The Passing of the Year
April 29, 2023
Michael Blaakman, Sonja Bontrager, Alan Bush, Sam Duplessis, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Matt Hall, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Kevin Kelso, Elissa Kranzler, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, Rebekah Reddi, Julie Reust, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Kevin Vondrak, Ben Willis, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman
Ross Lee Finney, “Prologue (Love is a Circle)” from Spherical Madrigals
Jonathan Dove, The Passing of the Year:
I. Invocation
Spring
Dove, II. The narrow bud opens her beauties to the sun
Gerald Finzi, “I have loved flowers that fade” and “My spirit sang all day” from 7 Partsongs, Op. 17
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, “Stemning,” “I Fyrreskogen,” and “Vesleblomme” from 8 Sånger, Op. 11
Summer
Dove, III. Answer July
Dove, IV. Hot sun, cool fire
Carlo Gesualdo, “Hai rotto e sciolto e spente,” “In più leggiadro velo,” “All’apparir di quelle luci ardenti”
Autumn
Dove, V. Ah, Sun-flower!
Daniel Goldschmidt, Haiku by Bashō
David Del Tredici, “Acrostic Song”
Winter
Dove, VI. Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss!
Heinrich Schütz, “Selig sind die Toten”
Robert L. Pearsall, “Lay a Garland”
Dove, VII. Ring out, wild bells
Notes on the Program
Every year, and every life, holds the promise of the next, and is only possible because of the one before it.
Cycles! We musicians are suckers for them, and getting to base an entire concert program around one big cycle is like biting into a ripe, juicy–and yes, round–peach. What a joy it has been, not only to sing Jonathan Dove’s The Passing of the Year, but also to crack it wide open and discover what meaning we can make out of each of its parts.
The seed of this program—the idea of spreading Dove’s composition for double chorus and piano across an entire concert, with a cappella responses to each of its themes—was planted years ago. We had finalized a similar program and planned to sing it in our 2020–2021 season, which of course never happened. Planning our return to singing together this season allowed us the chance to reexamine this program and explore some deeper meaning in Dove’s composition.
At face value, Dove’s piece is based on the cycle of the seasons. Astonishingly, it wasn’t until after he’d finished his composition in 2000 that he realized each part of his piece represented a stage in a person’s life cycle. After realizing this, he dedicated The Passing of the Year to the memory of his mother, who died when the composer was only twenty years old.
The subtle way life echoes the seasons is largely the basis for our a cappella responses by other composers, which take on moods of their own as follows:
Spring : Budding Love
Summer : Lust All-Consuming
Autumn : Reckoning With Mortality
Winter : Rebirth and Renewal
Read on to find more of our thoughts on each movement, and each response.
Prologue (Love is a Circle)
The music for this Prologue is printed only on the cover of Finney’s Spherical Madrigals, and it is often not even performed with the rest of his piece. Sung as a round, we found it to be the fitting introduction to a concert about the cyclical nature of life, love, and the year.
Love is a circle that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of love.
–Text from Hesperides (1648) by Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
The Passing of the Year
Invocation
Dove’s song cycle opens with a strong, polyrhythmic pulse in the piano and minimalist harmonic figures sung by the choir, typical of much of his writing for voice and keyboard. This brief invocation for the earth to return to life places us in media res, a reminder that cycles have no beginning or end.
O Earth, O Earth, return!
–Text from Songs of Experience (1794) by William Blake (1757–1827)
The narrow bud opens her beauties to the sun
The second movement views springtime, and its transition into summer, through the life of flowers—which will become an important theme throughout Dove’s piece. Both the poem and Dove’s setting begin rather shyly, with the opening melodic figure sung by a single voice, the choir almost murmuring in reply. And as flowers also tend to do, the music blooms gradually into an almost rapturous crescendo, culminating in Dove’s editorial addition of the first lines of the English rota Sumer is icumen in, sung by the choir in a lush canon. The Middle English text signals the seasons’ transition, meaning “Summer has arrived, loudly sing, cuckoo!”
The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.
The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.
–Text from To Autumn (1783) by William Blake (1757–1827)
Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Selections from 7 Partsongs, Op. 17
Gerald Finzi’s two lyrical settings here offer complementary reflections on the budding love in Blake’s poem above. As we admire flowers knowing they will fade, we fall in love in the face of inevitable death. But we love anyway, and fully, and take joy in it.
I have loved flowers that fade
I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight,-
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour:-
My song be like a flower!
