Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus Carlos Kalmar, Principal Conductor

Transcription

1 Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus Carlos Kalmar, Principal Conductor Christopher Bell, Chorus Director Britten War Requiem Friday, June 28, 2013 at 6:30PM Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 7:30PM Jay Pritzker Pavilion Grant Park orchestra AND Carlos Kalmar, Conductor Christopher Bell, Chorus Director Erin Wall, Soprano Jeremy Ovenden, Tenor Alan Held, Bass Chicago Children s Choir Josephine Lee, Artistic Director BRITTEN War Requiem, Op. 66 Requiem Aeternam Dies Irae Offertorium Sanctus Agnus Dei Libera Me This concert is sponsored by The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation The appearance of the Chicago Children s Choir is underwritten by a generous gift from Rose Ann Grundman 2013 Program Notes, Book 2 A11

2 Erin Wall is one of today s most in-demand sopranos, with an extensive opera and concert repertoire. Her current season displays her artistic versatility, from Mahler s Symphony No. 8 with the Nashville Symphony and the Hessische Rundfunk to Beethoven s Missa Solemnis with the Chicago Symphony and Bernard Haitink. Further concert appearances include returns to the San Francisco Symphony in Poulenc s Stabat Mater, Toronto Symphony for Beethoven s Symphony No. 9, and Proms in London and Edinburgh Festival. Miss Wall s opera season includes Mozart s Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Arizona Opera. Ms. Wall represented Canada in the finals of the 2003 BBC Singer of the World in Cardiff competition to critical acclaim. She spent three seasons as a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago s Center for American Artists, performing Marguerite in Faust and First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. Born to American parents in Calgary, Alberta, Ms. Wall studied piano at the Vancouver Academy of Music throughout her childhood. She holds music degrees from Western Washington University and Rice University. Tenor Jeremy Ovenden studied with Norman Bailey and Neil Mackie at the Royal College of Music, London, and privately with Nicolai Gedda. He has appeared in leading opera roles with the Opéra National de Paris, Theater an der Wien, La Monnaie (Brussels), Netherlands Opera, Royal Opera (London), Staatsoper (Berlin) and La Scala (Milan). He has collaborated with such eminent conductors as Sir Colin Davis, René Jacobs, Paul McCreesh, Bernard Labadie, Richard Egarr, Donald Runnicles, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Mr. Ovenden s extensive discography includes: Bach s St. Mark s Passion, St. John s Passion and several cantatas; Handel s Saul; Haydn s The Seasons and The Creation; and Mozart s Il Sogno di Scipione, Betulia Liberata, La Finta Semplice, L Oca del Cairo, Lo Sposo Deluso and a disc of arias. American bass-baritone Alan Held has appeared in major roles in the world s finest opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Paris Opera. His many roles include Wotan in Wagner s Ring Cycle, the title role in The Flying Dutchman, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, Scarpia in Tosca, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don Pizzaro in Fidelio, Orestes in Elektra, Balstrode in Peter Grimes and the title role in Wozzeck. He has also been heard at the Salzburg, Tanglewood and Saiton Kinen festivals and the BBC Proms. He recently appeared as the Four Villains in the Met s HD broadcast of the Les Contes d Hoffman. He also performs the title role in Cardillac in the DVD of the Paris Opera production. This season, Mr. Held s many engagements include a new production of Elektra at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Siegfried at the Teatro de la Maestranza (Seville), Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg at the Tokyo Opera Nomori Festival, and Tristan und Isolde and Salome at the Canadian Opera. A native of Washburn, Illinois, Mr. Held received his training at Millikin University and Wichita State University. He has received numerous awards, including the Birgit Nilsson Prize, and is also a noted clinician who regularly gives master classes at Yale. A Program Notes, Book 2 Friday, June 28 and Saturday, June 29, 2013

