Music Notes 2015 Trinity Sunday

Music Notes 2015 Trinity Sunday It is hard to believe that we have finally come to Nigel Short s last Sunday as our Director of Music. Even stranger, he will be the last Director of Music ever in the Parish of St Bartholomew the Great, because on Monday morning at midnight, the new parish of Great St Bartholomew will be born and will start its own history, while the current parish stops in its tracks forever. Nigel s contribution to the life of St Bartholomew the Great has been immense, incorporating a significant widening of the repertoire we experience in our services, the characteristic sound that he likes to achieve with his distinctive blend of voices, and the ambition to expand the musical life of the church into new areas, new opportunities. It is one of the sadnesses of this weekend that some of the ideas that he brought forward have not been able to be realized, whether because of resource limitations, or for other reasons. Still, the ideas are not lost and may one day be attempted, and in any case, the range of accomplishments that we have experienced has been great, and we are all the richer for this. It seems to me that one of the most important things about Nigel s approach is that, no matter what the occasion, his commitment to an excelling performance never seems to waver. Services under his direction are not simply sung through, but are every time a matter of engaging with the composer s intentions, using the best choral techniques and the determination to mine the settings for their musical heart, which is laid bare in performance. If you have been in church over the past few weeks, you will have heard the remarkable repertoire that Nigel chose for his final services. This, his final Sunday with us, is obviously no exception. The Mass in G, D167, by Franz Schubert (1797 1828) is sometimes referred to as his Mass No 2. He wrote it in March 1815 in under a week, having performed a similar feat the year before when he had also written a Mass for his local parish church at Lichtental on the then outskirts of Vienna. Although he could not have known it (or did he sense it?) at the age of 18, he was already more than half way through his short life. Whether he sensed his own mortality or not, he had to work fast for other reasons. In the same year he was to write both his second and third symphonies, a further Mass, a number of chamber works, and no fewer than 144 songs, including Der Erlkönig. It was an astonishing output in one so young. Enter Robert Führer, stage right, pursued by creditors. Before saying more about him, let s just deal with his name. Führer is one of those German words that non-german speakers understand because of its familiarity from history. Leader is for once an example of a word they translate correctly, unlike those who think that in German you drink beer from something called a Stein (no, you don t), or that something called Liebfraumilch really is a German wine or wine at all,

for that matter Anyway, we will see how much Robert Führer led a life appropriate to his name. Führer (1807 1861) was actually a rather remarkable person, and clearly his own worst enemy you could say he led himself astray at every turn. He was born in Prague and became Director of Music at St Vitus Cathedral at the age of just 32 ironically, the age at which Schubert expired. Nothing was too good for Führer in his own eyes, but alas, he had omitted to ensure that he also had the income to sustain this rosy vision of his own life. And then he realized it: the solution was practically staring him in the face. The cathedral owned a rare example of a Stradivarius violin that had come into its possession as just one of the instruments needed to accompany services long before the name Stradivarius had achieved its later patina. Even by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, great value was attached to instruments from that source, and Führer reasoned that his needs perhaps better described as his requirements and the fact that he was, after all, the boss as far as the music of the cathedral was concerned, trumped any pettifogging issue of mere ownership, and so he took it and sold it. At first all went well and life resumed its usual lavish quality, until in 1845 some tiresome bureaucrat performed an inventory of the musical instruments belonging to the cathedral and some version of hell broke loose. Once the investigation had begun, one thing led to another, leading questions were asked, leads were followed, and all paths led to Führer. Slightly astonishingly, Führer s punishment was just to be fired. His superiors at the cathedral had all been more than beneficiaries of their former Director of Music s largesse, and perhaps they preferred not to bite down too hard on the hand that had fed them so well. All of this could have soured Führer, but he took it on the chin, and set off earning a much more modest living as a travelling composer which, together with whatever was left over from the Stradivarius, sustained him for the rest of his days. The mercy, as far as he was concerned, was that he was actually a very good composer, and some people think that, if he had been able to keep his hand out of the till, he would be remembered as such today. As it is, the blemishes on his character have earned him mainly opprobrium. And this is where we get back to Schubert, because he was also the posthumous victim of Führer s lack of probity. In 1846, perhaps driven by the rather sharp drop in income that the personally disastrous events of the previous year had caused, Führer caused to be published a Mass in G with Robert Führer emblazoned across the title page. The man clearly was not for learning from his errors, for this was actually Schubert s Mass that he had somehow acquired after the much younger composer s death, probably as part of a collection of music given to the cathedral and liberated from there by Führer in the course of his unceremonious departure. Fortunately or unfortunately, from our anti-hero s point of view Ferdinand Schubert, Franz s older brother, was still in rude health. He had created some brass, woodwind and timpani parts for his brother s setting, and it was

