Chant, a starting point

Chant is timeless. At bottom, it is a simple melody unrestricted by bar lines and time signatures; however, upon reflection on the last thousand years of music, we know it is much more than that. Not only was chant our musical starting point, it is the foundation of Eastern and Western music. Renaissance composers such as Tallis and Sheppard frequently used chant as the basis for polyphonic composition, while more contemporary composers Pärt and Tavener took inspiration from it. Others like Tavener and Whitacre also employ chant but with a modern harmonic flavor. Just as music has evolved from it, we can also hear chant itself transformed throughout the ages.

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THE BYRD ENSEMBLE sings

EVOLUTION OF CHANT: A Starting Point

Saturday, March 17, 2018, at 8:00 p.m.
St. James Cathedral
804 9th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104

Buy passes here.

PROGRAM
Thomas TALLIS: Loquebantur variis linguis
Eric WHITACRE: Sainte-Chapelle
TALLIS: Videte miraculum
HILDEGARD: O viridissima virga
Arvo PÄRT: Magnificat

intermission

John SHEPPARD: Reges Tharsis
PÄRT: I Am the True Vine
John TAVENER: Two Hymns to the Mother of God
HILDEGARD: O virga ac diadema
PÄRT: Seven Magnificat Antiphons

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Thomas Tallis (1505—1585) had the hard task of composing under four successive Tudor monarchs (Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I) during a period of political and religious instability. While the Protestant Reformation flourished under the first two Tudors (Henry VIII and Edward VI), Mary I, a devout Catholic determined to crush the Protestant faith, restored the Catholic Rite to the English church during her brief reign. The church’s return to Catholicism called for a shift in compositional style with the return of Latin and polyphonic textures. It is possible Tallis secretly welcomed the return of Catholicism. During Mary I’s short time, he produced a large number of works for the principal feast days of the liturgical year, including Loquebantur variis linguis and Videte miraculum, written for Pentecost and The Feast of the Purification respectively. Tallis's Loquebantur (The Apostles spoke in many tongues) features quick points of imitation in a dense seven-part texture, depicting "many tongues." Videte depicts the birth of Jesus. All of the Renaissance pieces on the program are choral responds based on chant in the tenor part, and they alternate between full-choir polyphonic and chant sections. A respond is a musical structure where
parts of the music are repeated, usually taking the form ABCdBCdC (d=chant).

We know only a few things about English composer John Sheppard (1515—1558). He was employed at Magdalen College, Oxford 1543—1548 and the Chapel Royal 1552—1560. Unfortunately, much of Sheppard’s music has survived incomplete; however, because it was often the chant part that was missing (in the tenor) it has been possible to reconstruct his music. This is the case for Reges Tharsis, a responsory for the Feast of Epiphany scored for SSAATB, Sheppard’s favorite scoring for maximum harmonic punch.

Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), America's most popular choral composer, wrote Saint-Chapelle (2013) for the 40th Anniversary of the Tallis Scholars. Sainte-Chapelle tells a story of a girl’s experience standing inside Sainte-Chapelle, a Gothic royal chapel at the center of Paris. The piece illustrates her awe of the stained glass windows filling the chapel, creating a jewel-box space flooded with colors of yellow, burgundy, and green from all directions. Whitacre uses chant to tell the story. The piece begins with only men’s voices, which are joined by the women at “Sanctus,” functioning as a refrain.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098—1179), writer, composer, and philosopher, is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Hildegard left behind an enormous amount of illuminated manuscripts, scholarly writings, and songs written for her nuns to sing at their devotions. Hildegard is one of those rare identifiable composers in the history of Western music; most medieval composers were anonymous. Unlike the simple one-octave chants at the time, Hildegard’s melodies sound almost improvisatory: they are freer, ornate, and large- ranging. Her love for nature is reflected in the two Marian chants: O viridissima virga (O branch of freshest green) and O virga ac diadema (O branch and diadem).

