Advent revisited

I have always loved Advent and, in particular, the music of Advent. We are now in the season for the O Antiphons, surely some of the most beautiful chants that exist, though I love the Advent Prose, too. I recently found a wonderful series of YouTube videos from the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruk82iKatfU

If you’re interested, I encourage you to listen to them all and get to know the chants. Music and text are both wonderful and rich. This morning in church we sang “O come, o come Emmanuel” which of course made me think again of these marvelous antiphons. Here is the video for today’s antiphon (December 21st): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY_JNWgXmnc

This year I also revisited a recent work by Nico Muhly, the O Antiphon Preludes and played some of them in a recital. I was delighted that they were well received by the audience. Nico Muhly, though just over 30 years old, has made a name for himself throughout the music world (and not only the world of classical music) including, happily, the niche genres of organ and choral music. His opera Two Boys was jointly commissioned by the English National Opera, who premiered it last year, and the Metropolitan Opera of New York, who will perform it this season. He has since composed a second opera Dark Sisters. The O Antiphon Preludes were first performed at a Meditation for Christmas at Westminster Abbey on December 19, 2010 and are dedicated to James McVinnie, at the time Assistant Organist at the Abbey. McVinnie has also released a recording of Nico Muhly’s organ works.

Muhly composed one prelude for each of the seven O Antiphons (English use since the Medieval period included an additional eighth antiphon). The duration of the entire set is 18 minutes and, though not indicated or suggested by the score, it could certainly be enhanced by the singing of the O Antiphons before each prelude as it is on McVinnie’s recording. The preludes are exquisite reliefs growing out of the original chant melodies, each with its character suggested by the text of the corresponding antiphon. (The entire text is printed at the front of the score in Latin only.) This music delights in sonorities, uses the most economical of means to make a statement, and has the transparency and delicacy of texture of a great stained-glass window. Though the pieces tend toward the introspective, there is still quite a bit of variation in color and texture. In certain preludes the chant melodies are more present, and in certain preludes the inspiration of the text is more obvious, such as the “wild, ecstatic tremolo” depicting Moses and the burning bush in O Adonai, or the high, open chords on “bright mutations” in O Oriens, depicting the Morning Star. O Clavis David stands out because of the continuous arpeggios of sixteenth notes, reminiscent of the music of Philip Glass, to whom Muhly served as an assistant while a student.

Italian Futurism and Igor Stravinsky

Yesterday I visited the Italian Futurism exhibition at the Guggenheim museum in New York. The entire exhibition is fantastic and not only contains paintings but also pamphlets, books, ceramics, costumes, and even advertisements for Campari! As a musician, I was excited to find a special room dedicated to Giacomo Balla’s set and lighting designs for Stravinsky’s Fireworks (Feu d’artifice). Though Stravinsky’s composition dates from 1908, Giacomo Balla’s 1917 re-imagining of this orchestral work works so well, one would think that they had worked together from the start. Balla created a ballet with no dancers, using abstract sets that were lit from inside and out. The designers at the Guggenheim used Balla’s lighting cue sheets to reconstruct the lighting scheme using cove lighting on the walls and a small screen broadcast a digital version of the set with its lighting scheme, created by students at Carnegie Mellon. The music and lighting are perfectly coordinated and I only wish that the digital recreation had been broadcast on a larger screen. Clearly the museum was more interested in re-interpreting the lighting in a new way, but I focused on the screen, trying to imagine I was there in 1917, looking at the stage.

Below is a blog post from the museum’s website. If you start it at 1:45 you will hear about how they created this special mini-exhibit within the exhibition. Between the 3:00 and 3:30 marks you can see the television screen with the digital recreation of the set. Unfortunately, they did not use Stravinsky’s music for the background to this video! (They didn’t ask me!)

http://blogs.guggenheim.org/checklist/guggenheim-evoked-groundbreaking-1917-futurist-performance/

For another artistic interpretation of Stravinsky’s music, and the chance to listen to a complete performance, check out this YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIUGwx2NvwM

Sadly, portions of the exhibit have already started to close, but if you live nearby you can still check out the majority of it through September 1st. Happy exploring!

