Category: Music

Another week at Berkshire Choral Festival. The last concert remains my favorite, but last night’s concert was also very nice.  The concert opened with one of Henry Purcell’s odes written for the birthday of Queen Mary, the one I know best, although it may or may not be the most commonly performed, “Come, Ye Sons of Art, Away”, which was cheerful, beautiful and generally well performed.

It was really an excellent opening piece.

The main work of the evening was Tippett’s “A Child of Our Time”.  An interesting aspect of the performance was that yesterday was the 60th Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the concert was sung, at least partly, in tribute to those who died that day.

We were informed in the program notes and the lecture that Tippet wrote this piece of his own volition, there was no commission, no call for a choral  work.  He wrote the work out of his own desire to write a work with a political theme and his desire to deal with and address the events going on the world which were also causing him great inner turmoil.

This is to some extent visible in the music as it is deeply personal, at times it seems like a pastiche, blending specific vignettes of the events which prompted the work with more personal and diverse accounts of human suffering and touches of philosophy or Jungian analysis attempting to universalize and humanize the events and the feelings involved.  It is an ambitious goal and Tippet is not always successful.  Tippet is a masterful composer and one can get caught up in the emotional tenor of the music, which successfully balances spare modernity with warm traditional music and themes.  At the same time, if one listens to the text and follows along, there passages and themes that make no sense, that become almost unintelligible, not that any individual section is nonsense, just that the plan of the work seems to follow the fragmentary lines of mental turmoil rather than a progressively reasoned course.

The narrative is vivid and very focused, no names or given or specific references to actual events, although the reference and the actions are clear.  Far more time is devoted to the “why” that drives the action than the terrible acts themselves.  The murder is underplayed.  The Nazi Pogrom is a very short, strict and filled with menace.  It is filled with the group frenzy of mass hysteria and strong Biblical overtones recalling religious hysteria.  The combination is quite unsettling.

After the shocking clash of human suffering, emotion, and horror in the first two movements, the third comes as something of a shock.  Here philosophy seems to play a stronger role and the answers are somewhat surprising.  Despite the strong references to the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the use of spirituals, this is most definitely not a religious work although it is strongly pacifist.  The boy, the “child of our time” is not uplifted.  “What of the boy, then?” He presumed to judge as if he were God, he presumed to take a life “his manhood broken in the clash of powers.  God overpowered him”.

Tippet’s answer is that the solution and salvation, if one can call it that, lies within ourselves. “I would know my shadow and my light, so shall I at last be whole”.    This is a humanist solution, a pacifist solution, but not necessarily a religious one.  There is no hand of God holding up the cause of the righteous here, but the quiet spring of self-realization.  Remember, in 1940 this was not the popular path. If one wishes to be roused up and justified, this is not the work one should seek out. 

I was particularly interested in the roles the 5 spirituals played in the work.  I am not usually a fan of gussied up spirituals but I believe that Tippet does a masterful job with them here.  They are definitely enhanced and rearranged, but they do not lose their essential character, perhaps their power is enhanced because the ornateness of the music surrounding the spirituals contrasts strongly with the spare necessity of much of the music in the other sections of the oratorio.  The rich music and the warmth of the Spirituals themselves provide a very warm, human contrast and response to the darker aspects of human nature and this work.

The spirituals are very well timed.  Each one serves to bring the listener in to the music, to become a participant as one recognizes the sound and wants to sing along, even only mentally.  They break up the work, drawing the listener in, embracing the emotions evoked by each spiritual and tying together the various threads of the oratorio.  This work to me seems to be one of the more successful juxtapositions of popular and sophisticated taste.

What a marvelous life.  A perfect summer day in the garden followed by a perfect summer evening. 

We had tickets for the Berkshire Choral Festival, in Sheffield, about an hour and a quarter’s drive, preceded by a patron dinner, so we finished our garden work and left a little after 4 PM.  The upper Taconic Parkway is a beautiful drive in all but the most foul of weather and yesterday was no exception.  The crystal blue skies, the clear views of the Catskills in the distance – what a joy

Usually we take a picnic to Sheffield with us, but tonight we were invited to a Patron’s dinner which we enjoyed.  It was held in a courtyard framed by two of the school’s buildings.  We were the only “listeners” at our table and that made it a very interesting dinner as far as I was concerned.  It was nice to listen to the choristers talk about their week, what they learned, which conductors they like, when they are coming back next year (there will be a new conductor) and what wonderful choral pieces we have to look forward to hearing.  I loved listening to the talk of the nights works and the week of lessons and practicing. 