Hildegard of Bingen

For the seventh year in a row, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) has been given the title of the “world’s most performed living composer,” according to “Estonian World.” After some time experimenting in neoclassical styles, Pärt decided to use Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique and serialism in his compositions, displeasing the Soviet establishment enough to ban his early works. Pärt, not pleased with his output, went into several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th through 16th centuries. His biographer, Paul Hillier, says, “He had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and will-power to write even a single note.” Out of this period of musical soul-searching emerged a unique compositional style that informed his music beginning in the 1970s—tintinnabuli (bell-like). The tintinnabuli style is a simple compositional technique that restricts the number of possible harmonies. Imagine the harmonies generated by playing a major scale in the left hand and its equivalent arpeggio on the right.

Arvo Pärt

Calling back to the ancient styles of plainchant, Pärt uses drones. The solo soprano part in the Magnificat holds the pitch C, providing the tonal center for the piece. Pärt’s setting of the Magnificat, through varying note lengths, repetition, and no sense of meter, establishes a sense of timelessness. The half-step dissonances are sprinkled throughout alongside the rich harmony and pulls us into a state of contemplation and introspection. I am the true vine was composed in 1996 for the 900th anniversary of Norwich Cathedral in England. The work offers a twist on Pärt's tintinnabuli technique. Syllables of text are dispersed among the parts in such a way that each part is often completing another part’s sentence or word. Also, the distribution of the melody among the parts—bass to soprano, back down to Bass—resembles the vine depicted in the text. The Seven Magnificat Antiphons (1988; revised 1991), marks only the second time that Pärt set a German text. Perhaps the fact that it was commissioned for the Radio Chamber Choir in Berlin, a group whose broadcast performances reached audiences far and wide, suggested that the vernacular language would be the most appropriate choice. Each of these texts, in its normal liturgical context, functions as the antiphon to one iteration of the Magnificat, sung at Vespers on each of the seven evenings preceding Christmas Eve. In Pärt’s composition, these texts are set simply as a series of seven movements.

John Tavener

John Tavener (1944-2013) and Pärt are often described as mystic minimalists—a category (sometimes used pejoratively) to describe late twentieth-century composers who focus on religious themes. Like Pärt, Tavener developed his compositional voice after joining the Russian Orthodox Christian faith. His mother died in 1985, and he was unable to compose for a short time after. He eventually found the inspiration to write Two Hymns to the Mother of God (1985) in her memory. The melodies and harmonies recall both Western and Eastern Orthodox music. The first hymn comes from a text of St. Basil in praise of the Mother of God. Tavener sets it for double chorus in a strict canon, the second chorus repeating the material of the first, exactly three beats behind, creating a blurring effect. The second text is from the vigil service called the Dormition (Falling Asleep) of the Mother of God, an important observance in the Orthodox faith. The tenor part carries the main melody while the remaining voices sustain triads. Eventually all voices converge in a rich succession of consonant chords for the text: “O ye apostles, assembled here from the ends of the earth, bury my body in Gethsemane: and Thou O my Son and God, receive my Spirit.”

A modern Renaissance

If the Byrd Ensemble isn’t singing Renaissance polyphony, then we’re probably getting mystical.

The fact that roughly ten centuries lie between the world of early music and modern mysticism may suggest more differences than similarities in the two styles - but this is not the case. Our program, Magnificat, features composers whose music shares key aesthetic ideals with early music - a strong foundation in tonality and melody, and a religious orientation.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s compositional style developed later in his career - after he entered into several periods of self-imposed contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th through 16th century. By the 1970s, his unique compositional voice emerged and he brought forth a new sound world founded in Renaissance vocal music. His style is the most distinctive on program, “reducing” music to its most basic elements - sound and silence.

Aside from Renaissance composer Robert White’s Christe qui lux, which provides the only mark for comparison, several of the other composers have more explicit references to the Renaissance. For instance, Peter Hallock uses free, chant-like rhythm and Herbert Howells employs the double choir formation, but there is a more subtle similarity that binds them all to Renaissance vocal music - melody and counterpoint.


