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.

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.

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.

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.