For Cherishing. Chestnut Street Singers present. June 3, Proclamation Presbyterian Church Bryn Mawr. First Unitarian Church Philadelphia

Transcription

1 For more details about the Chestnut Street Singers, please visit or facebook.com/chestnutstreetsingers. Chestnut Street Singers present For Cherishing June 1, 2018 Proclamation Presbyterian Church Bryn Mawr June 3, 2018 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia

2 Season Supporters As a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and proud members of the Philadelphia arts community, the Chestnut Street Singers rely on our friends and contributors to make these concerts possible. We are sincerely grateful to those who have supported us this year. For more information about giving to the Chestnut Street Singers or becoming a subscriber for this season, please speak with an usher or visit Collaborators: Gifts of $1000+ First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia Sustainers: Gifts of $500 $1000 Bill Houston Henry Kranzler and Leah Zindel Benefactors: Gifts of $250 $499 Robin Eaton Pauline and Harlan Hochstetler Marjorie and Leonard Johnson Kay and Steve Rock Dan Widyono Patrons: Gifts of $100 $249 Jerrold Adler Cindy Cassel and Jeffrey Knightly Susan and David Cooper Virginia and Jerome Lavanish Julie and Eric Orts Melinda Steffy Rebecca and David Thornburgh Supporters: Gifts to $99 Alison Anderson Thomas La Forgia Margaret Sayvetz Anne C. Slater Jennifer Winschel Support also provided in part by The Philadelphia Cultural Fund. List current as of March 22.

3 To that shore that is blessed of God, Then, Ho! For that fair land, we re off for that rare land, That beautiful Land of Nod. We would like to specially thank Rev. Abbey Tennis, Norman Fouhy, and the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia; Ryan Kelly and Proclamation Presbyterian Church; The Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion; Bryan Buttler; Robert Convery; Thomas La Forgia; Maggie Lapp; Jessica Moreno; Anne C. Slater; and Jennifer Winschel for their kind assistance with today's concert. For Cherishing Chestnut Street Singers June 1 Proclamation Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr June 3 First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia Versa est in luctum Tomás Luis de Victoria (c ) Introitus Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410/ ) from Missa pro Defunctis Nymphes des bois Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/ ) Selig Sind die Toten Heinrich Schütz ( ) Songs of Farewell Charles Hubert Hastings Parry ( ) 1. My soul, there is a country far beyond the stars 2. I know my soul hath power to know all things 3. Never weather-beaten sail 4. There is an old belief intermission Funeral Ikos John Tavener ( ) Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing Herbert Howells ( ) The Beautiful Land of Nod Robert Convery (b. 1954) Please join us after the program for refreshments.

4 Notes on the Program Versa est in luctum Versa est in luctum is a six-part motet by the great Spanish renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. It is one of several pieces that comprise the last publication of Victoria s life: the Officium Defunctorum, a collection of funereal works that Victoria composed upon the death of his longtime patron, the Dowager Empress Maria, sister to the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Philip II. The text of this motet links two passages from Job: the first making evocative musical reference to the harp and flute, whose voices have been turned to grieving, and the second asking forgiveness before death Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing. Versa est in luctum cithara mea, et organum meum in vocem flentium. Parce mihi Domine, nihil enim sunt dies mei. My harp is turned to grieving and my flute to the voice of those who weep. Spare me, O Lord for my days are as nothing. Introitus Johannes Ockeghem is widely acknowledged as one of the great masters of the early Renaissance. Ockeghem s fame during his lifetime (as evidenced by Josquin s memorial to the older composer, Nymphes des Bois, next on the program) was a testament not only to his compositional skill but also to his comparatively wide travels. While Ockeghem was born at Saint-Ghislain, in modern-day Belgium, he travelled through the Netherlands, France, and Spain while holding positions in Antwerp, Moulin, and Paris. Ockeghem s incomplete Missa pro Defunctis, or Requiem, from which this Introitus comes, is believed to have been composed either following the death of France s King Charles VII in 1461 or that of his son and successor, Louis XI, in Ockeghem s Requiem is the earliest surviving polyphonic setting of the Catholic Mass for the dead. Ockeghem s Introitus is based on a cantus firmus: a simple melody, often derived from Gregorian chant, around which other voices are added to create polyphony. In this case, the cantus firmus is the plainsong melody themselves in single musical settings. Therefore, I took Ms. Wilcox s The Beautiful Land of Nod, pretended she approved, hung my head in blasphemous shame and whittled down her long poem into a practical length for a musical setting. I also focused the poem, eliminating tangential strayings. While doing this, I kept in mind the musical form I intended to use for the setting, the simple, sturdy Bar Form (A, A, B, A). I then elongated the form slightly (A, A, B, A, A extension, coda) to accommodate my shortened adaptation of the poem. The commission for The Beautiful Land of Nod came in 2015 from The Crossing for a project called The Jeff Quartets. Fifteen composers were commissioned to each write a short choral work for this project. All fifteen works were then performed on a single program. Being a short work, I wrote it immediately upon receiving the commission, let the music sit a few months, rewrote it, let it sit for a few more months, rewrote it again, let it sit for a few months more, then copied it out neatly during a third rewrite, before sending it to The Crossing for rehearsal and first performance on July 9, Text by Ella Wheeler Wilcox ( ) Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear, Your head like the goldenrod, And we will go sailing away from here, To the beautiful Land of Nod. Away from life s hurry, and flurry, and worry, Away from the shadows and gloom, To a world of fair weather we ll float off together, Where roses are always in bloom. Come, close your eyes and fold your hands, Your hands like the leaves of a rose, And we will go sailing to those fair lands, That never an atlas shows. Down the river of sleep our boat will sweep, Till it reaches that mystical Isle, Which no one has seen, but where all have been, And there we will pause awhile. I will croon you a song as we float along,

