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Performance Archives This page, taken from the inaugural
program of the Annas
Bay Music Festival in Summer 2006, includes the complete program
notes and related information for the September 2006 concert, "Other Voices".
* Kathryn Weld,
mezzo-soprano
It is a great pleasure to present the first performances of two new works, commissioned by the Annas Bay Music Festival: this is the garden by David Hahn, and If Ever Two Were One by Linda Gingrich. We hope that these will be the first of many collaborations with many fine composers. Funding for David Hahn’s composition this is the garden has been made possible by the Puffin Foundation. INTRODUCTION At first glance, the works that form our concert “Other Voices” seem an unrelated hodgepodge of classics and premieres. Certainly there is one unifying factor: great texts. But the words also deal with voices, and specifically unusual voices. In Copland we hear the voice of God, in this case sung by a mezzo-soprano. Dylan Thomas sings, through the music of John Corigliano, with the voice of nostalgia, almost like a child somehow aware of his own innocence. While there are many lovesongs, very few come from the point of view of a married couple, as in Anne Bradstreet’s poem set by Linda Gingrich. E. E. Cummings, an “other” voice if any poet qualifies, is represented in a new work by David Hahn. Samuel Barber’s odd collection of texts by James Stephens contributes as a resurrection of old Irish lyrics. Our concert’s title is provided by the Northwest collaboration of composer Roupen Shakarian and poet Rebecca Loudon, in which the “other voices” are those of animals and nature. And Siegfried Sassoon’s voices, recalled by Argento, belong to “everyone.” Hence “Other Voices”. AARON COPLAND (1900–1990) — In the Beginning (1947) The great choral conductor Abraham Kaplan once recounted a conversation he had with his friend, the composer Aaron Copland. The chat centered on why Copland had composed so little for chorus. The composer’s response was to pause a moment, and claim that he had never found a text that moved him toward choral music. Kaplan volunteered to select texts from various sources and send them to the composer for consideration. Copland hesitated again, claiming that choral diction was invariably unclear, a notion which Kaplan vehemently contested. Eventually, Copland accepted the offer, and Kaplan dutifully sent his friend the texts…but Copland never set them. Copland’s corpus of choral compositions is indeed remarkably small, totalling just six minor works (including four early motets performed on our “American Psalms, Motets and Spirituals” concert) and one virtuosic, seventeen-minute behemoth, In the Beginning. It is true that Copland didn’t write much for chorus, but In the Beginning alone ensures his status as one of America’s greatest choral composers. If Copland’s primary reason for not writing more choral music was the difficulty of choosing texts, In the Beginning is certainly an odd place to begin. Setting the Bible to music is notoriously difficult, but no other major composer has tried to set such a large Biblical fragment for unaccompanied voices. Indeed, In the Beginning is perhaps the longest continuous unaccompanied choral work in the repertory. Copland knew what he was getting into upon accepting the commission: he would later quip, “It was brave of me to accept a commission for a choral work to be premiered at a Symposium on Music Criticism at Harvard in May 1947, never having composed anything of length for chorus.” Initially, the Harvard committee had asked for a work in Hebrew, which Copland soon abandoned in favor of a literal setting of the first thirty-eight verses of the Book of Genesis from the familiar King James Version of the Bible, telling the creation story from chaos through the granting of “a living soul” to mankind. He settled on a basic structure, using “the habitual phrases ‘And the next day…’ to round off each section. I was uncertain about how it would proceed until I got to the third day of creation—only then did I feel my idea would work.” In this manner, the seventeen minutes of continuous music instead feel like seven sections plus an epilogue, allowing the ear of the listener to grasp a very large canvas piecemeal. In the Beginning begins with a solo mezzo-soprano, marked “in a gentle, narrative manner, like reading a familiar and oft-told story.” The first minute of In the Beginning is a remarkable one, so don’t miss it. The mezzo-soprano soloist wanders high and low in her register, as a subtle text-painting of the absence of form to the universe, and when the choral altos and tenors finally join her, it is clear that meter (the repetitive pattern of strong and weak beats, found in virtually all music throughout the world) has yet to be created as well! As each day of creation begins, the mezzo takes on the role of the voice of God, commanding that the next element of creation come to existence. The choir proceeds to depict the event of creation itself, concluding with a soft intonation, “And the evening and the morning were the (first, second, etc.) day,” in a recitation style which would be appropriate even to the liturgical chanting of psalms. These recitations illustrate that all of the hallmarks of Copland’s compositional style—jagged melodies, vigorous rhythm, and open harmonies—are as present here as in his major orchestral works. Be particularly ready for the fourth day, when God—again, in the guise of mezzo-soprano solo—decrees the creation of the “lights in the firmament of the heaven.” The choral sections enter separately, without warning, as if God herself (in this case, definitely herself) pointed in a direction to the heavens, and suddenly the light appeared. The fifth is the only day that begins with the choir; note the smooth, flowing women’s parts as God creates the waters, and the bulky yet elegant slow motion of the bass line as “God created great whales.” As the mezzo-soprano invokes the creation of “cattle…and the beast of the earth” to inaugurate the sixth day, Copland invokes a masterful stroke: the men’s voices sing the text “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,” from way back in the third day—after all, the cattle need something to eat! Another special moment is the creation of “man in [God’s] own image,” which Copland depicts by a strict canon, in which the men sing exactly the line just sung by the women: truly, music being created in its own image. As if aware that the choral parts thus far have been exceptionally difficult, the seventh day, on which God “rested…from all his work which he had made,” is given a slower, serene, and vocally relaxing setting: the music is simpler, easier to tune, easier to count, easier to pronounce. The mezzo-soprano returns to her role as story-teller to begin the epilogue, “These are the generations of the heavens,” with an energetic cadenza. The slow progression as “there went up a mist from the earth”, culminating as “man became a living soul,” divides the chorus into eight parts, with every section moving steadily, like a great organ, from the softest and lowest register, to the highest and loudest proclamation. After all, as Copland told a choir at Brown University, “Creation was quite a stunt, so make it grand—don’t be pathetic about it. What happened after creation is an entirely different story!” In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the day from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind: and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. JOHN CORIGLIANO (born 1938) — Fern Hill (1960) To classically-minded Americans of a certain generation, the name “John Corigliano” may conjure images not of a composer, but of a violinist: John Corigliano Sr., concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for twenty-three years—one only needs to hear his solos in the “Benedictus” movement of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, recorded under Leonard Bernstein’s direction, to hear a talent as lyrical as any. No, the composer of Fern Hill is not that John Corigliano, but rather his son, one of the most decorated living composers in America, recipient of a Pulitzer (2001, Symphony No. 2), a Grawemeyer (1991, Symphony No. 1), an Academy Award (1999, The Red Violin), and several Grammys (including 1992, Symphony No. 1, and 1997, String Quartet). Corigliano’s orchestral music has gained an immediate hold on the standard repertory, including concertos for piano, violin, flute, clarinet, and oboe. 1991 saw the premiere at the Metropolitan Opera of his comic opera The Ghosts of Versailles, in which one leading role is the rather peeved ghost of the beheaded Marie Antoinette. Fern Hill, however, predates all of those successes. The composer had just graduated from New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, and a colleague had requested a setting of Dylan Thomas’s (1914–1953) most famous lyric, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. Unfamiliar with Thomas’s work, Corigliano consulted his collected poems, and became particularly entranced by Fern Hill. This would prove a life-long fascination with the poet, culminating in A Dylan Thomas Trilogy (1976, revised and expanded 1999), which incorporates Fern Hill as its second movement. We will hear Fern Hill in one of its original forms, for mezzo-soprano solo, mixed chorus, and a small ensemble consisting of strings, harp, and piano. Dylan Thomas’s passionate, lyrical, almost Romantic verse lends itself beautifully to music. The Welshman lived all his life in or near the coastal town of Swansea, but spent his childhood summers at the family farm, called Fern Hill. He was in his early twenties when he wrote this nostalgic poem about those summers—roughly the same age as Corigliano upon setting it to music. Corigliano is carefully attuned to the text, but often in extremely subtle ways. For example, in the first stanza of text, Thomas recalls having been “young and easy under the apple boughs,” and being “prince of the apple towns”—who among us did not have such play-fantasies in our youth?—which Corigliano assigns a slightly more regal rhythm in the instruments, while still maintaining a carefree overall mood. A more active playtime is recalled in the quicker tempo, as Thomas imagines himself “huntsman and herdsman”, but all action immediately ceases as “the sabbath rang slowly,” spent gently playing with “the pebbles of the holy streams.” There follows a gentle arioso for solo mezzo-soprano and instruments, marked “with simplicity,” but turning menacing to recall the dangers of seeing vague images “flashing in the dark.” Morning arrives, and with it the return of the beginning of the arioso—a morning as gentle as Eden. The choir returns, and Thomas begins to comment on, rather than simply recount, the experiences of his youth. The commentary becomes increasingly complex and dissonant, and the music follows suit. Nearing the end of the poem, Thomas again recalls being “young and easy,” but now that nostalgia is tinged with bitterness and resentment. The instruments close with a recollection of the innocent opening, but the final two chords are particularly telling: the penultimate chord with a biting cross-relation of A-flat and A-natural together, such that the closing chord, with A-flats removed, retains just a tinge of that bitterness. Now
as I was young and easy under the apple boughs And
as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns All
the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay And
then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white And
honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me LINDA GINGRICH (born 1951) — If Ever Two Were One (2006) Linda Gingrich is a master of all aspects of the choral art: she is an accomplished composer, arranger, teacher, conductor, and singer. Born in Austin, Texas, she moved with her family to Washington state in the late 1950s. Her formal training in voice began at Pacific Lutheran University, and later the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where she began to discover that she didn’t have a soloistic voice, and thus required a change of direction. After a few preliminary studies in composition with Bern Herbolsheimer, she proceeded to a Masters degree in choral conducting at the University of Washington. She conducted various volunteer and paid positions, but composed only rarely until starting in 1991 the Issaquah Chorale (now Master Chorus Eastside), one of the major forces in choral music in the eastern suburbs of Seattle. Eventually, she returned to doctoral work at the University of Washington, where she is currently writing a dissertation about Bach’s chorale cantatas, and in fact where she shared for two years an office with tonight’s conductor, Gary Cannon. She is also the music director at First Baptist Church of Seattle, and sings alto in the Annas Bay Chamber Choir. Her compositional language, like her conducting technique, is consistently clear and subtly expressive. Gingrich’s compositions are predominantly vocal, focusing on arrangements from various traditional sources: the Irish folksong The Star of County Down, the French carol Angels We Have Heard on High, the Southern chain-gang melody Griz-ze-ly Bear…even an unaccompanied choral rendition of Rossini’s William Tell Overture! In fact, If Ever Two Were One is one of rather few works not based on pre-existing material, as she generally composes to fill a specific programming need with Master Chorus Eastside. If Ever Two Were One sets a poem entitled To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet (?1612–1672), the first published American poet of any gender. Bradstreet was a devout Puritan, arriving in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630, where her husband became the colony’s chief administrator. As his political duties required extensive travel throughout the colony, Anne was often left home to raise the children and read from their copious library. She eventually developed a taste for the appreciation and creation of poetry, and would write short verses privately, for her family’s enjoyment, generally on the themes of love for God or for her husband. The highly approachable poetry of Anne Bradstreet matches the listenable compositional style of Linda Gingrich perfectly. Gingrich’s work is always very closely linked to the text. For example, when the altos and tenors sing the opening line of text, they begin as two distinct lines, moving in opposite directions, but unite for the word “one.” Much of the composition pairs the inner voices (alto and tenor) together, while the outer voices (soprano and bass) follow, but the full choir always unites at the end of each section. The quick central section, at the text “I prize thy love,” begins with a melody highlighted for sopranos only, to emphasize the single voice of the poem. “All the riches that the East doth hold” are displayed by a full texture, dividing the choir into seven parts, and “Rivers” are depicted by a line that rushes downward, like a sonic waterfall, from soprano to bass. After a brief, rhapsodic concentration on the husband’s love, Gingrich returns to the opening motive. To depict the final desire that “we may live ever”, the music is never given a definitive ending, but rather the choir is to repeat the final phrase indefinitely, gradually fading away. If
ever two were one, then surely we. DAVID HAHN (born 1956) — this is the garden (2006) David Hahn is certainly one of Seattle’s most eclectic musicians. Born in Philadelphia, he attended a Quaker school, and then became a comparative literature major at Brown University. He converted eventually to music, and continued studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston and London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Upon returning to Boston, he developed a career as lutenist, founding the award-winning Boston Renaissance Ensemble and joining the faculty at NEC. This love of early music took him to a doctoral fellowship in historical musicology at Stanford, where he began to learn composition by analyzing the scores of the great Renaissance masters, particularly Josquin. In 1993 he made his way to Seattle, where he has taught music at all levels. When one prepares to hear a piece by David Hahn, one never knows what to expect. Perhaps it will be a neo-Renaissance motet, such as De omnibus apostolis, which can be heard at our “American Psalms, Motets and Spirituals” concert…perhaps a neo-ethnic work such as Concerto Anatolia, a guitar concerto based on Turkish themes…perhaps a post-modern, pacifist electronic composition such as the recent Apocalypse Cow, incorporating fragments from speeches by George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld…or, as when tonight’s conductor first met him, perhaps a pitchless, intentionally silly, phonetic deconstruction of text, such as Turkey, Turkey. Hence when Annas Bay commissioned a new work for choir and instruments from Hahn last year, we didn’t quite know what to expect either! Suffice it to say, Hahn has found yet another path, this time balancing lyrical vocal parts with quirky, post-modern instrumental rhythms, setting a somewhat traditional sonnet by E. E. Cummings, who is far from a traditional poet. It is always amazing to see what David Hahn will do next! The poetry of E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) is notorious for its unorthodox punctuation, capitalization, layout, and grammar. His relatively traditional sonnet this is the garden comes from his first collection of poetry, 1923’s Tulips and Chimneys. David Hahn’s setting also has a rather straightforward structure, dividing the poem into three sections, each beginning with a repetition of the text “This is the garden”. There is a stark stylistic contrast throughout, between instrumental versus choral writing. To the instruments (clarinet, bassoon, horn, viola, cello, and doublebass) is given music reflecting the garden itself, with quick rhythmic figures, splashes of color, and jumpy textures reminiscent of Anton Webern. But the choral writing is more lyrical, as the singers take on the role of human observer, commenting objectively on the playful instrumental garden around them. The instruments often take the lead in this is the garden, including an introduction in which one can almost see bees and birds flitting about, amid colorful splashes of light. The poem is divided by two instrumental interludes, of which the second (after “hauntingly and slow”) is particularly remarkable: it begins with predictable rhythms, but culminates in a battle of duplets (two divisions per beat) vs. triplets (three divisions). The work’s third poetic section is mostly unaccompanied; as “death’s blade” overcomes the garden, the instruments symbolically cease playing. The central line of text for Hahn is certainly “yet stand They here enraptured,” given full, strong chords, with the choir divided into six parts. At the closing mention of “perpetual sleep,” the voices have long, steady note values, but the opening garden music returns. This garden may be under threat, but the music testifies that it will be restored. this
is the garden:colours come and go, This
is the garden. Time shall surely reap SAMUEL BARBER (1910–1981) — Reincarnations, opus 16 (1940) Samuel Barber is a “one-hit wonder” in an unusual sense. While some argue that his Adagio for Strings alone keeps him popular (its choral version, Agnus Dei, is performed in our “Requiem Æternam” concert), the truth is that he created one, and only one, composition in virtually every standard genre: one piano sonata, one string quartet, one concerto each for violin, cello, and piano, one symphony (the composer disavowed his later, second symphony). The great exception is vocal music: Barber composed two of the most important American operas, a great wealth of art songs that forms the backbone of most any American singer’s repertory, and a vast number of fine choral works. Reincarnations is perhaps his greatest single choral achievement. The text of Reincarnations has a complex provenance. Antoine Ó Raifteiri (1784–1835), also known as Anthony Raftery, was a blind minstrel, sometimes called “the last of the wandering bards”, whose songs were based on Irish folk poetry. James Stephens (1882–1950) was second only to James Joyce as the pre-eminent Irish author of poems, plays, novel, short stories, and fairy tales, also generally based on traditional folk idioms. His volume of poetry entitled Reincarnations dates from 1918, in which he modernized and re-worked much of the great Irish poetry of preceding generations, including these three poems attributed to Raftery. Hence the title Reincarnations: a resurrection of various long-forgotten but fine-quality Irish lyrics. Barber gained international repute with his Adagio for Strings from 1930, but, as with most composers, still required steady employment to make ends meet while living in expensive New York. In the late 1930s, he was invited by Randall Thompson, then director of the Curtis Institute, to establish and conduct a Madrigal Chorus at the Philadelphia conservatory. Barber accepted the position, and for two years commuted from New York every Monday for rehearsals. He also composed several works for the ensemble, including five settings from Stephens’s volume, Reincarnations. Only three of these were eventually published under that title. The first is a jumpy, ecstatic love-song, which eventually settles to a soft, “lovely and airy” closing. Anthony O’Daly goes in the opposite direction: spurred on by an insistent repetition of “Anthony”, the song builds gradually to a desperate frenzy. The cycle’s conclusion, The Coolin, is in a third vein: gentle, serene, even pastoral, with a rollicking triplet motion throughout (each beat can be subdivided into three, rather than in two). Reincarnations is among the greatest of American choral music, and no festival of American music would be complete without it.
ROUPEN SHAKARIAN (born 1950) — Other Voices (2002, revised 2006) Several years ago, or so the story goes, psychologists studied the lives of the great composers and determined that only two—Haydn and Dvořák—had been genuinely happy individuals. If his music and personality are valid indicators, then Roupen Shakarian would merit such a title as well. Born in 1950 in Cairo, Egypt, of Armenian parents, Shakarian arrived in the United States at age four. Eventually his family made their way to Seattle in 1962—he remembers arriving northbound on Interstate-5 and seeing the Space Needle under construction. After studying both composition and conducting at the University of Washington, Shakarian made his way to London, where he briefly worked as a professional singer, and then to further conducting studies at Yale University. He returned to the Northwest, and within a few years had been appointed music director of Philharmonia Northwest, a community orchestra in Seattle, and joined the faculty at North Seattle Community College. He also conducts the orchestra at the annual Midsummer Musical Retreat in Walla Walla, a kind of summer music camp for grown-ups; it was the MMR Board who commissioned Other Voices in 2002 as part of their twentieth-anniversary year, to be performed by the retreat faculty. And, in addition to being an accomplished composer, conductor, educator, and singer, he’s a fantastic joke-teller. Shakarian has collaborated with Seattle poet Rebecca Loudon in various endeavors, including Bone Island Suite for soprano and orchestra, Yangshuo Quay for chorus and clarinet, and Other Voices. Loudon is one of Seattle’s most remarkable poetic voices, and her words simply flow with a music of their own, which is what you might expect from an author who also dabbles in violin. Googling her name presents one with a number of poems and essays extolling the virtues of observing carefully, reading incessantly, and living fully. Her poetry generally deals in specifics—“a bicycle…propped against a palm tree”, a “flock of tethered cormorants”, “a clover-poisoned cow”—but her message is invariably universal: there is something to be learned from these careful observations and memories. The poem Other Voices is no exception. It tells of Jack, a man who desires the ability to understand, and thereby command, the voices of nature. The composition is scored for mixed voices, including four soloists taken from the