I love choral music even though I can’t sing.  George sings beautifully but can’t read music.  We are a great pair aren’t we?

The concert was really spectacular.  The audience was a little on the sparse side to my reckoning.  The place was not empty, but it was by no means near to full.  I suspect that next week’s program, Bach’s B Minor Mass, will be packed as it is a wonderful and popular piece.  We decided not to go, we have heard it so many times and there were other interesting programs this year, things we get to hear less frequently.

Ahhh, but I am neglecting the program.

First we heard the Mass in D Major by Antonin Dvorak.  Unusually, at least for me, this production was of the original scoring of this work.  I have heard the Mass performed before with Orchestral accompaniment, and it is spectacular.  Apparently it was originally scored for a smaller venue with only an organ.  Listening to the performance last night, with organ, the chorus often singing a capella, was a profoundly different experience than I expected from the Dvorak work.   I think of Dvorak’s choral works on a grand romantic scale – this was more definitely contained, almost austere at times.  It seemed to have a simpler, more religious sensibility which was almost haunting at times.  Although most of the movements were fairly simple and straightforward in their treatment, the Credo was unusual.  It began with responsorial singing followed by the soloists, and then the movements opens up and doubles back on itself revisiting earlier themes and combining them with homophonic choral statements that were really quite complex and beautiful.  All of that, combined with the triple meter of the movement seemed to coalesce much of the power and transience of belief – powerfully felt yet hard to pin down, unexplainable.  After this intricately woven (and sung) movement the work continued in a straightforward manor, almost framing the Credo at the center of the work.   The Sanctus lead beautifully into the serenity of the Benedictus.  The Agnus Dei was almost spare in its opening simplicity but dynamically rose to almost ethereal ending. 

One would think that nothing could top the Dvorak, but I believe the Stravinsky piece, the Symphony of Psalms, which followed after intermission, was my favorite work of the evening.  The Stravinsky certainly sounded like the most “modern” work although it was not, remember it was written over 70 years ago.  I think we need to rethink how we define “modern”.

The work opens with the closing verse of Psalm 38, “Hear my prayer, O Lord” and it begins with what I can only describe as a typical Stravinskian chord.  I really don’t know how to describe what Stravinsky does with the music but the opening chord is so striking it grabs hold of your attention and holds you in its grip.  I believe the opening movement starts in E minor, but with a very unusual emphasis on G, which gives it an unsettling expression.  This builds and then slows for the entrance of the chorus, singing in a classic pattern of lamentation.  Somehow, through the increasing dynamicsm of the work the movements concludes in G major, settling our nerves from the opening notes in a very powerful way.

The second movement, based on the opening verses of Psalm 39, is a relief following the intensity of the first movement.  There seem to be several different themes or variation on themes working their way through the movement simultaneously.  The music of the orchestra is quite modern, or modernist, with a little atonality thrown in.  Generally however it flows quite beautifully.  In interesting contrast with the orchestral work, the choral music is much more traditional, as is fitting the human voice, neatly combining with the orchestral themes, complementing them, sometimes contrasting, and sometimes bridging the gaps between the different themes.  Very interesting.

I thought the Alleluia, from psalm 150, was the most traditional of the movements.  It is elevated and stately in the manner of many religious themed choral works.  It seems like a summary of the church-going religious experience.  Somber gathering together, stately hymns, elevation through music, chariots of fire, and the calm serenity of final peace.

The final piece was by John Rutter, a British composer, written in 1974, GLORIA.  Judging from the applause, it was the most popular work, and I can see why it was.  It was a grand, romantic, rousing, jubilant work with timpani and organ.  This is not to imply it was simple, it was not, and there seemed to be eclectic references in the work but overall, it did not strike me as having the interesting subtleties of the first two works.  Perhaps I was just tired by that point.

I love the ride home from a concert, it allows me time to reflect on what I have heard, to dream a little, to absorb all the complex things that I haven’t yet really had time to register during the usual emotional overload of the actual performance.  Sometimes the music on the car radio interferes with my reflective state; often it is necessary to stay awake.  Life is full of such conundrums.