Music & the Brain

I have recently begun teaching some new organ students, which I am finding quite rewarding. I am discovering again that teaching students is a great way to teach yourself. Thinking of this, I was delighted to come across this video explanation of recent research of brain activity in musicians. If any of us needed more convincing that music should be taught in our schools, churches, and communities, this short video should do it. Go study an instrument, even if you haven’t done so before! See my post on life-long learning for more encouragement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JKCYZ8hng#t=271

I think I will go practice now…

Music for Holy Week

Last year I composed a piece for my church choir to sing during the dramatic Tenebrae service during Holy Week. Tenebrae means ‘shadows’ and is derived from the monastic tradition of anticipating the Daily Office services of Matins and Lauds of the Triduum the night before. In modern practice, as at my church, the traditional psalms and readings are sometimes followed by appropriate anthems, rather than the traditional responsory texts. Gradually candles are extinguished until only the light of one candle, the Christ Candle, remains. This candle is taken from the church, a dramatic noise is made in the profound darkness, and then after a period the candle is returned. It is powerful and dramatic liturgy.

I was inspired by the directness and simplicity of an ancient text from Alcuin of York (735-804) to compose a musical setting. Death and life, earthly and heavenly, human and divine, are juxtaposed in four short lines.

Here, dying for the world, the world’s life hung,
Laving a world’s sin in that deathly tide;
That down-bent head raised earth above the stars:
O timeless wonder! Life, because One died.

Here is a recording of my anthem, performed during a liturgy by the choir of St. James’ Church, Madison Avenue in New York City, conducted by Christopher Jennings.

It also reminds me of the final image of this wonderful twentieth-century hymn text by W. H. Vanstone (1923-1999):

Morning glory, starlit sky,
soaring music, scholar’s truth,
flight of swallows, autumn leaves,
memory’s treasure, grace of youth:

Open are the gifts of God,
gifts of love to mind and sense;
hidden is love’s agony,
love’s endeavor, love’s expense.

Love that gives, gives ever more,
gives with zeal, with eager hands,
spares not, keeps not, all outpours,
ventures all its all expends.

Drained is love in making full,
bound in setting others free,
poor in making many rich,
weak in giving power to be.

Therefore he who shows us God
helpless hangs upon the tree;
and the nails and crown of thorns
tell of what God’s love must be.

Here is God: no monarch he,
throned in easy state to reign;
here is God, whose arms of love
aching, spent, the world sustain.

Why is it so hard to sing in tune?

As my harpsichord teacher said, problems with the pipe organ began when people started using equal temperament!

three hundred and seventy one chorales

I brought this question up before as one of the fundamental problems of working with, and being a part of, a choral ensemble. After all, no one really wants to listen to an out-of-tune choir.

It’s a complicated issue that involves both technical and conceptual components.  Everyone’s heard a bit about the technical components, particularly in terms of breathing, vowel formation, and the tendency of ‘speaking’ vowels to drag down the pitch down when sung unmodified. Everyone who has been in a choir has also heard words like ‘resonance’ and ‘facemask,’ have been told to ‘open their throat,’ or to visualize some kind of imagery (a bullseye, a balloon, etc.) that is supposed to usher in a greater probability of singing in tune.  The success of these techniques is debatable.

More likely witnessed, is the tendency of choral directors to panic in the presence of sagging pitch, at which they commence…

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Life-long learning

During a recent conversation I made a comment that, as a musician, I had to keep growing and learning.  Although there are unfortunate exceptions, most people in creative fields never stop exploring and learning new things. They never stop striving for perfection. I am reminded of two people from my past who embodied this idea. 

One was organist Robert Rayfield, professor of organ at Indiana University. In retirement, Dr. Rayfield continued as organist and choirmaster of the 9am service at Trinity Church in Bloomington, while my professor, Marilyn Keiser, directed the music for the 11am service. He was quite a character and used to wear two different brightly-colored socks every day. He also used to practice the organ ‘silently’ throughout the sermon, squeaking keys and all! One beautiful Sunday he played for church, went home and took out his little sailboat for a spin, came inside, went to lie down for a nap and never woke up. Perhaps the only better way to go, at least for us organists, is in the middle of an organ recital, as Louis Vierne, organist of Notre Dame in Paris, did in 1937.

The other person who comes to mind was a retired school teacher and principal named Edna. Another spunky character (maybe this goes with being creative?!), Edna kept her car and drivers license until she was 96. She also decided to start piano lessons when she was in her 80’s. As a child we had the same piano teacher and I remember hearing her play a movement of a Mozart Sonata on the piano, quite beautifully. 

So, my friends, you have no excuse! Have you always wanted to take lessons? Always wanted to sing in a choir? Always wanted to understand classical music better? Do you need to reform your technique? Become more informed about historical performance practice? Yearning for a creative outlet? Want to read more great literature? Want to learn to paint? Why not take the plunge and continue on the path of life-long-learning?

