For the first concerts of our 2006–2007 season of Transformations, we unabashedly present a true holiday program. Tonight, just a week or so before Christmas, we’ll revel in familiar yuletide music and introduce you to newer compositions on seasonal themes by California composers. In addition, we are glad that this program of American works for chorus and piano gives us an opportunity to feature our rehearsal accompanist, T. Paul Rosas.

I do enjoy clever arrangements of traditional holiday fare, but along with my sweet potatoes and figgy pudding, I always like a little meat. To that end, we open with music of Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943), who has been Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California (USC) for more than thirty years now. He first became popular with choirs around the world in the early 1990s. His many vocal cycles and a-cappella motets, particularly those from his seven years as composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, have earned a place in the standard vocal repertoire. The music has an unmistakable sonority often described as mystical and serene with “an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered.”

Mid-Winter Songs is an early work commissioned in 1980 by USC on the occasion of its centennial. At moments in these five songs, one can hear hints of the signature harmonies Lauridsen has employed in more recent pieces, and the serenity mentioned above can also be heard in some movements, but a restlessness also comes through, particularly in the piano part, and dissonances are more pronounced than in his later works. A transition in his style is audible here from a more frenetic youthfulness toward the calm wisdom of maturity. Propulsive rhythms and jagged harmonies juxtaposed with moments of stillness make this work dramatically effective over its 20-minute duration. For this cycle, Lauridsen chose five poems by poet and novelist Robert Graves that evoke the cold and barrenness of wintertime and the lovely purity of snow.

Another American composer based in Los Angeles and firmly established in the repertoire of advanced choirs is Eric Whitacre (b. 1970). Only 36 years old, this amazing talent has emerged as a true leader in American choral composition. I had never heard of him in 1996 when a new manuscript was handed out to the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, of which I was a member at the time. It was the song little tree on tonight’s program. The composer writes of his experience:

While in my second year at Juilliard, I received a phone call from Vance George. He wanted to know if I might be interested in a commission for their big Christmas concert, something that would feature their accompanist Marc Shapiro and the “smaller” choir of 80 singers. The only catch was that it was the middle of October, and could I please finish the piece by the first of November? Wow!

I took the commission, of course—how could you say no to Vance George?—and my future wife Hila found for me e. e. cummings’ timeless poem “little tree.” I killed myself finishing the piece on time, and then all the musicians went on strike. The work didn’t receive its premiere for another year. Vance surprised me an hour before the performance and asked me if I would like to conduct. The San Francisco Symphony Chorus? In Davies Hall? With 3000 people in the audience? Oh, yes!

I recall being very skeptical at first because Whitacre was so young, but as we rehearsed the piece I grew to really enjoy how it brings out the meaning of each line of the text. I was again skeptical when I first met the composer, a bleach-blonde surfer kid from L.A. and almost too personable and handsome. But he proved himself an able conductor. And he has since gone on to become sought-after both as a composer and as a conductor—and teen heartthrob. I hope you enjoy discovering this early Whitacre work as much as I did at those first rehearsals in the basement of Davies Hall.

To conclude the first half of our program, we offer a pair of lovely pieces by Canadian composer Healey Willan (1880–1968) for the seasons of Epiphany and Christmas: The Three Kings and Hodie, Christus natus est. You can also hear both of them on our CD “The Seasons of Christmas.” We are very proud of this distinctive collection of a-cappella motets, which is available for purchase in the lobby, of course. It makes a perfect Christmas gift, and you’d enjoy having it in your own collection as well.

We will lighten things up after intermission tonight with a kind of holiday music entirely different from the selections on that CD.

In A Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas, which Ohio composer Craig Courtney (b. 1954) wrote for the Columbus Symphony Chorus in 1991, the familiar carol about such unusual Christmas gifts as a partridge in a pear tree becomes a lesson in the history of Western music. Courtney’s astonishing arrangement uses the melody of the carol as a kind of cantus firmus adapting it on each of the twelve days to the stylistic conventions of a different composer, often with a musical pun on the gift for that day. I won’t say too much for fear of spoiling the fun for those who want to “name that tune.” A list of the composers and specific works parodied can be found on the last page of the libretto.

In another wholly unlikely transformation, we take on The Nutcracker Suite of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), which Harry Simeone (1911–2005) turned into a charming choral work for Fred Waring and his singers in 1948, using texts invented to fit the music and conjure up witty images of the ballet. You’ve never heard the “Dance of the Sugar Plums” or the “Waltz of the Flowers” quite like this before!

As an over-the-top finale, we present The Many Moods of Christmas by a great composer for Broadway and Hollywood. Robert Russell Bennett (1894–1981) is best known for orchestrating Show Boat, Oklahoma!, and many other shows during the heyday of the Great White Way. That should give you some idea of his stylistic intent in the four suites, or medleys, that he arranged for Robert Shaw’s big Christmas spectaculars in the 1960s. I hope that as Cantabile Chorale performs “Suite Four” in its piano version, you will imagine a full orchestra playing and the great Robert Shaw Chorale singing with heart on sleeve.

Thank you for coming to hear the concert tonight. If you enjoy listening to this music as much as we enjoy singing it, please tell your friends about our other performances later this week. We look forward to seeing you again in March when we present the monumental Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

back to repertoire

---

| Home | About | Youth Singer Resources | Chorale Resources | Concerts | Directions | FAQ | Contact |

 

Cantabile Choral Guild
953 Industrial Avenue, Suite 118, Palo Alto CA 94303
650.424.1410 info@cantabile.org