World Without End
November 15, 2019: S. Clement’s Church, Philadelphia
November 17, 2019: St. Thomas’ Church, Whitemarsh
Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Logan Laudenslager, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Andrew Shaw, Melinda Steffy, Kevin Vondrak, Michele Zuckman
with organist Michael Smith
BAIRSTOW: I sat down
PARRY: I was glad
WEIR: Love Bade Me Welcome (from Two Human Hymns)
HOWELLS: Behold, O God Our Defender
HILL: We Bloomed In Spring
HOWELLS: Magnificat (from Collegium Regale)
SMITH: Conversation in the Mountains (from Where flames a word)
HOWELLS: Nunc Dimittis (from Collegium Regale)
DURUFLÉ: Notre Père
FINZI: Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast (from 3 Anthems for Chorus and Organ)
WEIR: Life to the falling of a star (from Two Human Hymns)
WILLAN: Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One
EŠENVALDS: Trees
World Without End
Old wood, arching beams, and cavernous space. A hint of incense or pine. Calm and introspective quiet. Observations from an old pew in an empty sanctuary, or from the deep woods. These moments of pause draw us inward, to reflect in ways both grand and intimate. World Without End starts from this place—a contemplative atmosphere in which historical Anglican cathedral music is cast in conversation with contemporary settings and thought—guided by the ancient and enduring architecture of Evensong. Our program is intended for both the believer and non-believer alike, as a dialogue across spirituality, time, and musical lineage. Today’s concert, a collaboration with organist Michael Smith, is one of several cooperative performances through which we celebrate Chestnut Street Singers’ tenth anniversary season.
Our chosen structure of Choral Evensong is a service established by the Church of England’s first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, in which the canonical hours of Vespers and Compline were combined for communal, evening worship. The program is anchored in Herbert Howells’ setting of the evening canticles from Collegium Regale. Beyond that, we take some liberties with the standard progression of Evensong while maintaining much of the structure. In place of readings, we sing contemporary anthems based on lesson-like texts; the hymns are two “human” hymns that you won’t find in the hymnal; and instead of chanting a psalm, we sing an anthem with a psalm text.
The concert starts with an invitation: to pause, enter, sit, eat, and behold. The gestures range from understated to noble and juxtapose
the majesty of the organ with the intimacy of the human voice—two instruments powered by air and reeds. Once settled, it is on to the heart the matter: the lessons. The canticles, or biblical songs, of Mary and Simeon, relayed in the service music of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, alternate with contemporary “lessons,” setting texts from St. Teresa of Avila and Paul Celan. Next, the feast. With a prayer and an anthem, we consume as ritual. We eat daily bread. Inevitably, we also depart. In doing so, we participate in a grand cycle.
At the bookends of the program, our Introit and Benediction draw texts from the Song of Solomon. This vivid book of scripture describes a human relationship in strangely enchanting metaphors to the natural world, with lush language of vineyards and gardens. Its themes form a dialogue with our two “lessons” and the canticles, weaving together the words sung today into threads of contemplation: Can our feet stand at the gates of Jerusalem and understand that they Bloomed in Spring? Can we Behold and comprehend a language void of I and You? Will our Eyes suffer the apparent seasons of Life and Death? Who is it that gives, and how do we collectively receive?
At a decisive moment during the apex of the program, a nod to Song of Solomon—symbolized in the Rose of Sharon—emerges in the poetry. The suggestion is that the bounty may also be the guide:
“O rose of Sharon! O the Lily of the valley!
How art thou now, thy flock to keep,
Become both food, and Shepherd to thy sheep.”
By eating, we connect and commune and consider. We gather, if only for a brief moment, to pasture our flock. The journey doesn’t answer the questions; it simply poses them. And in the beauty of ancient liturgy designed as both ritual and art, we may perhaps begin to discover a place along the way, in the deep woods or the sanctuary of the soul.
I sat down (1923)
After a series of appointments, including six years at Westminster Abbey, Edward Bairstow composed this miniature anthem in 1925 during his tenure as organist at York Minster Cathedral. Like many of his English contemporaries (such as Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams), Bairstow draws upon modal harmonies and long, expansive phrases to create a sense of timelessness in this compact but potent psalm. With its text excerpted from the Song of Solomon, Bairstow’s a cappella setting undulates between a feeling of triple and duple meter, with the introduction of melodic and textual themes through the tenor voice. “I sat down” is one of the earliest publications of the Oxford University Press Music Department, one of the newest divisions of the second oldest and largest university publishing house in the world.