I have loved airs, that die
Before their charm is writ
Along a liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it.
Notes, that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere:-
My song be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath,
And wither as a bloom:
Fear not a flowery death,
Dread not an airy tomb!
Fly with delight, fly hence!
'Twas thine love's tender sense
To feast; now on thy bier
Beauty shall shed a tear.
My spirit sang all day
My spirit sang all day
O my joy.
Nothing my tongue could say,
Only My joy!
My heart an echo caught
O my joy
And spake,
Tell me thy thought,
Hide not thy joy.
My eyes gan peer around,
O my joy
What beauty hast thou found?
Shew us thy joy.
My jealous ears grew whist;
O my joy
Music from heaven is't,
Sent for our joy?
She also came and heard;
O my joy,
What, said she, is this word?
What is thy joy?
And I replied,
O see, O my joy,
'Tis thee, I cried, 'tis thee:
Thou art my joy.
–Texts by Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930)
Selections from 8 Sånger, Op. 11
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger is a Swedish composer whose music is frequently performed in Scandinavia, but who is new to us. The Wikipedia article about him suggests that “his command of the larger [musical] forms, in both architecture and instrumentation, is disputed.” Harsh! But these simple choral settings are undisputedly charming, and they complete our look at springtime with more poetry that frames love within the natural world.
Stemning
All the growing shadows
Have woven themselves into one.
High in the vault of the heavens
A lone star shines pure as the sun.
The clouds have such heavy dreams,
The eyes of the flowers swim in dew’s tears,
Strange evening breezes
Sigh in the linden.
–Text from Alle de voksende Skygger by Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885)
I Furuskogen
There's a purity in your air,
a witchcraft in the wild scent.
which flows through the pine forest,
where the brook dances, happy and free,
and the river slips silently, so silently by
in deep serious dreams.
–Text by Helena Nyblom (1843–1926)
Vesleblomme
Littleflower, wildflower, now hear me out:
And if you want to be my darling, I give unto you,
a robe so fine with velvet and gold and full of pearls.
Ditteli, dutteli, deya, heya!
And the sun is shining on, heya!
Golden queen, meadow queen, now hear me out:
I do not want to be your darling,
I do not want the robe so fine with velvet and gold and full of pearls.
–Text from Synnøve Solbakken by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910)
The Passing of the Year
III. Answer July
Instead of focusing on one season, this movement imagines a dialogue between the personified seasons, where each insists that it can only be fully realized as a result of the one before it. Dove returns to rhythmic pulsation in the piano to underscore the playful insistence in Dickinson’s poem.
Answer July -
Where is the Bee -
Where is the Blush -
Where is the Hay?
Ah, said July -
Where is the Seed -
Where is the Bud -
Where is the May -
Answer Thee - Me -
Nay - said the May -
Show me the Snow -
Show me the Bells -
Show me the Jay!
Quibbled the Jay -
Where be the Maize -
Where be the Haze -
Where be the Bur?
Here - said the Year -
–Text by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
IV. Hot sun, cool fire
From the wide-eyed, innocent love of spring, we’ve now moved into the hot and heavy lust of summer. In Peele’s poem, the protagonist warns that they might become completely consumed by the flames of desire unless they are “shrouded and pleased.” Dove conveys the tension and discomfort of such fervent longing through by far the most dissonant harmonies of the whole cycle, with roiling piano accompaniment.
Hot sun, cool fire, temper’d with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me:
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,
Make not my glad cause, cause of [my] mourning.
Let not my beauty’s fire
Enflame unstaid desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wand’reth lightly.
–Text by George Peele (1556–1596)
Madrigals
Classical composers have a reputation for being emotionally tortured, and there was perhaps never one more tortured with guilt, shame, lust, and rage than Carlo Gesualdo. His madrigals are full to the brim with portrayals of lovers who will positively DIE if they don’t have sex. Although these earlier madrigals are not as jarringly chromatic as his later works, they are by no means lacking in the potent tension that their texts demand.
Hai rotto e sciolto e spente
Little by little you have broken and loosed and quenched
the arrow, the bond and the fire,
which stung and held and burned my heart.
O how happy I am, Love,
that now I feel, without pain,
another dart, another flame, another chain.
In più leggiadro velo
In a veil lighter
than the clouds in the heavens
my lady revealed her beautiful face,
when a ray of light descended
and inflamed my eyes and heart.
Love, ah, for in that prick
I know not if my heart was pierced before my eyes.