The endless mysteries of Bach and his music

George Stauffer’s excellent review in the New York Review of Books of John Eliot Gardiner’s new Bach biography reminds us that each of Bach’s biographers have presented a Johann Sebastian Bach with a different character. In his book, Gardiner emphasizes Bach’s difficult upbringing and complex relationship to authority, while musically focusing on the vocal works, especially the Leipzig Cantatas.

I will never forget sitting in Ralph Allwood’s home with members of my tutorial group at Eton College (it seems to me it was also dark and we had drunk a bit of wine…). Ralph put on a new recording of the St. John Passion, conducted by John Eliot Gardner and asked us to guess the composer. While all of us had played a fair amount of Bach’s music, we were also just 17-18 years old and were not quite sure what we were hearing. I, for one, had not truly grasped the emotional depth of Bach’s oeuvre. I had never heard this music before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iujO-5MrXvk

The seething, boiling energy of the strings; those incredible dissonant suspensions right off the bat in the oboes; the almost violent entrance of the chorus on the word “Herr” (Lord)…. This was not the Bach with whom I was familiar: master of counterpoint, to be revered certainly, but existing on a somewhat remote plane. Of course I went out and bought the CD set of Gardiner conducting the St. John (that’s what you did in those days) and I began what will be a lifelong journey to plumb the depths of this most incredible composer as best I can.

Stauffer tells of a funeral for a young recording engineer at Central Synagogue in New York City at which the Agnus Dei from the Mass in B Minor was performed. Music by a German Lutheran, using a text from the Roman Catholic Mass, performed in a Reformed Jewish Synagogue in America- it was the perfect piece for the occasion because Bach’s music is “capable of expressing the inexpressible,” as Rabbi Rubinstein so eloquently put it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLCcQixNvg

For me, there is one note that causes a physical, visceral reaction- the A-flat in the second bar in which something resembling grief and pain is expressed. The Neopolitan-sixth harmony had been used by Bach before, certainly (I think of the great Passacaglia and Fugue for organ), but to place it in the opening ritornello after just seven chords is a masterful stroke. Musically it sabotages the key, even if only briefly; emotionally it knocks the wind out of the sensitive listener.

If this music draws you in, find a live performance of Bach’s music near you! I can especially recommend to folks in NYC and Boston the Bach Cantata series at Emmanuel Church in Boston and Holy Trinity Lutheran and St. Paul’s Chapel in New York.

Please share your thoughts- I’d love to hear what you think and what you hear in the music!

Remembering Gerre Hancock

Today is the anniversary of the death of Gerre Hancock, one of the most influential American church musicians of the twentieth century. Many people have written about his influence on them, especially choristers and colleagues who fed off his incredible musicianship and encouraging personality. I will not go on at length today, as I want him to speak for himself through his playing.

I have posted an example on YouTube of an improvised Organ Voluntary following a hymn. I intentionally included the hymn so that you can hear how he unifies the introduction, hymn with it’s final stanza, and the improvisation. Especially noteworthy is the recapitulation of the opening toccata material after the second fugue. Like so many great composers, Hancock creates an amazing piece of music out of the simplest of materials.

I do not pretend to be a sophisticated user of iMovie; this is really about sharing this music. I have been wanting to share more, especially given the great response to my earlier video of the Doxology improvisation. I hope it will not take me this long to post again. I must also acknowledge Dr. Alan van Poznak who for years drove into the city from his home in New Jersey (lugging audio equipment!) to record Sunday morning and Evening services. Each week he would bring CDs for me and the Hancocks. Here was a man who was not an organist, but would light up like a little child when he talked about the music, and especially delighted in hearing musical connections and quotations in the improvisations.

The Christmas Season

Today is Epiphany, marking the end of the twelve days of Christmas. Sadly I have not had a chance to write a blog post through this whole season because of the busy schedule we musicians keep at this time of year. Many things have come to mind as I played for concerts and services throughout the past six weeks, and here are a few of those thoughts.

