan life and his no-nonsense sweetheart; a mournful plaint from one who has left his home—perhaps even the sailor we encountered earlier in Norway; a playful and flirtatious exchange between a young woman working in the fields and a suitor who believes she deserves a gentler vocation; and finally, a rousing vignette of the comic dramas of country life, including uncooperative livestock, unwanted guests, and insufficient wine.

We close the program by returning to our home soil with arrangements of American folk tunes. Although these settings are lively and upbeat, they—like Kodaly’s folksongs—speak to darker elements of our history. Our country’s musical inheritance includes this rich tradition borne out of centuries of oppression and suffering—likely a legacy that would have been familiar to Kodály, given Hungary’s violent political upheaval and occupation during his lifetime. Knowing the cultural significance of these American traditions, we can only imagine what resonance might have once been carried in the mournful tunes about Hungarian bandits or livestock.

Here in the States, enslaved people of African and African-American descent may have used spirituals like these to discreetly pass news or messages­­––Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit features a train that is thought to be a reference to the Underground Railroad. This song and Elijah Rock are representative of spirituals in their Christian content, but they are more than mere hymns: like Thomson’s assertive settings and Kodály’s folk tunes, they testify to a community and a faith that is deeply, viscerally felt and needed.

Local composer Steven Sametz arranged Shenandoah for his choir at Lehigh University. The song’s precise origin is unknown, but it is thought to come from Canadian and American voyageurs: fur trappers and traders who, in the early nineteenth century, were the only people of European descent who ventured west to the Missouri River, where encountered the Oneida Iriquois, perhaps including a chief named Shenandoah. Like many of the melodies we’ve heard today, the piece’s beauty and its melancholy are inextricably linked. This is ultimately the power of the vernacular tunes that Kodály championed: although the people and places depicted in these melodies are far away or long gone, we meet them again in their songs. That is worthy of a toast, indeed.

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Mar
25
to Mar 26
2016-2017

Divinity Breathed Forth

Divinity Breathed Forth
The Eternal Hildegard

March 25, 2017: Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill 

March 26, 2017: Old St. Joseph’s Church

Sonja Bontrager, Conrad Erb, Amy Hochstetler, Nicandro Iannacci, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Brian Middleton, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Eddie Rubeiz, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Love bade me welcome                                         Judith Weir (b. 1954)

O frondens virga                              Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)

O frondens virga                                                    Frank Ferko (b. 1950)

Gitanjali Chants                                        Craig Hella Johnson (b. 1962)

Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila                          Ruth Byrchmore (b. 1966)

Three Themes of Life and Love                          Daniel Elder (b. 1986)

1.     In Your Light
2.     A Breathing Peace
3.     Drumsound Rises

Andy Thierauf, percussion

intermission 

Awed by the beauty                                       John Tavener (1944–2013)

Caritas abundat                                Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)

Caritas abundat                                               Frank Ferko (b. 1950)

O virtus Sapientiae                   Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)

O virtus Sapientiae                                                Frank Ferko (b. 1950)

O virtus Sapientiae                                       Karen P. Thomas (b. 1957)

O vis aeternitatis                               Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)

The Deer’s Cry                                                          Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)

Notes on the Program

At the beginning the story is unremarkable, so ordinary that the details are lost to time and inattention. A young girl is sickly, and her parents are already burdened with many sturdier children and other cares besides. Surely someone else could do more for the child—or surely someone else could lessen the parents’ load. The girl is deposited with the local church, where she can learn to be of use and where her contributions will reflect well on her parents. Her family does not return.

And for untold numbers of children, especially girls, the story ends there. We do not know the destinies of the other young nuns at that church, just as we have long ago lost the names—let alone the stories—of this girl’s older sisters. But her story gleams brightly from the depths of history, because the young girl in question—maybe eight years old, maybe already fourteen—is Hildegard of Bingen. We know what she became: respected abbess and traveling preacher, extraordinary correspondent, the founder of German natural history, the earliest known female composer, and a saint in the Catholic church. At the moment when our story begins, of course, this child does not yet carry such renown. But already, as an 8-or-14-year-old, Hildegard is electrified by visions, aware of a deep resonance between herself and the wider universe. That faith—and the curiosity, love, and longing that she spent a lifetime cultivating—has sustained Hildegard’s legacy since the early 1100s, when this story begins.

Almost a thousand years later, we sing today in celebration of Hildegard’s legacy: not only for the inspired theology and music that burnishes her sainthood but also for the memory of that young girl, sickly and alone, holding tight to a vision of love and abundance. Hildegard understood divinity as a visceral experience, inextricably linked to the five senses and deeply rooted in our physical bodies. This concert intersperses Hildegard’s writings and chants with works by other composers and poets, for though her circumstances will always be extraordinary, her devotion and her humanity have been reflected by seekers and believers of many times and many faiths. Whatever your beliefs, whatever your burden, we hope that Hildegard’s assertions of connection and love take root in your lives today.

 

“Love bade me welcome,” Judith Weir

We open with an invitation spurned: “Love bade me welcome,” writes George Herbert, a 17th-century Anglican priest and poet, “but my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.” The contemporary Scottish composer Judith Weir’s luminous setting of Herbert’s clear-eyed text draws us alongside the hesitant invitee, with Love’s welcome unfolding reassuringly after each discordant protest.

 

“O frondens virga,” Frank Ferko

As an organist and a liturgical composer, Frank Ferko has long been drawn to two major influences: Hildegard of Bingen and the 20th-century composer Olivier Messiaen. This excerpt from his Six Marian Motets, composed in 1994, reflects both interests: unlike the other movements of the larger work, “O frondens virga,” which is the sixth and final movement, sets one of Hildegard’s sacred poems rather than a traditional liturgical text. The gently swaying tempo feels both medieval and modern at once, blooming from chant-like simplicity to a lilting rhythmic dance.

 

“Gitanjali Chants,” Craig Hella Johnson

After the invitation of “Love bade me welcome” and the invocation of “O frondens virga,” Craig Hella Johnson’s setting of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore brings us finally into direct, intentional communion with “the great music of the world.” Johnson combines two non-sequential poems from Tagore’s collection Gitanjali, or “Song Offerings,” with the simple chant structure offering beauty in both song and silence.

 

“Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila,” Ruth Byrchmore

Although Teresa of Avila lived more than four centuries after Hildegard, their lives have some parallels: Teresa also entered the church at a young age, studying with the nuns at Avila after her mother’s untimely death. Whether from grief or illness, Teresa also suffered from physical weakness—and from ecstatic and visceral visions. At a time when the Catholic church wielded great political and artistic power, Teresa’s visions inspired her to assume a life of deep poverty and pious solitude, and she helped found the religious order known as the Discalced Carmelites, whose asceticism included even going barefoot, or “discalced.” Ruth Byrchmore, a contemporary British composer, sets Teresa’s famous litany with an intentionally eerie sense of conviction, noting that the mood of the piece should be “steady, reflective, [and] intensely calm.”

 

Three Themes of Life and Love, Daniel Elder

We consider another mystical perspective—or perhaps several perspectives––with the American composer Daniel Elder’s Three Themes of Life and Love, which draw upon Coleman Barks’s contemporary interpretations of the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic known as Rumi. For Sufis—both in the thirteenth century and today—the divine is also the beloved, as intimate and affirming as a lover. Elder’s settings draw upon this joyous duality of divine and inward love, layering crystalline Western percussion over sweeping melodic lines and repeated, exuberant rhythms.

 

“Awed by the beauty,” John Tavener

Many of us, regardless of our faith, likely do not experience the world with the kind of ecstasy and devotion for which Hildegard and this program’s other mystics are known. We generally find it easier to grasp such concepts in smaller building blocks, catching glimmers of deeper truths. Thus must we also experience this anthem by the renowned John Tavener: “Awed by the beauty” is a two-minute excerpt from an all-night, seven-hour piece that Tavener referred to as “the supreme achievement of my life and the most important work that I have ever composed.” The piece bears the hallmarks of Tavener’s “holy minimalism”—chant-like simplicity and microtones suggesting Eastern Orthodox liturgy––with a Byzantine text translated by Mother Thekla, Tavener’s spiritual advisor and longtime librettist.

 

“Caritas abundat” and “O virtus Sapientiae,” Frank Ferko

We return to Frank Ferko with selections from his larger Hildegard Triptych. These works, scored for double choir, again reflect Messiaen’s influence on the composer, with dissonant tone clusters giving way to shimmering harmonies. Growing from an initially disquieting opening in the men’s voices, “Caritas abundat” employs serene chant phrasing passed between the two choirs until the phrase “de imis excellentissima super sidera,” which Ferko translates as “from the depths to the heights of the stars.” Here the two choirs come fully together for the first time, building towards a rich, luminous cluster and opening to warm consonance to “[bestow] the kiss of peace.” A different technique drives “O virtus Sapientiae,” in which the two choirs layer dance-like contrapuntal motifs. Like the three wings of wisdom, the piece’s unfolding texture swoops “to the heights” and “from the earth” before finally “[flying] from all sides.”

 

“O virtus Sapientiae,” Karen P. Thomas

Our women offer another interpretation of this text thanks to the American composer Karen P. Thomas, from whose Lux Lucis this motet is drawn. In contrast to the formality of Ferko’s setting, Thomas moves seamlessly between warmly unfolding chant and soaring aleatoric, or ad-libbed, phrases. The result evokes both birdsong and prayer, reinforcing the elemental, deeply physical nature of Hildegard’s sacred text.

 

“The Deer’s Cry,” Arvo Pärt

We close with a different sort of prayer: St. Patrick’s Lorica, which dates to the fourth century. The Latin word “lōrīca” originally meant “armor” or “breastplate”; in the monastic tradition, a lorica is a prayer for protection. The contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt—who cheerfully refuses to be categorized as a mystic––constructs a towering invocation from the prayer’s simple mantra. But as we remember the essential humanity at the heart of our search from the divine—and as we are haunted by our vision of the young girl watching her family depart––we find the silences in Pärt’s prayer as affecting as the ancient text. The composer hints at a darkness that we all––saints and seekers alike––must confront in our lives. And there, if we listen for it with our whole selves, will love bloom.

 

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Nov
12
2016-2017

Search for Home

Search for Home
On Movement and Migration

November 12, 2016: Friends’ Central School 

November 13, 2016: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Michael Blaakman, Sonja Bontrager, Conrad Erb, Amy Hochstetler, Nicandro Iannacci, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Cortlandt Matthews, Brian Middleton, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

David Ludwig, “The New Colossus”
traditional Appalachian c. 1800, arr. Moira Smiley, “Wayfaring Stranger”
Tomas Luis de Victoria, “Super flumina Babylonis”
Heinrich Isaac, “Innsbruck, ic muss dich lassen”
Stacy Garrop, “Give Me Hunger”
Dale Trumbore, “Where Go the Boats?”
Christopher Marshall, “This Big Moroccan Sea”
traditional Bambuti chant, “Ama ibu o iye”
Abbie Betinis, “Suffer No Grief” from Beyond the Caravan: Songs of Hâfez
Johannes Brahms, “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein”
Ysaye M. Barnwell, “We Are”
Stephen Paulus, “The Road Home”
African American spiritual arr. Hall Johnson, “Great Camp Meeting”
Jocelyn Hagen, “Now Our Meeting’s Over”

Notes on the Program

We know that ours is a nation born of immigrants; most of us here today descended from ancestors born on other shores. And yet the story of immigrants is not history. It is a living story being experienced by people all over the world at this moment. Our current political discourse might have us believe that immigrants, refugees, and America’s potential response to them is a tale of extremes: either an open welcome or a wall. The truth is not so black and white. Immigrants’ stories are varied and nuanced, but the thread common throughout is one of upheaval: there is uncertainty, pain, and loss, yes, but in these narratives there is also discovery, yearning, and opportunity. The stories in this program represent a range of journeys, from desperate to intentional, from community-wide to introspective. Whether or not we have experienced the physical act of leaving our homeland behind, it is clear that longing for “home,” whether or not home is a physical place, is a universal feeling. Today we journey together, seekers and refugees all.

 

We begin with local composer David Ludwig’s setting of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet “The New Colossus.” Lazarus donated the poem to a fundraiser for the Statue of Liberty, and it was inscribed on a plaque at the statue’s base in her memory in 1903. Her words have become the voice of the Statue of Liberty as she welcomes ships full of “huddled masses” to New York. Ludwig’s simple yet evocative setting, moving from unison to lush harmony, lets the poem speak for itself.

Believed to have roots in Appalachian folk tradition, “Wayfaring Stranger” has been adopted by the American folk, country, and gospel music communities, and it also appears in some hymnals. Like many spirituals, its message of traveling through toil to reach a better––be it a spiritual journey to the afterlife or a physical journey to a new home––gives hope to those experiencing hardship. Contemporary composer Moira Smiley’s arrangement incorporates call and response and syncopation, elements common in spirituals, and, like many of her arrangements, a driving beat provided by body percussion.


Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria’s “Super flumina Babylonis” sets the Latin text of the beginning of Psalm 137. The enslaved Israelites mourn their exile from Jerusalem and the cruelty of their captors: ordered to sing and dance along the way, they abandon their instruments, lamenting, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” 

“Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen,” a slightly early composition by Heinrich Isaac, is, by contrast, a secular tale of a traveler who leaves willingly but is nonetheless forlorn. Isaac himself traveled a great deal in his lifetime, from his home in Flanders to Germany, Austria, and Italy.

Poet Carl Sandburg is known for his rough, edgy portrayals of American industrialization and urban life. In At a Window, whose text Stacy Garrop set for her piece “Give Me Hunger,” he shows a rare softer side. He begins furiously, imploring the gods to give him their worst––“hunger, pain and want”––and, in a reference to Emma Lazarus’ welcoming “golden door,” challenging the gods to shut him out from “your doors of gold and fame.” But when his fury is spent, he pleads, “Leave me a little love.” Garrop mirrors the two contrasting halves of the poem with the two sections of the piece: the first is angsty, with a driving but unsettling rhythm and harsh sonorities, while the second wraps us in warm, lush harmonies that reflect the love for which we all yearn.

With Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Where Go the Boats?”, Los Angeles–based composer Dale Trumbore explores the deeper currents of a seemingly simple text for children. She writes, “I was struck by the fact that the narrator copes with the lost boats in the same way an adult must cope with lost love. Though the lost objects are gone forever, they will nonetheless be loved again in the future. This setting reflects a bit of that bittersweetness, that heartache.”

Christopher Marshall shows us a much darker look at the power of water in “This Big Moroccan Sea.” In 2006, a small, battered yacht washed ashore in Barbados that would be come to be known as the “death boat.” On board, authorities found the mummified bodies of 11 young men later determined to have left the coast of Cape Verde bound for the Canary Islands. Originally a group of 50 African migrants in search of a better life in Europe, they were abandoned by their paid guide when the yacht’s engine failed and left without food, water, or fuel to drift for months across the Atlantic. One victim, later determined to be Diao Souncar Diémé of Senegal, was found with a note penned before his death. In Marshall’s setting, Diémé’s heart-wrenching farewell is sung by the tenor soloist, while the choir echoes and surrounds him. When the soloist fades away, only the choir remains, evoking the overwhelming and unforgiving sea and sky. 

We return for the second half of the program with “Ama ibu o iye,” a chant from the Bambuti people, an indigenous pygmy community in the rainforest in the Congo region of Central Africa. Imitating the sounds of the rainforest—a sacred place for the Bambuti—the chant calls the community together and is repeated until a sense of community has been achieved. As with many chant traditions, we learned this chant aurally: ensemble member Melinda Steffy taught it to us; she learned it years ago in a workshop with composer Ysaye Maria Barnwell, who had presumably learned it from someone else, and so on until the first transmission from the Bambuti community. This chant feels, perhaps, the most distant from our own context of any of the music on today’s program, and we acknowledge we know little about Bambuti culture or their singing traditions. Like the game of “telephone,” or the ongoing shifting of cultures across generations and geographies, we assume that information has been lost along the way—that meaning and style and context have changed as the chant has passed from one “generation” to the next, from one continent to another. It is our hope that by attempting to create our own community together as we sing, we honor the spirit of the chant and the Bambuti people.

