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INTRODUCTION
In America, at the December holidays, the qualities that
typically dwell in the background of our lives come prancing to
the foreground. We never seem to have enough time; we channel
our desires for intimacy into purchasing things; we scurry to
get everything “just right” . . . and we don’t quite know what
to do with ourselves in the stillness that follows the final
present’s opening. Such is life in America; such is the
virtually ingrained inability to be still; such are the
overwhelming cultural forces that make it so difficult to
reflect.
And yet, in December, what do people want to hear as music,
year after year? A choir. And what is a choir? It’s a human
ensemble: people doing something together, making words at the
same time—something beautiful, something unified. On the
surface, it appears that choral singing has no “practical”
purpose. But we must need it, or we wouldn’t sing in a choir, or
we wouldn’t go to the trouble to bring ourselves to hear one as
you have done today. A choir warms our hearts, fills our ears
with beauty, and helps us to feel more fully human. At the
holidays, a choir reminds us of our traditions and history,
connects us to something hopefully more glorious and more
fragile than we let ourselves feel most of the time. I’m
inundated with choral music 24/7, and even I feel the same way.
One of my greatest joys of the year (if I’m not too busy) is
hearing the BBC’s broadcast of Christmas Eve lessons and carols
from King’s College, Cambridge. Those analytical parts of me
that worked so hard for that PhD in musicology take a big comfy
back seat, while I get all melty inside. I feel that I’m
connecting to a treasure-trove of tradition, and I am routinely
brought to tears.
Bob Applebaum’s new piece is wonderful because it tells us
exactly what we seek. Whether we celebrate Chanukah or not, we
can take comfort in the words of Haneirot Hallalu:
“Throughout the eight days of Chanukah these lights are sacred
and we are not permitted to use them in ordinary ways, but only
to look at them, in order to offer our gratitude…” The tragedy
of human life is that so rarely do we actually look at things or
people like that; it takes a deliberate act of will to be that
conscious. Would that our lives were filled every day with that
sort of attentiveness, and that all of our relationships were so
filled with presence of mind and gratitude of heart.
I too will be at these concerts with a new sort of presence.
For the first time in thirteen seasons, I will be in the
audience with you. Just for this concert, I decided to take my
role as artistic director in a different direction, one where my
sole responsibility is to choose and shape the music, listening
in rehearsal unencumbered by the act of singing. It has been
greatly enlightening and worthwhile, and I’m happy with the
results. I also am excited to get to attend a concert by Chicago
a cappella for the first time!
May your holiday season be blessed with times of the true
connectedness for which all of us yearn; may this be the year
when you find that which you most earnestly seek; and may our
concert be a place where our deepest humanity is shared. Thank
you from all of us at Chicago a cappella for bringing
yourself here. Have a wonderful holiday season.
—Jonathan Miller, Founder and
Artistic Director
NOTES ON THE MUSIC
arr. J. David Moore: Il est né, le divin Enfant
This popular French carol has found a lively setting in the
hands of J. David Moore, a St. Paul based musician who makes his
living as a choral conductor, singer, composer, arranger, and
music copyist. He holds degrees in conducting and composition
from Florida State University and the Cincinnati Conservatory of
Music. Moore has also done many settings for Dare to Breathe, a
Twin Cities-based vocal ensemble which he founded. When living
in Cincinnati he founded the Village Waytes, a vocal ensemble
for which he created this arrangement.
John Jacob Niles, arr. Steve Pilkington: I Wonder as I
Wander
This much-loved tune is partly traditional and partly
composed. The “original” melody for this carol was pieced
together by John Jacob Niles from three lines which he cajoled
out of a young girl in 1933, in Murphy, North Carolina (the
mountainous far west of the state, in the Appalachians). Niles
paid Annie Morgan twenty-five cents per performance; after eight
tries, he notes, “I had only three lines of verse, a garbled
fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea.” He fleshed
out the melody and wrote additional verses, first recording the
song in 1938 on a 78-rpm disc for RCA Red Seal. The melody has
found an exquisite home in this a cappella choral setting
by Steve Pilkington, who is associate professor and chair of the
conducting, organ, and sacred-music faculties at Westminster
Choir College (Rider University) in Princeton, New Jersey.
arr. Gunnar Eriksson: Kristallen den fina
Gunnar Eriksson teaches choir and ensemble conducting at the
State College of Music and the State Opera College at the
University of Göteborg, in Sweden’s second-largest city. He
founded and directs the Rilke Ensemble, a twelve-voice mixed
ensemble named “Choir of the Year” in 2004 by the Swedish Choral
Centre. Gunnar Eriksson is also the leader of the Göteborg
Chamber Choir, which has existed for over 25 years and has
recorded some 20 albums and made several tours around the world.
He spends most of his spare time traveling around the world
conducting and teaching choirs and their leaders.