choir, clarinet, horn, bassoon, viola, cello, and doublebass. The fable begins with solo clarinet, and soon the chorus and solo baritone introduce the story. These opening few moments—particularly the first three words, “Every nine years”—present most of the material to be used throughout the work. Jack proceeds to seek out the fern-blossom which will give him “the gift of tongues,” ignoring the playful pleas of children, set in a simple, straight-forward, tonal style; as Jack distances himself from the children, their calls grow weaker and weaker in the instruments. Here follow a series of brief episodes, when falcon, fox, trout, and bees beckon to Jack’s will. The falcon is given a delicate aria for solo soprano, and the fox a fun, bouncy, English art-song. The trout have a mysterious, dark choral sound, followed by the onomatopoeic thrumming of bees. Upon Jack’s arrival home, the fable reveals its implicit moral, as Jack realizes his fault, and the trees recognize that all is well. The solo clarinet returns from the beginning, reminding us that the story could very well repeat itself...“every nine years.” Every
nine years on Midsummer's eve, Jack
looked into the vegetable glass, wanted the gift of tongues, In the
forest children stacked wood to build a fire, Fox
watched from his den, falcon wheeled above Jack's head. He
tucked it tight inside his shoe, called the falcon from her perch. Jack
beckoned falcon to his arm, strapped a leather hood Fox
wrapped his tail around Jack’s leg, softly nipped his muddy foot, Trout,
mute in the river, leapt, flung their bones around Jack’s throat; Fires
rose to greet the moon and Jack, with sorrow in his hands, DOMINICK ARGENTO (born 1927) — Everyone Sang (1991) The output of Dominick Argento is predominantly vocal, including operas (see the note on our performance of A Water Bird Talk for more biographical data), solo songs, and choral works (his Spirituals and Swedish Chorales is heard on our “American Psalms, Motets and Spirituals” concert, and Sonnet LXIV will be presented on “Requiem Æternam”). Everyone Sang is a brief but dense work, scored for two choruses which essentially act as distinct entities. Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)—named after the hero of Wagner’s Ring operatic cycle—fought bravely in the British Army during the First World War; indeed, he was nicknamed “Mad Jack” for his dangerously vigorous battle tactics. He rose to fame shortly after the war for his pacifist poetry. Other WWI poets, such as Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen, have gained greater fame, but Sassoon’s works share many commonalities with theirs, such as the transformation of horrible wartime events (bombs, gas, death) into glorified elements of nature (birds, wind, freedom). As an example, first read the poem Everyone Sang below, and bask in its unbridled positivism. Now consider some alternate readings: the sudden burst of song could be re-interpreted as a charge on the battlefield, delight is recast to adrenaline, white orchards become a pillaged no-man’s-land, the setting sun becomes nerve gas, and the wordless, never-ending singing becomes the moaning and groaning of his fellow soldiers in the trenches. The poem could be a simple paean to forgotten joy, but it could also be a deliberate farce, necessary to allow the poet to integrate the carnage around him into reality. Argento’s music takes the same approach as the poem’s surface: one of frantic joy. Indeed, while it is easy to recast symbolism in the text, it is much harder to do so in such glorious, interminably optimistic music. The opening is textless; the composer indicates in the score that “each attacked pitch is to be sung to syllables of the chorister’s own choosing—very spirited, jubilant, and varied.” The opening melody, changing frequently from duple to triple meter, forms the basis for the rest of the composition. The second choir enters without warning to sing the first stanza in jumpy, uplifting E-flat major, until becoming gradually softer as the “prisoned birds” move gradually “out of sight.” At the arrival of the second stanza, both choirs—separated into a twelve-part texture—come together for the first time, as “Everyone’s voice [is] suddenly lifted.” Eventually, the second choir is converted to the wordless, jaunty rhythm of the very opening; in fact, this is an example of a grand fugue: each voice in turn enters with the main melody, until everyone has had a turn and the full ensemble finally “bursts” into a sixteen-part chord. And, just as “the singing will never be done,” the music has no official ending, but simply drifts away, and the text “gradually revert[s] to the improvised syllables sung at the beginning”—after all, “the song was wordless.” Everyone suddenly burst out
singing; Everyone’s voice was suddenly
lifted,
— Program note by Gary D. Cannon
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