Similarly, in setting the lyric poetry of 14th-century Persian poet Hâfez, Abbie Betinis admits, “The music is my own, and not authentically Persian. It is my interpretation of an assortment of influences, including my study of Persian speech, scales and modes.” Even if not authentically Persian, From Behind the Caravan honors the intonation of the language and the musical sensibilities inherent in the beautiful poetry. In the second movement, “Suffer no Grief,” which we excerpt today, Betinis highlights Hâfez’s longing for an end to suffering. Even amidst grief and displacement, we are assured that “there is no road that has no end.”

Paul Eber’s text “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein” is a prayer for help from God to lead us through our darkest hour. This heartfelt plea is not unlike the prayers heard in African-American spirituals. Johannes Brahms composed his setting of the text late in his life. The first chord is a simple G major, but from the next beat, the harmonies progress in complex, unexpected ways, giving a simple prayer an earnest urgency.

The similarities that bind us all, from Europe to Africa to the Appalachian mountains, are the focus of “We Are,” an iconic composition by educator, composer, and longtime member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Ysaye Maria Barnwell. Especially in our current political climate, refugees and immigrants are so often painted as foreign, alien “others.” But the human longing for love and for home unite us in spite of any differences that appear to divide us, as so many pieces on today’s program demonstrate, and Barnwell’s piece culminates by reminding us: we are one. 

Prolific American composer Stephen Paulus is renowned for simple yet moving hymn-like pieces, and “The Road Home” is no exception. The tune is taken from a song called “The Lone Wild Bird” from The Southern Harmony Songbook, published in 1835. Paulus’ friend and frequent collaborator, poet Michael Dennis Browne, was between visits to his native England to see his ailing sister when he wrote the text for the piece. The universal theme of searching for home pairs perfectly with the pentatonic melody. Paulus wrote of the piece, “The most powerful and beautiful message is often a simple one.”

Hall Johnson was born in Athens, Georgia, and grew up hearing spirituals sung by his mother and grandmother, both of whom had been slaves. Johnson went on to have an incredibly accomplished musical career and became one of a group of composers and arrangers who helped to elevate the spiritual to a respected art form in itself. His Hall Johnson Choir, whose arrangement of “Great Camp Meeting” we sing, traveled the world and appeared on movie soundtracks throughout the 1930s and 40s.

We conclude with American composer Jocelyn Hagen’s arrangement of a traditional folk song, “Now Our Meeting’s Over.” Like so many of the pieces on our program today, the message of the text is simple, yet universal, and can be interpreted either secularly or spiritually. We will meet our lost loved ones “on that shore”: we may be yearning to reunite with them in a promised land that is a new home across the sea or in the afterlife. Listen as the melody moves and is highlighted by each voice part in turn, reiterating that the search for home and for love is one that unites us all.

Notes by Lizzy Schwartz

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May
15
2015-2016

flourish: reckless hope rises

flourish: reckless hope rises

May 15, 2016
Sonja Bontrager, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Brian Middleton, Bryan Park, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Gabriel Jackson, To Morning
Healey Willan, Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One
James MacMillan, The Gallant Weaver
John Tavener, Village Wedding
Samuel Barber, Easter Chorale
Johann Sebastian Bach, Jesu, meine Freude
Orlando di Lasso, Justorum animae
Charles Villiers Stanford, Beati Quorum Via
Knut Nystedt, Lobet den Herrn
Stephen Paulus, Hymn to the Eternal Flame

Notes on the Program
When we were choosing repertoire for this year, we imagined the three concerts fitting together as a grand cycle. Our fall concert, fray, looked at endings in many forms, from the death of love to the apocalypse. In the darkest time of winter, we saw a glimmer of hope as we sang gather, our first-ever Christmas concert. With the arrival of spring, we sing of rebirth, new beginnings, and the promise that salvation grows from the good we sow in the darkest of times.

This is the central message of J.S. Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude, a true showpiece for the composer’s many-layered brilliance. It was intimidating to consider the question of whether we were up to the task of bringing that genius to life, and although we are not trailblazers in performing this music, the brilliance of Jesu, meine Freude will always surpass its ubiquity. It is a triumphant affirmation of life and of victory over our innermost demons. It is necessary music.

Gabriel Jackson’s shimmering invocation “To Morning” opens our concert, calling on the virgin huntress Diana of Greek mythology to bring forth a new day. Diana was also the goddess of childbirth, so William Blake’s poem acts as a supplication for rebirth. Broad, sweeping crescendos create a sort of musical sunrise. As we are awakened, we sing “Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One,” rousing our lover to come and witness the rebirth of the world after winter’s end. But frolicking with our lover in springtime is not always the way the world would have it, especially with the patriarchy standing in the way. The narrator of Robert Burns’ “The Gallant Weaver” vows to keep her true love in her heart, even as her father promises her to a wealthier suitor. MacMillan’s setting of this poem cleverly mimics the pulsing ebb and flow of a loom, weaving together strands of melody into a lush fabric of sound.

In his “Village Wedding,” John Tavener chose scattered lines from Angelos Sikelianos’ early 20th-century poem, offering starkly contrasting glimpses into a traditional Greek wedding ceremony and the culture’s devotion to both its mythical past and its Christian present. The refrain of “Oh Isaiah dance for joy, for the virgin is with child” most obviously refers to the virgin Mary, but a duality emerges with clear references—as in our opening piece—to the mythical virgin Diana, born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos. Furthermore, when taken purely at face value (and with the title in mind), the poem could simply portray a shotgun wedding in a Greek village. The bride is forced to wed her unborn child’s father, but in doing so is poetically interwoven with goddesses. She is deified through her most personal struggle.

With Barber’s “Easter Chorale,” we are back to our exuberance at the arrival of spring, this time more clearly representing the rebirth and awakening found through the ascension of Jesus Christ. We take a bit of liberty in singing this with continuo organ today, as it was originally scored for brass, timpani, and full cathedral organ, but with the message in its text and Barber’s clear imitation of a baroque chorale, we couldn’t pass up the chance to end the first half with a little taste of the Bach to come.

The text of Jesu, meine Freude alternates between a 17th-century hymn by Johann Franck and St. Paul’s biblical letter to the Romans. The hymn depicts an all-out (but very private) brawl—let’s reimagine it as Rocky, with the titular underdog representing Faith and his impossibly accomplished opponent representing Satan, temptation, and death. As we watch the climactic bout on screen, St. Paul, sitting next to us, innocently interjects and gives away the ending (spoiler alert: if you live in the way of Christ, Rocky wins in the end).

Franck’s hymn makes up the odd movements, which grow in polyphonic complexity as the motet progresses, sometimes completely obscuring the chorale melody, as in movement five, “Trotz dem alten Drachen.” This progression culminates in the ninth movement, “Gute Nacht, o Wesen”—listen for the altos’ occasional interjections of the chorale melody, punctuating the endlessly wandering tenor line—before triumphantly returning to its original homophonic setting in the final chorale.

The even movements are freely composed, and without the restraint of the chorale melody, Bach was able to show off his genius for counterpoint. We get our first taste for fugal writing in the second movement, but Bach really takes off in movement six, “Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich,” where we have not one but two fugue subjects and a grand adagio coda to bring it all back to earth. The penultimate movement echoes the roiling energy from the second, signaling the soul’s inevitable victory over death.

Both Di Lasso’s “Justorum animae” and Stanford’s “Beati quorum via” distill the same message as the Bach: follow in the way of Jesus and receive the blessing of eternal life. Neither piece depicts the conflict or turmoil of the Bach, so the composers basked in the optimism of their respective texts to create lush polyphony, albeit from very different eras.

Like our opening piece, the last two works we sing today are invocations. Nystedt’s “Lobet den Herrn” is a playful and extroverted call to praise God, simply because he is worthy of being praised. We end, more simply, with a call to praise humanity. “Hymn to the Eternal Flame,” from Stephen Paulus’ Holocaust oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn, is a reminder that, no matter your individual faith, no matter what darkness we face, the fire of rebirth lies within us all.



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Jan
10
2015-2016

gather: in the stillness born

gather: in the stillness born

January 10, 2016
Sonja Bontrager, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Brian Middleton, Bryan Park, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

William Walton, Make we joy now in this fest
David Conte, O magnum mysterium
Arvo Pärt, Bogoróditse Djévo
Michael Praetorius and Jan Sandström, Est ist ein Ros entsprungen
Judith Weir, Drop down, ye heavens, from above
Philip Stopford, Tomorrow shall be my dancing day
Jean Mouton, Nesciens mater
Abbie Betinis, Song of the Pines
Jan Pieters Sweelinck, Hodie Christus natus est
Kenneth Leighton, Lulla, lulla, thou little tiny child
Jonathan Dove, The Three Kings
Herbert Howells, Here is the Little Door
Steven Sametz, Noel!
Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina, Videntes stellam Magi
arr. William Averitt, Star in the East
Ola Gjeilo, Serenity (O magnum mysterium)

Notes on the Program
In the Christian month of Advent, a new candle is lit each week, representing hope, love, joy, and peace. No matter our faith, at this time of year we share these kinds of blessings with one another, but for many of us, this is really a time of searching. We wander the desert like the magi from the East, and the good tidings of Christmas seem a distant promise. The light that guides us to Bethlehem is not a wreath of candles but the flicker of a distant star.

Imagine that today’s concert is a miniature of that storied westward journey. Before we set out, we rejoice at having seen the star whose rise was prophesied long ago. Walton’s “Make we joy now in this fest,” though a modern piece, wonderfully preserves its origins as a rollicking 15th-century English carol. We add our own bit of historical preservation by singing the Middle English pronunciation, which keeps the rhymes intact.

With the first footsteps of our voyage, we marvel at far-off rumors of the messiah’s rather impromptu birth in the presence of farm animals. David Conte’s setting of the ancient “O magnum mysterium” text, with its jarring shifts in tonal center and fervent overlapping lines, perfectly captures the wondrous anticipation we feel as we travel along. Could it be that salvation is truly a simple boy born in a stable?

More whispers reach our ears as we approach Bethlehem. The child was born of a virgin mother! We hear songs in praise of her virtue: breathless and overflowing, as Arvo Pärt’s “Bogoroditse Djevo,” and otherworldly, as Jan Sandström’s reimagining of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” The latter builds gentle dissonance from cluster chords and employs rhythmic augmentation to create an ethereal (and somehow distinctly Swedish) setting of Praetorius’ familiar harmonization.

As we trudge on, we reflect on the Advent promise of comfort and renewal. “Drop down, ye heavens, from above,” Judith Weir’s crystalline composition based on the Gregorian Rorate caeli chant melody, is God’s steadfast assurance that salvation is just around the corner. What would that assurance sound like in the words of the infant Jesus himself? Philip Stopford’s jaunty setting of the familiar text “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” imagines humanity as Jesus’ true love. He personally calls us to follow him in a dance—his life on earth, and through it, our redemption.

Finally our journey reaches its improbable end at the rumored stable, where we find a mother nursing her newborn baby. Jean Mouton’s “Nesciens mater” is a masterful representation of this tender scene: an eight-part canon, where the lower choir is echoed, note for note, a fifth higher. We hold this moment of stillness with Abbie Betinis’ silvery “Song of the Pines,” its refrain an echo of the wonder in the O magnum mysterium. The wondrous mystery of Jesus’ birth, however, was not that mere animals were present, but that perhaps we ourselves are the ox and ass, bearing witness—despite our insignificance—to the arrival of hope personified.

Before we settle into the stable, we pause for a quick chance to step outside and help spread the good news. With unabashed joy, we announce the birth of Christ to any who will listen as we sing Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s iconic Renaissance chestnut “Hodie Christus natus est.”

As we quietly gather near the manger, Mary sings to her baby. The “Lully, lulla” we hear today is another modern setting of an old text. Kenneth Leighton places the refrain of this familiar lullaby in the mother’s singular, lofty voice as she sings her child to sleep, with the help of the choir’s soothing lilt. Scottish composer Jonathan Dove’s “The Three Kings” perfectly distills the full range of emotions behind greeting the holy family and presenting our gifts. We stand in hushed awe as the mother rocks her baby to sleep, but as the third king opens his chest of gold, joy overflows and the words of Mary’s lullaby are cleverly transformed into cries of joy: O balow! Balow la lay!

In her poem “Here is the Little Door,” Frances Chesterton moved beyond the gifts of the magi and hinted at the greater implications of the birth of Christ, suggesting that the infant Jesus gave rather weightier gifts of his own in return: a sword for gold, battle for frankincense, death for myrrh. The notion is timely for a poem that Herbert Howells set to music in the midst of the first world war, as England lost a generation and its Christian empire began to crumble.

We turn outward again for our next three pieces: Steven Sametz uses the words of a medieval English carol in his increasingly extroverted, four-part men’s canon—simply called “Noel!”—which calls the world to awaken and recognize the significance of this simple birth. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s “Videntes stellam Magi” is a jubilant, double-choir motet whose dance-like conclusion projects the joy we feel at the end of our long journey. “Star in the East,” William Averitt’s arrangement of a shape note hymn from The Southern Harmony, is our earnest ode to the brilliant light that first guided us out of the lonely desert. It ends with the sage reminder that, costly as our material gifts are, the most meaningful gift is our love.

Finally, we return (with cello!) to peaceful prayer, reflecting on the great mystery we first found in the stable, where kings and donkeys worship side by side. Standing in stark contrast to Conte’s opening conception of “O magnum mysterium,” Ola Gjeilo’s “Serenity” is stunning in its simple, profound beauty.

Today, our Christmas feasts have ended, and the wonder of the season inevitably fades as the new year and the cold winter make the tidings of hope, love, joy, and peace feel as distant as ever. But other candles still shine through the long nights, and we can still join together for little celebrations like this one. A celebration of birth, of searching, and of finding the true meaning of Christmas: giving freely of our riches in celebration of our humanity.



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Nov
1
2015-2016

fray: as shadows fall

fray: as shadows fall

November 1, 2015
Sonja Bontrager, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Brian Middleton, Bryan Park, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Edward Bairstow, Let all mortal flesh keep silence
Francis Poulenc, Vinea mea electa
Johannes Brahms, Rosmarin, Letztes Glück, and Verlorene Jugend
Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Turtle Dove
Eric Whitacre, A Boy and a Girl
arr. Moses Hogan, The Battle of Jericho
arr. Jeffery L. Ames, I’ve Been in the Storm So Long
arr. Edwin London, Bach (Again): Come Sweet Death
Jacob Carlo Gesualdo, Tenebrae Factae Sunt
Lajos Bárdos, Libera Me
Thomas Tomkins, When David Heard
György Orbán, Daemon Irrepit Callidus
Samuel Barber, Let down the bars, O Death
arr. Richard Bjella, Idumea

Notes on the program
You may know today as Día de los Muertos, All Saints’ Day, Samhain, or simply the day after Halloween. But across cultures in the Northern hemisphere, this time of year is one which tends to conjure thoughts of death—whether you believe the spirit world is closer to our own, or you just ponder mortality while watching the leaves fall to the ground during the third act of the Earth’s annual dance.

At any time of year, popular culture seems to be a bit infatuated with the end of times these days. This program, though, is not only about the apocalypse, though you will find hints of it in our music. Today, we explore the upheaval, the unraveling—the end of the world as we know it—in many forms (and we feel fine): from the death of love, to the death of a loved one; from the destruction of a storm, to painful betrayal. We’re sitting with the less-beautiful, inaptly polished aspects of life that have inspired these composers, and we’re aspiring to communicate the beauty that they found, even in life’s darkest moments. We begin our season with the end, but just as our season will continue, light will always follow darkness, and life will continue, too.

Let all moral flesh keep silence
We open with Edward Bairstow’s 1906 setting of “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” Its text derives from the Liturgy of St. James, considered the oldest surviving liturgy, and depicts Christ’s second coming in advance of the Last Judgment. The text is largely celebratory, and Bairstow joyfully portrays the cherubic choirs hailing the savior. However, the overall musical setting feels portentous, reminding us lowly “mortal flesh” to “stand with fear and trembling” lest we be condemned. The powerful setting of this warning stays with us as we continue unraveling our program.

