A prelude to the Christmas season: Britten, Holst, and Howells

A CLASSIC CHRISTMAS
Saturday, November 25, 2017, at 8:00 p.m.
St. James Cathedral
804 9th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104

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PROGRAM

Benjamin BRITTEN - A Ceremony of Carols
Gustav HOLST - Four Old English Carols
Herbert HOWELLS - Long, Long Ago
Harold DARKE - In the bleak midwinter
Kenneth LEIGHTON - Lully, lulla thou little tiny child
HOLST - Christmas Day

SINCE 2009, we have been one of the first area choirs to usher in the holiday season with our Christmas program Thanksgiving weekend. (Some say it’s too early and that we must be on the Macy’s calendar). After nine years it is starting to feel like a tradition, a prelude to the festive Christmas season ahead.

As I constructed this English Christmas program, I became aware of the importance of tradition at this time of year and the feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality that accompany it. On a personal level, many of the singers, including myself, have grown up singing these carols in our respective children’s choirs—I bet some of us have Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols memorized!

The composers no doubt felt similarly. Mid-20th century English composers paid homage to their Renaissance predecessors through their writing style and with great respect to the preservation of the carols. We see this in Howells’s penchant for polyphonic textures, Holst’s preference for uncomplicated carol settings, and Britten’s use of chant. And of nostalgia? I dare you to find something more nostalgic than Darke’s In the Bleak Midwinter. We are honored you are here to share the start of your holidays with us, and we thank you for supporting our tradition.

The procession Veni, veni, Emmanuel comes from the “O Antiphons,” a set of Magnificat antiphons sung at Vespers over the last seven days of Advent. The O Antiphons date back to the 9th century and anticipate the birth of Jesus.

Harold Darke (1888—1976) became famous for his Monday lunchtime recitals held at St. Michael's Church, Cornhill where he gave more than 1,800 performances over his fifty-year service. Darke’s brilliance as an organist and expertise leading the St. Michael’s Singers prepared him well for his appointment in 1941 as organist of King’s College, Cambridge, during the absence of Boris Ord, who was called out to war. Darke is remembered for his much-loved In the Bleak Midwinter, a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti. The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst. In 1909, Darke composed this setting, which was named the best Christmas carol in a poll of some of the world’s leading choirmasters in 2008.

Kenneth Leighton (1929—1988), the most recent composer on the program, comes from the English tradition represented by Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Howells, and Walton. (If you are wondering why I have excluded Leighton’s much more popular contemporary John Rutter from an English Christmas program, it is not because there is a lack of good Rutter carols, but because Leighton’s music pairs much better with the other English masters on the program). Leighton composed his most popular carol Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child—a setting of the Coventry carol—in 1948 as a 19-year old Oxford student. The text describes the Massacre of the Innocents, when the ruler of Judea, Herod, ordered the execution of all male infants of Bethlehem, in hopes to kill the child claimed by the Magi to be the “King of the Jews.” Leighton creates a dark mood through a repetitive instances of “Lully, lulla” that does not commit itself to a major or minor tonality—all of this underneath a haunting Soprano solo that soars above the choir.

English composer and organist Herbert Howells (1892-1983) is known for his large output of Anglican church music. He started composing early in life, studying under Charles Stanford at the age of eighteen. Howells’s colorful sound hearkens to the style of French impressionism—no wonder some call him an English Debussy. Howells composed Long, long ago poems by John Buxton, dedicated to the Lady Margaret Singers, Cambridge. Long, long ago, a carol-anthem, like most of Howells’s music, is not so much about distinctive musical themes. Instead, he uses a colorful musical atmosphere, a kind of scape as a vehicle for the words. Howells, a master of the musical art of deception, resolves tension in unexpected ways.

Vaughan Williams described his colleague Gustav Holst (1874—1934) as “the greatest influence on my music.” Holst also had a strong influence on the music of William Walton and Benjamin Britten. Holst, a composer for the people, believed that it was the composer’s duty to provide music for practical purposes—festivals, ceremonies, hymns or Christmas carols. Four Old English Carols (1907) demonstrates Holst's concern for economy. He sets the four traditional carols modestly and without too much musical complication that would obscure the simplicity of each carol. Holst’s Christmas Day, a “Choral Fantasy on Old Carols,” was composed in 1910 for the amateur singers of Morley College, where Holst had been teaching since 1907. This choral “fantasy” features a number of well-known carols—God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, The First Nowell, and Good Christian Men Rejoice.

The centerpiece of the program is Benjamin Britten’s (1913—1976) A Ceremony of Carols (1942), a collection of short pieces based on carols written in the 15th and 16th centuries. Britten wrote A Ceremony of Carols while on a transatlantic voyage from the United States to England. While stopped in Nova Scotia, Britten obtained a copy of “The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems,” a set of lyrical poems in Middle English, where he found the text for the work.

With its popularity among children’s choirs, it may be surprising to some that A Ceremony was originally conceived for a female choir. The Fleet Street Choir (women’s choir) gave the first performance of the initial seven movements in 1942. It was only after hearing several memorable performances of the work by a Welsh boys' choir that Britten stated his preference for boys’ voices. Originally, Britten composed seven movements out of the eleven as a set of unrelated songs. In 1943, he decided to unify the work through the addition of four movements: “Procession” and “Recession” that frame the cycle, based on the antiphon chant from the Christmas Eve Vespers; “That yongë child” for solo soprano and harp; and the new “Interlude” for solo harp.