All’apparir di quelle luci ardenti
When those bright eyes of flame appeared,
the pain that so troubles me
suddenly vanished and turned to joy.
So wound me, Love, burn me and fire your arrows,
if such a small thing can bring me such delight.
The Passing of the Year
V. Ah, Sun-flower!
With our return to floral imagery, we see a late-summer sunflower following the sun’s slow arc across the sky. This is portrayed by Dove in a long, legato arc of melody first heard in the lower voices, then with the whole ensemble in canon, with a sort of perpetual motion in the piano’s pulsating chords. The sunflower views its mortality with the sad understanding that it has no chance for a heavenly afterlife.
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveler’s journey is done:
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
–Text by William Blake (1757–1827)
Haiku by Bashō
Bashō’s evocative poetry perfectly captures the feeling of a natural world losing color, thinning out, and slowing down as it approaches winter, which is portrayed in miniature by Daniel Goldschmidt, whose composition seamlessly shifts between consonance and dissonance.
Along this Road
Along this road
Goes no one
This autumn ev’ning
The Crescent Lights
The crescent lights
The misty ground
Buckwheat flowers
Spring Departs
Spring departs
Birds cry
Fishes’ eyes are full of tears
–Texts by Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
Acrostic Song
In reckoning with mortality, one is naturally inclined to reflect on one’s childhood, cherished but lost to time. In this haunting poem by Lewis Carroll, the children who first heard the story of Alice in Wonderland have grown, leaving the warmth of their childhood behind. Other children may come to hear the dreamlike tale, but their childhood, too, will die. Del Tredici’s opening folk-like melody morphs in unsettling ways to convey the message of this poem, with an eerie whisper chorus reminding us that even the fantastical story of Alice in Wonderland may have had a real-life–and now long-gone–inspiration in Alice Pleasance Liddell (though Carroll always denied this connection), whose name is spelled in the titular acrostic, using the first letter in each line of the poem. Considering the poem’s message, we find it particularly poignant that soprano soloist Amy Hochstetler is joined here by two of her three children as our whisper chorus.
A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
–Text by Lewis Carroll (1832–1898)
The Passing of the Year
VI. Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss!
The inevitability of death has come to the fore in this poem, written at a time when Nashe’s London was ravaged by the bubonic plague, with the thread of floral imagery followed to its natural conclusion of withering and decay. Dove’s funereal setting is especially bleak in having left out the final, redemptive stanza of Nashe’s original poem. The repeated plea for mercy, traded between the two choirs, remains unanswered.
Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss!
This world uncertain is:
Fond are life’s lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die –
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade;
All things to end are made;
The plague full swift goes by:
I am sick, I must die –
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour:
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair
Dust hath closed Helen’s eye:
I am sick, I must die –
Lord, have mercy on us!
–Text by Thomas Nashe (1567–1601)
Selig sind die Toten
With no redemptive end to Nashe’s poem above, we are left to find our own redemption, and what better way than in the passionate polyphony of Heinrich Schütz? This full-hearted setting is one of our favorites, offering a joyous vision of salvation and promise.
Blessed are the departed,
that die in the Lord
from now on.
Yea, the Spirit speaks:
they rest from their labors
and their works follow them.
Lay a Garland
After the dead find redemption, it only remains for those left behind to grieve. In this poem, we are called to mourn a young woman, dead before her time owing to the betrayal of her “false, ”or unfaithful, lover. Though Pearsall lived in the nineteenth century, his composition shows a clear affinity for Renaissance polyphony, and this famous setting forms a fitting pair with the Schütz.
Lay a garland on her hearse
of dismal yew.
Maidens, willow branches wear,
say she died true.
Her love was false, but she was firm
Upon her buried body lie
lightly, thou gentle earth.
–Text from The Maid’s Tragedy (1619) by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
The Passing of the Year
VII. Ring out, wild bells
Though Dove’s piece has to end, our cycle finds a satisfying conclusion in looking forward to renewal. The final movement begins with a recapitulation of the opening invocation for life to once again return to Earth after the long sleep of winter. This leads directly into a return of rhythmic pulsing in the piano, interrupted by bell-like figures in both hands. The voices take it in turn to mimic bells as well, with much of the melodic content of this movement based on the Whittington clock chime. Tennyson’s poem is another sort of invocation, a plea for the bells of the new year (and new life) to shake loose the petty struggles and greed of mortal life and welcome in the peace and truth of rebirth.
O Earth, O Earth, return!
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the time;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
–Text by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
Notes by Jordan Rock