Vinea mea electa
In his lifetime and after his death, Poulenc was known as a lighthearted, even humorous composer, and his more serious works were overlooked. Thankfully, in recent years, his religious compositions have garnered more attention. “Vinea mea electa” is the second of a set of four Lenten motets composed in 1939. The text, from the responsories for Good Friday, references Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants: A landlord plants a vine and leases it. When the time comes for him to collect its fruit, his tenants beat and reject each of the servants he sends until he is forced to send his only son, whom they murder. Poulenc captures the anguish of the ultimate betrayal with extreme dynamic contrasts and unsettling shifts in meter and tonality.

Three Brahms Songs
The three Brahms songs we present are not the only examples of his exploration of the less-pleasant side of the human condition. He was certainly not alone in this thematic tilt—the Romantic era found artists more intrigued by tragedy than their predecessors. But perhaps Brahms felt misery wear on him more pointedly than did other composers. His love for Clara Schumann was forever at odds with his respect for decorum and for her late husband Robert (also his teacher), so his yearning was never turned to joy. He died less than a year after Clara.

In “Rosmarin,” Brahms allows the text, taken from a book of German folk poems, to carry the story. A young bride’s excitement turns to sorrow at the loss of her beloved; the text plays on the verbal similarity of the word for “roses,” intended for her wedding flowers, and “rosemary,” which symbolizes memory and mourning. “Letztes Glück” and “Verlorene Jugend” come from the same set of songs, and both deal with a longing for a different life in a different time—longing that will never be fulfilled.

The Turtle Dove
In Ralph Vaughan Williams’ mournful setting of this English folksong, we explore the fraying effects of distance between lovers. The choir builds under the melody as the urgency of the texts develops, with the forlorn lover vehemently promising that betrayal will not come unless the apocalypse does. Interestingly, Vaughan Williams married his second wife after they had a years-long extramarital affair.

A Boy and a Girl
Sometimes when things fall apart, they do so quietly. T.S. Eliot famously wrote, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a whimper.” Octavio Paz’s poem “A Boy and a Girl” (Los Novios) describes such an unraveling. Whether one interprets the lovers’ fate as their deaths or the death of their love, the inevitable tragedy is apparent in its text. With its respect for the poem and for the pregnant silences between lines, Whitacre’s music lends the story an eerie beauty. Pitches come almost unbearably close but never quite together. The composer wrote of the piece, “The four measures that musically paint the text ‘never kissing’ may be the truest notes I’ve ever written.”

The Battle of Jericho
As with many traditional African-American spirituals, “The Battle of Jericho” references a Biblical story as a parable for freedom from slavery: Joshua leads the Israelites against Canaan; the Israelites raise their voices in a mighty shout as their priests blow ram’s horns; and the walls of the city crumble before them. (The heathen men, women, and children within are then duly slaughtered, though this part of the story didn’t make it into the spiritual.) Hogan’s arrangement sets the scene of a battle, with the men’s part marching along in heroic fashion contrasting the women’s three-part arrangement of the traditional melody. The musical battle ends as the voices come together in the triumphant collapse of the walls.

I’ve Been in the Storm So Long
The word “storm” is often used in spirituals to refer to life’s turmoils, whether that be slavery or contemporary trouble. Jeffery Ames composed this arrangement in response to a literal storm: catastrophic Hurricane Katrina. The rising and ebbing harmonic clusters that open the piece and support the solo line mimic the rising waters of the Gulf of Mexico. With the beauty of the music, Ames reminds us of the beauty of hope, whether one hopes to reach heaven in the afterlife or simply desires a reprieve from troubles.

Bach (Again): Come Sweet Death
Philadelphia-born Edwin London was a prolific composer, but “Bach (Again)” has become his most well-known work of late because of its frequent performance by the Eric Whitacre Singers. To those of us raised on the Western music canon, there is perhaps nothing more familiar and comforting than a Bach chorale. Very little, then, will feel as unsettling as the way in which this arrangement literally comes apart as the ensemble repeats the traditional chorale aleatorily—each in our own tempo. The singers perform movements along with the music to highlight the disintegration of the music. But we encourage you to let yourself settle into the strange new harmonies we’ll create, perhaps finding a new kind of beauty in the unraveling.

Tenebrae factae sunt
Jacob Carlo Gesualdo is one of the most fascinating figures in Western music history, perhaps best known for gruesomely murdering his wife and her lover in 1590. Because of his noble status, he was not prosecuted for the crime. Instead, the “mad prince” punished himself, hiring servants later in life whose sole job was to beat him. Whether his crime, his psychological state, and his music are direct results of each other is impossible for us to conclude today, but in performing Gesualdo’s music, we consider them in total. To say his music was uncharacteristic of the sixteenth century may be an understatement; some liken him to twentieth-century atonal composer Schoenberg, and even to our twenty-first-century ears, Gesualdo’s rapid shifts in tonality are jarring. Perhaps there is no more apt voice than his for this Good Friday text, which paints the agony of Jesus’ last moments.

Libera Me
The Libera Me text is a Catholic responsory for the dead. It is used in several services, including the Requiem mass, and is also traditionally said tomorrow, on All Souls’ Day. Instead of focusing on the personal, pleading aspect of the prayer, Hungarian composer Lajos Bardos at first highlights the terror of Judgment Day with jagged, battling phrases. Such calamity makes the conclusion of the piece almost shocking in its quiet beauty, when the souls who survive the flames will be granted peace.

When David Heard
Thomas Tomkins’ anthem depicts the lament of David, the Biblical king, upon learning of his son Absalom’s death. Absalom rebelled against his father, turning many of his subjects against him. When they finally battled, David’s forces triumphed, and despite the king’s explicit orders, David’s chief officer killed the rebellious Absalom. Tomkins’ mournful phrasing expresses David’s grief and agony until the end of the piece, when, with a shift to a more consonant sound, Tomkins suggests that perhaps David accepts his son’s death.

Daemon Irrepit Callidus
With frantic, ominous-sounding lines underlying a jagged melodic fragment, Transylvanian-born Hungarian György Orbán’s piece gives life to the text’s warnings. One’s soul could be truly tried by the temptations of the Devil encroaching on “the honorable heart,” so the piece urges us three times to resist, insisting that such temptation is worth far less than the heart of Jesus. However, we must confess that the “trickery amidst praise” inherent in this piece is really fun to sing. Believe what you will about the fate of the souls of the Chestnuts.

Let down the bars, O Death
Samuel Barber was known among his friends for his sense of humor. He once commented that he would prefer to have croutons sprinkled on his coffin instead of flowers, and some of his friends honored that wish. That sense of humor about death is entirely absent in this setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem; he honors her words to the utmost. He repeats only the first line of text, with the dynamics reversed. We end with quiet, major chord, reinforcing that death can be a welcome peace.

Idumea
We close with a much less welcoming view of death. The chilling text of “Idumea” is rife with fear and trepidation at what awaits us when this life ends. The original sacred harp tune was written by Ananias Davvison in Shenandoah County, Virginia, at the start of the nineteenth century. It brought a new wave of interest to the shapenote tradition when it was featured at the beginning of the 2003 movie Cold Mountain to highlight the horrors of the Civil War. Richard Bjella honors the traditional sound while adding to the arrangement to highlight, for instance, the “flaming skies” at the end. The effect is sometimes terrifying yet quite stirring.



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May
17
2014-2015

As Birds Do Sing: A Fifth Anniversary Concert

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.


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Mar
14
to Mar 15
2014-2015

40 Voices Singing: Masterworks for Massed Choirs

40 Voices Singing: Masterworks for Massed Choirs


March 14 and 15, 2015
featuring the Chestnut Street Singers, The Laughing Bird, and PhilHarmonia
Josh Dearing and Mitos Andaya Hart, conductors

Vaclovas Augustinas, “Anoj pusėj Dunojėlio”
Jordan Nobles, “Lux Antiqua”
Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, “Heyr, himna smiður”
Thomas Tallis, “Spem in alium”
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Kyrie from Mass in G minor
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Gloria from Missa sine nomine à 4
Igor Stravinsky, “Russian Credo”
William Albright, Sanctus and Benedictus from Chichester Mass
Samuel Barber, “Agnus Dei”

Notes on the Program
Today’s program was designed as a showcase for ensemble-level collaboration: to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Chestnut Street Singers, Philadelphia’s only collaborative chamber choir, we are collaborating with other choral groups on works that none of us would be able to perform alone. This performance would not be possible without our dedicated, extraordinary, inspiring partner ensembles, The Laughing Bird and PhilHarmonia. They are a joy to sing with, and we are honored to share this program with them.

Even though this concert is meant to champion choirs and choral singing, today’s program does just as much to spotlight individual voices within the larger texture. The nature of choral singing usually lends itself to thinking of the choir as a faceless wall of sound–not so today. As fifty of the city’s finest choral singers surround the audience, you will hear some voices more than others. You will hear natural differences in tone, timbre, and phrasing, and you will hear individual voices singing independent lines and improvising on common themes.

Choral singers don’t usually encourage anything other than uniform sonic blend, but we find ourselves delighted with the juxtaposition between large-scale masterworks and the richly textured sound of individual singers. The contrast reveals the human scale of this ambitious repertoire: these cathedrals of sound are built on foundations made of little more than the breath and focus of individual singers.

This kind of musical high-wire act testifies to the strength and vitality of the Philadelphia choral community. Partnering to sing this repertoire requires technique and trust in equal measures. We are thrilled to have such resources at our disposal, and we are honored to share them with you.

Anoj pusėj Dunojėlio
We open with a traditional Lithuanian folksong embellished with distinctly non-traditional choral techniques. Composer Vaclovas Augustinas, who learned this tune as a child, preserves the piece’s original melody but instructs the female singers to perform the opening section heterophonically, with each singer entering in her own time and at her own tempo. The result is a complex cloud of sound, grounded by the men’s overtone singing. The heterophonic effect returns as the piece grows towards a climax, with each singer improvising around the same melodic theme.

Lux Antiqua
Jordan Nobles’ “Lux Antiqua” goes even further in exploring an unstructured choral sound. Written for “spatialized choir” so that the singers represent pinpricks of light within the night sky, the piece shifts in and out of a structured tempo, making recognizable patterns out of its deliberately unearthly incantations. The text is simply a litany of star names; as these stars are some of the brightest and most familiar to us, these names are centuries old, having served as inspiration and touchstones for even longer than the religious traditions represented elsewhere in the program.

Heyr, himna smiður
We return to a more traditional sound with Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson’s modern setting of a twelfth-century poem by Kolbeinn Tumason (1173–1208). The poem is the oldest surviving religious poem in Scandinavia; local lore holds that Tumason, once one of Iceland’s most powerful chieftains, composed the poem on his deathbed after being injured in battle. The resulting hymn is widely known in Iceland, where it is often sung at funerals, but it came to our attention in a viral YouTube video of Áristíðir, an Icelandic indie-folk band, casually singing in a German train station. The hymn’s simple structure and plaintive harmonies allow our men to make the most of the expressive text.

Spem in alium
Thomas Tallis is generally regarded as one of the greatest English composers, and “Spem in alium,” written for forty singers each performing individual parts, is his masterpiece. The piece was composed around 1570, likely inspired by a similarly complex work by the Italian composer Alessandro Striggio. Some historians even suggest that the piece may have been written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth I’s fortieth birthday in 1573, but Tallis’ motivation for the work remains obscure.

The motet is designed for eight identical quintets of soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass. The piece opens with each quintet singing in turn as the music moves through the eight choirs; the pattern is then reversed, with the music passing from Choir 8 back to Choir 1. In today’s performance, you’ll hear Choir 1 begin the piece from the front left corner of the hall, with the successive choirs standing clockwise around the audience. As the music intensifies, the choirs begin singing in antiphonal pairs—listen for a call-and-response structure moving across the circular choir. Although individual voices imitate earlier patterns, each part is unique. The piece builds to final triumphant crescendo with all forty voices weaving together.

Kyrie
For the second half of today’s program, we present an eclectic mass in which each movement is drawn from a different a cappella setting of the traditional liturgy. We open with the Kyrie from Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor. The movement is grounded by a stirring chant line in the alto part, with the altos’ stately phrases bookending more modern harmonies in the choral and solo parts.

Gloria
We return to the late sixteenth century with the Gloria from Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine à 4. Palestrina was a tremendously prolific composer: he wrote more than 200 motets in the last decades of his life and more than 100 masses. Missa sine nomine à 4–literally the “mass without a name for four [voices]”––was written near the end of his life, probably around 1584.

Russian Credo
Stravinsky’s devotion to the Russian Orthodox Church is evident in his Russian Credo, so named to distinguish it from the Credo movement of his full mass. Although the mass, written in the 1940s for choir and orchestra, uses the Roman Catholic liturgy, Stravinsky’s standalone Russian Credo is to be sung in unemphasized, chant-like Russian. The simple, repetitive harmonic structure hearkens to the Russian Orthodox liturgy, with Stravinsky’s stern performance notes––“non forte, non espressivo”–– ensuring that the text retains its meditative feel.

Sanctus and Benedictus
In 1974, American composer William Albright was commissioned to write for the nine hundredth anniversary celebration of the Chichester Cathedral in Sussex, England. The resulting work, Chichester Mass, was premiered by the Cathedral Choir in June 1975.

In the Sanctus, one can hear elements of improvisation and phasing to create what Albright envisions as a holy “cloud-like” atmosphere from which the text emerges in a “veiled and mysterioso” manner. In contrast to the vagueness of this movement, the upper voices proceed to the Benedictus in a quick, psalmodic fashion giving rise to a polychordal exclamation of “Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.” The traditional Hosanna––set only once at the end of the Benedictus rather than in both movements––blazes in modes of E with lively clips and buzzing fragments leading to the frenzied and ultimate climax.

Agnus Dei
We close with a choral masterpiece that wasn’t originally written for choir: Barber’s “Agnus Dei” began as the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11, also known as the Adagio for Strings. The original piece for string quartet was arranged for string orchestra in 1937; Barber re-set the music for choir in 1967, making only very slight changes to the orchestral arrangement. Like the “Russian Credo,” the “Agnus Dei” is a standalone piece rather than an excerpt from a full mass setting. As the close to our eclectic mass, it carries great yearning and power in its relatively simple musical 

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Nov
9
2014-2015

The Elements of Song

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.


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Jun
1
2013-2014

As One

As One


June 1, 2014
Michael Blaakman, Elizabeth Chegezy, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Patrick Ressler, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Antonio Estévez, “Mata del Anima Sola”
Gustav Holst, “I sowed the seeds of love,” “The Song of the Blacksmith,” and “I love my love” from Six Choral Folk Songs
Michael McGlynn, “Dúlamán”
Zoltán Kodály, “Mátrai képek”
traditional Hebrew arr. Peter Sozio, “El Yivneh HaGalil”
Veljo Tormis, selections from Jaanilaulud
Miguel Matamoros arr. Conrado Monier, “Lágrimas Negras”
Frode Fjellheim, “Eatnemen Vuelie”
traditional English arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, “The spring time of the year”
traditional Slovenian arr. Aldo Kumar, “Dajte, dajte”
traditional Slovenian arr. Karol Pahor, “Pa se sliš’”
Abbie Betinis, “Long Time Trav’ling”

Notes on the Program
As an ensemble, we have always liked adventures: music that takes us somewhere new, that tells a story or tugs at our heartstrings. We are also fond of pushing ourselves out of our musical comfort zone, whether by attending shapenote gatherings to learn the right brazen tone or by calling the Icelandic embassy to ask for pronunciation advice.

Tonight’s concert combines those two impulses simply and joyfully: in a sampling of some of our favorite folk traditions from around the world. This program isn’t meant to be exhaustive—after all, we’re not the choral version of Epcot, and we must leave some challenges untouched for future concerts––but it does remind us of another of our favorite things: the universal appeal of singing with others. As we prepare ourselves for new adventures this summer and next season, these lively, poignant, deeply felt pieces are just what we need.

Mata del Anima Sola (Venezuela)
We open with the stirring “Mata del Anima Sola,” which brings us the rhythms and moods of Venezuela. Composer Antonio Estévez was part of the country’s second generation of important composers, but he takes inspiration from much older national traditions. The ringing tenor solo channels the figure of the llanero, a “man of the plains” who herds cattle alone on the high plains. The choir backs the soloist by imitating the instrumental sounds of the joropo, a traditional rhythmic dance–akin to a waltz–that is the country’s most popular folk rhythm.

Choral Folk Songs (England)
Like many of his contemporaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the English composer Gustav Holst developed an interest in his country’s folk music. In fact, Holst was encouraged in this pursuit by his good friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was an especially passionate proponent of English folk tunes. The melodies in Six Choral Folk Songs are drawn from throughout the country; of our selections today, “I sowed the seeds of love” and “The Song of the Blacksmith” are from Hampshire, while “I love my love” is Cornish. Interestingly, these arrangements were not Holst’s first work with these tunes: some five years earlier, he had incorporated “The Song of the Blacksmith” and “I love my love” into his Second Suite in F for Military Band, which remains a staple of wind band repertoire.

Dúlamán (Ireland)
Michael McGlynn’s “Dúlamán” takes its text from a traditional Irish folksong narrating a nonsense conversation about amorous seaweed. Although the driving rhythms and the lightning speed of the Irish make this one of our favorite pieces to sing, we also like the nationalism embedded behind the silliness: the much-praised lover is repeatedly lauded as Gaelic seaweed, with literal and figurative roots firmly in Irish seabed, and the song itself dates from a period in Irish history when the coastal poor regularly relied upon seaweed as proof against famine. Although the lyrics praise the seaweed for his beret and his fine shoes–suggesting, perhaps, that he’ll be a promising match for the young girl–the song’s history reveals that the idea of the seaweed as salvation is less nonsensical than it might seem.

Mátrai képek (Hungary)
Zoltán Kodály’s Mátrai képek, or Mátra Pictures, is a boisterous compilation of folk songs from the Mátra region of his native Hungary. One of the most significant early figures in the field of ethnomusicology, Kodály was an enthusiastic student of folk songs, frequently going on research trips to remote villages with his friend and colleague Béla Bartók. Mátrai képek was composed in 1931, featuring five folksongs from Hungary’s mountainous northern region. Kodály’s setting emphasizes the narrative aspect of each tune, with stark emotional and dynamic contrasts: a depiction of the famous outlaw Vidróczki, a nineteenth-century bandit; an exchange between a village boy who yearns for a more cosmopolitan life and his no-nonsense sweetheart; a mournful plaint from one who has left his home; a playful and flirtatious exchange between a young woman working in the fields and a suitor who believes she deserves a gentler vocation; and finally, a rousing vignette of the comic dramas of country life, including uncooperative livestock, unwanted guests, and insufficient wine.

El Yivneh HaGalil (Palestine)
The sinuous tune of “El Yivneh HaGalil” dates from the fifteenth century, but the song became truly famous in the early twentieth century, when Zionist immigrants to Palestine used folk songs as a way to build community among people from disparate European backgrounds. The piece is deceptively simple, building in more complex harmonies as it grows to a ringing conclusion, and the text would have been understandably appealing to the early advocates for the new Jewish nation. Peter Sozio’s arrangement also includes the opening phrase of the fifteenth-century hymn “Adon olam,” which celebrates a benevolent and omnipotent god.

Jaanilaulud (Estonia)
The contemporary Estonian composer Veljo Tormis is one of our favorite composers, and his Jaanilaulud, a collection of Estonian folk songs celebrating midsummer, does not disappoint. In Estonia and other Baltic countries, June 24 is celebrated as St. John’s Day, a Christian holiday overlapping with the pagan holiday of midsummer. Celebrations begin the evening before, when each town lights an enormous bonfire meant to burn throughout the night. Many rituals include offerings to Jaani, who will guarantee fertility, a good harvest, and safety for livestock in the coming year.

Tormis’ setting includes folk tunes from throughout Estonia, providing a sampling of different regional traditions. Even as the composer juxtaposes these distinct melodies, certain themes and textures predominate: listen for distinct contrasts between the men’s and women’s parts, given prominence by Tormis’ request that the choir stand antiphonally. This arrangement makes it easier to hear the different parts playing leapfrog, singing similar or identical lines with overlapping entrances.

Lágrimas negras (Cuba)
The lilting salsa rhythms of “Lágrimas negras” take us to Cuba, where composer and lyricist Miguel Matamoros premiered this song with Trio Matamoros in 1930. The piece is written in the style of the bolero-son, a version of the bolero, a popular slow-tempo Latin dance. The bolero-son has long been Cuba’s most popular dance rhythm, which accounts for its seemingly discordant use in this lament of heartbreak and despair.

Eatnemen Vuelie (Norway)
We have long been fans of “Eatnemen Vuelie,” in which Norwegian composer Frode Fjellheim juxtaposes traditional Sámi yoik with a beloved northern hymn, but we never expected it to show up in a Disney movie. Surprise, surprise–the piece was featured recently in Frozen. Fjellheim begins with the yoik, a type of chant-singing practiced by nomadic Sámi herders as they roam the tundra alone. Yoiks are improvised and usually secular, often about the singer’s connection to nature or personal life. The Sámi are nonetheless a devoutly Christian people, and “Fairest Lord Jesus,” which Fjellheim weaves into the yoik melody, is one of their most popular hymns.

The spring time of the year (England)
As we have seen, the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was especially interested in his country’s varied folk traditions. The composer discovered the text and melody of “The spring time of the year” during a local performance near Norwich in 1908; he then, in his words, “freely arranged” the song for choir. Vaughan Williams’ setting emphasizes the achingly gorgeous melody, with the interwoven choral parts allowing the tempo to swell freely. Ironically, given Vaughan Williams’ general reverence for folk songs, he chose to set only the opening two verses of the song’s traditional eight verses. His notes on the piece state that “the rest of the ballad is not very interesting,” but in fact, the full song tells a story of looming war and star-crossed lovers. Such drama may not have been what the composer imagined for his lush choral setting––and given how satisfying Vaughan Williams’ version is to sing, we certainly won’t complain.

Dajte, dajte (Slovenia)
It may seem as though the biggest challenge when assembling a program of folk songs is simply mastering those songs’ many different languages and styles. It’s true that these pieces come with a steep learning curve, but what may be even more challenging is recognizing that each of today’s selections represent only a small fraction of their respective cultures. “Dajte, dajte,” for example, arranged by Aldo Kumar, is a delightfully energetic ditty from the Istrian region in southwest Slovenia. It is also unabashedly misogynistic and ageist (and possibly anti-mothers-in-law). We recommend enjoying the rollicking melody and the percussive dynamics and ignoring the actual meaning of the text.

Pa se sliš’ (Slovenia)
By contrast, “Pa se sliš’” is simply a lovely lullaby. The Slovenian composer Karol Pahor grew up in the easternmost corner of Italy, near the Slovenian border. His father employed Istrian laborers, and the family would often join the laborers in singing traditional Slovenian tunes like this one.

Long Time Trav’ling (United States)
Abbie Betinis, recently named one of NPR’s top hundred composers under forty, is another of our favorite composers. We are especially fond of her attention to textual detail and her thoughtful partwriting, and both traits, along with a reverence for American musical history, are on display in “Long Time Trav’ling.” The work combines two popular nineteenth-century shapenote hymns with additional text from a third such setting. The interwoven solo lines are sung with gusto, shapenote-style, while the rest of the choristers interject as both distant chain gangs and sightreading shapenoters.


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Mar
16
2013-2014

To Arms

To Arms


March 16, 2014
Michael Blaakman, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Rachel Haimovich, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Patrick Ressler, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

traditional English, “Agincourt Carol”
Joshua Shank, Two Songs of Release
Benjamin Britten, “Advance Democracy”
Arvo Pärt, “Da pacem Domine”
Kirke Mechem, “The Caged Bird”
Clement Janéquin, “La Guerre”
traditional Shaker arr. Nina Gilbert, “We Will Walk with Mother and Mourn”
traditional Irish arr. Alice Parker, “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye”
William Byrd, “Ave verum corpus”
Stanford E. Scriven, “This Is the Day”
Sydney Guillaume, “Twa Tanbou”

Notes on the Program
This was a challenging concert to program. Owing to the structure of the concert season, each concert is titled and themed long before the full repertoire has actually been selected. We settled on the theme–“music of strife and reconciliation”–on the strength of several pieces that we thought could serve as anchors for the rest of the concert, but that left us with two-thirds of the program yet to finalize and a subtitle that seemed to mean both too little and too much. Wasn’t “strife and reconciliation” just a fancy way of saying “war and peace”? What was there left to say about either that hadn’t already been said, with more timpani and bravado than we could ever muster, by the great symphonic works of the twentieth century? What place did choral singing–too small for the bluster of Britten’s War Requiem, too large for the intimacy of mourning–have in grappling with the moving targets of strife and reconciliation?

Quite a bit, it turned out. In today’s culture, we still have moments of community singing during great triumphs or celebrations–think back to Olympic medalists and fans singing along to their national anthem, or to any Red Sox game in the past decade––but we do not usually sing in the midst of struggle or uncertainty. This is a relatively new development: not long ago, community singing–which is really just choral singing, minus the coordinated outfits and mandated rehearsals–was an integral expression of togetherness. This singing was accessible and vernacular, relating inspirational narratives or building off of easy-to-follow refrains. Many of the pieces on today’s program grow out of that tradition of music with an agenda. This is music on a human scale, meant for communities, not symphonies or soloists. We are honored to welcome you into ours.

Agincourt Carol
We begin with an anonymous carol from fifteenth-century England, depicting England’s victory over France at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In our performance, the narrative verses are sung by a pair of soloists, hearkening to the medieval tradition of heralds, appointed messengers from each side who would watch battles from a safe distance, narrate the proceedings as necessary, and even announce the victors. At Agincourt, the English and French heralds watched together, both agreeing that against all odds––including being hugely outnumbered–the English had triumphed. The piece is jaunty and brazen, belying the battle’s gore and bloodshed. Thousands of soldiers died in hand-to-hand combat or by being trampled, but the outcome led to a new period in the Hundred Years War, with a seeming truce declared in a marriage alliance between the two countries.

Two Songs of Release
Our program notes often use “by contrast” as a segue, pointing out a single, discrete difference between two back-to-back selections. That segue is of little use in this transition; nothing can be further from the bright, bombastic “Agincourt Carol” than Joshua Shank’s Two Songs of Release. Composed in 2003, and inspired in part by the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Two Songs of Release treads very different territory than “Agincourt Carol”: there are no appointed winners, no neat conclusions, and no benevolent deities in the struggles that Shank depicts in angular, dissonant harmonies. Although the composer draws upon canonical texts about warfare––Walt Whitman’s writings on the Civil War can feel inextricably linked to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ great Dona Nobis Pacem, a pacifist cantata written in the 1930s––the setting draws our attention much more to individual actions than to the grander scale of conflict. Shank writes for our crisis-deadened, news-glutted era, inviting each of us to play a role in breaking through the noise and disruption to achieve healing and growth.

Advance Democracy
Benjamin Britten’s “Advance Democracy” brings us back to bombast, though the sense of personal responsibility persists. This piece is our closest approximation to propaganda; the strikingly earnest text, by British poet Randall Swingler, is openly Communist and anti-war. Written in 1938, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II, “Advance Democracy” pleads for an outcome that won’t lead to a second world war. Britten’s pacifism is well known from his War Requiem, composed in 1962, but “Advance Democracy” reveals the composer in a younger, more naïve stance. The piece is nonetheless stirring: listen for the contrast between the disjointed, staccato chant and the soaring, eerie obligato in the other voiceparts.

Da pacem Domine
“Da pacem Domine,” by the contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, brings us into a more meditative mood. Pärt is known for his unique compositional style, which he calls “tintinnabuli,” in which a piece unfolds around various inversions of single chords. His music also evokes pealing bells, with voices smoothly overlapping in complex patterns and overtones. “Da pacem Domine,” which draws upon a seventh-century chant, was written in 2004; although the piece had been specifically commissioned, Pärt wrote in response to the Madrid train bombings, which had taken place just days before he began work and which killed or injured nearly two thousand people. The result is an anguished call for peace, with the repetitive chords and achingly slow tempo inviting reflection rather than reaction.

The Caged Bird
We close this first half with further introspection, courtesy of American composer Kirke Mechem and the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. The text of “The Caged Bird,” originally titled “Sympathy,” is more famous today for its first line–which Maya Angelou used as the title of her autobiography–than for its whole; similarly, Dunbar himself is often overlooked in the canon of American poetry. The son of former slaves, Dunbar grew up in Ohio during the Jim Crow era, making his living as an elevator operator and even selling volumes of his poetry to elevator passengers. Mechem, whose father was also a poet, handles the famous text deftly, with stark dynamic changes and a quickening tempo highlighting the poem’s growing emotion.

La Guerre
Clement Janéquin is one of our favorite composers, and “La Guerre,” his onomatopoetic depiction of the French victory over the Swiss at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, perfectly illustrates why. Listen carefully as the battle intensifies: what begins as a nationalistic song meant to stir up comrades evolves into the sounds of charging cavalry, sackbuts, and cannonfire. This was a decisive and unexpected victory for the French: after decades of Swiss supremacy, the French forces had taken an unprecedented stand, hauling hundreds of pieces of artillery–including dozens of huge cannons––through the Alps before the battle. The French army’s shock and delight will be apparent in their declarations of “Victoire!” at the end of the piece.

We Will Walk with Mother and Mourn
We move into a very different mood with Nina Gilbert’s arrangement of the traditional Shaker spiritual “We Will Walk with Mother and Mourn.” The Shakers, a religious sect founded in the late eighteenth century, believed that they were preparing for the second coming of Christ. Their communities were structured very intentionally, with all members vowing celibacy, and their reverence was known to be enthusiastic: the name “Shakers” comes from high-energy worship services that included dancing, speaking in tongues, and receiving visions. Like many other American Shaker hymns from the mid-nineteenth century, “We Will Walk with Mother and Mourn” was not formally composed—instead, the Shakers believed it had been sent to them as a “spiritual gift” in a communal vision. “Mother” refers to Mother Ann Lee, one of the sect’s founders; the hymn’s insistence upon penance and prayer reflects the community’s belief in an imminent rapture.

Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye
“Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye” also dates from the mid-nineteenth century: it was first published in Ireland in 1867, several decades after the Kandyan Wars during the turn of the century. The Irish, themselves under English rule, were unwilling conscripts into England’s colonial war in Sri Lanka. Arranged here by the venerable American composer Alice Parker, the tune’s jaunty rhythms offer a chilling counterpart to the powerful text: the relentless thrum of the repeating chorus line–
“with your drums and guns and drums and guns”–suggests that the war machine will grind on regardless of individual tragedies.

Ave verum corpus
William Byrd’s “Ave verum corpus,” first published in 1605, returns us to a sense of introspection and personal struggle. This motet is considered one of Byrd’s most extraordinary compositions, with an unusual opening chord progression–alternating between major and minor–and very careful use of the traditional Eucharistic text. Byrd, like his teacher Thomas Tallis, was a devout Catholic; both men openly flouted the contemporary English laws mandating steep punishment for Catholics. We can hear this devotion reflected in “Ave verum corpus,” which stresses the word “verum,” underlining the Catholic belief in transubstantiation. The achingly beautiful ending of the piece–a prayer for mercy and a final “Amen”–emphasizes the pleading nature of the text, with prominent dissonance making the piece’s conclusion bittersweet.

This Is the Day
In contrast to the sectarian conflict behind “Ave verum corpus,” Stanford E. Scriven’s “This Is the Day” draws upon a text from the Bahá’í faith, which proclaims the essential equality of all people and the importance of peace and unity. Scriven’s setting, composed when he was just twenty years old, moves deliberately between suggestions of awe and grandeur and a more intimate, personal invocation. The piece has been warmly received by the international Bahá’í community, with featured performances at the country’s only Bahá’í House of Worship.

Twa Tanbou
We close with “Twa Tanbou” by the contemporary Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume. Like “Agincourt Carol” and “La Guerre,” “Twa Tanbou” is a straightforward narration, here depicting three different drums squabbling over their relative merits. As the drums try to outdo each other, the rhythms of the piece get more complex, with Creole poetry interwoven with onomatopoetic drum language depicting different percussion sounds. Anyone who enjoys ensemble music will foresee the resolution to the drums’ conflict: when they all play together, they achieve more than they ever could have alone.


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Nov
17
2013-2014

For Keeps

For Keeps


November 17, 2013
Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Ben Guez, Lucy Harlow, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Patrick Ressler, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Knut Nystedt, “Cry Out and Shout”
Thomas Tallis, “If ye love me”
Bob Chilcott, “Love”
Ivan Hrušovský, “Rytmus”
Paul J. Christiansen, “My Song in the Night”
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, “Sicut cervus”
Abbie Betinis, Carmina mei cordis
Michael Tippett, “Steal away”
Samuel Hernández Dumenigo, “Padre Nuestro”
Jordan Rock, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
John Chorbajian, “Loveliest Of Trees”
Johannes Brahms, “In stiller Nacht”
Heinrich Schütz, “Selig sind die Toten”
Sergei Rachmaninoff, “Choral Concerto”

Notes on the Program
Like centuries of others before us, we come together today to seek solace and inspiration in music. The repertoire on this program spans six centuries of singing, but the common thread in each piece—a yearning for grace, trust, and comfort—feels as timeless as our gathering.

Cry Out and Shout
Knut Nystedt’s “Cry Out and Shout” is like a trumpet fanfare in choral form. Only forty measures long, its jubilant, ringing chords ably fulfill the instruction of the title phrase. The overall effect is triumphal, with the clarity of the opening reflecting Nystedt’s studies with Aaron Copland. This powerful simplicity continues through the middle section, in which parallel harmony in the women’s voices is matched by contrary motion in the tenor line. The bombastic treatment may not immediately inspire feelings of comfort or grace, but the repeated text—“Cry out and shout, ye people of God! The Lord is strength and song!”—offers a clear statement of trust and stability.

If ye love me
The text of “If ye love me,” which comes from the Gospel of John, suggests another very basic path to comfort and even salvation: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Composer Thomas Tallis may have had particularly hard-won ideas about his own comfort and salvation, as he clung devoutly to his Catholic faith even as England became a staunchly Protestant nation during the reign of Edward VI, Henry VIII’s son. “If ye love me” is actually a product of Edward’s reign, which mandated that church services and anthems be in English rather than Latin. Moving between homophony and polyphony, the piece spotlights Tallis’ trademark expressivity while also obeying another of the Reformation’s rules: “to each syllable a plain and distinct note.”

Love
In contrast to all this comfort and stability, Bob Chilcott’s “Love” feels markedly unsettled. Chilcott relies heavily on an Impressionist technique called harmonic planing: throughout the piece, the top three voices move in the same direction, by the same interval, at the same time. With the voice parts remaining constant relative to one another, the chord moves through the scale but never changes. The result creates a feeling of seasickness, as the chords plane out of the major scale but remain relatively consonant.

This rootlessness is appropriate, echoing the caught-between-worlds feeling described in Alfred Tennyson’s text. The verses come from Tennyson’s larger work In Memoriam A.H.H., which was written in memory of Tennyson’s dear friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at 22. Although the depth of the poet’s grief is obvious, this excerpt—and the poem as a whole—does not reflect the raw emotion of a recent loss. Tennyson spent almost seventeen years composing In Memoriam A.H.H.; the excerpt we sing here is indicative of a poet who will never cease to miss his beloved friend but who is at peace with both his loss and his own mortality. This overriding sense of comfort is given voice by the tenor and soprano soloists, setting love—not loss—as the touchstone of the work.

Rytmus
Ivan Hrušovský’s “Rytmus” is a study in pure rhythm, befitting the Slovakian composer’s status as an important voice in his country’s approach to music education. With only two lines of text, Hrušovský manages nonetheless to fashion an intricate pattern of pattersong, with the shifting chromatics and layered rhythms keeping the eighth-note pulse driving forward.

My Song in the Night
This arrangement of “My Song in the Night,” a tune that originated in the nineteenth-century Sacred Harp hymn collection, comes with a significant family legacy. The arranger, Paul J. Christiansen, was the youngest son of F. Melius Christiansen, a Norwegian-born choral conductor and composer who is largely credited with furthering the art of a cappella choral music in the United States. The Christiansens are especially associated with the choral traditions of the Lutheran church, with F. Melius founding the famed choir at St. Olaf College and Paul J. serving almost fifty years as conductor at Concordia College. Lush and expressive, Christiansen’s arrangement highlights the emphasis on blend and phrasing that his father made such an integral part of American Lutheranism.

Sicut cervus
After the plaintive longing of “My Song in the Night”, Palestrina’s “Sicut cervus” brings us a different, simpler kind of yearning. The text, the first verse of Psalm 42, is clear and timeless, and Palestrina’s setting feels almost organic in its pellucid simplicity. “Sicut cervus” represents a quintessential Palestrina composition, and arguably his most famous: the motet structure grants each phrase of text a new melodic theme, which passes from voice part to voice part in lush, seamless counterpoint.

Carmina mei cordis
There is little that is simple about Abbie Betinis’ Carmina mei cordis, but the set’s combination of traditional chant with modern harmonics is remarkably striking. Both texts in the work are drawn from the Catholic liturgy: the text of the first piece in the set, “Aeterna lux, divinitas”, is actually traditional for early morning services, specifically those taking place at a time of year when the sun rises before the service begins. The text hails the light- and life-giving Trinity; accordingly, Betinis’ piece modulates between two primary modalities before unifying to form a third. Although the piece starts within a fairly limited chant register, the texture grows more complex as the voice parts modulate together, with the four voices eventually spiraling together into an exuberant canon.

The second piece, “Angele dei”, uses a text that is also sometimes known as the Prayer to a Guardian Angel. The chant elements return in the recurring soprano invocation, and Betinis continues to play with modality and rhythm, setting the soprano melody at odds with the mostly homophonic pulse of the lower three voices. She cites the choral music of Poulenc and Messiaen as her inspirations for “Angele Dei”, and we hear that lineage in the piece’s tension between consonance and dissonance.

Steal away
Though equally reverent, Michael Tippett’s “Steal away”, from the secular oratorio A Child of Our Time, has origins that are considerably less celestial than Betinis’ Catholic liturgy: the piece was composed in response to the events leading up to Kristallnacht in Germany. Structured to match Handel’s Messiah in shape and grandeur, A Child of Our Time proclaims both the composer’s pacifism and his belief in the inherent goodness of all people. Interestingly, although the 1944 premiere was a critical and popular success, many objected to the inclusion of spirituals and jazz elements, denigrating them as improper for performance as classical music. Unsurprisingly, we feel quite the opposite about “Steal away”: in addition to being beautiful in its own right, we find it very telling that Tippett—a young Englishman wracked with terror and guilt over the emerging fascism in Germany and his own country’s militarism––relied upon African-American spirituals as the most poignant expression of his innermost hope and despair.

Padre Nuestro
The sense of solace that we find in other pieces on this program is especially poignant in Samuel Hernandez Duménigo’s “Padre Nuestro”. Duménigo is Cuban, which is all we know of him beyond what he provides in this piece. We may infer from the piece’s jazz inflections that its composer is a product of the late twentieth century, but we have no access to information about his other works or even about whether he is still living. That this lovely setting made it through the embargo at all speaks to music’s enduring power to transcend such barriers; unfortunately, as the piece is unpublished, tonight’s performance carries with it no benefit for the composer. Knowing the deprivations that Duménigo must suffer, the familiar inward-looking lines of the Lord’s Prayer have special resonance, directing our thoughts to his community instead of to our own needs.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
At the far extreme from a composer about whom we know very little is our own Jordan Rock, who composed “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” for us in 2011. The text, by William Butler Yeats, recalls the small island where the poet summered as a boy; lovely though it may have been, Yeats’ recollection is improved by time, and his imagined Innisfree is more utopian—and blessed with much milder weather—than the actual place. Jordan’s setting reinforces the poet’s real-life presence within his idealized vision, drawing upon a repeated triplet rhythm to mimic the natural cadence of Yeats’ own readings of the poem and changing the piece’s tonal mood as the poet’s thoughts move from utopian Innisfree to real-world Dublin.

Loveliest Of Trees
John Chorbajian’s “Loveliest Of Trees”, with text by A. E. Housman, suggests a more pragmatic view of bliss: we have little need of an imagined utopia if we take full advantage of the beauties available in daily life. The poem’s bittersweet tone is typical of Housman’s work: despite a brilliant career as a classicist, Housman was doomed to a lifelong and unrequited love for a college chum. Chorbajian’s setting emphasizes the duality inherent in the poem, shifting easily between the poet’s delight in the beauty of spring and quiet resignation to his own mortality.

In stiller Nacht
Continuing with this confluence of nature and emotion, we turn to “In stiller Nacht,” one of Johannes Brahms’ most beloved pieces. Although the piece is properly a lament, this folksong setting feels to us more like a lullaby. The texture is largely homophonic, with only occasional dissonance shading the poignant text as the phrases swell and contract. Like Brahms’ setting, the poem is not only secular but hugely Romantic, with the poet’s grief starkly reflected in —and perhaps even soothed by––the surrounding wilderness.

Selig sind die Toten
One of Brahms’ favorite composers was his countryman Heinrich Schütz, whose “Selig sind die Toten” takes a different approach to grief: blessed are the dead, for their works shall live after them. Brahms revered Schütz and used the same Biblical verses in the first and final movements of his Requiem. Schütz’s setting for six-part chorus hearkens to his own teacher: Giovanni Gabrieli, the master of polychoral composition. We hear the six voice parts trading off proclamations as if each representing different choirs; listen especially for the two interwoven soprano lines and the Tenor 2s’ triumphant “Ja!” half a measure before the rest of the choir.

Choral Concerto
We close the program with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Концерт для хора, or “Choral Concerto.” The text alone is powerful: Rachmaninoff features the Kontakion for the Dormition, the traditional prayer for the feast day commemorating the death—or “falling asleep,” hence “dormition”—resurrection, and ascension to heaven of Mary, the “Theotokos” or “God-bearer.” The prayer seems like an obvious candidate for loud proclamation and exaltation, but Rachmaninoff focuses most of the choir’s energies on more intimate, intensely concentrated gestures. This simplicity spotlights the otherwise-subtle nuances of text and voice, allowing the singers to both celebrate and grieve the departed Theotokos.


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Oct
13
2013-2014

In His Care

In His Care


October 26, 2013
Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Ben Guez, Lucy Harlow, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Patrick Ressler, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Thomas Tallis, “Te lucis ante terminum”
Abbie Betinis, Carmina mei cordis
Bob Chilcott, “Love”
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, “Sicut cervus”
Jussi Chydenius, “I am the great sun”
Michael Tippett, “Steal away”
Sergei Rachmaninoff, “Choral Concerto”
Knut Nystedt, “Cry Out and Shout”
Josquin des Prez, “Nymphes des bois”
Heinrich Schütz, “Selig sind die Toten”
Ivan Hrušovský, “Rytmus”
Samuel Hernández Dumenigo, “Padre Nuestro”
Paul J. Christiansen, “My Song in the Night”
arr. William L. Dawson, “In His Care-O”

Notes on the Program
Like centuries of others before us, we come together this evening to seek solace and inspiration in music. The repertoire on tonight’s program spans six centuries of sacred singing, but the common thread in each piece—a yearning for guidance, trust, and comfort—feels as timeless as our gathering.

Te lucis ante terminum
As befits an evening concert, we begin with one of the choral tradition’s oldest proofs against the fears and uncertainties of night and darkness. The text comprises the traditional compline hymn, sung at the final office, or church service, of the day. Despite the text’s venerable status––it dates to at least the eighth century, if not earlier—the hymn’s prayer for safety in the night strikes us ageless and all-encompassing, offering protection against everything from nightmares to sin. It certainly stirred Thomas Tallis, who published his setting of the text in a 1575 collection of Latin liturgical hymns. Such a collection was in direct violation of Queen Elizabeth I’s staunchly Anglican reign, which proscribed heavy penalties for practicing Catholics and the use of the Latin liturgy; we may infer that for Tallis, the solace and reverence he found in the hymn outweighed the potential threat of punishment.

Tallis’ setting retains the traditional plainchant of the liturgy in the first and third verses; we also follow the liturgy by having the cantor (in this case, the conductor) provide the incipit at the beginning. The second verse features Tallis at his polyphonic best, with the plainchant melody relegated to the sopranos and the other four voices briefly introducing each phrase while bringing new depth to the texture.

Carmina mei cordis
Several centuries later, we find contemporary American composer Abbie Betinis also drawing inspiration from the Catholic liturgical tradition. The first piece in the set, “Aeterna lux, divinitas”, is actually traditional for early morning services, specifically those taking place at a time of year when the sun rises before the service begins. The text hails the light- and life-giving Trinity; accordingly, Betinis’ piece modulates between two primary modalities before unifying to form a third. Although the piece starts within a fairly limited chant register, the texture grows more complex as the voice parts modulate together, with the four voices eventually spiraling together into an exuberant canon.

The second piece, “Angele dei”, uses a text that is also sometimes known as the Prayer to a Guardian Angel. The chant elements return in the recurring soprano invocation, and Betinis continues to play with modality and rhythm, setting the soprano melody at odds with the mostly homophonic pulse of the lower three voices. She cites the choral music of Poulenc and Messiaen as her inspirations for “Angele Dei”, and we hear that lineage in the piece’s tension between consonance and dissonance.

Love
Bob Chilcott’s “Love” takes that unsettled feeling even further with an Impressionist technique called harmonic planing or parallel harmony. Throughout the piece, the top three voices move in the same direction, by the same interval, at the same time. With the voice parts remaining constant relative to one another, the chord moves through the scale but never changes. The result creates a feeling of seasickness, as the chords plane out of the major scale but remain relatively consonant.

This rootlessness is appropriate, echoing the caught-between-worlds feeling described in Alfred Tennyson’s text. The verses come from Tennyson’s larger work In Memoriam A.H.H., which was written in memory of Tennyson’s dear friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at 22. Although the depth of the poet’s grief is obvious, this excerpt—and the poem as a whole—does not reflect the raw emotion of a recent loss. Tennyson spent almost seventeen years composing In Memoriam A.H.H.; the excerpt we sing here is indicative of a poet who will never cease to miss his beloved friend but who is at peace with both his loss and his own mortality. This overriding sense of comfort is given voice by the tenor and soprano soloists, setting love—not loss—as the touchstone of the work.

Sicut cervus
Palestrina’s “Sicut cervus” brings us a different, simpler kind of yearning. The text, the first verse of Psalm 42, is as clear and timeless as the “Te lucis” compline prayer, and Palestrina’s setting feels almost organic in its pellucid simplicity. “Sicut cervus” represents a quintessential Palestrina composition, and arguably his most famous: the motet structure grants each phrase of text a new melodic theme, which passes from voice part to voice part in lush, seamless counterpoint.

I am the great sun
Departing from this cornerstone of the canon, Jussi Chydenius’ “I am the great sun” takes inspiration from far-flung traditions. The text, by Cornish poet Charles Causley, was based on a seventeenth-century stone crucifix in Normandy, which was engraved with what became the first line of the poem; and the unearthly drone and eerie overtones with which the piece begin come from the throat-singing practiced by the Tuvans of southern Siberia. For all its exoticism and piety, the piece’s slow build-up and layered repetitions are almost reminiscent of a pop song; appropriately enough, Chydenius is perhaps most famous for his work in the Finnish a cappella ensemble Rajaton.