Eriksson’s magical setting of Kristallen den fina
weaves together not just two, but three old Swedish Christmas
melodies. “Kristallen den fina” is medieval in the way it
expresses love for the virgin Mary with sensate, passionate
images. While the sopranos sing it in a rocking 6/8 meter, the
tenors reply with the old Lutheran chorale, “Världens Frälsare
kom här,” better known in the USA as “Nun komm der heiden
Heiland.” The basses provide a lush harmonic underpinning to the
whole thing, which blooms and swells like a lily opening, and
closes gently like the same lily at the end of the day. The
second time through, the altos round out the texture with an old
Gregorian melody known as “Christe, qui lux est et dies,” sung
here in Swedish as “O Kriste, du som ljüset är.”
spiritual, arr. W. L. James: Roun’ de Glory Manger
Willis Laurence James taught at Spelman College in Atlanta
from 1933 until his death in 1966. He started collecting black
folksongs at age 22 while teaching in Louisiana. During the
1940s he was affiliated with the Library of Congress as a
Recording Fellow. He gained wide attention for his theory that
“the cry” (called the “moan” by others) was the most distinctive
feature of black American folksong, a notion supported recently
in Samuel Floyd's The Power of Black Music. Mr. James appeared
as a lecturer at the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals and at
Tanglewood, as well as on college campuses and before
professional societies.
G. P da Palestrina: A solus ortus cardine (Hymn)
Palestrina was a successful and prolific composer, writing
more than 100 masses and 250 motets. His melodies fit easily to
the human voice, as is the case with the work of so many
Renaissance composers who began their careers as professional
choral singers. His work has been held up by music theorists for
centuries as a model of proper preparation and resolution of
dissonance. This “office hymn” is based on chant from the
Liturgy of the Hours for Christmas Day. We follow the
alternatim practice common in the 1500s, where a verse of
polyphony is followed by a verse of plainchant. Palestrina did
not compose music for the even-numbered verses, evidence that he
had this practice in mind.
Enrico Oweggi: Nyathi Onyuol
This is a spiritual in the Luo language from the Nyanza
province in western Kenya. The Luo are the second-largest and
second-wealthiest tribe in Kenya. They traditionally live on the
shores of Lake Victoria, which they believe to be sacred. Many
of Kenya’s scientists and doctors come from the Luo tribe, as
they place a high value on education. This piece has been made
famous by Muungano, the national choir of Kenya, founded by
Boniface Mganga to be an ecumenical, pan-Christian, multi-ethnic
choir with singers from all the tribes and linguistic traditions
of his country. “Muungano” means “unity” in Kiswahili; that
choir’s songs, like many contemporary African arts, fuse
traditional and neo-traditional African tunes with exuberant and
intense quasi-Western harmonic style. Staying true to our own
traditions, Chicago a cappella features our versatile
vocal percussionist covering the drum part.
César Alejandro Carrillo: Ave Maria
César Carrillo conducts several university choirs in Caracas,
Venezuela, as well as his own chamber choir. This remarkable
miniature sets to music, for four women’s voices, the Catholic
Church’s beloved petition to the Virgin Mary. Carrillo combines
an undulating, atmospheric prayerfulness with just enough
harmonic variety to give a clear sense of transition from the
opening blessings to the emotional high point, ora pro nobis
peccatoribus (“pray for us sinners”).
Mikhl Gelbart, arr. Mark Zuckerman: Ikh bin a kleyner
dreydl
The traditional Chanukah melody finds a playful setting at
the hands of acclaimed composer Mark Zuckerman. Mikhl Gelbart’s
original Yiddish remains intact here, with a small amount of
English added for contrast by Mark Zuckerman, whose Yiddish
choral arrangements has been performed internationally. The four
letters on each side of a dreydl are taken from the first
letters of the four words “Nes gadol hayah sham,” meaning “A
great miracle happened there.” The letters themselves are
nun, shin, hey, and gimel, so Zuckerman cleverly uses
these letters as the words for the basses and tenors to sing at
the start of the song.
James S. Pierpont, arr. James Clemens: Jingle a
cappella
A perhaps too-familiar tune takes a brilliant new guise in
the hands of composer James Clemens, a skillful writer and
arranger who recently moved from the Chicago area to Virginia.
This arrangement was written for Chicago a cappella. In
addition to giving Pierpont’s tune a jazz-inflected harmonic
setting, Clemens takes an innovative turn in the “legit”
direction. The middle section is a wild fugue in 7/8 time, based
on J. S. Bach’s Fuga 23, BWV 868, from The Well-Tempered Klavier,
volume 1!
INTERMISSION
spiritual, arr. Robert L. Morris: I Believe This is Jesus
Based in the Twin Cities, Robert L. Morris is active as a
lecturer and conductor and is a skillful and sensitive composer
and arranger. He arranged for Duke Ellington and has given
presentations at Poland’s national choral festival, Legnica
Cantat. Morris is also the founding director of the Leigh Morris
Chorale, a community chorus preserving African-American choral
traditions among other repertoires.
The Christmas spiritual, I believe this is Jesus, is
better known in the setting by Undine Smith Moore, which Chicago
a cappella has also performed. Robert Morris’s adaptation
of the tune is rich and harmonically sophisticated, remarkably
evoking big-band textures in the lower voices while he borrows
harmonic progressions from more progressive styles of gospel
music. The overall effect is reminiscent of William Dawson’s
best work, with qualities that are searching and evocative while
still remaining celebratory and ecstatic.