5 Once was this a spirit s dwelling, By the breath of God created. High the heart that here was beating, Christ the prince of all its living. Guard him well, the dead I give thee, Not unmindful of His creature Shall He ask it: He who made it Symbol of His mystery. Comes the hour God hath appointed To fulfill the hope of men, Then must thou, in very fashion What I give, return again. Not though ancient time decaying Wear away these bones to sand, Ashes that a man might measure In the hollow of his hand: Not though wandering winds, Scatter dust was nerve and sinew, Is it given to man to die. Once again the shining road Leads to ample Paradise; Open are the woods again, That the Serpent lost for men. Take, O take him, mighty Leader, Take again thy servant s soul. Grave his name, and pour the fragrant Balm upon the icy stone. The Beautiful Land of Nod Robert Convery was born in Kansas and raised in California before coming to the East Coast to study at Westminster Choir College, The Juilliard School, and Philadelphia s Curtis Institute of Music. Although now based in New York, Convery has enjoyed long associations with many Philadelphia musical organizations, including The Crossing and its predecessor, The Bridge Ensemble. The composer writes about The Beautiful Land of Nod : Poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, famous for lines like Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone, wrote lyrical and affecting works. Unfortunately, for composers looking for poems rich in musical treasures to be excavated, Ms. Wilcox s poems are too long to sustain that would have been chanted during funeral masses prior to the emergence of polyphony. Ockeghem s Introitus, set for only three low voices, is simple and austere. This simplicity and austerity allows space for meditation, by both listener and performer, on life, death, and the mysteries of existence. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, Et lux perpetua luceat eis, Domine. Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion, Et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: Exaudi orationem meam, Ad te omnis caro veniet. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, And let perpetual light shine upon them. A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Sion, And a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem: Hear my prayer, All flesh shall come to thee. Nymphes de bois One of the most famous motets of the Renaissance, Nymphes des bois pays homage to Ockeghem, the master composer who was Josquin s teacher. The text is an elegy by Jean Molinet, which combines figures from classical antiquity with contemporary mourners of Ockeghem s death among them Josquin and his peers, the composers Perchon, Brumel, and Compère. The piece is scored for SATB choir atop a tenor cantus firmus singing the Requiem plainchant. Text by Jean Molinet ( ) Nymphes des bois, Nymphs of the woods, déesses des fontaines, goddesses of the fountains, Chantres experts de toutes nations, Expert singers from all nations, Changez vos voix tant clères et haultaines Turn your voices, so clear and high, En cris tranchants et lamentations. To rending cries and lamentation. Car Atropos, très terrible satrape, For Atropos, the terrible ruler, A vostre Ockeghem attrapé en sa trappe. Has seized your Ockeghem in her trap. Vrai trésorier de musique et chef d'œuvre, The true treasurer of music and its masterpiece Doct, élégant de corps Learned, elegant in body et non point trappe. and in no way old-fashioned. Grant dommage est It is a terrible loss que la terre le couvre. that the earth covers him. Acoustrez vous d'habits de deuil Put on your mourning clothes Josquin, Perchon, Brumel, Compère, Josquin, Pierson, Brumel, Compère, Et plourez grosses larmes d'œil: And weep great tears from your eyes: Perdu avez vostre bon père. Gone is your great father. Requiescat in pace. Amen. May he rest in peace. Amen.