Steal away
Though equally reverent, Michael Tippett’s “Steal away”, from the secular oratorio A Child of Our Time, has origins that are considerably less celestial than Causley’s Norman cross: the piece was composed in response to the events leading up to Kristallnacht in Germany. Structured to match Handel’s Messiah in shape and grandeur, A Child of Our Time proclaims both the composer’s pacifism and his belief in the inherent goodness of all people. Interestingly, although the 1944 premiere was a critical and popular success, many objected to the inclusion of spirituals and jazz elements, denigrating them as improper for performance as classical music. Unsurprisingly, we feel quite the opposite about “Steal away”: in addition to being beautiful in its own right, we find it very telling that Tippett—a young Englishman wracked with terror and guilt over the emerging fascism in Germany and his own country’s militarism––relied upon African-American spirituals as the most poignant expression of his innermost hope and despair.

Choral Concerto
We close the program’s first half with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Концерт для хора, or “Choral Concerto.” The text alone is powerful: Rachmaninoff features the Kontakion for the Dormition, the traditional prayer for the feast day commemorating the death—or “falling asleep,” hence “dormition”—resurrection, and ascension to heaven of Mary, the “Theotokos” or “God-bearer.” The prayer seems like an obvious candidate for loud proclamation and exaltation, but Rachmaninoff focuses most of the choir’s energies on more intimate, intensely concentrated gestures. This simplicity spotlights the otherwise-subtle nuances of text and voice, allowing the singers to both celebrate and grieve the departed Theotokos. Interestingly, Tallis is not the only composer on today’s program who risked the ire of the church establishment: the “Choral Concerto” was never published in Rachmaninoff’s lifetime, because the slight changes he made to the traditional kontakion caused the piece to be banned by the Russian Orthodox authorities.

Cry Out and Shout
Knut Nystedt’s “Cry Out and Shout” is like a trumpet fanfare in choral form. Only forty measures long, its jubilant, ringing chords ably fulfill the instruction of the title phrase. The overall effect is triumphal, with the clarity of the opening reflecting Nystedt’s studies with Aaron Copland. This powerful simplicity continues through the middle section, in which parallel harmony in the women’s voices is matched by contrary motion in the tenor line.

Nymphes des bois
Josquin des Prez’s mostly secular “Nymphes des bois” also opens with an imperative, but here it is a call for mourning, not joy, as Josquin commemorates the death of his teacher Johannes Ockeghem in 1497. The text, written by fellow composer Jean Molinet, asks even the “nymphs of the woods” and “goddesses of the fountains” to express their sorrow. In a more touching testament to Ockeghem’s legacy, the nymphs are not the only ones who mourn: the text also names several of his students—Josquin included—as having lost their “good father”.

Josquin begins by cleverly mimicking the contrapuntal style for which Ockeghem was most famous. He then structures the piece’s polyphony around the introit chant of the Latin funeral mass—requiem aeternam—and weaves the four composed choral lines around a fifth voice intoning an augmented version of the original chant from the Liber Usualis. Composing a secular work around a sacred chant was common practice in the Renaissance for composers keen to avoid the church censors; listen for the “tenor” line—sung here by a contralto, a tenor, and a baritone—chanting the sacred Latin farewell.

Selig sind die Toten
“Selig sind die Toten”, written perhaps fifty years after “Nymphes des bois”, employs a Biblical text that echoes Molinet’s elegy: blessed are the dead, for their works follow them. Composer Heinrich Schütz fits into an admirable legacy of German composers who have set this text; his most famous colleague, of course, is Johannes Brahms, who revered Schütz and uses the same verses in the first and final movements of his Requiem. Schütz’s setting for six-part chorus hearkens to his own teacher: Giovanni Gabrieli, the master of polychoral composition. We hear the six voice parts trading off proclamations as if each representing different choirs; listen especially for the two interwoven soprano lines and the Tenor 2s’ triumphant “Ja!” half a measure before the rest of the choir.

Rytmus
If “Sicut cervus” and “Selig sind die Toten” are paragons of polyphony, Ivan Hrušovský’s “Rytmus” is a study in pure rhythm, befitting the Slovakian composer’s status as an important voice in his country’s approach to music education. With only two lines of text, Hrušovský manages nonetheless to fashion an intricate pattern of pattersong, with the shifting chromatics and layered rhythms keeping the eighth-note pulse driving forward.

Padre Nuestro
The sense of solace that we find in other pieces on this program is especially poignant in Samuel Hernandez Duménigo’s “Padre Nuestro”. Duménigo is Cuban, which is all we know of him beyond what he provides in this piece. We may infer from the piece’s jazz inflections that its composer is a product of the twentieth century, but we have no access to information about his other works or even about whether he is still living. That this lovely setting made it through the embargo at all speaks to music’s enduring power to transcend such barriers; unfortunately, as the piece is unpublished, tonight’s performance carries with it no benefit for the composer. Knowing the deprivations that Duménigo must suffer, the familiar inward-looking lines of the Lord’s Prayer have special resonance, directing our thoughts to his community instead of to our own needs.

My Song in the Night
This arrangement of “My Song in the Night,” a tune that originated in the nineteenth-century Sacred Harp hymn collection, comes with a significant family legacy. The arranger, Paul J. Christiansen, was the youngest son of F. Melius Christiansen, a Norwegian-born choral conductor and composer who is largely credited with furthering the art of a cappella choral music in the United States. The Christiansens are especially associated with the choral traditions of the Lutheran church, with F. Melius founding the famed choir at St. Olaf College and Paul J. serving almost fifty years as conductor at Concordia College. Lush and expressive, Christiansen’s arrangement highlights the emphasis on blend and phrasing that his father made such an integral part of American Lutheranism.

In His Care-O
We close with “In His Care-O”, a traditional spiritual arranged by the incomparable William L. Dawson. Just as the Christiansens have furthered the traditions of American Lutheran choral music, Dawson—along with Moses Hogan, another composer-turned-conductor—brought African-American spirituals firmly within the canon of American choral singing. Dawson’s interest in spirituals and folk music began in his childhood, when he would arrange—and sometimes rhythmically tweak—the traditional songs he heard at home and at church. Like all spirituals, “In His Care-O” carries with it a history of pain and hopelessness, but the jubliant refrain makes this a song of celebration, expressing not just comfort but salvation and joy.


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Jun
2
2012-2013

Ahoy, Stranger!

Ahoy, Stranger!


June 2, 2013
Christopher Barron, Josh Dearing, Bimal Desai, Bevin Durant, Ellen Gerdes, Nathan P. Gibney, Rachel Haimovich, Jen Hayman, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Eric Barnum, “The Sounding Sea”
Zoltán Kodály, “Norvég leányok”
Francis Poulenc, “C’est la petit’ fill’ du prince”
Robert Schumann, “Ungewisses Licht”
Gabriel Jackson, “A ship with unfurled sails”
arr. Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, “Sometimes I Feel”
Einojuhani Rautavaara, “Lähtö”
David Ludwig, “The New Colossus”
Thomas Campion, “Never weather-beaten Saile”
Henryk Górecki, Szeroka Woda

Notes on the Program
As an ensemble, the Chestnut Street Singers have never sought to take our show on the road. For one reason or another–usually a combination of factors involving both time and money–we’ve always chosen to forego other venues and have embedded ourselves right here, in the blue-ceilinged church on Chestnut Street.

Despite this collective rootedness, we are nevertheless an ensemble of travelers. Our singers have taught in Asia, studied in Europe, worked in Africa. We are hikers and cyclists and walkers-to-work; we get stuck in traffic and swear at SEPTA and scout for free parking. Whatever the magnitude of our journeys, we are acutely aware of how these adventures–both large and small, farflung and very close to home––shape our lives and our music-making.

The Sounding Sea
How better to begin a concert than with an invitation to listen? Eric Barnum’s “The Sounding Sea,” using George William Curtis’ poem of the same name as its text, offers a compelling frame for our dual interests in this program: the pulsing, undeniable appeal of adventure alongside the lovingly bittersweet recognition that sometimes home is best. Barnum’s setting is a study in text painting, with the driving rhythms of the poem’s demand–Listen to the sounding sea–cutting through eerie vocal scoops. The character of the music changes as the narrator’s true perspective is revealed; the once-fierce sound of the sea turns to a nostalgic beckoning as the waves lap gently in the distance.

Norvég leányok
Zoltán Kodály’s “Norvég leányok” offers another view of the emotional repercussions of travel: the titular Norwegian girls give their smiles to “a foreign lad,” presumably a sailor, and they are left with no laughter for themselves at home. Kodály’s lilting melodic lines suggest both the girls’ unheard sighs and the ever-present sea breeze; the gentle persistence of raindrops–in both sound and text–throughout the piece situates us completely in this misty fishing village.

C’est la petit’ fill’ du prince
Continuing this scenario, Francis Poulenc’s “C’est la petit’ fill’ du prince” plays out the drama in miniature, presenting a romance’s entire narrative in this folksong-inspired jewel box of a piece. Here, the affections are explicitly grounded in music: the prince’s daughter is enchanted by a young sailor’s song. In a reverse of the traditional story of sirens or lorelais luring sailors ashore, it is the young girl who strikes out in search of the singer, joining him on board ship and traveling the world with her beloved and his fellows as she learns his song. The story doesn’t end happily, however; the ominous progressions in the choir’s lower voices underscore the princess’ despair as she realizes how thoroughly she has given up her heart.

Ungewisses Licht
Robert Schumann’s “Ungewisses Licht,” the second of his Four Songs for Double Choir, considers a voyage that is more internal than geographic. Schumann himself suffered greatly from the tumult of his own emotions; many scholars now believe he may have been bipolar, and he grappled for decades with crippling insecurity (especially as compared to his more successful but beloved wife), suicidal tendencies, and hallucinations. His work for double choir contains all the hallmarks of his Romantic genius, but his techniques in deploying the two choirs in this piece are suggestive. Although the poem sets up a binary–Ist es die Liebe? Ist es der Tod? [Is it love? Is it death?]–Schumann’s interplay between the two choirs, rarely putting the full forces of each ensemble in dialogue, suggests that the distinction between two extremes may not be so clear-cut. The wanderer’s uncertainty as to whether he sees sunrise or flame makes his situation even more precarious: he is bound either for damnation or renewal, but not both.

A ship with unfurled sails
“A ship with unfurled sails” places us in similarly uncertain territory, but here the questions resonate on multiple levels. The text, by Estonian poet Doris Kasteva, hearkens to the Soviet occupation of Estonia, which achieved modern independence only in 1991. That Kasteva’s long-awaited ship comes sovereign, unclaimed by any nation, indicates how deeply the strife of occupation had cut—no flag at all would be better than the standard of a hated occupier.

Gabriel Jackson’s setting of this enigmatic text grounds the poet’s own experiences in striking text painting. The haunting wavelets in the alto line keep the melody off-center, unsure, and the recognition that something glorious may be to hand–Imperceptibly all is changed. All arrives so secretly.––comes in phases, allowing for a surprising expression of pure joy before the narrator can collect herself.

Sometimes I Feel
“Sometimes I Feel”, a traditional spiritual arranged by the revered Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, is more explicit about the darkness one may be forced to endure. Dating from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the song is also sometimes called “Motherless Child”, as it depicts the plight of a slave child who has been forcibly sold away from her or his family. The tune may have endured in part because of the many more accessible interpretations of the text; later performers took the lyrics more as allegories, describing their pain at being so far from heaven, a homeland, or loved ones.

Notably, one reading suggests a glimmer of hope even in the darkest verses: if the speaker only feels like a moanin’ dove sometimes, then there are other times when she has more agency. Parker and Shaw’s setting, which grounds the men’s voices in a keening repetition of “sometime”, hints at this optimism even in the grimmest opening lines.

Lähtö
Leaving aside the emotional repercussions of adventure, nothing caputres the venturesome feeling of setting off for places unknown so perfectly as Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Lähtö.” Like all Finnish composers, Rautavaara works in Jean Sibelius’ long shadow–indeed, he studied and later taught at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki–but here brings in echoes of other musical traditions. In “Lähtö,” we are urged onwards by the constant percussive gallop underlying the melody. The melody itself makes use of a Middle Eastern-sounding alteration between the natural and lowered second, creating a tenuous balance between major and minor tonality and hinting at the exotic and far-off promise of the narrator’s destination.

The New Colossus
We open the second half of today’s program with gestures towards home. Philadelphia composer David Ludwig’s “The New Colossus” sets Emma Lazarus’ sonnet of the same name, which most of us recognize as the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Ludwig’s setting allows the poem–and indeed, Liberty herself–to speak freely, opening with chant-like rhythms that mimic the text’s natural cadences. With a long unison beginning, “The New Colossus” expands into polyphony only as Liberty begins invoking the multitudes she hopes to welcome: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free! The chant-like feeling returns in the poem’s final line, offering solace and welcome to all who might need it.

Never weather-beaten Saile
The chant simplicity of “The New Colossus” makes a nice pairing with Thomas Campion’s “Never weather-beaten Saile,” the only piece on today’s program that pre-dates the nineteenth century. Campion’s legacy includes over one hundred pieces penned for lute; we hear that inclination in the delicate progressions of “Never weather-beaten Saile,” a choral rendering of a tune originally set for lute.

Szeroka Woda
We close with Henryk Górecki’s Szeroka Woda, which suggests that the pleasures and frustrations of home can be as bittersweet as any departure.

Szeroka Woda dates from a transitional period in Górecki’s own compositional history. In contrast to the lush, expressive moods in Szeroka Woda, Górecki actually first achieved fame as a serialist; he was lauded as part of the forefront of the Polish avant-garde. In the early 1970s, his music began to more deeply reflect Polish folk traditions ranging from medieval chant to simple ditties. Szeroka Woda draws most of its melodic content from a nineteenth-century collection of traditional folk songs; Górecki’s settings reframe the original melodies with languorous tempi–so slow and flexible that we think of them as musical taffy–and frequent repetitions of brief phrases. The effect is deeply moving, with the universal themes of longing and rootedness translating these folk narratives into something much closer to home.


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Mar
10
2012-2013

Whither, Fairy?

Whither, Fairy?


March 10, 2013: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Christopher Barron, Bimal Desai, Bevin Durant, Ellen Gerdes, Nathan P. Gibney, Ben Guez, Rachel Haimovich, Jen Hayman, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel

Scott Perkins, “The Stolen Child”
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Three Shakespeare Songs
Josquin des Prez, “Nymphes des bois”
Thomas Greaves, “Come away, sweet love”
Maurice Ravel, Trois chansons
Sarah Hopkins, “Past Life Melodies”
György Orbán, “Daemon irrepit callidus”
Ola Gjeilo, “Unicornis captivatur”

Notes on the Program
The spectrum of earthly superstitions and otherworldly beliefs is wide and varied, peopled with strange beasts and stranger mysteries, but it is an enduring presence in human understanding of the world—or worlds—around us. Today’s program illustrates some of the hypotheticals on that spectrum. That this repertoire comes from such a broad span of time and space—we feature texts and composers from nine centuries and three continents––underscores the fact that questions of other worlds and other beings are much older and more natural than our own rationality would have us believe. To wonder is uniquely human—much like making music. How appropriate, then, to turn both faculties onto the not-quite-human mysteries that haunt the edges of our consciousness.

The Stolen Child
Generations of myths hold that children are particularly attuned to the otherworldly, and William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Stolen Child” is one of the most beloved and timeless depictions of this notion. There’s no shortage of stories in which malevolent fairies simply kidnap a defenseless human infant, but Yeats, drawing upon the Irish folklore of his childhood, creates instead a scene of deliberate wooing and enchantment, in which the child is invited to “come away” rather than simply snatched. Composer Scott Perkins focuses here on the first three stanzas of the poem, in which the child features only as a listener, not a victim; Perkins’ setting of the poem is the prologue to his larger Yeats-centered work, also called The Stolen Child.

The effect is spookily inviting, with Perkins’ lilting mixed meter adding a furtive undertone to the fairies’ beckoning. The lament that “the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand” recurs with each invitation, with the repeated chromatic descent serving to neatly mirror the fairies’ feigned despair at the state of the human world.

