O Sing Joyfully
June, 2022
Program Notes by Sanford Dole
June, 2022
Program Notes by Sanford Dole
This season our programming has been about society’s reemergence in what we hoped would be the post-Covid era. Sadly, the virus and its variants and sub-variants are still circulating, and all of us need to continue our vigilance. We at Bay Choral Guild are maintaining our Covid protocols (all singers fully vaccinated, masked, and tested weekly), and we thank you for continuing to wear masks while indoors.
Still, we are thrilled to have returned to rehearsing and performing in person over the past year. Our December concert, the first since the lockdown in March 2020, was all about recalling feel-good holiday traditions. Then, in our March program, we paused to reflect on those we have lost over the past two years and honor their memories. Tonight is all about the joy of choral singing! We have adapted to—well, learned to tolerate—singing with masks and are so pleased to continue making music together.
The first half of our program has two large groupings: music from then and music from now. All of the texts are sacred, mostly psalm settings, and celebrate the glory of God in one way or another.
Our “title track” is O Sing Joyfully, composed by Adrian Batten in the early 1600s. Born in Salisbury, Batten eventually became a choral conductor at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, augmenting his income as a music copyist for Westminster Abbey. A prolific composer himself, he is credited with saving many of the works of Weelkes, Tallis, and Tomkins. Ironically, many of his own manuscripts have been lost.
For most musicians the music of J. S. Bach is a holy temple, the place we go to pay reverence and gaze in awe at the possibilities of musical skill and dexterity. For choral singers, the six surviving motets are wonderfully challenging and a necessary part of a well-rounded musical diet. Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden is the last of these to be published, some 18 years after the others, and is also the shortest and the only one that does not include a chorale. It is not known for what occasion it was created, leading to speculation that it is a youthful work and perhaps the first of his motets to be composed. Its six-minute duration is divided into three sections: two verses from Psalm 117 followed by an Alleluia. As the editor Walter E. Buszin describes it, “The themes of its first two divisions are capacious and sweeping. The part-writing is virile and resolute throughout the composition and its spirit is inspiring and contagious.”
Another example of clever counterpoint is found in the motet O Sacrum Convivium, attributed to Giovanni Pergolesi. He first gained fame at the age of 21 after he was commissioned to compose a Solemn Mass following a calamitous earthquake that struck Naples in 1731. Pergolesi suffered from tuberculosis and died at a mere 26 years of age. His most significant output was vocal music, including masses, motets, songs, and 15 operas. The opening theme of O Sacrum Convivium starts with the interval of a minor sixth, which is unusual in that era. After the slow opening section comes to a cadence, the sopranos launch into a peppy fugue, whose subject also includes a minor sixth. This fugue reaches a cadence, at which point the sopranos introduce a “new” melody which is in fact the prior tune turned upside down!
I’ve long been a fan of the Dutch Renaissance composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. In fact, a few years ago we presented a program that included many of his works. One of them was this setting of the Magnificat, which I recalled with delight as I was programming this show. Set for 5-part choir, the work opens with large homophonic chords before the individual lines begin to curl around each other in two large sections.
At this point, the program transitions from “then” through the late-Romantic era on its way to “now.” Since this program is all about the joy of singing, I decided to include a favorite among choral singers worldwide, Beati Quorum Via from Charles Villiers Stanford’s Three Motets. Stanford composed it for the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1905, where he was the organist and a Professor of Music. I find encountering this piece to be a very satisfying experience, both as singer and listener.
We round out the first half of the program with four motets by living composers.
Patrick Hawes is an Englishman who has made a name for himself writing for the Kings Singers, Voces8, and others as well as being the Composer-in-Residence for the UK’s largest classical music station, Classic FM. His Revelation from 2017 is a nine-movement work for double choir that sets passages from the Biblical Book of Revelation. Hallelujah is its seventh and climactic movement.
Jocelyn Hagen was born in North Dakota and is now part of the thriving choral music scene in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Laus Trinitati was composed for and subsequently won the first annual Yale Glee Club Emerging Composer Competition in 2005. The text is by Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Rather than arrange Bingen’s original melody, Hagen has created an entirely new composition. The more conventional outer sections surround a central aleatoric passage, in which some members of the chorus repeatedly sing a soaring melody at a pace of their own choosing.
Roxanna Panufnik was born in England, the daughter of the famous Polish composer and conductor Andrzej Panufnik. She studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and has written a wide range of works, including opera, ballet, choral, orchestral, and ch amber music. O Hearken sets Verse 2 from Psalm 5. It was written as a raffle prize for, and first performed by, the Westminster Abbey Choir in 2015.
