MUSIC FOR ST. MICHAEL & ALL ANGELS – Sunday, September 27, 2020

Factum est silentium – Richard Dering (c. 1580-1630)

view video here: https://youtu.be/uWFWnI-Ub8I

Richard Dering was an English Catholic musician who went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands. By 1617 he was organist to the convent of English nuns in Brussels, and in the same year published his first collection of Cantiones Sacrae. Factum est silentium comes from a second collection which appeared in 1618; its declamatory, dramatic style shows clearly the influence of the new Italian Baroque which Dering’s compatriots in England were somewhat slower to embrace. The text for this motet, Dering’s best-known choral work, is the Benedictus antiphon for the office of Lauds on Michaelmas Day.

Factum est silentium in caelo,
Dum committeret bellum draco cum Michaele Archangelo.

Audita est vox millia millium dicentium:
Salus, honor et virtus omnipotenti Deo.
Millia millium minestrabant ei et decies centena millia assistebant ei.
Alleluia.

There was silence in heaven
When the dragon fought with the Archangel Michael.

The voice of a thousand thousand was heard saying:
Salvation, honour and power be to almighty God.
A thousand thousand ministered to him and ten hundreds of thousands stood before him.
Alleluia.

 

The company of heaven, Part three: Ye watchers and ye holy ones – Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

view video here: https://youtu.be/0V2Khk7HhW0

In the late 1930s the BBC had been producing a series of special programs to mark the major religious festivals of the Church of England. In July of 1937 Britten received a contract to compose a score for the program celebrating Michaelmas. He began writing in early August, completing the score in full on September 22, just in time for the feast day. As with the previous BBC programs of this type, the librettist Ellis Roberts assembled the text of The Company of Heaven, combining biblical texts and verses of suitable hymns (mostly on the theme of angels in general, not just Michael) along with passages from Christina Rosetti, Emily Brontë, William Blake and John Bunyan.

Britten had complete freedom to choose which parts he would set to music. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he left most of the narrative texts for readers unsupported by music and concentrated on the lyrical texts. These he set to varied orchestral colors and styles, starting with a somber single-line orchestral passage that wanders chromatically (to suggest the primordial chaos), building with timpani punctuation. But after the first spoken passage, Britten introduces a hint of the hymn tune LASST UNS ERFREUEN, which is traditionally sung to the words “Ye watchers and ye holy ones,” with which Britten will end the piece in a splendid declamation. It is this ending which I have included in the link above.

The Company of Heaven is one of Britten’s least known pieces because he, no doubt, considered it merely “incidental music” in a less important category than his song cycles, orchestral works and operas. But it offers us a wonderful glimpse into the work of the very talented 24-year old composer just starting on a brilliant career and reveals that the composer we know from the later masterpieces is already fully present.

O ye Angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:
Praise him and magnify him forever.

O Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright Seraphs, Cherubim and Thrones,
Raise the glad strain,
Alleluya!
Cry out Dominions, Princedoms, Powers,
Virtues, Archangels, Angels’ choirs,
Alleluya!

O higher than the Cherubim,
More glorious than the Seraphim,
Lead their praises,
Alleluya!
Thou Bearer of th’ eternal Word,
Most gracious, magnify the Lord,
Alleluya!

O friends in gladness let us sing,
Supernal anthems echoing,
Alleluya!
To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Alleluya!

Heaven is here,
And the angels of Heav’n.
Amen!

(Athelstan Riley, 1858-1945)

 

Alleluyas – Simon Preston (b. 1938)

view video here: https://youtu.be/BCaY5Rbzxlw

Simon Preston, the acclaimed English conductor and composer, is particularly well known as a concert organist with a long and distinguished career. He spent three years as a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, where the organist and director of music was the legendary Boris Ord. According to Preston, when he approached Ord for organ lessons, “he was actually rather grumpy about the whole thing and tried his best to stall me.” Eventually, he was given permission to start lessons with Hugh McLean, King’s organ scholar at the time, later organist-choirmaster at Ryerson United Church in Vancouver, and much later, my own teacher.

Preston was Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey from 1981 to 1987, a post which he relinquished to embark on an international concert career.

Preston has composed a number of works for the organ, of which Alleluyas, written in the style of Olivier Messiaen, is the most well-known. After the initial improvisatory gesture, Alleluyas is built from the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas—the one fast and spikily rhythmic, the other a series of richly scored jazzy chords. It is played here by Daniel Cook, Master of the Choristers and Organist at Durham Cathedral. The piece is headed by a quotation from the Liturgy of St James:

At his feet the six-winged Seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry,
Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya, Lord most high.

 

Gerald Harder

 

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Music for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 20, 2020

Simile est regnum caelorum – Cristóbal Morales (c. 1500-1553)

 

view video here: https://youtu.be/zisDSg-kB1I

 

In the Gospels there are several parables that start with the words “The kingdom of heaven is like…” Today’s Gospel lesson, the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, like any good story and the parables in particular, lends itself to a variety of readings, but perhaps the story is about grace, abundant and freely given to all, no matter when we answer the call into the vineyard. I imagine that Cristóbal Morales understood the parable in somewhat the same way, for his motet Simile est regnum caelorum overflows with joy and assurance.

 

Known in his day as “the light of Spain in music”, Morales was part of a trio of Spanish composers, along with Francisco Guerrero and Tomás Luis de Victoria, who typified 16th-century Spanish church polyphony. Almost all of his music is sacred, and all of it is vocal, though instruments may have been used in an accompanying role in performance. The Parce mihi Domine from his Officium Defunctorum was used as the key track on the best selling Jazz and Classical Album of 1994, Officium, by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble.

 

Simile est regnum caelorum homini patri familias, qui exiit primo mane conducere operarios in vineam suam.
Et egressus circa horam tertiam vidit alios stantes in foro otiosos,
Et illis dixit: Ite et vos in vineam meam; et, quod iustum fuerit, dabo vobis.
Cum sero autem factum esset, dicit dominus vineae procuratori suo: Voca operarios et redde illis mercedem incipiens a novissimis usque ad primos.
Multi enim sunt vocati pauci vero electi.

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you.
So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
For many be called, but few chosen.

 

Sunset / Dusk (Improvisation on ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’) – Paul Halley (b. 1952).

 

view video here: https://youtu.be/MxrLhqWwoTE

 

“Improvisation is perhaps the most direct form of musical communication. It involves the performer and the listener in a relationship as partners on a voyage of the mind. It is an expedition into uncharted territory, neither safe nor predictable, but, hopefully, exciting…” says Paul Halley, in his remarks about the origins of the stunning recording of organ improvisations he created on the Great Organ of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

“Nightwatch” is a set of improvised themes and spontaneous variations, played on the vast Aeolian-Skinner organ in the even vaster Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The format of the music, and the idea for this recording, was derived from the improvisational sessions created by Halley for groups of teenagers late on Friday nights at the Cathedral through a program called, not coincidentally, “Nightwatch”. In keeping with the dramatic setting of the world’s largest gothic cathedral at night, Halley would play upon a variety of tonal effects to engage his young listeners on a journey from “dusk” to “dawn”. Employing a broad tonal and dynamic range, from silken string tones to bright and heraldic trumpets, Halley would establish a mystical and highly charged atmosphere.

Capturing the mood of one of these sessions on a recording was not easy. Halley describes the technical problems facing the producer/engineer Chris Brown: “The organ pipes are spread over a distance of 550 feet and have a dynamic range of at least two symphony orchestras. Owing to a reverberation period of over seven seconds and a constantly changing “climate” in the Cathedral, editing was impossible, and of course, none of the music could be repeated! But thanks to Chris, who insisted on spontaneity at all times, the recording evolved into a suite of improvisations comprising a symphonic whole which I thought of as a night-journey and, in deference to my severest critics, entitled Nightwatch.”

 

A personal note: In 1982, when I obtained a copy of Paul Halley’s then recently released LP “Nightwatch”, from which this piece is excerpted, I was a nascent musician not much older than Halley’s original audience in the cathedral. As a young man growing up in a small farming community in the Fraser Valley, this music – the whole otherworldly, sonic experience of it – was revelatory. To this day, I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to Paul Halley, who now holds the position of music director at both the University of King’s College and All Saints Cathedral in Halifax. This is best enjoyed on a capable sound system or a good pair of headphones. If you enjoy this, I heartily recommend the entire recording, which these days is available on CD or any number of streaming services.

 

Gerald Harder

 

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