this version that Führer unwisely tried to pass off as his own. The work was immediately withdrawn by its publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel (the oldest major music publisher still active today), and reissued with the correct attribution, and Führer in due course found his way to prison for embezzlement with many offences being taken into consideration. So much for one form of transgression. There is, however, a further transgression evident from this highly lyrical and marvellously concise setting. Had Schubert intended to show what a Viennese composer could do to fit in with the Council of Trent s strictures on music, this would be the perfect example, combining great beauty of expression with tremendous directness. Perhaps for this reason, we have to wonder what he meant by his treatment of the text. Rather than point up crucial doctrinal elements in the words, he sometimes skips over them altogether, as though ambivalent about their content. Several times, he simply omits chunks of text. Later publishers have often reinserted these by re-apportioning other text, but that mangles Schubert s intention. He omits suscipe deprecationem nostram and Jesu Christe from the Gloria, and he leaves out the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and the Resurrection of the Dead from the Creed. Whether these reflect difficulties he had with the relevant doctrines, or he edited out chunks of music for some reason, sacrificing the text with the notes, or he was just careless when setting the words and slipped up, we may never know. Needless to say, Nigel s choice of Schubert s mass for this last Sunday with us has nothing to do with any parallel between his departure and that of Führer! Indeed, one could say that the contrast between the two is what makes the point! We come somewhat more up to date with My Lord has come by Will Todd (b.1970), a composer who hails from Durham. He is very involved with jazz, and many of his works incorporate strongly its influence. One of his highest-profile commissions was for a piece in the Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving Service at St Paul s, since recorded by Nigel Short with Tenebrae and the English Chamber Orchestra, a disc on which you will also find a recording (accompanied by James Sherlock) of today s motet at the Offertory: O Lux Beata Trinitas. This text is a hymn to the Holy Trinity that is ascribed to St. Ambrose (340 397). Today, it is assigned generally to be used at Sunday Vespers for the second and fourth weeks of the Psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours. Todd s approach begins with a chant-like unison melody against an organ drone that is occasionally decorated. It then opens up into a full and rich harmonic language that belies the austerity of the opening. The pattern repeats, but the harmonically rich language comes increasingly to dominate. It is a very effective work. The setting of the Canticles at Evensong is the Evening Service in C by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 1924). This was the last of his great services for the Anglican Church, written in 1909. It stands out from his earlier

settings in many respects. For a start, his general practice had been to compose a rather jolly Magnificat the famous settings in G, A and Bb all have something of the scherzo about them. This, however, is a broad, generously spaced piece. It also differs in structure. The earlier settings are either in a single, more or less continuous section, or else have an opening section, a contrasting middle section of some kind, before the first music returns to round it off before the Gloria a form referred to as ternary because of its three parts. This setting is rather in four contrasting sections. The first is itself in two halves: the music begins, comes to a halt, and then almost exactly repeats itself, as in Sonata Form, an often-used structure since the late seventeenth century that uses this kind of opening. The following two sections take us off into remote harmonic areas, using this to add colour that illuminates the text. Then we come back home to C major territory for the final section, which includes a modified version of the ending of the first section, again echoing Sonata Form, where the opening music returns at the end after a period of musical development. Although there are so many sections, all the melodic material is derived from that opening section by processes of rhythmic, melodic and harmonic transformation quite a tour de force, and obviously the product of Stanford s maturity as a composer. The Nunc Dimittis is more straightforwardly constructed, a single section that unfolds beautifully, if slightly less innovatively. This is not damning with faint praise: it is a really fantastic setting. One of the most important relationships for the Director of Music at a church like ours is with the person at the organ console, whose contribution to the services is also immense. We have been very fortunate in having Ben Giddens in this role, and it is a further sadness that this Sunday also marks his last services with us in post, although he has been kind enough to say that he would be willing to deputize at the console from time to time if needed. Most of us will know that there was another very important organist with us in Nigel s time: James Sherlock he has also been known to come back from time to time for various events. When James left, he chose to depart with the very wonderful Great is the Lord by Edward Elgar as his final anthem at Evensong. Nigel s and Ben s departures also take place to the accompaniment of this same piece. It is hard to imagine a more spectacular way to bow out than with this substantial work. It was first performed in July 1912 in Westminster Abbey, which is, as it so happens, the Patron of our church. Moreover, it was specifically intended for dedications and Patronal Festivals. This is a thrilling but also very moving anthem, with an exciting organ accompaniment, and a great way for us to celebrate everything that has typified the last six or so years of Nigel s tenure as Director of Music and the other musicians who have worked with him. Great is the Lord was started by Elgar in 1910 off his own bat. However, the lack of a commission seems to have demotivated him and he struggled to get it finished, taking until 1912, by which time there was indeed a performance opportunity. Elgar was in fact a Roman Catholic, but like so many British Roman Catholic musicians such as Byrd and Tallis, also wrote music that was suitable for the Church of England. This is a particularly good example. The first performance was at the

Abbey with organ accompaniment essentially the version we will hear this Sunday but in 1913, the composer orchestrated the piece as well. Interestingly, two central motifs of the anthem are very close to material from Elgar s Violin Concerto, which he was also writing in 1910. His setting of these words is somewhat more direct than other similar works, and he forms it into more or less distinct sections of music, parcelled up for particular combinations of voices. It is both moving and exciting by turns no wonder that it is seen as suitable for a moment such as this. Of course, the musical life of the Priory Church doesn t stop here, and as much as a chapter is ending here, a new chapter will open with Great St Bartholomew on Monday and its first Organist and Director of Music. Nevertheless, there is so much for which we must be profoundly grateful to Nigel and to the musicians who have worked with him, the choir members who have been so much a part of his team both in the church and outside, especially in the wonderful Tenebrae, and the organists who have added their own thrilling contribution to the services. We wish Nigel all the very best for the future, and the same to Ben and the singers who are also leaving the permanent choir at the same time, and thank them all from the bottom of our hearts.