6 Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescat in pace. Amen. Eternal rest give them, Lord, And light perpetual shine on them. May he rest in peace. Amen. Selig Sind die Toten Heinrich Schütz is a transitional figure in music history, having lived and worked at a time when the elements that would come to define Baroque music were just beginning to emerge. Schütz was born in central Germany and spent virtually his entire career at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. While based in Dresden, Schütz was able to travel and spent time in Venice studying with Monteverdi, another key figure in the emergence of Baroque music. Schütz is among the most influential German composers of the early seventeenth century, and his influence can be heard in the music of Buxtehude, Bach, Telemann, and even as late as Brahms and Bruckner. Indeed, the most famous setting of the text Selig Sind die Toten is in Brahms 1868 Ein deutches Requiem, a setting which itself draws heavily on the influence of Schütz and other early German composers. Schütz s setting of Selig Sind die Toten first appears in the composer s Geistliche Chormusik, a collection of 29 sacred motets published in Selig Sind die Toten, like much of Schütz s music, contains many elements of the emergent Baroque style: frequent changes of texture, dynamic, and intensity; alternation between contrapuntal writing, with all six voices moving independently, and homophonic music in which all of the voices sing together; and a clear connection between the meaning of the text and the drama of the music. Nowhere is this last element clearer than in the second section of the piece, where the declamatory music of Ja, der Geist spricht is followed by the meditative Sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit. Selig sind die Toten, die in dem herren sterben von nun an. Ja, der Geist spricht: Sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit, und ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach. Blessed are the dead, that die in the Lord from now on. Yea, the Spirit speaks: they rest from their labors and their works follow them. in the composer s music, and rarely are they more overt than in the motet Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing. Howells first set portions of Prudentius s Hymnus circa Exsequias Defunctis as a study for his mammoth 1949 oratorio Hymnus Paradisi. Although the text was not incorporated into the finished oratorio, it remained in Howells s mind, and the composer recalled it when he was asked to compose a memorial work for President John F. Kennedy in In Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing, Howells sets Prudentius s poem in an English translation by Helen Waddell. The motet is episodic in its construction and consists of nine continuous sections. The first section begins with a subdued unison chant, reminiscent of plainsong and the Tudor church music Howells studied as a young man. This chant, which might symbolize a mourner s inner sense of loss and grief, returns in fragments at points throughout the piece as a unifying motif. The second section ( Guard him well, the dead I give thee ) is a more extroverted expression of grief and begins with one of Howells signature harmonic devices: the choir sings a B Major chord, but then all of the voices but one move chromatically away from their notes and then back. The sound is akin to an uncontrollable wail. This section and the several that follow are harmonically searching and unstable. They could be heard as moving through stages of grief, from anger to acceptance, searching for some sort of consolation. Eventually we begin to hear the first hints at hope and redemption: Open are the woods again, that the Serpent lost for men. The piece finds its resolution, musically as well as dramatically, with an arrival on B Major and the words Take, O take him, mighty Leader. Although the harmonic wandering continues through the end of the piece, our home of B Major is never far away. The final section of the piece repeats the first lines of the poem, and the work ends quietly with a final repetition of the poem s first line and title. Text by Prudentius (348 c. 413), translated by Helen Waddell Take him, earth, for cherishing, To thy tender breast receive him. Body of a man I bring thee, Noble even in its ruin.