I have always loved Advent and, in particular, the music of Advent. There are so many fantastic hymn texts and hymn tunes, as well as a number of beautiful choral pieces. At my previous church we did an Advent Lessons & Carols service where I introduced the O Antiphons, surely some of the most beautiful chants that exist, though I love the Advent Prose, too. If the O Antiphons, for Vespers in the days leading up to Christmas, are new to you, read a bit more about them at the blog of a former choir member: http://chantblog.blogspot.com/search?q=+o+antiphons At my current church we sing Nine Lessons and Carols in the form of King’s College Cambridge on Advent III; for a couple of hours Advent is suspended. (Yes, I know some people won’t approve of this!) Despite this, there are Advent themes in some of the assigned lessons, and I also wanted to give a nod to Advent at the beginning of the service.

This year I found the perfect prelude in a recent work by Nico Muhly, the O Antiphon Preludes. Nico Muhly, though just over 30 years old, has made a name for himself throughout the music world (and not only the world of classical music) including, happily, the niche genres of organ and choral music. His opera Two Boys was jointly commissioned by the English National Opera, who premiered it last year, and the Metropolitan Opera of New York, who will perform it this season. He has since composed a second opera Dark Sisters. The O Antiphon Preludes were first performed at a Meditation for Christmas at Westminster Abbey on December 19, 2010 and are dedicated to James McVinnie, at the time Assistant Organist at the Abbey. McVinnie has just released a recording of Nico Muhly’s organ works that was featured as the album of the week on Q2, an online division of WQXR in New York dedicated to the music of living composers.

Muhly composed one prelude for each of the seven O Antiphons (never mind the complication that English use since the Medieval period included an additional eighth antiphon, although the new Common Worship has reverted to the more universal seven…). The duration of the entire set is 18 minutes and, though not indicated or suggested by the score, it could certainly be enhanced by the singing of the O Antiphons before each prelude as it is on McVinnie’s recording. The preludes are exquisite reliefs growing out of the original chant melodies, each with its character suggested by the text of the corresponding antiphon. (The entire text is printed at the front of the score in Latin only.) This music delights in sonorities, uses the most economical of means to make a statement, and has the transparency and delicacy of texture of a great stained-glass window. Aside from a few cross rhythms and the perpetual tremolos of the second prelude, there are no enormous technical demands, yet the music demands a mature performer to capture the quasi-liturgical atmosphere within it. Though the pieces tend toward the introspective, there is still quite a bit of variation in color and texture. In certain preludes the chant melodies are more present, and in certain preludes the inspiration of the text is more obvious, such as the “wild, ecstatic tremolo” depicting Moses and the burning bush in O Adonai, or the high, open chords on “bright mutations” in O Oriens, depicting the Morning Star. O Clavis David stands out because of the continuous arpeggios of sixteenth notes, reminiscent of the music of Philip Glass, to whom Muhly served as an assistant while a student.

Each Christmas I am struck by certain hymn texts that, no matter how familiar they may be, bring forth marvelous images. Some of the words take on special meaning when sung by an enthusiastic congregation in a full church. Here are a few that struck me, this year:

“Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?” (from O come, all ye faithful -John Francis Wade)

“Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain” (from In the bleak midwinter -Christina Rossetti

“Let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring, evermore and evermore!” (from Of the Father’s love begotten -Prudentius, tr. John Mason Neale)

“It came, a blossom bright, amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the night.” (from Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming -German, 15th century, tr. Theodore Baker)

“God comes down that man may rise, Lifted by him to the skies; Christ is Son of Man that we Sons of God in him may be.” (from Sing, o sing, this blessed morn -Christopher Wordsworth) This last one is not so well known, but I commend it to your attention. It is paired with a lovely, traditional English tune. We did not sing it at my church this year, but I sang it through to myself at a quiet moment.

I will leave you with a carol that I have never heard in the same way since I worked with Gerre Hancock at Saint Thomas Church in New York. There was always a tremendous energy to God rest ye merry, Gentlemen when he played it, especially when he improvised introductions like the one in this video. Be merry, my followers!

Groton School, William Amory Gardner, Henry Vaughan, and Beverly, MA

Though the world is an increasingly small place, especially with electronic communication, it is always fun to discover connections between different parts of one’s life the old-fashioned way: through observation. The idea of this blog post developed while visiting family in my hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts this summer. I hope you will take the time to read it and enjoy the photographs.

I had the great privilege of attending Groton School, a boarding school in Groton Massachusetts. Though founded relatively recently (in 1884) history and tradition are central to its ethos. As an organ student, I spent many hours in the St. John’s Chapel, designed by Henry Vaughan and donated by one of the three founders of the school, William Amory Gardner, in memory of his brother Joseph Peabody Gardner. 

