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.