Robert Applebaum: Haneirot Hallalu (world premiere)
The thoughtful sensitivity of Bob Applebaum’s choral music
has gained him national recognition and increasing exposure
through publication. He also has a devoted partner in Chicago
a cappella, which regularly performs and records his work.
Adept in setting both English and Hebrew, he brings to choral
writing his particular gifts of harmony, rhythm, and texture,
reflecting his many years’ experience as a jazz pianist.
Haneirot Hallalu is a traditional prayer, read and/or
sung just after the Chanukah candle blessings are chanted and
the candles kindled. The composer writes: “In the English text
that I have composed, I have chosen to emphasize by reiteration
(‘And we just watch them burn’) the notion that the candles are
not to be used for any ordinary purpose, but only to be looked
at.” The song’s new English text serves therefore as a
commentary on the Hebrew.
arr. John Renbourn: Wexford Lullaby
The original words to the Wexford Carol tell the story
of Jesus’s birth, from the arrival at the ox’s stall to the
visits of the wise men and shepherds at the manger. The unusual
tune is both angular and heart-warming. Both tune and text were
transcribed in the early twentieth century by Dr. William
Grattan Flood, choirmaster at St. Aidan’s Cathedral, from a
traditional singer in County Wexford, Ireland. The carol’s
popularity surely stems from its inclusion in the original
Oxford Book of Carols. Here it finds a revised text of
unusual warmth and intimacy, penned by folk guitarist John
Renbourn, of Pentangle fame. He recorded this setting on the
album Traveller’s Prayer (1998); the song was transcribed
by folk singer Kate Howard, who generously handed Jonathan
Miller her own score after a Village Harmony concert in Vermont
five years ago.
arr. Anne Heider: Poor Little Jesus
Anne Heider is Artistic Director Emeritus of Bella Voce,
which under her leadership has established an outstanding
reputation both in the Chicago area and nationally. She holds
degrees from Wellesley College, New York University, and
Stanford University. She is Associate Professor of Music and
Resident Choral Conductor at Roosevelt University's Chicago
College of Performing Arts, where she teaches courses in music
history and conducts one of the choral ensembles. She is active
as a choral consultant and guest conductor. Her research in
early music has been supported by the Newberry Library, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and Roosevelt University.
She has published a number of choral octavos, both early music
and folksong arrangements, with GIA (Chicago). She serves on the
Board of Chorus America.
Unlike the more playful version in the Jennings medley at the
end of our concert, Dr. Heider’s splendid and dramatic setting
of this Christmas spiritual emphasizes the more somber aspect of
the text, “Wasn’t that a pity and a shame?” The ensemble’s
steady responses of “Yes, yes” keep the song grounded in a
rhythmic, work-song-like pulse, reminding us in our bones that
Jesus was indeed born on the earth.
Stephen Paulus: Splendid Jewel
Composer Stephen Paulus has been hailed as “...a bright,
fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift.” (The New Yorker)
His prolific output of more than two hundred works is
represented by many genres, including music for orchestra,
chorus, chamber ensembles, solo voice, keyboard and opera. His
choral works have been performed and recorded by some of the
most distinguished choruses in the United States, including the
New York Concert Singers, Dale Warland Singers, Los Angeles
Master Chorale, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Mormon Tabernacle
Choir, and dozens of other professional, community, church and
college choirs. A recipient of both Guggenheim and NEA
Fellowships, Paulus is also a strong advocate for the music of
his colleagues. He is co-founder and a current Board Vice
President of the highly esteemed American Composers Forum, the
largest composer service organization in the world.
Splendid Jewel was composed for The Rose Ensemble, an
innovative vocal group based in the Twin Cities, which
specializes in early music. The text comes from the Laudi
Spirituali found in the 14th-century Florence Laudario
manuscript.
arr. Joseph Jennings: Christmas Spiritual Medley
One of the world’s most acclaimed and decorated
vocal-ensemble directors, Joseph Jennings joined Chanticleer as
a countertenor in 1983, and shortly thereafter assumed his
current title of Music Director. Under his direction,
Chanticleer has released 25 critically acclaimed recordings
(works ranging from Gregorian chant to Renaissance masterworks
to jazz), including the Grammy Award-winning Colors of Love
and Lamentations and Praises, and has performed at many
of the world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls. In
addition to being Music Director of Chanticleer, Mr. Jennings
also leads the Golden Gate Men's Chorus. His compositions and
arrangements are published by Oxford University Press, Hinshaw
Music of Chapel Hill, NC, and Yelton Rhodes Music of Los
Angeles.
This medley of traditional Christmas spirituals runs the
gamut from being contained and reverent (“Rise up, shepherd, and
follow”) to downright campy (“Sweet little Jesus boy”). Jennings
also gives the tempo marking of “Bloozy” for his setting of
“Poor little Jesus,” leaving no doubt that loosening up is a
good idea.
Except for composer biographies and unless
otherwise attributed, all program notes provided here are
copyright © 2005 Jonathan M. Miller and may not be reproduced in
any form whatsoever without express permission. |