I Was Glad (1902)
While many composers have set the text of Psalm 122, C. Hubert H. Parry’s setting, known by the psalm’s incipit, or first line of text, is perhaps most recognizable. Parry captures the energy and jubilation of the text, from the opening notes of the organ to the choir’s first proclamation. Traditionally sung at the entrance of the English monarch into Westminster Abbey, “I Was Glad” has gone through several iterations. Parry initially composed the work for the crowning of Edward VII, but this regal premiere did not proceed entirely smoothly. The conductor, having received word (prematurely) that the king had arrived, began the anthem before the procession had begun, ultimately prompting an encore. Nine years later, a revised version of the work was performed for the coronation of George V, resounding with the pomp and grandeur that we appreciate from this landmark piece. In this decade, “I Was Glad” has served as the anthem for the entrances of both Catherine Middleton and Meghan Markle as they walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey for the most recent royal weddings.
Love Bade Me Welcome (1995)
Judith Weir’s place at the forefront of contemporary British music is well-established and rooted in the musical heart of the Anglican tradition. An alumnus, honorary fellow, and Master of the Queen’s Music at King’s College, Cambridge, she was honored as last year’s commissioned composer for their Choir’s worldwide Christmas broadcast. Weir composed Two Human Hymns as a set of two pieces for choir and organ for the Quincentenary of the University of Aberdeen in 1995. The present a cappella arrangement of “Love Bade Me Welcome,” the first of these pieces, was published by the composer several years afterwards and has since become a standard of the adventurous church choir.
George Herbert’s poem, which appears as the last entry in a 162-poem collection from 1633 titled “The Temple,” is a simple conversation between God and the Christian Everyman; the anchor point of what its author calls “a picture of spiritual conflict between God and my soul.” Love—Herbert’s name for Divine Love, rooted in scripture and referenced in other texts on this program—has set out a banquet, yet the guest lingers timidly at the door. Saddled with guilt “of dust and sin,” the Everyman cannot comprehend sitting at a table made for saints.
Ultimately, Love’s case is built more on generosity than reason, and the guest has no words left to say, only mute action: “So, I did sit and eat.” Weir’s music illustrates the sides of this conversation with simplicity; Love’s voice maintains a gentle and lilting line while the guest’s misguided replies increasingly stray from the tonal center. Led by stern words and harmony, the guest has no argument and understatedly submits to the home key in a closing gesture, mirrored in the text.
Behold, O God Our Defender (1952)
Behold, O God Our Defender was commissioned for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England and completed on Christmas Day, 1952. The work was first performed as the Introit to the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953—the coronation music included Parry’s I Was Glad, heard earlier in today’s concert. In the space of barely three minutes, Herbert Howells captures the wide range of emotions inspired by the coronation of a new monarch. The first section of the text alone, “Behold, O God our defender,” moves from quiet awe, to ecstatic exaltation, firm resolve, and a final tranquility, all in the space of an unbroken 12-bar arc. Throughout the anthem, the choir and organ overlap in dynamic waves, rarely finding themselves in the same place at the same time. Howells’s setting of the text plays down the importance of any one monarch, allowing only one glorious but fleeting mention of “thine Anointed” at the midpoint of the piece—perhaps a reminder that all things on Earth are transitory. The last half of the anthem is devoted to the portion of the text that Howells may have viewed as the work’s primary message: “For one day in thy courts is better than a thousand.”
We Bloomed In Spring (2014)
Edie Hill is a Minnesota-based composer whose works have been performed throughout the world. Particularly known for her choral music, Hill has enjoyed collaborations with such ensembles as the Dale Warland Singers, Cantus, VocalEssence, and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, among others. We Bloomed in Spring was composed in 2014 and is dedicated to Philip Brunelle, artistic director and founder of VocalEssence, and the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. The work is scored for a cappella chorus and captures a series of vignettes, following the structure of Daniel Ladinsky’s poem, “I Will Just Say This.” Hill’s setting of the text shifts frequently between textures and tempos, lending much of the piece an unsettled feeling. This makes the final homophonic arrival on the words, “we will never perish unless He does,” all the more comforting.
Collegium Regale (1945)
Herbert Howells is a name well-associated with Anglican church music, through his accomplished range of liturgical works for organ and choir. However, his involvement in the Church of England was absent from his earlier career as a successful instrumental and art song composer, under the tutelage of C.V. Stanford. The circumstances of his eventual fate are coincidental: in 1944, Howells stepped in as temporary organist at St. John’s College, Cambridge in place of a war-bound colleague. In a chance conversation, the dean of King’s College, Eric Milner-White, made a bet with Howells to write a Te Deum hymn setting for the price of 1 guinea (approximately £1.05). This work sparked a creative fire in Howells, and the next year he composed a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for King’s College Choir (in latin, Collegium Regale). Together, these two canticles form the liturgical foundation for a Choral Evensong. They take their texts from biblical sources: The Magnificat reflects Mary’s words while pregnant with Jesus, upon her visitation with Elizabeth, then pregnant with John the Baptist. The Nunc Dimittis is a biblical account of an old, devout man, Simeon. After having seen the infant Christ, fulfilling a promise made to him by the Holy Spirit, Simeon can finally “depart in peace.”
In a letter to Howells several years later, Milner-White confessed:
“I personally feel that you have opened a wholly new chapter in
Service, perhaps in Church, music. Of spiritual moment rather
than liturgical. It is so much more than music-making; it is
experiencing deep things in the only medium that can do it.”
Perhaps the words of Milner-White take their shape from the directness of Howells’ text setting within a masterful context of harmony, counterpoint, and mood: the Song of Mary, filled with innocence, wonder, and trust, contains the power to “put down the mighty from their seat.” The Song of Simeon, a single voice, weary yet content, transforms into the voice of all of Israel. Milner-White must also have referred to the “Gloria”—at once profoundly simple, majestically grand and reverently desperate. Here, the sopranos sing a soaring descant above the rest of the choir in forte unison while the organ, at full force, interweaves with the choir’s melody; both parts grow and expand until they reach a triumphant conclusion on the final phrase, “[W]orld without end. Amen.”
Conversation in the Mountains (2009)
Kile Smith is a Philadelphia composer with a wide and rapidly increasing catalogue of choral music that is frequently performed nationally and internationally. “Conversation in the Mountains” is the middle movement of a larger work, Where Flames A Word, written in 2009 and premiered in Philadelphia by The Crossing. Its text comes from a translation of the 20th-century German poet Paul Celan, in which two travelers ruminate on the nature of nature and, in a delightfully esoteric way, our relationship to one another and the earth. As the one traveler’s thought wanders in a long, run-on sentence, it spills into the realm of words themselves, pondering “a language not for you and not for me.” The music adeptly weaves individual, lyrical melodies into lush, dense textures, flowing and accelerating toward an epic tonal shift on the phrase, “opened up in the middle,” before drifting back into contemplation.
Notre Père (1978)
Published in 1977, Duruflé dedicated his final work, ”Notre Père,” to his wife and performing partner, Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. The duo often performed together at the organ until a serious car accident in 1975 left Maurice Duruflé nearly bedridden for the rest of his life. Originally published for unison voices and organ, “Notre Père” was intended for congregational singing. While the work is one of just a few that Duruflé did not base on Latin chant, the stylistic similarities to plainchant are evident. One year after initial publication, this setting for four-part mixed voices was published.
Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast (1951)
Gerald Finzi’s erudite approach to text-setting is on display in this choral exploration of the Christian sacrament of communion. Published toward the end of the composer’s all-too-short life in 1953, this choral poem builds from British Commonwealth and late metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan’s (1621–1695), “The Holy Communion,” adding depth and dimension to the poet’s expansive meditation on their intimate relationship with the divine. Finzi utilizes terraced, soloistic vocal entrances to weave long, poetic lines across the choir, contrasted with stunning chorale phrases that anchor the work’s thematic explorations. “Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast” is a fine example of the composer’s poetic sensibility, reminiscent of the composer’s earlier approach to the metaphysical in his Dies Natalis for Voice and Orchestra (1939), and at its heart is a poignant and artful approach to the sublime, regardless of religious creed or belief.
Like to the falling of a star (1995)
The second of Weir’s Two Human Hymns, “Like to the falling of a star,” playfully presents Henry King’s elegiac verse on the humility and futility of the human condition. Composed within a seemingly Neo-Baroque style, Weir employs syncopated rhythms partnered with harmonic sequencing, giving the piece a dancing, ornamental texture. This musical vocabulary highlights the stylish Elizabethan form and content of the text, which flows during the body of the piece to suggest the exuberance of our pursuits and abruptly falls off at the end—an ironic commentary that mimics King’s closing poetic turn.
Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One (1929)
Born in London and trained at the Royal College of Organists, Healy Willan emigrated to Canada in 1913 and is known as one of the nation’s preeminent church composers and educators during the first half of the twentieth century. There, he assumed positions as the head of the music theory department at the Toronto Conservatory and as organist at the largest church in the Toronto Diocese, St. Paul’s Church, Bloor Street. However, the majority of his music-making would occur through the smaller, more Anglo-Catholic parish of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, whose liturgical practice resonated with the composer’s love for Renaissance church music. Willan composed over 800 vocal works, both sacred and secular, all exhibiting his unique, antiquarian yet ageless aesthetic. This a cappella motet, “Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One,” flows elegantly like plainchant, allowing the text from Song of Solomon to soar.