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UPCOMING PROGRAM, "MAGNIFICAT"

Friday, January 31, 2014 at 7:30pm
Northlake Unitarian Church
308 4th Ave S
Kirkland, WA 98033

Saturday, February 1, 2014 at 8pm
St. Joseph Parish
732 18th Ave East
Seattle, WA 98112

PROGRAM:

PETER HALLOCK: I saw a new heaven and a new earth
ARVO PÄRT: Seven Magnificat Antiphons
MARKDAVIN OBENZA: Release
ERICA ROW: Victimae paschali laudes
HERBERT HOWELLS: Requiem aeternam I

PETER HALLOCK: Wash me through and through
ROBERT WHITE: Christe qui lux
GARY JAMES: Ave verum corpus
JEFF JUNKINSMITH: Come down, O love divine
HERBERT HOWELLS: Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing


For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.


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Each composer on the program uses the beauty of melody to guide us through their distinctive harmonic language - just like in early music. Through elegant counterpoint, we are guided through the colorful sound world of English impressionist Howells, and the exotic modern harmonies of Hallock and Jeff Junkinsmith.

As you listen to this program, let yourself go on a contemplative musical journey. You might be surprised where it takes you. LET'S GET MYSTICAL.

“...the listener becomes increasingly sensitized in the process once he is drawn into this dimension... At the point after the music has faded away it is particularly remarkable to hear your breath, or your heartbeat....” - Nora Pärt, wife of Arvo Pärt

-Markdavin Obenza

Here's a track from our latest Arvo Pärt CD:

  

Two Recordings, Two Mystics

Designed by Roslyn Hyde

With the help of a generous donor, Scribe Records and the Byrd Ensemble were able to produce two recordings of two mystics – Arvo Pärt and Peter Hallock.

EQUIPMENT UPGRADES
Around the time we decided to record both CDs, Scribe Records (an independent record label managed by Joshua Haberman and myself) was testing new equipment. Scribe recorded its last two CDs, In the Company of William Byrd and O splendor gloriae, with two Sennheiser MKH8020s omnidirectional microphones. We are always interested in improving our sound and were given a recommendation to try out ribbon microphones. We got a hold of a few test mics and scheduled several test recording sessions (with a few singers who graciously donated their time) and tried out the mics and preamps.

Test recording session at Trinity Parish Church. Left to Right: Royer SF-24, Royer SF-24V, AEA R88, Royer SF-12

Audio samples from the test sessions:





We found that the Royer ribbon mics captured an amazing stereo image (you can really hear an arch of singers in front of you) and a natural warmth that was absent in our previous two CDs. Another huge benefit of ribbon mics is that they do not capture room noise as loudly as omnidirectional mics. Omnis pick up everything, even quiet low rumbles sound like there is a jet engine nearby. We chose the Royer SF-24 - it sounded the most natural and uncolored.

Another benefit of the Royer SF-24 is that it is "active," meaning that it contains a built-in power supply which allows us to plug it in to any preamp (a preamp is responsible for boosting the signal picked up by the mics). Passive ribbons require a special preamp because they record at a very quiet level.

We ran the Royer SF-24 through the Rupert Neve 5024 preamp, which added even more warmth, particularly when the singers sang more loudly. At no point did we want our sound to be harsh and/or brittle.

Rupert Neve 5024

In anticipation of our large session with brass, organ and percussion, we also upgraded our interface to the Apogee Symphony, which has more channels for all those extra mics we would need.

OBSTACLES

We were unhappy to discover that ribbon microphones are very susceptible to radio frequency interference (RFI). Local station KUBE 93.3 was picked up loud and clear in my house, and other radio stations were picked up (although faintly) at St. Mark's Cathedral and St. Joseph Catholic church. We found that the best way to minimize or get rid of RFI is to reposition the mic up or down. We definitely didn't want R. Kelly or Jay Z to make the album!

Another disadvantage was that ribbon mics make more "self" noise than omnis. The Sennheisers we used on our previous CDs are extremely quiet. Also, the new Apogee Symphony interface has a built-in fan that comes on frequently - and audibly - to cool the unit.