With this cycle, Britten saw a chance to write music that would blossom in a church or cathedral. The canonic writing of “This little Babe” creates an exciting effect. Three voices sing the same melody but a beat apart, resulting in an echo effect reminiscent of a reverberant cathedral—no doubt the results will be more dramatic in the acoustics of St. James Cathedral. “In freezing winter night” also uses canonic writing, but more to create an atmosphere. At the center of A Ceremony lies the “Interlude” for solo harp which is also based on plainchant. The “Interlude” has a bell-like quality which is also heard in “Wolcum Yole!” and “Adam lay i-bounden.” Britten was not alone in his fascination with bells—both Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, influenced by music from the Russian Orthodox Church, professed a lifelong fascination with bells.

-Markdavin Obenza

Christmas in the Sistine Chapel

Luca MARENZIO - Hodie Christus natus est
CHANT - Puer natus est nobis
Cipriano de RORE - Missa Praeter rerum seriem
CHANT - Laetabundus
JOSQUIN - Gaude Virgo
JOSQUIN - Præter rerum seriem
JOSQUIN - Benedicta es
PALESTRINA - Hodie Christus natus est


FOR MORE THAN A MILLENNIUM, the papal choir has been the most important musical body of Christendom. The choir existed as the Roman "schola cantorum" in the 6th century, and in the 15th century the papal choir was re-established in Rome under Sixtus IV, who rebuilt the Sistine Chapel and established the daily sung services which became the official worship of the papal court.
    Because music was always unaccompanied in the Sistine Chapel, it was crucial that the Papal Choir perform at the highest level. Membership in the papal choir came with great rewards, financially and with special privileges. New choir members competed in front of the existing members, who acted as a judge panel, for these coveted positions. The choir was consistently able to attract the finest singers and composers from all over Europe, resulting in a diverse choir made up of three national groups: Franco-Flemish, Italians and the Spanish. After the Counter-Reformation, the personnel was almost entirely exclusively Italian.
    The program explores what Christmas Mass might have sounded like at the Sistine Chapel. The main mass parts feature Renaissance motets by Franco-Flemish and Italian composers, and the interpolated chant, from the Roman Rite, is sung by Vox16.
    Referred to as “the divine composer,” Italian composer Luca Marenzio (1553-1599) brought the Italian madrigal to its highest point of artistic and technical development. He produced seventeen books of madrigals between 1580 and 1589, their contents demonstrating a mastery of the madrigal style. Through imitation, cascading lines, and attention to the text,  Marenzio incorporates madrigal techniques in the 4-part Hodie Christus natus est, a joyful motet about the birth of Christ.
    During the 16th century, Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521), the central figure of the Franco-Flemish School, acquired the reputation as the greatest composer of the age. He joined the papal choir from 1489 to 1495 and may have carved his name into the wall of the Sistine Chapel, as a “JOSQUINJ” was recently found on a wall by workers restoring the chapel. Since it was traditional for singers to carve their names into the wall, it is likely that Josquin did also, and if so, this would be his only surviving autograph.
    Praeter rerum seriem is one of Josquin’s greatest pieces. The Christmas motet scored for six voices is based on a chant melody in long notes. For much of the piece, the polyphony is presented antiphonally between the three upper and the three lower voices. The opening begins with the three lowest voices in minor-mode polyphony, creating a dark and unique sound world. Rore uses this opening in all five of his mass movements.
    Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565) represents a generation of Franco-Flemish composers after Josquin who went to live and work in Italy. Rore found employment with the Duke Ercole II d'Este at the court of Ferrara for whom he composed the Missa Praeter rerum serium. In 1563, Rore was chosen to succeed Adrian Willaert at St. Mark’s, Venice, the most prestigious post for a musician in Italy, but did not stay long and returned to Parma by September 1564, where he died the following year.
    Rore, like Marenzio, wrote a large number of madrigals but also composed sacred music of the highest caliber in the Franco-Flemish tradition, following in Josquin’s footsteps. The Missa Praeter rerum seriem scored for seven parts is based on Josquin’s Christmas motet Praeter rerum seriem and is one of the most elaborate parody masses of its time. (A parody mass is a musical setting of the mass that uses material from another pre-existing piece of music.) Through this work, Rore pays his respects to both his employer Duke Ercole II d'Este and to Josquin. Rore uses the same cantus firmus (a pre-existing melody used as the basis of a polyphonic composition) found in Josquin’s motet, but set it to text in praise of the Duke, “Hercules secundus, dux Ferrariae quartus vivit et vivet” (Hercules the Second, fourth Duke of Ferrara, lives and will live). One might argue that very little of Rore’s Missa Praeter rerum seriem is original. He added an extra soprano part for a brighter sound and turned one of the existing parts into a long-note cantus firmus for the dedication to the Duke, “Hercules secundus...”
    Gaude virgo mater Christi is from a time when devotion to the Virgin Mary flourished in the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance, fostering new celebrations, new poetry, and music dedicated to the worship of the Virgin. The text has no liturgical use and was likely written for private devotion. The four-part motet tells the story of Mary’s involvement with the Christ Child from her Annunciation, through his death and resurrection. Josquin’s famous Benedicta es was sung during the mass for feasts of the Virgin Mary. The motet for six voices is based on a paraphrase of a plainchant sequence Benedicta es.
    Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) was the most prolific composers of his time, composing over 300 motets, 140 madrigals, 104 masses, 72 hymns, 68 offertories, and 35 Magnificats. He was hired by the Sistine Chapel in 1555, but left shortly after the new pope, Paul IV, decided to reinstate the rule of celibacy for anyone working there—Palestrina and two other married singers were forced to leave. During this period, the Council of Trent implemented musical policies to remove the “impure” or secular elements from the liturgy with an emphasis on intelligibility. The Palestrina style embodied the new aesthetic and is characterized by a balance between intelligible text and rich consonant harmony. Palestrina’s Hodie Christus natus est, based on the text of the Magnificat Antiphon at Second Vespers on Christmas Day, contains declamatory cries of joy, “Noe, noe.”

-Markdavin Obenza