7 But whither now go the souls? How dwell they now together there? This mystery have I desired to learn; but none can impart aright. Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them? Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them and make the song: We go forth on the path eternal, and as condemned, with downcast faces, present ourselves before the only God eternal. Where then is comeliness? Where then is wealth? Where then is the glory of this world? There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm: If thou hast shown mercy unto man, O man, that same mercy shall be shown thee there; and if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion, the same shall there deliver thee from want. If in this life the naked thou hast clothed, the same shall give thee shelter there, and sing the psalm: Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death, and the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed. The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered, the shapeliness of the neck destroyed; and the other parts have become numb, nor often say: With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder; that there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth. Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that all we may cry aloud thus unto God: Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing Herbert Howells had a long and productive life with a great deal of professional success, including a sixty-year teaching career at the Royal Academy of Music. Howells s life was also marked by several tragic incidents, however, and chief among them was the sudden death of his nine-year-old son Michael in Loss and grief are frequent themes Songs of Farewell Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry s song cycle Songs of Farewell, comprised of six a cappella motets, is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century English choral music. With its rich harmonies, intricate counterpoint, and evocative setting of English text, the cycle bears all the hallmarks of the English choral renaissance, of which Parry has long been credited as one of the progenitors. Parry composed the cycle between 1913 and 1915, at the height of World War I and just a few years before his death in The texts and music reflect both a time of unimaginable loss from the war and also perhaps the poignancy of Parry s personal farewell: by this point the heart trouble which had persisted most of his life had developed into a serious condition, and he may have known that he did not have much time left to live. The six motets in Songs of Farewell occur in order of increasing complexity, with the first two scored simply for SATB choir and the final and longest motet set for eight voice parts. This program features the first four motets in the cycle. The first motet, My soul, there is a country far beyond the stars is probably the best-known piece in the cycle, set for unaccompanied SATB choir to text by the seventeenthcentury poet Henry Vaughan ( ). The frequently changing keys and meters do not disturb but rather enhance the lyricism of the text, showcasing Parry s love for the English language and his skill in bringing it to life through this medium. The second and shortest motet, I know my soul hath power to know all things, is a setting of two stanzas from Nosce Teipsum, a philosophical poem on human knowledge and the nature of the soul by Sir John Davies ( ). Also scored for four voice parts, this motet is nearly completely homophonic, with each phrase punctuated by dramatic pauses. The third motet, Never weather-beaten sail, scored for five voices, begins in homophony but quickly expands into a lush, lyrical polyphonic setting of the eponymous poem by Thomas Campion ( ). The fourth motet, There is an old belief, is a six-voice setting of poetry by John Gibson Lockhart ( ). The first half of this motet unfolds through lyrical polyphonic writing very much like the preceding number. On the final sentence of the text, all six parts join in

8 a unison proclamation of the plainsong Credo on the text That creed I fain would keep before returning to the lush harmonic writing that closes the piece. My soul, there is a country Text by Henry Vaughan ( ) My soul, there is a country, Far beyond the stars, Where stands a wingèd sentry, All skillful in the wars. There, above noise and danger, Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files. He is thy gracious Friend And (O my soul, awake!) Did in pure love descend, To die here for thy sake. If thou canst get but thither, There grows the flower of peace, The rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress, and thy ease. Leave, then, thy foolish ranges; For none can thee secure But One, who never changes, Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure. I know my soul hath power to know all things Text by John Davies ( ) I know my soul hath power to know all things, Yet she is blind and ignorant in all: I know I m one of Nature s little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall. I know my life s a pain and but a span; I know my sense is mocked in every thing; And, to conclude, I know myself a Man, Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing. Never weather-beaten sail Text by Thomas Campion ( ) Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore, Never tirèd pilgrim s limbs affected slumber more, Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast: O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest! Ever blooming are the joys of heaven s high Paradise, Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes: Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the Blessèd only see: O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee! There is an old belief Text by John Gibson Lockhart ( ) There is an old belief, That on some solemn shore, Beyond the sphere of grief Dear friends shall meet once more. Beyond the sphere of Time and Sin And Fate s control, Serene in changeless prime Of body and of soul. That creed I fain would keep That hope I ll ne er forgo, Eternal be the sleep, If not to waken so. Funeral Ikos This setting of text from the Orthodox service for the Burial of Priests, here translated into English by Isabel Hapgood, is quintessentially Tavener. The setting, simple and elegant in equal measure, alternates between sparesly hamonized chants and a four-part Alleluia. While this Alleluia is musically unchanged through each iteration, it goes through several signifcant contextual transformations, being a song of mortal commemoration, heavenly praise, mourning, and comfort possibly all at the same time. Why these bitter words of the dying, O brethren, which they utter as they go hence? I am parted from my brethren. All my friends do I abandon and go hence. But whither I go, that understand I not, neither what shall become of me yonder; only God who hath summoned me knoweth. But make commemoration of me with the song: