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.