RECORDING ARVO PÄRT

I was first drawn to Arvo Pärt’s music in 2001 when I first heard the Pro Arts Singers’ (directed by Paul Hillier) recording of I am the true vine. We’ve kept Pärt’s repertoire in our rotation since 2009, and were particularly motivated to record it after discovering a few fantastic low Basses - a necessity for many of Pärt’s works.


The Pärt CD features, in my opinion, his best works for choir. The Seven Magnificat Antiphons and the Berlin Mass are the main pieces on the CD.


There are two settings of the Berlin Mass - one for 4 soloists and organ, and another for chorus and strings. Originally, I wanted to record a version for SATB soloists and chamber strings which I proposed to Arvo Pärt himself. He wrote back saying that he actually liked the idea, but needed to approve a sample recording. Ultimately, I had to ditch this idea because it would have been cost prohibitive to produce.

BE Recording Session at Church of the Redeemer. Left to right: Margaret Obenza, Maria Mannisto, Linda Strandberg, Christina Siemens, Sarra Sharif, Joshua Haberman, Orrin Doyle, Markdavin Obenza, Willimark Obenza, Thomas Thompson, Jonathan Silvia, Gus Blazek, Omaldo Perez

We chose to record the Pärt pieces at Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore, WA. The room gave us a clean and balanced sound (though we did get a lot of traffic noises - especially during rush hour). We setup the ribbon mic in the center (as you see in the pic) favoring slightly more towards the basses (far right) and set up the two Sennheiser omnidirectional mics about 3 pews back.

It took a total of thirteen and a half hours (in four 3-hour and one 1&1/2-hour sessions) to finish the Pärt CD. Organist Sheila Bristow played brilliantly on the Berlin Mass.

RECORDING PETER HALLOCK

Peter Hallock served St. Mark's Cathedral as organist and choirmaster for over 40 years and was key to bringing about a renewed interest in the Compline service. The formation of a chant study group eventually became the famous Compline Choir who has, since 1956, sung Compline every Sunday evening in the lush acoustic of St. Mark's Cathedral. It was in this group where many local singers (myself and several others in the Byrd Ensemble, included) have connected and have been inspired to form choral groups.

Lunch with Peter Hallock.
Left to right: Peter Hallock, Joshua Haberman,
Markdavin Obenza

Joshua Haberman and Jason Anderson collaborated to select the music for the Hallock CD which is made up of never-recorded anthems and beautiful Compline Psalms.

We recorded the Compline Psalms at Church of the Redeemer because we were worried that St. Mark's Cathedral would be too noisy for the intimate Psalms settings. We recorded the anthems at St. Mark's Cathedral because we felt it was more important to capture the cathedral's ambience and organ for those grand works.

Session at St. Mark's Cathedral. Left to right: Margaret Obenza, Rebekah Gilmore, Maria Mannisto, Christina Siemens, Linda Strandberg, Sarra Sharif, Joshua Haberman, Markdavin Obenza, Orrin Doyle, Brian Giebler, Wes Rogers, Willimark Obenza, Thomas Thompson, Jonathan Silvia, Gus Blazek

Recording the Compline Psalms at Church of the Redeemer was straightforward, but recording the larger-scale anthems at St. Mark's was not. For Ye Choirs of New Jersusalem and Victimae Paschali, we wanted to place the brass, choir and percussion in a way that gave us enough isolation in post production so that we could control the volume levels of each group independently while being close enough to maintain togetherness is such a wet space. We placed the choir in the "Compline corner", brass to the left, and percussion to the left of the brass (above).

While we were recording Ye Choirs, we discovered that we were picking up too much brass in the choir mic. Organist Alan De Puy suggested we use the Compline stalls as a sound barrier by placing them between the choir and brass. This proved to be a perfect solution - it that gave us enough isolation between the choir and brass so we could adjust the levels independently.