Three Shakespeare Songs
Of course, if one follows the invitation to fairyland, one cannot help but assume that William Shakespeare’s characters are wandering somewhere nearby. Shakespeare’s fairy folk figure most prominently in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written in the mid-1590s at the cusp of his most prolific period, and The Tempest, his last complete work before his death in 1616. In both texts, the supernatural characters inhabit liminal spaces between human civilization and the wilderness; like Yeats’ fairies, Shakespeare’s sprites and nymphs deliberately ensnare the human characters in compromising situations—and then, more nobly, lead them out again.

Appropriately for texts that are at once so famous in British literature and so emblematic of human trials, Ralph Vaughan Williams originally composed his trio of “Shakespeare Songs” for a British choral competition in 1951. That the set was intended to showcase a choir’s technical prowess is clear from the broad range of styles and techniques spanned within the relatively brief pieces. “Full Fathom Five”, taken from a scene in which a survivor of a shipwreck is deliberately separated from his fellows, features undulating wave-like rhythms and haunting dissonance to underscore the sprite Ariel’s deception. The sudden tonality changes and sense of awe in “The Cloud-Capp’d Towers” evoke the composer’s Sixth Symphony, written in 1947; Vaughan Williams frequently explained the symphony’s last movement by referring to the lines that end “The Cloud-Capp’d Towers”: “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” In “Over Hill, Over Dale”, the dissonance from the first movement returns, but more gently: these fairies mean no ill to the other creatures in the woods.

Nymphes des bois
Not all fairytales involve supernatural creatures meddling in human affairs—sometimes, these beings are simply our peers, sharing our joys and sorrows and reflecting our own cares. Such are the titular nymphs in Josquin des Prez’s “Nymphes des bois,” composed to mourn the death of his teacher Johannes Ockeghem. The text, written by fellow composer Jean Molinet, calls upon “nymphs of the woods” and “goddesses of the fountains” to express their sorrow. In a testament to Ockeghem’s legacy, the nymphs are not the only ones who mourn: the text also names several of his students—Josquin included—as having lost their “good father”.

Josquin begins by cleverly mimicking the contrapuntal style for which Ockeghem was most famous. He then structures the piece’s polyphony around the introit chant of the Latin funeral mass—requiem aeternam—and weaves the four composed choral lines around a fifth voice intoning an augmented version of the original chant from the Liber Usualis. Composing a secular work around a sacred chant was common practice in the Renaissance for composers keen to avoid the church censors; listen for the “tenor” line—sung here by two contraltos and a baritone—chanting the sacred Latin farewell.

Come away, sweet love
On quite the other end of the Renaissance spectrum, Thomas Greaves’ approach can be summed up in a single word: frolicking. For a second word, try “flirting”—these nymphs are neither mischievous nor menacing nor melancholy, and their playful skipping provides a charming vessel for Greaves’ polyphony.

Trois chansons
Maurice Ravel’s Trois chansons, for which he wrote both the music and the text, feature unexpected depth and cleverness behind their fantastical subjects. “Nicolette”, the first of the trio, reveals Ravel’s wry, ironic humor: the story seems to rehash the familiar Little Red Riding Hood tale, with poor Nicolette besieged by terrors and temptations from all corners. Nicolette is savvier than Little Red, however—when an old, ugly, incredibly rich suitor comes to call, Nicolette runs straight into his arms. “Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis,” the second movement, offers more insight into Ravel’s non-musical life: it speaks of a beloved who has gone away to war, perhaps never to return, and the Trois chansons were composed in late 1914 and early 1915 just as Ravel himself was preparing to enlist in World War I. The composer’s likely preoccupation with getting news of friends and loved ones at the front may account for the second movement’s dreamlike narrative. Perhaps to avoid lingering for too long on the unpleasant implications evoked in “Trois beaux oiseaux,” Ravel returns to wordplay and silliness in “Ronde,” the third and final movement. Young men and women are warned against ever going near the woods of Ormonde, which are peopled with terrible creatures—or at least, the woods used to be full of terrible creatures, until the local busybodies scared them off.

Past Life Melodies
Sarah Hopkins’ “Past Life Melodies”, composed after the death of her father in the late 1980s, makes far different use of the composer’s inner emotional state. Unlike Ravel’s penchant for wordplay and Josquin’s clever mimicry, Hopkins transmutes her grief into an otherworldly soundscape of overtones and what she calls “heart songs”. The piece is deliberately meditative, inviting introspection and calm in the face of eerie overtones and unexpected, buzzing harmonies.

To achieve this effect, Hopkins draws upon several cultures’ unique musical techniques: the chant melody is inspired by the Aboriginal singing culture in the composer’s native Australia, where she spent eight years studying the musical traditions of the indigenous peoples. The overtone singing or throat-singing––in which two of our most versatile singers manage to sing two notes at once by manipulating the natural resonance of their voices—is a technique perfected by the seminomadic herders of Tuva, in southern Siberia, where throat-singing is revered for its ability to sound like a musical version of natural sounds like wind and water. Still, Hopkins’ interest in throat-singing may also stem from her experience in Australian music, as the technique also closely mimics the sound of a digeridoo.

Daemon irrepit callidus
For all the eeriness that “Past Life Melodies” evokes, it never sounds explicitly threatening, and even Ravel’s much-feared hobgoblins and ogres turn out to be little more than village lore. Not so the titular devil in György Orbán’s “Daemon irrepit callidus”—this ninety-second piece offers more perceived danger than the rest of the program combined. There are no nosy villagers to intervene, either: one must simply stand fast against the Devil’s temptations in order to remain worthy of the heart—and therefore the love and salvation—of Jesus.

The Christian text is the work of the Goliards, a secret band of clergy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries who dared to mock and question the contradictions and excesses of the Catholic Church. Their most famous output, the sex- and drinking-crazed texts that became Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, is openly blasphemous and lewd. “Daemon irrepit callidus” shows more restraint but maintains the Goliards’ typical honesty in its description of the torments of temptation.

Orbán, a contemporary Transylvanian-born Hungarian composer, evokes those torments fully in his treatment of the text. The jarring chromatic lines that signaled weeping in Perkins’ “The Stolen Child” here serve as an unnerving reminder of the constant slow creep of temptation, while an unexpected hint of a waltz rhythm underlines the insidious nature of the Devil’s efforts, which go so far as to feature “trickery / amidst praise, song, and dance.”

Unicornis captivatur
We close with Ola Gjeilo’s “Unicornis captivatur”, another example of a contemporary composer taking inspiration from a medieval text. Gjeilo (pronounced “yay-lo”) is a U.S.-based Norwegian composer and pianist; although many of his choral works use standard liturgical texts, “Unicornis captivatur” has a more colorful narrative. The poem, which features wondrous beasts and more-wondrous resurrections to illustrate the story of Christ, comes from the Engelberg Codex, a late-medieval manuscript from a Benedictine abbey in Engelberg, Switzerland.

Gjeilo’s investment in the awe and wonder expressed by the allegorical text is clear in his joyous, almost dance-like treatment of the “alleluia” refrain. This madrigalian spriteliness contrasts nicely with the chorale-like figures in the verses, which bloom to seemingly inveitable progressions while retaining a rich and warm harmonic texture.


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Nov
4
2012-2013

Sing, Muse!

Sing, Muse!


November 4, 2012: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Christopher Barron, Bimal Desai, Bevin Durant, Ellen Gerdes, Nathan P. Gibney, Ben Guez, Rachel Haimovich, Jen Hayman, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Caroline Winschel

Part I. Seeking Out Wisdom
Williametta Spencer, “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”
Benjamin Britten, Hymn to St. Cecilia
John Tavener, “The Lamb”

Part II. Struck By Genius
Anton Bruckner, “Os justi”
Eric Whitacre, “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine”
Olivier Messiaen, “O sacrum convivium!”

Part III. Stumbling On Inspiration
Daniel Goldschmidt, “Haiku By Basho”
Veljo Tormis, “Helletused”
Malcolm Dalglish, “Great Trees”

Notes on the Program
We’ve all heard the arguments: Creativity is an organic process, not to be rushed or forced. Genius can’t be prodded. Inspiration and respiration are etymological siblings, so the one should be as simple and effortless as the other.

This is a dangerous line of thinking. It suggests that the process of creativity should somehow be a smooth one, that an aha! moment will always arrive on schedule and that an artist will then have all the information she needs to move forward.

Today’s program teaches us differently. These visions of the creative process reveal that artists can’t rely solely on unpredictable flashes of inspiration; creativity is a muscle, and it must be exercised. Creative work is hard work—there’s little else as revealing and as nerve-wracking as trying to be innovative by oneself—and it demands regular effort and steely-eyed determination. It often requires stretching. Sometimes it even hurts.

At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners
With that in mind, we begin with a plea for wisdom gone dangerously wrong: Williametta Spencer’s “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners”, using John Donne’s seventh Holy Sonnet as its text, asks God and all the angels to call forth Judgment Day and finally separate the sinners from the saved. The piece begins with the singers deployed as if in a trumpet fanfare, ringing out open fifths to reach the four imagined corners of the world. This brashness is tempered as Donne’s speaker begins to realize the enormity of what he has invoked, with the singers reverting to chant-like simplicity as the implications of the speaker’s request becomes clear.

The startlingly triumphal ending underscores the twist Donne deploys halfway through the poem, when the speaker concludes that what he seeks isn’t the last judgment—it’s redemption for his own sins. Even in that awareness, however, he falls short: in petitioning God for salvation, the speaker realizes that the absolution he wants took place centuries ago on a cross in Calvary, and his own sacrifice pales in comparison.

Hymn to St. Cecilia
That kind of unsought self-awareness strikes even more keenly in Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, which also features a plea to the heavens. In this case, however, the plea is directed to St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and what she delivers is not universal judgment but intimate critique.

Although Britten’s interest in St. Cecilia follows a rich tradition of English composers writing odes in her honor, he did not use one of the traditional Latin writings on the saint. Instead, his friend and frequent collaborator W. H. Auden wrote a Cecilian text expressly for Britten’s use.

The piece includes a number of the conventions established by earlier St. Cecilia odes: a hymn-like plea to the muse serves as a kind of refrain, and the third movement features invocations of several different musical instruments. But the arc of the poem itself hits a far more personal note. Though couched in imagery of inspiration and music-making, Auden’s text fiercely criticizes the young composer for his seeming unwillingness to accept and nurture his own sexuality along with his creativity. The message failed in its intended effect—Britten never returned Auden’s romantic interest, and their working partnership ended with this piece—but the images of corruption and purity raised in Hymn to St. Cecilia would color Britten’s work for decades to come.

The Lamb
John Tavener’s “The Lamb,” set to the poem of the same name by William Blake, continues this imagery of otherworldly wisdom being delivered to an innocent. Appropriately for such a wholesome piece, “The Lamb” was written in a single afternoon—Tavener has said that the piece came to him “fully grown”—and dedicated to the composer’s nephew for his third birthday.

The ease and simplicity of the piece’s composition are reflected in its structure, which relies heavily on retrograde and inversion to embellish an otherwise-plain melody. “The Lamb” opens simply, but as the poem’s narrator begins unpacking the comparisons between a lamb and the Christ child, the women’s parts invert, moving in different directions but using the same intervals. The effect is eerie, as if the voices were mirror-images of one another—appropriate for a moment when the speaker serves as a mirror for the lamb itself. This mirror-like effect recurs later in the piece when Tavener employs retrograde, causing each choral part to suddenly retrace—backwards—the notes it has just sung.

As the piece unfolds, the singers are kept at a restrained intensity, with each voice part spanning less than an octave in range. The use of unison and the repeated return to a familiar tonality reinforces the lullabye-like simplicity of the poem: an unassuming question with a tremendous answer.

Os justi
It comes as no surprise that so many of these pleas for wisdom and inspiration address the heavens—when mortal efforts fail, where better to look?—but it is interesting that so many of these pleas are met with disquieting or unexpected results. Unlike the Spencer and the Britten, however, Anton Bruckner’s “Os justi” suggests that in some cases, the wisdom of heaven is soothing and reassuring.

Composed in 1879, “Os justi” reflects the conflicting sensibilities present among musicians in nineteenth-century Europe. Bruckner is justly famous for his place in the Romantic pantheon, and he was revered by his contemporaries—Gustav Mahler among them—for his lush, monumental symphonies and his virtuosic organ improvisation. Bruckner’s choral output is less famous but equally significant; he wrote more than thirty motets, each one testifying to his strong Roman Catholic faith and incorporating the long, chant-like phrases of Renaissance composers.

Forward-looking in its use of sweeping melodic lines and sumptuous harmonies, “Os justi” is also anchored in the music of centuries past. Tellingly, Bruckner dedicated the piece to the music director at the school where he taught; the director was an ardent admirer of Palestrina and other early composers, which may explain Bruckner’s inclusion of a plainchant Alleluia at the end of the piece. Given that the psalm Bruckner used speaks of a believer who is steady in his understanding, this final return to such a familiar and accessible musical form seems especially fitting.

Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
No such comfort is accorded by Eric Whitacre’s “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine”—where Bruckner’s subject was soothed by his convictions, Whitacre’s depiction of Leonardo da Vinci reveals an inventor tormented as much by his talent as by his curiosity.

Whitacre and his longtime collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri approached the piece as if writing a short opera, with Silvestri piecing together a libretto from both his own poetry and da Vinci’s writings. The result is a striking and dramatic narrative: we follow da Vinci as his fitful sleep is interrupted by visions of flight (and falling), as he wrestles his ideas into concrete plans, and as he finally ascends the highest tower, completed flying machine in tow, and prepares himself to leap either to his glory or to his death.

Musically, Whitacre begins with the singers deployed as if in a Greek chorus, commenting on the inventor’s anguish without inhabiting it. As the drama grows, however, the choir becomes more integral to da Vinci’s frenzy: we hear the imagined siren call of the winds themselves, beckoning da Vinci to fly; the achingly effortless ascent of the pigeons whose wings da Vinci studies for new ideas; and finally, the whooshing, clacking takeoff of the flying machine itself. Its creation may have been torment—but its creator can fly.

O sacrum convivium!
The tension between the anguish of learning and the wonder of understanding is explored to very different effect in Olivier Messiaen’s “O sacrum convivium!” Messiaen’s deeply held Catholicism comes to the fore in his setting of a liturgical text honoring the Communion ritual; as in Bruckner’s “Os justi”, Messiaen’s choice of text suggests a certain peace and calm that comes with having made a deliberate and personal commitment to a faith.

Unlike Bruckner, however, Messiaen’s setting serves to challenge us as much as to inspire us. The complexity of the harmonic structure reminds us that Messiaen drew from varied and unusual sources for his inspiration; by 1937, when “O sacrum convivium!” was written, he’d become fascinated with Asian musical traditions and electronic music while still making his living as a virtuoso organist. Playing on this duality, “O sacrum convivium!” feels almost jazzy in its harmonies, bringing an unexpected sense of modernity to the sacred Communion ritual.

Haiku By Basho
Of course, many of us don’t ever experience the extremes of anguish or rapture depicted in these visions of heavenly or otherworldly inspiration. Our daily lives are no less thoughtful and creative for the lack of these celestial forces, and we find beauty and inspiration in mindfulness rather than in genius. Such discoveries are often all the sweeter for being so unexpected; seeing or understanding something in a new way is just as transforming as receiving a thunderbolt from the gods.

Daniel Goldschmidt’s “Haiku By Basho” offers just this kind of gentle stimulation, pairing lilting choral lines with texts by Matsuo Basho, who is commonly recognized as the greatest master of haiku. Indeed, the traditional haiku form seems especially appropriate for these musings on quotidian beauty: although many of us remember our elementary-school lessons on haiku’s strict rhythmic structure, these poems are more defined by the ways in which they each juxtapose two competing or seemingly unrelated themes and ideas. Haiku generally also have clear seasonal references, anchoring them in the daily and recognizable life of the writer.

The three used here serve as eloquent exemplars of their poetic form. Basho—who was constantly attuned to the poetry of his daily life, taking his pseudonym from the banana tree outside his hut—offers a wry, mournful depiction of the changing seasons, and Goldschmidt’s settings serve to embellish the unassuming beauty of the text. We are transported even as we recognize Basho and Goldschmidt’s understanding as our own.