3 Founded during the height of the Civil Rights Movement as a way to unite children from different backgrounds, Chicago Children s Choir is a non-profit organization committed to providing multicultural choral music education. Serving more than 3,000 children annually through public school choirs, afterschool programs, an ensemble for boys with changing voices, and the internationally acclaimed Concert Choir, Chicago Children s Choir shapes the future by inspiring and educating youth through the pursuit of musical excellence. Of the children served, ages 8-18, the majority come from low-income homes and would otherwise have no other access to music education. Under President and Artistic Director Josephine Lee, the Choir has undertaken many highly successful national and international tours, received a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award for the 2008 documentary Songs on the Road to Freedom and has been featured in nationally broadcast television and radio performances. Chicago Children s Choir regularly collaborates with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Millennium Park and Ravinia Festival. As a national and international touring ensemble, the Choir has performed for such dignitaries as Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. Chicago-born Josephine Lee was appointed President of the Chicago Children s Choir in 2010 and Artistic Director in In 2008, Ms. Lee received the 3Arts Artist Award and in 2006 was named Chicagoan of the Year in the Arts by Chicago Tribune. In June 2002, Chorus America named Ms. Lee the first Robert Shaw Conducting Fellow. Ms. Lee has also conducted the Chicago, Lyric Opera, Grant Park and Oregon symphony orchestras. In collaboration with Lookingglass Theatre Company and Natya Dance Theatre, Ms. Lee co-created the epic work of musical theater, SitaRam, nominated for three 2006 Jeff Equity Awards. Ms. Lee received her bachelor s degree in piano performance at DePaul University and a master s degree in conducting from Northwestern University. War Requiem, Op. 66 (1961) Benjamin Britten ( ) Britten s War Requiem is scored for two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, two English horns, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, seven horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, harmonium and strings. The performance time is 78 minutes. The Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus first performed the War Requiem on August 21, Carlos Kalmar conducted, with soprano Erin Wall, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and baritone Nathan Gunn as soloists. Perhaps the toughest decision of World War II, it was called the harrowing choice that Churchill made in 1940 to let the city of Coventry be bombed without notice by the mercilessly effective German Luftwaffe. The British had broken the deadly mystery of Enigma, the baffling code system by which the Nazis transmitted their most sensitive A Program Notes, Book 2

4 information. One shocking message ordered an all-out bombing attack on the industrial city of Coventry for November 10th. Churchill could have warned the town, but in doing so he would have revealed to the Germans the British possession of Enigma. Churchill chose to keep his secret, and Coventry was subjected to the most destructive Blitzkrieg bombing of the war. Six hundred died, thousands were injured, and the city was reduced to rubble. The charred shell of Coventry s great 14th-century Cathedral of St. Michael became both a symbol for the savagery of war and a rallying point for British patriotism. In the years following the war, the architect Sir Basil Spence built a modern Cathedral in Coventry next to the destroyed pile of the old one. The dedication of the new St. Michael s in the spring of 1962 was deemed an occasion for a great festival of the arts whose purpose would be not only to recall the horrors of the war years but also to recognize the conciliation that had developed between the former enemies. Several works were commissioned, including a large choral and orchestral composition from Benjamin Britten. Britten s thoughts turned immediately to an oratorio, a genre which was not then represented in his output but which he had considered for some time. In the 1950s, he asked W.H. Auden for a libretto for such a work, but Britten found the result too long to set. Britten settled on the traditional text of the Requiem Mass but added to it, as commentary, nine poems by Wilfred Owen, an English writer killed at the age of 25 only seven days before the Armistice ending World War I. The poems of Wilfred Owen were unusual and disturbing creations in an imperial age that glorified soldiers and the valor of combat. Owen did not accept what he called the old Lie, that it was necessarily glorious or even fitting to die for one s own or any other country, or that a country was necessarily or perhaps ever justified in making the kind of war he knew. He shared the destiny of millions on both sides, but unlike them he had the sensibility to see what war now really meant, and the power to explain it. My subject is War, he wrote, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. The War Requiem, then, came to be built on two musico-philosophical planes: one, public and ceremonious, with a soprano soloist, mixed chorus and large orchestra limning the ancient words of the Mass for the Dead; the other, personal and beseeching, given to tenor and baritone soloists, who represent the men shattered by the war, accompanied by a chamber ensemble. Boys voices, distant, almost disembodied, supported by a small organ or harmonium, augment the performing forces for the Requiem proper. Of the juxtaposed Latin and English texts, William Plomer noted, The theme of both is the same: it is death. It is death inseparable from grief and from guilt, death ordained by God for every man, often caused by human stupidity and cruelty, but death associated, in spite of everything, with ideas of mercy, forgiveness and peace. The grieving heart of that message, sung quietly and simply and with crushing sincerity by the baritone after the bitter ironies and scorching emotions of all the preceding music, is embodied in Owen s words from his poem Strange Meeting, which Britten placed just before the work s closing pages: I am the enemy you killed, my friend. The War Requiem was greeted with an immediate and universal acclaim seldom accorded to a new work. The audience at the premiere sat in hushed awe at the conclusion, too moved for applause. The work was premiered in America on July 7, 1963, by the Boston Symphony conducted by Erich Leinsdorf, a performance of such wide interest that it was telecast nationwide. The War Requiem continues to be regarded by many as the supreme choral masterwork of the 20th century Dr. Richard E. Rodda 2013 Program Notes, Book 2 A15