In order to capture a more detailed organ sound, we moved St. Mark's existing mics closer to the organ. This required me and Josh to climb up to the ceiling of St. Mark's via a very tall and scary ladder to reposition the mic cables.

View of St. Mark's organ from the ceiling

POST PRODUCTION

We finished recording both CDs by the end of June 2013 and needed to submit both masters by the end of August in order to meet our September 28, 2013 deadline - the opening concert of the Byrd Ensemble's 10 year anniversary season. That gave us only 2 months to edit and design both albums.

We used two pairs of mics to record the Pärt CD (two omnis and the ribbon mic in front (one unit housing two mics). We intended to use the omni pair to capture the reverb at Church of the Redeemer, but we found that it picked up too much room and traffic noise. We ended up not using the omnis and added reverb to the front ribbon mics. We used the reverb plugin Altiverb. This plugin is great and has a feature that allows you to record the reverb of any space to use as a reverb setting. This process involves recording a sine sweep in the space and uploading the recording into Altiverb. Josh recorded the reverb at St. Mark's with the intention of applying it to the Compline Psalms (recorded at Church of the Redeemer), but he ended up using a customized reverb setting on Ambience instead, another reverb plugin.

Recording sine sweep at St. Mark's Cathedral

EDITING

For the Arvo Pärt CD, I pasted together the best of the raw material using Logic 9, a digital audio workstation for mac.

For the Hallock CD, I edited the drafts and Joshua Haberman made time adjustments (shortening and lengthening music) to the Compline Psalms in order to replicate Peter Hallock's unique psalm aesthetic. (Josh occasionally sings with the Compline Choir - so it's all relatively fresh in his head.) Josh also chose the reverb settings for the psalms and the title piece, Draw on sweet night.

Roslyn Hyde designed the artwork for both CDs.

DISTRIBUTION

We went through A to Z Media, a CD manufacturing company to replicate 500 CDs of each album. They are a very affordable company (with a branch in Portland, OR) and the printing quality is good. The turn around time is about 3-4 weeks.

Once we received the CDs, we set up physical and digital distribution through CDBaby, an online store specializing in the sale of CDs and music downloads. They provide an easy and affordable way to get digital media out to iTunes, Amazon, etc, and physical CDs to some brick-and-mortar stores. We also set up an account with Amazon so they can fulfill all physical CD orders for us. We send a box of CDs to Amazon's warehouse and they take care of reporting sales tax, shipping and do a great job attracting potential customers to our products. We only make about $13 per $20 CD, but the convenience is worth it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was probably the most exhausting recording project we've ever done. It's a true test in psychological and emotional stability when focusing on the imperfections, not to mention the added pressure of a quickly-approaching deadline. It required countless hours of editing, listening and producing over the course of a few short months. This might have been easier to handle if we had a later release date, but I believe timing is everything and I see these recordings as a success. (I say get it done or else someone else will!).


Many thanks to the singers that participated, you are world-class ensemble singers. Special thanks to Joshua Haberman, my business partner and friend, who was also key in producing what I think is our best work yet.

Arvo Pärt’s secret sauce

I fell in love with the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b.1935) right away. I was seduced by his meditative and contemplative style, it was a new sound. Upon performing an analysis on some of his pieces for my masters thesis, I found some interesting characteristics about his music.

Patterns

One of the major sources of information on Pärt is Paul Hillier’s biography on Arvo Pärt published in 1997. Hillier discusses Pärt's obsession with patterns. If you listen to Spiegel im Spiegel it really sounds like just a series of arpeggiated triads over a stepwise scale.

Let's look at text patterning in another piece, Summa.

Example 1

You could probably guess how the rest of the song patterns out. One could come up with various reasons for the apparent anomaly in the first line containing only 7 syllables not aligning with the 9-14 patterning. Pärt might have wanted the first line to be thought of something separate, like perhaps an incipit sung by a cantor? When we take a closer look at his music, we see that the patterning is more intensive.