Tarik O’Regan is one of the blazing stars on the contemporary music scene. Born in South London, he studied at Cambridge and Oxford before moving to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship. His music is widely performed and recorded; the past decade has included Grammy nominations and the premiere of full-length ballet and orchestral works. In 2021, O’Regan was named Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale’s first ever composer-in-residence. He now resides in San Francisco. Alleluia, Laus et Gloria, subtitled “Fanfare for SATB Choir,” was commissioned by the BBC for the Pro Musica Girls’ Choir of Hungary, winner of the 2003 Let the People Sing competition. It sets a verse from the Book of Revelation.
After intermission we introduce a piano to the proceedings and welcome one of our own, alto Jan Gunderson, as our collaborative pianist.
The oldest of our living composers, Adolphus Hailstork is still going strong at 81. In addition to a busy career as a composer, he is Professor of Music at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Since the 1960s Dr. Hailstork has created music in a variety of genres, blending musical ideas from both the African American and European traditions. His operas and choral works often respond to current or historical events of importance to African Americans. These include A Knee on the Neck, a cantata honoring the spirit and sacrifice of George Floyd, which was premiered earlier this year. Wake up My Spirit, which sets verses from Psalm 57, reflects the exuberance of Gospel music.
Bob Chilcott has had a long and storied career as one of England’s leading choral musicians. He was a chorister in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, both as a boy and at university, and later sang as a member of the King’s Singers for 12 years. He became a full-time composer in 1997 and has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs. Music for Christmas forms a considerable part of his most popular repertoire, although his longer sacred works, such as the St. John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, are presented with increasing frequency. A Little Jazz Mass is among his most performed works. It was originally written for upper voices, in 2004, and sets the familiar mass texts in a suave but catchy style.
The title Sing to Me! jumped out at me as I was programming music for this concert about the joy of singing. My friend John Muehleisen, who lives in the Seattle area, is one of the composers I consider when I’m looking for well-crafted pieces to fit a theme. The piece I chose not only fits the theme perfectly, it also makes a connection to our previous concert. As a composer myself, I can attest to John’s assertion that finding the right text is key to creating a meaningful work. He writes about how that came about for him when he was commissioned by Director Kirk Marcy in 2012 to compose a piece for his Symphonic Choir at Edmonds Community College:
Still, we are thrilled to have returned to rehearsing and performing in person over the past year. Our December concert, the first since the lockdown in March 2020, was all about recalling feel-good holiday traditions. Then, in our March program, we paused to reflect on those we have lost over the past two years and honor their memories. Tonight is all about the joy of choral singing! We have adapted to—well, learned to tolerate—singing with masks and are so pleased to continue making music together.
The first half of our program has two large groupings: music from then and music from now. All of the texts are sacred, mostly psalm settings, and celebrate the glory of God in one way or another.
Our “title track” is O Sing Joyfully, composed by Adrian Batten in the early 1600s. Born in Salisbury, Batten eventually became a choral conductor at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, augmenting his income as a music copyist for Westminster Abbey. A prolific composer himself, he is credited with saving many of the works of Weelkes, Tallis, and Tomkins. Ironically, many of his own manuscripts have been lost.
For most musicians the music of J. S. Bach is a holy temple, the place we go to pay reverence and gaze in awe at the possibilities of musical skill and dexterity. For choral singers, the six surviving motets are wonderfully challenging and a necessary part of a well-rounded musical diet. Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden is the last of these to be published, some 18 years after the others, and is also the shortest and the only one that does not include a chorale. It is not known for what occasion it was created, leading to speculation that it is a youthful work and perhaps the first of his motets to be composed. Its six-minute duration is divided into three sections: two verses from Psalm 117 followed by an Alleluia. As the editor Walter E. Buszin describes it, “The themes of its first two divisions are capacious and sweeping. The part-writing is virile and resolute throughout the composition and its spirit is inspiring and contagious.”
Another example of clever counterpoint is found in the motet O Sacrum Convivium, attributed to Giovanni Pergolesi. He first gained fame at the age of 21 after he was commissioned to compose a Solemn Mass following a calamitous earthquake that struck Naples in 1731. Pergolesi suffered from tuberculosis and died at a mere 26 years of age. His most significant output was vocal music, including masses, motets, songs, and 15 operas. The opening theme of O Sacrum Convivium starts with the interval of a minor sixth, which is unusual in that era. After the slow opening section comes to a cadence, the sopranos launch into a peppy fugue, whose subject also includes a minor sixth. This fugue reaches a cadence, at which point the sopranos introduce a “new” melody which is in fact the prior tune turned upside down!