5 Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem. Exaudi orationem meam. Ad te omnis caro veniet. A Program Notes, Book 2 I. REQUIEM AETERNAM Friday, June 28 and Saturday, June 29, 2013 Rest eternal grant them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. CHILDREN S CHOIR There shall be singing unto Thee in Zion, and prayer shall go up to Thee in Jerusalem. Hear my prayer. Unto Thee all flesh shall come. What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them from prayers or bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. CHILDREN S CHOIR Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. II. DIES IRAE Dies irae, dies illa This day, this day of wrath solvet saeclum in favilla: shall consume the world in ashes, teste David cum Sibylla. so spake David and the Sibyl. Quantus tremor est futurus, Oh, what great trembling there will be quando Judex est venturus, when the Judge will appear cuncta stricte discussurus! to examine everything in strict justice! Tuba mirum spargens sonum The trumpet, sending its wondrous sound per sepulchra regionum, across the graves of all lands, coget omnes ante thronum. shall drive everyone before the throne. Mors stupebit et natura, Death and nature shall be stunned cum resurget creatura when all creation rises again judicanti responsura. to stand before the Judge. BARITONE SOLO Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear. Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men. Voices of old despondency resigned, Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept. SOPRANO SOLO AND Liber scriptus proferetur, A written book will be brought forth, in quo totum continetur, in which everything is contained, unde mundus judicetur. from which the world will be judged. Judex ergo cum sedebit, So when the Judge is seated,

6 quidquid latet apparebit: nil inultum remanebit. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus? cum vix justus sit securus? Rex tremendae majestatis, qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me, fons pietatis. whatever is hidden shall be made known, nothing shall remain unpunished. What shall such a wretch as I say then? To which protector shall I appeal, when even the just man is barely safe? King of awesome majesty, who freely saves those worthy of salvation, save me, fount of pity! TENOR AND BARITONE SOLOS Out there, we ve walked quite friendly up to Death; Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand. We ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, Our eyes wept, but our courage didn t writhe. He s spat at us with bullets and he s coughed Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft; We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe. Oh, Death was never enemy of ours! We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum. No soldier s paid to kick against his powers. We laughed, knowing that better men would come, And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags He wars on Death for Life; not men for flags. Recordare, Jesu pie, Recall, dear Jesus, quod sum causa tuae viae: that I am the reason for Thy time on earth, ne me perdas illa die. do not cast me away on that day. Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: Seeking me, Thou didst sink down wearily, redemisti crucem passus: Thou hast saved me by enduring the cross; tantus labor non sit cassus. such travail must not be in vain. Ingemisco tamquam reus: I groan like the sinner that I am, culpa rubet vultus meus: guilt reddens my face, supplicanti parce Deus. Oh God, spare the supplicant. Qui Mariam absolvisti, Thou, who pardoned Mary et latronem exaudisti, and heeded the thief, mihi quoque spem dedisti. hast given me hope as well. Inter oves locum praesta, Give me a place among the sheep et ab haedis me sequestra, and separate me from the goats, statuens in parte dextra. let me stand at Thy right hand. Confutatis maledictis, When the damned are cast away flammis acribus addictis, and consigned to the searing flames, voca me cum benedictis. call me to be with the blessed. Oro supplex et acclinis, Bowed down in supplication I beg Thee, cor contritum quasi cinis: my heart as though ground to ashes: gere curam mei finis. help me in my last hour. BARITONE SOLO Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm, Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse; Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm, And beat it down before its sins grow worse. But when thy spell be cast complete and whole, May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul! AND SOPRANO SOLO Dies irae, dies illa, This day, this day of wrath solvet saeclum in favilla: shall consume the world in ashes, teste David cum Sibylla. so spake David and the Sibyl. Quantus tremor est futurus, Oh, what great trembling there will be 2013 Program Notes, Book 2 A17