Tintinnabuli style

Another compositional technique Pärt employs is the tintinnabuli style. A technique that allows for only a limited number of harmonies. This might help explain the minimalist (though some people don't like lumping him in with minimalists John Adams and Philip Glass because he did not come from that tradition) quality in his music.

 

Example 2

Tintinnabuli, meaning “a small bell,” is a relatively simple technique consisting of a pairing of two voices, a melodic voice (M-voice, scalar) and a tintinnabuli voice (T-voice, arpeggiated). The M-voice in the example is represented as the black noteheads, usually stepwise and in some kind of pattern, and the T-voice voice is represented in the example as the white noteheads.

According to Paul Hillier the T-voice can only be the first or second nearest note in the triad above or below the M-voice pitch or in alternation note by note. Taking that into account, example 1.1a has all the possible positions of the T-voice in relationship to the M-voice.Tallying up the number of unique harmonies possible from this restrictive system, one realizes that it is quite limited indeed.

So far, we have two important compositional elements to Pärt's music - patterns and the restrictive tintinnabuli system. However, these elements are incredibly different from one other. Patterns can go on forever. One might expect (quite reasonably so) patterns to generate a diverse collection harmony. However, the tintinnabuli system seems so restrictive that you wouldn't think that there would be much room for patterning. I found it hard to imagine that Pärt could execute both elements cleanly at the same time. Does he favor one over the other?

Pärt’s Fratres seemed like a good candidate for analysis. It is a simple and repetitive piece that sounds like it was composed out of patterns and a restrictive harmonic system. I analyzed every vertical slice of harmony in Pärt’s Fratres using set class theory (where you measure the distance from the bottom note by half steps, ie. [C, C#, E] = [0, 1, 4]). (This happened while I was dating my wife Margaret. I would sit in the coffee shop at Capers in West Seattle while she worked 8 hour shifts – I did analysis the whole time, it was tedious work.)

Before discussing the results of the harmonic analysis, here are the rules Pärt sets up:
1. Three different pitches. No doublings.

2. Two M-voices in tenths (or thirds) from the C-minor "harmonic" collection against one T-voice (tintinnabuli voice), member of the G-minor triad.

My plan was to create two lists - one with the possible harmonies based on the patterning Pärt sets up and another with the actual harmonies. In Fratres, there are eight possible harmonies [013], [014], [015], [024], [025], [026], [036], [037], of which Pärt only uses five [015], [025], [026], [036] and [037]. See example 3. (To understand the set class notation, make sure you put the notes in their closest arrangement). The T-voice is on the bottom staff.

Example 3

We see that Pärt avoids certain harmonies by breaking the pattern he sets up. Pärt manipulates the T-voice to maintain a restricted sound world that contains only five of the eight possible harmonies. In other words, Pärt doesn’t really follow through on the patterning completely, just only if it doesn’t create unwanted harmony.

What is the Arvo Pärt secret sauce? Sketchy patterning with a side of 5 harmonies.

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Why go through so much trouble creating complex OCD-like patterns and not follow them through?

Does it lessen a composer's work when not following through on self-imposed compositional rules? Perhaps that is why some call Pärt a "pop" minimalist and don't like seeing his name next to true minimalists - Riley, Glass, Adams, etc.

It may not fall into traditional minimalism (which I don’t think a lot of people listen to for pleasure) however, people love Pärt's music. Some call his music mystic minimalism, a musical style uniting classical music with contemplative spirituality. Mystic minimalism challenges the prevailing intellectual approach of composition which evolved out of 400 years of musical tradition, in favor of a radically simplified framework resulting in an austere and transparent sound world focusing on music's most basic elements - sound and silence. Perhaps music composed out of these philosophical tenants should not be analyzed and judged using the theoretical models that have informed the development of western music for centuries.

“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science… to know what is impenetrable to us.” -Albert Einstein

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If you would like to read the full chapter on my thesis about this, please feel free to download here:

Analysis of Arvo Pärt's Fratres (1977:1985) and Summa (1977) and the harmonic ramifications of the tintinnabuli style