I’ve long been a fan of the Dutch Renaissance composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. In fact, a few years ago we presented a program that included many of his works. One of them was this setting of the Magnificat, which I recalled with delight as I was programming this show. Set for 5-part choir, the work opens with large homophonic chords before the individual lines begin to curl around each other in two large sections.
At this point, the program transitions from “then” through the late-Romantic era on its way to “now.” Since this program is all about the joy of singing, I decided to include a favorite among choral singers worldwide, Beati Quorum Via from Charles Villiers Stanford’s Three Motets. Stanford composed it for the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1905, where he was the organist and a Professor of Music. I find encountering this piece to be a very satisfying experience, both as singer and listener.
We round out the first half of the program with four motets by living composers.
Patrick Hawes is an Englishman who has made a name for himself writing for the Kings Singers, Voces8, and others as well as being the Composer-in-Residence for the UK’s largest classical music station, Classic FM. His Revelation from 2017 is a nine-movement work for double choir that sets passages from the Biblical Book of Revelation. Hallelujah is its seventh and climactic movement.
Jocelyn Hagen was born in North Dakota and is now part of the thriving choral music scene in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Laus Trinitati was composed for and subsequently won the first annual Yale Glee Club Emerging Composer Competition in 2005. The text is by Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Rather than arrange Bingen’s original melody, Hagen has created an entirely new composition. The more conventional outer sections surround a central aleatoric passage, in which some members of the chorus repeatedly sing a soaring melody at a pace of their own choosing.
Roxanna Panufnik was born in England, the daughter of the famous Polish composer and conductor Andrzej Panufnik. She studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and has written a wide range of works, including opera, ballet, choral, orchestral, and ch amber music. O Hearken sets Verse 2 from Psalm 5. It was written as a raffle prize for, and first performed by, the Westminster Abbey Choir in 2015.
Tarik O’Regan is one of the blazing stars on the contemporary music scene. Born in South London, he studied at Cambridge and Oxford before moving to New York on a Fulbright Scholarship. His music is widely performed and recorded; the past decade has included Grammy nominations and the premiere of full-length ballet and orchestral works. In 2021, O’Regan was named Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale’s first ever composer-in-residence. He now resides in San Francisco. Alleluia, Laus et Gloria, subtitled “Fanfare for SATB Choir,” was commissioned by the BBC for the Pro Musica Girls’ Choir of Hungary, winner of the 2003 Let the People Sing competition. It sets a verse from the Book of Revelation.
After intermission we introduce a piano to the proceedings and welcome one of our own, alto Jan Gunderson, as our collaborative pianist.
The oldest of our living composers, Adolphus Hailstork is still going strong at 81. In addition to a busy career as a composer, he is Professor of Music at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Since the 1960s Dr. Hailstork has created music in a variety of genres, blending musical ideas from both the African American and European traditions. His operas and choral works often respond to current or historical events of importance to African Americans. These include A Knee on the Neck, a cantata honoring the spirit and sacrifice of George Floyd, which was premiered earlier this year. Wake up My Spirit, which sets verses from Psalm 57, reflects the exuberance of Gospel music.
Bob Chilcott has had a long and storied career as one of England’s leading choral musicians. He was a chorister in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, both as a boy and at university, and later sang as a member of the King’s Singers for 12 years. He became a full-time composer in 1997 and has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs. Music for Christmas forms a considerable part of his most popular repertoire, although his longer sacred works, such as the St. John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, are presented with increasing frequency. A Little Jazz Mass is among his most performed works. It was originally written for upper voices, in 2004, and sets the familiar mass texts in a suave but catchy style.
The title Sing to Me! jumped out at me as I was programming music for this concert about the joy of singing. My friend John Muehleisen, who lives in the Seattle area, is one of the composers I consider when I’m looking for well-crafted pieces to fit a theme. The piece I chose not only fits the theme perfectly, it also makes a connection to our previous concert. As a composer myself, I can attest to John’s assertion that finding the right text is key to creating a meaningful work. He writes about how that came about for him when he was commissioned by Director Kirk Marcy in 2012 to compose a piece for his Symphonic Choir at Edmonds Community College:
I asked him for some basic descriptors for his vision for the work, to which he replied with concepts such as Celebration, Coming together, Upbeat, Engaging. …
Then everything changed. A month later, Kirk’s dear wife, Laurie Cappello—the choir director at Cascade High School in Everett, WA—was diagnosed with stage-4 ovarian cancer. … As I followed the progress of Laurie’s treatment on the Facebook page dedicated to supporting this wonderful family through their experience, I was deeply moved by Laurie’s extraordinary faith that all would turn out fine, that she still had a future and a purpose as a choral director, and that she had a lot more music to make with her students.
When Kirk and I finally met again … after Laurie was through about two-thirds of the months-long treatment program … our conversation about the commission was very different than when we had originally met in May. None of the criteria for the commission had changed from the earlier meeting, but now there was a new layer of meaning based on the experience that Kirk and Laurie had been through…. I remember so clearly Kirk saying to me, “I’m not sure exactly how, but I know the experience that Laurie and I have gone through is going to influence this piece somehow.” When I asked Kirk for more specifics, he shared the following phrases with me: “Sing for Life,” “Living for Today and for the present,” “Thankfulness for one more day with my wife,” “A cause to celebrate the successes of the journey,” “Transformative,” “Beauty out of strife,” and most profoundly, “The darkest moments can reveal some of the brightest lights.” With these new concepts as well as the original purpose for the commission serving as the backdrop against which I would read potential texts, I began the second leg of this compositional journey…
Not having found anything in my own poetry collection, I decided to take a different approach by moving to the Internet using search terms that related to the various thoughts and themes Kirk had provided. As I recall, it was while using the search term “hope” that I found the poem Sing to Me! by Ella Wheeler Wilcox… best known for a famous line from her poem Solitude: “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone.” … The words “...do not speak, But sing! My heart thrills at your beautiful voice” so appropriately represented not only their relationship, but also the role that music and singing has played in their lives and in Laurie’s unflagging confidence that she has more music to make with the students in her choirs
In our case I recall the joy of making music with Sue Mann, also a music teacher, whom we honored in our Memorial Garden concert. This piece captures the poignancy and the excitement of looking forward to more music-making in the future.
A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, Gwyneth Walker resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For nearly 30 years she lived on a dairy farm in Vermont before returning to live in her childhood hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut. Her music is always accessible, although never simplistic. It is characterized by a tremendous energy and a strong sense of humor, as evidenced in Sing On!, subtitled “A Musical Toast.” The piece sets the familiar text by Col. Henry Heveningham—“If music be the food of love…”—and was created to honor a local Connecticut high school teacher upon his retirement after 36 years of sharing his love of music, food, and life with his students.
We conclude with a slice of Americana, the glorious melodies and lyrics of Rogers and Hammerstein. The pair’s first musical, Oklahoma!, based on Lynn Riggs’ play Green Grow the Lilacs, opened on Broadway in 1943 and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances. This led to a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944, and the famous film adaptation in 1955. The medley we are performing was created by Kansas native John Leavitt and includes seven beloved songs from the show. The optimism and can-do spirit of mid-20th-century America shines through in these memorable tunes. Now, in 2022 when there are a lot of things in the world to be concerned about, I try to maintain my own optimism. We are lucky to live in the Bay Area. I still find myself singing “O, what a beautiful morning” when I get up, and pray that humankind will find a way to address the world’s woes so that all peoples can share that sentiment.
Thank you for attending our show and for supporting Bay Choral Guild. We look forward to seeing you again next season, when we present three more programs of glorious choral music. See the inside cover of this program booklet for details. I’m especially excited to be presenting the premiere of my 35-minute cantata A Song for St. Cecilia in December!
A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, Gwyneth Walker resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For nearly 30 years she lived on a dairy farm in Vermont before returning to live in her childhood hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut. Her music is always accessible, although never simplistic. It is characterized by a tremendous energy and a strong sense of humor, as evidenced in Sing On!, subtitled “A Musical Toast.” The piece sets the familiar text by Col. Henry Heveningham—“If music be the food of love…”—and was created to honor a local Connecticut high school teacher upon his retirement after 36 years of sharing his love of music, food, and life with his students.
We conclude with a slice of Americana, the glorious melodies and lyrics of Rogers and Hammerstein. The pair’s first musical, Oklahoma!, based on Lynn Riggs’ play Green Grow the Lilacs, opened on Broadway in 1943 and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances. This led to a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944, and the famous film adaptation in 1955. The medley we are performing was created by Kansas native John Leavitt and includes seven beloved songs from the show. The optimism and can-do spirit of mid-20th-century America shines through in these memorable tunes. Now, in 2022 when there are a lot of things in the world to be concerned about, I try to maintain my own optimism. We are lucky to live in the Bay Area. I still find myself singing “O, what a beautiful morning” when I get up, and pray that humankind will find a way to address the world’s woes so that all peoples can share that sentiment.
Thank you for attending our show and for supporting Bay Choral Guild. We look forward to seeing you again next season, when we present three more programs of glorious choral music. See the inside cover of this program booklet for details. I’m especially excited to be presenting the premiere of my 35-minute cantata A Song for St. Cecilia in December!