Helletused
Veljo Tormis, a contemporary Estonian composer, may be himself the master of the balance between familiarity and otherworldliness. Keenly attentive to the importance of folksong in Estonian culture, Tormis has frequently explained his work by averring, “I do not use folksong. It is folk music that uses me.” He serves as a kind of medium for his country’s folk traditions, channeling the tunes that his people preserved during generations of Soviet occupation into spellbinding modern constructions.

“Helletused,” which means “childhood memory,” bridges that gap precisely. Like many Tormis pieces, it draws simultaneously on several elements of Estonian heritage. The “childhood memory” to which Tormis refers is in fact a national one: in rural Estonia, school-age children share the responsibilities of tending to their families’ livestock, and each family develops an unique call with which to herd their animals. Because the calls differ by family, the children use their calls not just to control cattle and sheep but also to howdy their friends in distant pastures.

Although many in Estonia would recognize this tenet of herding culture, “Helletused” is also keyed to a very particular childhood memory, that of Aino Tamm (1864–1945). Tamm was the first professional singer in Estonia, and like many of her generation, she learned traditional herding calls and folksongs in childhood. The first call in the largely wordless “Helletused”—“alleaa”—is one of Tamm’s own calls from her youth. This motif is particularly famous in Estonian folk music, as it first appeared in “Lauliku lapsepõli,” or “The Singer’s Childhood,” a beloved folksong setting that was composed for Tamm by Miina Harma (1864–1941), the country’s first professional composer. Tormis brings this connection of inspiration and collaboration full circle by quoting the first line of “Lauliku lapsepõli” in “Helletused”; amid the frenzied call-and-response riffing of the two soprano soloists, a quartet interjects with the only text in the piece: “Kui ma olin väiksekene” (“When I was a little one”). As Harma’s piece details how a singer learned songs and words from the natural world around her, we may intuit that Tormis finds similar inspiration not only in his country’s folk traditions but also in the creative work done by his predecessors.

Great Trees
That reverence for the beauty we can find in ourselves and in our own lives serves as the ultimate counterpart to the anguished search for inspiration we saw earlier. Malcolm Dalglish’s “Great Trees,” set to the poem of the same title by Wendell Berry, sums up that contentment nicely. Excerpted from Dalglish’s larger work The Hymnody of Earth, “Great Trees” reveals Dalglish’s appreciation for American musical traditions, using folksy, bright harmonies and nuanced, lilting rhythms.

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 untrammeled woods.

Dalglish leaves us in a contemplative, inviting space—perhaps just the atmosphere that might best nourish our own creativity. The prospect seems less daunting, somehow, after witnessing the trials and triumphs on display in this repertoire; knowing that inspiration and invention require just as much sweat as they do genius—thank you, Thomas Edison—makes it easier for us to exercise those underused creative muscles.

If what we create is as much a product of our will and our intellect as of fleeting moments of inspiration, then no, inspiration will never be as effortless as respiration. It shouldn’t be. We sing today of poets and believers, inventors and pioneers, and we recognize that none of these compositions would have been improved by having been easier for their composers.

The last phrase of “Great Trees” speaks to this marriage of genius and effort, bringing invited beauty before an attentive audience: “O light come down to earth, be praised!” In giving voice to this music, we are praising these composers while also taking part in their creative processes; by interacting with their art—either by performing it or by experiencing its performance—we become the final element in this cycle of inspiration and fulfillment. Here, finally, we find a true link between inspiration and respiration: breathe deep, friends. It’s time to sing.


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May
6
2011-2012

Songs to the Midnight Sun

Songs to the Midnight Sun

May 6, 2012: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Christopher Barron, Bimal Desai, Ellen Gerdes, Rachel Haimovich, Ranwa Hammamy, Jen Hayman, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Ken Olin, Jordan Rock, Dan Widyono, Joy Wiltenburg, Caroline Winschel, Rick Womer

Lähtö, Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–)

Sommarpsalm, Waldemar Åhlén (1894–1982)

I am the great sun, Jussi Chydenius (1972–)

O nata lux, Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585)

O nata lux, Morten Lauridsen (1943–)

Hail, gladdening light, Charles Wood (1866–1926)

Draw on sweet night, John Wilbye (1574–1638)

Syngur sumarregn, Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir (1964–)

With a Lily in Your Hand, Eric Whitacre (1957–)

On suuri sun rantas’ autius, traditional Finnish, arr. Matti Hyökki

Sügismaastikud, Veljo Tormis (1930–)

       1. On hilissuvi  

       2. Üle taeva jooksevad pilved  

       3. Kahvatu valgus  

       4. Valusalt punased lehed

       5. Tuul kõnnumaa kohal

       6. Külm sügisöö

       7. Kanarbik

My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land, Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

A confession: when we started working on this program, we didn’t have a clear sense of what we meant by “northern.” Thinking about northern music in itself was difficult—without looking at today’s repertoire, how many northern composers can you name besides Sibelius?—but the idea of building a concert program around such a geographically and linguistically distant region felt audacious. We couldn’t even speak about our cultural impressions of the Far North without relying on what felt like reductive and contradictory stereotypes: reindeer on the tundra, the Muppets’ Swedish Chef, Björk in her swan dress, Ikea.

   In a way, the arc of tonight’s program reflects that early uncertainty. As outsiders, we couldn’t easily parse the Nordic countries’ progression from clans of medieval Vikings to today’s incredibly community-minded social welfare policies, and the shifting intricacies of separate-but-related languages, indigenous cultures, and national loyalties threatened to overwhelm. Stepping outward, we realized that much of our hesitation stemmed from simply feeling daunted by the very alien geography with which we were reckoning: we couldn’t conceive of life in a place that felt so defined by its extreme weather, by its active volcanoes, by its almost-unbroken winter darkness and almost-unceasing summer light.

   By taking those two extremes—winter darkness and summer light—we were able to begin imagining the rhythms of a place that so dramatically diverged from the cycles of our own days. Even as we were reveling in Philadelphia’s early spring, we imagined that the very pace of life—and of change, and of love, and of worship—must feel different during the ever-brighter days of the Far North’s spring and summer, and we knew that the music we sought would reflect this unmoored feeling. We expected, too, that absent the tremendous church-commissioned choral canon of the rest of Europe, the music of the north would feel different in our ears and voices, perhaps bound more to its ancient land than to the relatively recent arrival of the Christian faith. Knowing only that we would be immersing ourselves in foreign and unusual sounds, we started our rehearsals hoping for an adventure—and we weren’t disappointed.

 

Lähtö

   We begin with Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Lähtö,” which perfectly captures the venturesome feeling of setting off for places unknown. Like all Finnish composers, Rautavaara works in Jean Sibelius’ long shadow—indeed, he studied and later taught at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki—but here brings in echoes of other musical traditions. In “Lähtö,” we are urged onwards by the constant percussive gallop underlying the melody. The melody itself makes use of a Middle Eastern-sounding alteration between the natural and lowered second, creating a tenuous balance between major and minor tonality and hinting at the exotic and far-off promise of the narrator’s destination.

 

Sommarpsalm

   “Sommarpsalm,” by contrast, brings us a wonderfully familiar sound and sentiment, celebrating the coming of summer in Waldemar Åhlén’s beautiful setting of a Swedish folk hymn. Although the Nordic countries have been largely Christian since the early middle ages, this kind of conventional-sounding hymn setting is more the exception to their sacred music than the rule. Åhlén, however, an accomplished organist and church music director, resisted the twentieth century’s focus on modern techniques and instead favored the warm, traditional sounds of English-inspired hymnody.

 

I am the great sun

   Like Åhlén and Rautavaara, Jussi Chydenius’ “I am the great sun” takes inspiration from far-flung traditions: the text, by Cornish poet Charles Causley, was based on a seventeenth-century stone crucifix in Normandy, which was engraved with what became the first line of the poem; and the unearthly drone and eerie overtones with which the piece begin come from the throat-singing practiced by the Tuvans of southern Siberia. For all its exoticism and piety, the piece’s slow build-up is almost reminiscent of a pop song; appropriately enough, Chydenius is perhaps most famous for his work in the Finnish a cappella ensemble Rajaton.

 

O nata lux

   Chydenius’ unorthodox setting of a sacred text brings us neatly to a trio of non-northern sacred pieces that nonetheless complement the sounds we hear from these northern composers. The use of light as a metaphor for Christ is a familiar trope in all Western cultures, and it becomes all the more powerful when we consider the season-long darkness endured by those in the northernmost latitudes. We turn first to Thomas Tallis’ setting of “O nata lux,” published in 1575 in the Cantiones Sacrae, a joint venture with William Byrd and one of the first sets of sacred music printed in England. Although Tallis and Byrd were both staunch Vikings Catholics, Queen Elizabeth I granted them a twenty-one-year monopoly on polyphony and on printing choral music. Despite this royal dispensation, “O nata lux” makes conservative use of polyphony; its simplicity both reinforces the text’s plea for communion and hearkens to the unembellished clarity of true northern music.

 

O nata lux

   Morten Lauridsen’s take on “O nata lux,” on the other hand, is thick with individual melodies, with each of the four voice parts spiraling out of one another as they leapfrog through Lauridsen’s signature dense chords. Although Lauridsen’s “O nata lux” is as clearly sacred as Tallis’, the freedom of the tempo allows the piece to feel far more intimate and organic than what we traditionally think of as church music. Some of this may be attributed to Lauridsen’s unusually secluded compositional practice: since 1975, the composer has spent his summers alone on a remote island in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State, composing on a fifty-dollar piano inside a rebuilt general store.

 

Hail, gladdening light

   As we can hear from its warm Anglican sound, Charles Wood’s anthem “Hail, gladdening light” was likely not composed on an uninhabited island or a cheap piano. Indeed, this piece’s polychoral structure hearkens to the late sixteenth century, when Tallis’ contemporaries—many of them working in cathedrals that had multiple discrete choir lofts––refined the antiphonal style of individual choirs singing alternating phrases. For all his reliance on this centuries-old tradition, Wood, an Irish composer and organist, has much in common sonically with his teachers Charles Viliers Stanford and Charles Hastings Parry and his students Ralph Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells; “Hail, gladdening light,” a traditional evensong hymn, makes use of a broad range of textures and dynamics and two soaring soprano lines to evoke the majesty of god.

 

Draw on sweet night

   Because “Hail, gladdening light” anticipates the “sun’s hour of rest,” it seems a natural segue to contemplating night as a respite from the northern summer’s near-constant sunlight, and John Wilbye’s “Draw on sweet night,” published in 1609, yearns for nightfall as time of refuge and catharsis. By the time of Wilbye’s flourishing at the turn of the sixteenth century, Tallis and Byrd’s monopoly on polyphony had expired, and we hear Wilbye’s mastery of the new style quite clearly in “Draw on sweet night.” Wilbye is also renowned as one of the best-known English madrigalists, and his keen sense of the text and careful use of “false relations” between major and minor modes are especially evident here.

 

Syngur sumarregn

   Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir, a contemporary Icelandic composer, seems especially well qualified to testify to the soothing qualities of the fleeting summer night, and like Wilbye, Rúnarsdóttir focuses on the intimate calm of nightfall. We hear here one of our favorite attributes of northern music, as the piece doesn’t quite settle on a tonal center; in “Syngur sumarregn,” that quality adds to the organic feeling of listening to a brief summer rainstorm. The repeated dissonant chords in the choral parts evoke the shadow of gathering stormclouds, and the soloist and choir only transition to a cheerful-sounding major chord when the nighttime sun breaks through the gloom in the last verse.

 

With a Lily in Your Hand

   Eric Whitacre’s “With a Lily in Your Hand” also illuminates an intimate moment in night’s darkness, but this piece has none of the calm reflection we heard in “Draw on sweet night” and “Syngur sumarregn.” In fact, the piece is a bit of a departure even for Whitacre: known especially for his use of dense, luxurious chords, the composer here makes use of insistent, jarring rhythms interspersed with wrenching, electric harmonies. Such anguished chords do well to illustrate the piece’s text, in which the poem’s narrator is determined to return to his lover despite the obstructions of space and time; intrigued as we are by notions of cultures drifting and changing over centuries, the poet’s willingness to admit to such obstructions feels refreshing.

 

On suuri sun rantas’ autius

   Indeed, the notion of planning a return to a cherished place—or a cherished person—despite a long absence recurs frequently in this northern repertoire. “On suuri sun rantas’ autius” is one of our favorite such folksongs; in this arrangement by Matti Hyökki, we especially like the warmth with which the choral voices envelop the melody line. Like a great deal of northern music, “On suuri sun rantas’ autius” centers around open fifths—rather than the major and minor triads that are more traditional in other European repertoire—and travels through more dissonance than we might expect before settling into its final chords. Despite such surprising  melodic structure, however, this piece speaks to us as viscerally as any Western folksong.

 

Sügismaastikud

   Veljo Tormis’ Sügismaastikud, or Autumn Landscapes, is a particularly dazzling and heartfelt depiction of the effects of time and distance on a well-loved place. Although less internationally famous than his countryman—and former pupil—Arvo Pärt, Tormis is certainly Estonia’s most famous composer, personally responsible for reviving and preserving the country’s significant culture of folksongs and public singing. Sügismaastikud is the rare Tormis piece that doesn’t contain actual fragments of folksong, but instead—coupled with the poetry of Viivi Luik, written when she was eighteen—it offers a privileged glimpse at the fleeting and ephemeral beauty of the Estonian countryside.

   Tormis’ interest in folksong underlies his tendency to create unadorned and clear choral works: though technically polyphonic, for instance, Sügismaastikud rarely pits one voicepart against another, instead highlighting the moving lines in one part with shimmering sustained chords in the others. As we heard in “Syngur sumarregn,” those chords rarely seem to easily settle into an identifiable tonality, remaining slightly unmoored from what we expect to hear even as they create beautiful and singable melodies. This organic quality pervades most of Tormis’ work, and it is rarely more evident than in “Tuul kõnnumaa kohal,” the fifth movement: the women’s voices move in carefully controlled parallel motion, but their precision culminates in the eerie sound of wind over the barren fields. Such careful use of text painting occurs regularly in Sügismaastikud, and we can hear not only the glissandi of rushing winds but also the atonal staccato of falling autumn leaves and the cascading melody of racing clouds on a windy day.

   Given our own interest in charting the passage of time in these high northern latitudes, we are understandably drawn to Luik’s delicate, frank poetry. Her awareness of loss—noting, for instance, that “this same summer / will ne’er return here”––seems far too knowledgeable for a teenager; one wonders just what a young woman in Soviet-occupied Estonia would have seen and understood to have been so clear-eyed so young. At the same time, we marvel at how eloquently she captures the cyclical nature of time and experience, as when she discovers the controlled burn of moorland heather replacing the glow of late-afternoon autumn sunlight. The piece ends with an unfinished feeling: as the heather blazes in the growing dark, the final chord swells past consonance—employing here strategically deployed sopranos to replicate the natural overtones we heard earlier––and we are reminded that the landscape and our place in it never stop changing.

 

My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land

   In a more Romantic mood, we conclude with Edward Elgar’s tone poem on the same theme. “My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land” takes its text from Scottish poet Andrew Lang, and the delicacy of Elgar’s setting complements the clarity we heard in Tormis. As with Luik’s text, our awareness here is not simply of the beauty of the northern landscape but also of the perfidy that landscape commits when it does not respond to our own suffering or growth. Although that betrayal—and our own mortality—comes as the concluding shock of the piece, Elgar focuses most of his energies on the unhurried evolution of the “northern land” itself, wistfully underscoring our fleeting presence in comparison with its verdant permanence.

 

Just as we had hoped, this sun-soaked northern music takes us through an unfamiliar geography, one in which the landscape exerts its pull over us with far more delicate tools than snow and ice. We find an electric, haunting quality in this repertoire, and even as its striking tonality unsettles us, it reels us in. The latitude and the weather and the vowel combinations of the Far North may yet be foreign and unpredictable, but these sounds have become our own.

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