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Circle Singers : Program Notes for December 2004
A Spotless Rose brings glimpses of the various happenings surrounding the mystic and perfect revelation of God to human-kind: the Annunciation to the maid Mary, her outpouring of praise to God in the presence of her cousin Elizabeth, and then all of the events concerning the wondrous birth. Music of the Renaissance This evening Circle Singers opens a window to a tradition of English Christmas music stretching back to the Middle Ages and forward to the twenty-first century. That venerable institution, the English monarch's Chapel Royal, is mentioned as early as 1135 in historical accounts. The Chapel Royal provided music for the pomp and pageantry of the Crown, for services of worship, and on the lighter side, for banquets, pageants, and dramatic productions. Born in 1543, only nine years after Henry VIII broke with Rome and established the Church of England, composer William Byrd remained a loyal Catholic throughout his life. Elizabeth's reign, beginning in 1558, was Anglican, but so great was the queen's admiration for Byrd, that she awarded him a position in the Chapel Royal. Elizabeth gave a publishing monopoly to Byrd and to his teacher and colleague, Thomas Tallis, which Byrd continued to hold after the death of Tallis. Considered the greatest English composer of his time, Byrd wrote at least 150 Latin motets as well as many anthems for the new Anglican Church. During his lifetime these Latin motets could only be sung in clandestine performances in Catholic homes. His four-voice motet, O Magnum Mysterium, exemplifies the European motet style, in which each voice has its own independent, clearly heard line. Imitative and overlapping entrances introduce each new line of text. All combine to illuminate the divine mystery that "living beings may see our Lord born." The earliest English carols for which we have music date from the fifteenth century. Carols were joyful songs with several stanzas, often beginning and ending with a refrain. Derived from medieval dance, carols were sung in religious processions and were a part of court and town holiday celebrations. The Franciscan monks were authors of many fifteenth and sixteenth-century carol texts, making use of this uplifting medium to spread their message of hope. By the sixteenth century, carols showed the influence of the Tudor motet, leading directly to the carol-motet style of Byrd's six-voice carol, This Day Christ Was Born. Set in a medieval church mode, varied meter changes enliven this joyous song. Byrd's contemporary, the Catholic Peter Philips, fled England in 1582 because of his religious faith. He held organ posts in Rome, Antwerp, and Brussels, and was second only to Byrd as England's most prolific composer of the period. His five-voice motet, O Beatum et Sacrosanctum Diem, alternates homophonic sections and polyphonic sections with imitative entrances. Meter changes add variety. Philips employs characteristic word-painting as he vocally imitates trumpet patterns, then portrays the string sound with flowing sixteenth notes. The motet concludes with a bell-like Noe. One of England's finest Renaissance composers, Thomas Weelkes, was noted for his four sets of madrigals and for his splendid Anglican anthems (English equivalent of the European motet). His Gloria in Excelsis Deo is in a carol form, with a verse preceded and followed by a refrain. This piece, along with several others in this concert, combines English and Latin texts, a medieval carol form called macaronic. Weelkes employs the motet polyphonic style with independently moving lines, which occasionally results in sharp dissonances. Although modal in key, tonal progressions presage the Baroque-Classical key system. Word-painting is striking: pitches mount to the highest point on the word "highest," and a madrigalian chromatic line (notes moving up by half step) illustrate "tune thy heart." John Tavener's Canticle of the Mother of God, along with the Latin motets discussed above, comes from the ancient liturgy of the Church. Tavener grew up in a Presbyterian church where his father was organist, and he began composing at an early age. He rose to fame in the 1960s with works that reflected the age, using such devices as recorded tape and amplified percussion. The London Times hailed him as "among the very best creative talents of his generation." His life changed in 1977 upon being received into the Russian Orthodox Church, an event he described as "a homecoming." In the same year he wrote this Magnificat, reflecting a new interest in composing for the liturgy of the church. He describes his liturgical works as "icons with notes rather than colours." In the style of Orthodox liturgical music, this piece mirrors medieval chant, alternating a solo cantor with a homophonic chorus. The cantor sings the canticle text in Hebrew, while the chorus sings the text in Greek. As the sopranos intone a pitch, the soloist sings an otherwise unaccompanied atonal chant-like melody. The opening and closing harmony of the chorus consists of five pitches that are a whole step apart, forming a dissonant cluster chord. Each choral section begins with the chord, either identical or slightly altered, that ended the previous section. Repetition of certain chords throughout the piece forms a unifying element. The homophonic dissonant harmonies of the chorus and the haunting atonal chant melody create an otherworldly aura to express this response of the young Mary to the astounding news that God has revealed to her. Three Traditional Carols God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen appeared in a broadside (sheet music) printed in London circa 1770. The Holly and the Ivy also appeared in a broadside circa 1710. Chaucer mentions "the merry organ" in The Nonnes Preestes Tale: "Chauntecleer's crowing has no peer - His voice was merrier than the merry organ…" The original text of the hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, by Charles Wesley, was first published in his Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739). The text underwent adaptations and in 1782 was published in the New Version of Tate and Brady. The Mendelssohn tune is adapted from an instrumental work composed in 1840. Contemporary Carols, Hymns and Anthems Most of the composers represented on this concert, while writing new music, have chosen English carol texts dating to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They have also employed many of the compositional techniques of the earlier period. Early in the twentieth century, Boris Ord was a director of music at King's College, Cambridge, where he took part in revivals of early music. He chose a fifteenth-century carol text with Latin refrain, Adam Lay Ybounden. He expresses Adam's dilemma with the key of B minor, then moves to the relative key of D major as a positive spin on the situation develops! Andrew Carter is composer of both words and music for his Chanticleer Carol. He evokes the early period, using a three-verse carol form with short refrain. As do several carols on the program, this carol moves between the major and minor modes. The work is tonal, but avoids classical harmonic progressions. Carter employs some lovely word-painting, with soaring sixteenth-notes to express chanticleer's exuberant song. A young Herbert Howells chose a three-verse fourteenth-century carol text for his A Spotless Rose. Howells's early music is composed with a Romantic tonal palate, often with aspects of folk-song. This work reveals his gift for metrically complex music that flows seamlessly. Ingram Marshall takes a wonderful trip through the past with this three-verse medieval carol text, Of a Rose. The basic form is that of the fifteenth-century carol: the refrain is sung first, followed by verses separated by refrains. Marshall employs the motet style, in which each voice has its own melodic line, resulting in sharp passing dissonances. There are several related motives, or themes, which have a chant-like character. Antony Baldwin has chosen a four-verse fifteenth century carol text, A Babe is Born. It is a modal piece, but with constantly shifting harmonies. Verse three is written as a two-voice canon between the men's and women's voices. Alan Bullard's Scots Nativity sets a three-verse traditional Scottish text with refrain. He has imbued these words with a beautiful and gently flowing melody, which conjures the sense of peace and wellbeing that we long to feel in this wondrous season. The concert concludes with Bob Chilcott's lively Nova! Nova! This fifteenth-century text is set in the early carol form, with an opening refrain that follows each of six verses. Chilcott has made imaginative use of keys, with the refrain using a pentatonic (five-note) scale in F, and the verse written in the modal key of G. The composer provides further variety with a rhythmic scheme alternating 3/4, 7/8, and 6/8 meters. As with each of these carols, this piece reflects the strong influence of a country's musical traditions upon the imagination of today's composers.
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