7 quando Judex est venturus cuncta stricte discussurus! Lacrimosa dies illa qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus; huic ergo parce Deus. A Program Notes, Book 2 Friday, June 28 and Saturday, June 29, 2013 when the Judge will appear to examine everything in strict justice! Oh, this day full of tears when from the ashes arises guilty man, to be judged: Oh Lord, have mercy upon him. Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds, Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved still warm too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth s sleep at all? Pie Jesu, Domine, Gentle Lord Jesus, dona eis requiem. Amen. grant them rest. Amen. III. OFFERTORIUM CHILDREN S CHOIR Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, Libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum deliver the souls of the faithful departed de poenis inferni from the pains of hell et de profundo lacu. and the bottomless pit. Libera eas de ore leonis, Deliver them from the jaws of the lion, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, lest hell engulf them, ne cadant in obscurum; lest they be plunged into darkness; sed signifer sanctus Michael but let the holy standard-bearer Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam, lead them into the holy light, quam olim Abrahae promisisti as Thou didst promise Abraham et semini ejus. and his seed. BARITONE AND S So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets and trenches there, And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

8 Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus, tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus: fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam. CHILDREN S CHOIR Lord, in praise we offer to Thee sacrifices and prayers, receive them for the souls of those whom we remember this day: Lord, make them pass from death to life. Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth! Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis! Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini! Hosanna in excelsis! IV. SANCTUS SOPRANO SOLO AND Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Glory to God in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Glory to God in the highest! BARITONE SOLO After the blast of lightning from the East, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne; After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased, And by the bronze west long retreat is blown, Shall life renew these bodies? Of a truth All death will He annul, all tears assuage? Fill the void veins of Life again with youth, And wash, with an immortal water, Age? When I do ask white Age he saith not so: My head hangs weighed with snow Program Notes, Book 2 A19

9 And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith: My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death. Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified, Nor my titanic tears, the sea, be dried. V. AGNUS DEI One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with Him. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem. grant them rest. Near Golgotha strolls many a priest, And in their faces there is pride That they were flesh-marked by the Beast By whom the gentle Christ s denied. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem. grant them rest. The scribes on all the people shove And bawl allegiance to the state, But they who love the greater love Lay down their life; they do not hate. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, dona eis requiem sempiternam. grant them eternal rest. Dona nobis pacem. grant them peace. VI. LIBERA ME AND SOPRANO SOLO Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in die illa tremenda, in that awful day quando coeli movendi sunt et terra, when the heavens and earth shall be shaken, dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, I am seized with fear and trembling, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira: until the trial shall be at hand and the wrath to come: quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. when the heavens and earth shall be shaken. Dies illa, dies irae, That day, that day of wrath, calamitatis et miseriae, of calamity and misery, dies magna et amara valde, a great day and exceeding bitter, It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, A Program Notes, Book 2

10 Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. Strange friend, I said, here is no cause to mourn. BARITONE SOLO None, said the other, save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Miss we the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even from wells we sunk too deep for war, Even the sweetest wells that ever were. I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. TENOR AND BARITONE SOLOS Let us sleep now... CHILDREN S, AND SOPRANO SOLO In paradisum deducant te Angeli: May the angels elad you into Paradise; in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres, at your coming may the Martyrs receive you. et perducant te and conduct you in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem, into the holy city, Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat, May the chorus of angels receive you, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere and with Lazarus, once a pauper, aeternam habeas requiem. eternally may you have rest. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: Lord, grant them eternal rest, et lux perpetua luceat eis. and let perpetual light shine upon them. Requiescant in pace. Amen. May they rest in peace. Amen Program Notes, Book 2 A21