In a letter dated Christmas Eve 1898, Gardner offered the Rector up to $75,000 to build a new chapel, with three stipulations:

“1. That the present Chapel be not disposed of without my advice and consent.

2. That the architect be chosen not without my consent.

3. That I have negative control over the location of windows, brasses, etc., kind of pews, etc.” 

(The Trustees of Groton School, St. John’s Chapel, 1900-2000, (privately printed 2001), p. 9.)

Henry Vaughan was one of the architects suggested by Gardner. It is likely that he would have appealed to the low-church Headmaster Endicott Peabody and the school trustees because he had already designed the St. Paul’s School chapel in 1888 as well as the first Groton School chapel, which was moved into town (presumably at the suggestion of Gardner- see No. 1 above) to become Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. Vaughan must have appealed to the high-church Gardner because of his connection to Church of the Advent in Boston, where Vaughan was also a parishioner as was Gardner’s Aunt Isabella Stewart Gardner, and his fluency in historic Gothic Revival architecture. The decision was made (perhaps after some lobbying by Gardner) to employ Indiana limestone in the late 14-century English Gothic style, in the transitional period between Decorated and Perpendicular. (The Trustees of Groton School, St. John’s Chapel, 1900-2000, (privately printed 2001), p. 12.)

Gardner and two his brothers had been raised by Isabella Stewart Gardner after the death of his parents (his mother when he was 2 and his father when he was 12). Aunt Isabella, in later years, lived with a fabulous art collection in her own Venetian Palazzo, which she had purchased in its entirety, shipped to Boston, and rebuilt. Now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, it is a must-see when visiting Boston. It was completed in 1903, three years after the chapel at Groton was consecrated. Though the three brothers were not raised in the Palazzo, it is still difficult to imagine the atmosphere in which they must have been raised. Hilliard T. Goldfarb, gives us a glimpse:

“In 1879, they took the three boys on an educational tour of French and English cathedrals, lightened by attendance at the Ascot      races and at Oxford-Cambridge cricket matches. In London they studied the art collections and visited their countryman Henry James. It was during this visit that James introduced Isabella Gardner to James McNeill Whistler at a party given by Lady Blanch Lindsay.” (Hilliard T. Goldfarb The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Companion Guide and History (Yale University Press, 1995) p.8)

When a student at Groton, I had also been intrigued by the “Gardner Room,” a faculty study lined with dark wood shelves full of old books, and exotic antique furniture that had belonged to Gardner. My attraction was of course intensified because students were not allowed in the room! Only later did I learn more about the man buried in the basement of the chapel (yes, there is a very simple tomb down there), including the fact that he had a summer estate in, of all places, my home town. I discovered the connection to Beverly when visiting my father at work one day. For many years he has worked at Endicott College and has had an office in “College Hall,” a large stone house. One day I looked carefully at the fireplace in the dining room and saw the Groton School crest on one side, the Harvard crest on the other (Gardner was a Harvard graduate), and what was presumably the family crest in the center. 

The Gardner family had roots in adjacent Salem, Massachusetts prior to settling in Boston. This section of Beverly, called Pride’s Crossing, became a fashionable place for high-society summer homes. The campus of Endicott College contains no fewer than eight re-purposed historic houses. Down the street from the Gardner property was Henry Clay Frick’s summer estate Eagle Rock, since demolished. Gardner and his two brothers inherited land from their father. After the death of his brother Joseph, William Amory Gardner bought out his other brother and had “Stone House” designed by architect Henry Richards. It was built in 1915-1917 as his summer home, his main residence being on the Groton campus. After Gardner, a life-long bachelor, died in 1930, the building was vacant until the fledgling Endicott College, a junior college for women, leased and then purchased the building in 1939-1940. 

Having known this history for a number of years, I learned of yet another interesting connection on my trip this summer. I visited St. Peter’s Church in downtown Beverly and discovered that the choir stalls had been given in memory of William Amory Gardner. This surprised me, as I had assumed that he would have attended St. John’s Church in Beverly Farms, which was closer to his summer house and designed by Henry Vaughan in 1902, shortly after the Groton Chapel. Perhaps his family had older connections to St. Peter’s, or perhaps he just liked the church or the Rector better. St. Peter’s is a lovely little parish church that happens to contain some very fine stained-glass windows.

 

The windows in the chancel were designed and executed by Margaret Redmond, a pupil of Charles Connick (creator of many amazing windows throughout the country and the world). I will save a detailed discussion of American stained glass for another blog post. Though they were installed after Gardner’s death, I am quite sure that he would have approved.