What's For Worship, Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24 > Marble Collegiate Church

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

What's For Worship, Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24
By webmaster @ 11:36 AM :: 1578 Views :: 0 Comments :: Kenneth Dake

This Thursday evening marks the holiest of nights, and the music with which we welcome Christ’s birth will be eclectic, transcendent and deeply moving. A Festive Prelude for Brass, Harp, Organ, Choir and Soloists begins promptly at 6:10 and 8:10pm, followed by a Sacred Celebration in Music and Word at 6:30 and 8:30pm. We will again be blessed by the ministry of Metropolitan Opera soprano Camellia Johnson, singing O Holy Night as well as other selections. This will be a night of music which will sing on in your heart well into 2010.

Following are remarks about many of Thursday evening’s choral selections during both the prelude and service, and these notes will appear in Thursday’s printed program. Here they are accompanied by audio samples which may cast light on some of my remarks.

During the service we will sing the lovely refrain to John Michael Talbot’s Wonderful Counselor: “Sing hallelujah to the Wonderful Counselor, sing hallelujah to the Mighty God, sing hallelujah to the Father forever, and sing hallelujah to the true Prince of Peace.” In one of the verses the soloist calls us to, “Worship the Child into the world in Bethlehem.” This Thursday, let us truly worship Jesus into the world. Merry Christmas!

Hodie Christus Natus Est – Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina represents the height of Renaissance polyphony in the Roman School, and he exercised great influence on the music of the Roman Catholic Church. While only in his 20’s, Palestrina was appointed by Pope Julius III to be director of the papal choir at St. Peter’s Basilica. After serving various other churches in Rome during the middle years of his career, he would return to St. Peter’s for the last 24 years of his life, then serving under Pope Pius V. In the 1570’s Palestrina was struck by personal tragedy, losing his wife, two sons, and a brother to the plague. After briefly considering the priesthood, he then remarried, this time to a wealthy widow whose generous support enabled him to focus on composing. Hodie Christus Natus Est, [LISTEN] for antiphonal choirs, exhibits the clarity and purity of his polyphonic style, in contrast to the florid complexity of Venetian composers such as Monteverdi and the Gabrielis. The Council of Trent was engaged in heated debate over whether polyphony should be banned altogether in the interest of promoting intelligibility of text; this joyful motet for Christmas Day clearly demonstrates one can have both. In the repetition of the word ‘Hodie’ (today) we hear the strong proclamation that is both the culmination of Advent and the dawning of a new age in human history, for today the long-awaited Messiah has come.

Ave Maria – Conte

David Conte is a professor of composition and conductor of the chorus at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The recipient of numerous commissions, his works include five operas, countless songs, a film score and music for the 2006 PBS documentary Orozco: Man of Fire. Most recently, he composed An Exhortation, sung by the San Francisco Girls Chorus at this year’s Presidential Inauguration, with text taken from President Obama’s victory speech in Chicago on November 5th, 2008. Conte’s tender setting of the Ave Maria [LISTEN] exhibits a melodic expressivity in each individual voice part. The opening soprano motive is heard three times, sounding much like a reverent bow of adoration before the Virgin Mary. Unexpected harmonic shifts between major and minor color the work and cloak it in mystery. Only at the concluding ‘Amen’ does the music become securely settled in the major key, bringing the prayer to a place of gentle repose.

Noel, Noel – Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was an avid collector of folksongs from his native England. His 1913 collection, Five English Folksongs, are brilliantly arranged a cappella settings of secular songs, mostly inspired by sea shanties and sailors’ tales. A drinking song, Wassail Song concludes the set. The old greeting, ‘Wassail,’ is a contraction of the Old Norse ‘Ves heill,’ (be healthy), and it was often used as a toast. Karl Reiland, who in 1912-1936 served as Rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church, Stuyvesant Square, created a sacred text, Noel Noel, [LISTEN] for Vaughan Williams’ rollicking music. The spirit of joyous celebration is very much retained, albeit with words that excitedly recount the events of that Christmas Eve long ago.

O Magnum Mysterium – Carrillo

César Alejandro Carrillo is a conductor and composer living in Caracas, Venezuela. He began his musical studies as a cellist and went on to earn his degree in choral conducting from the Instituto Universitario de Estudios Musicales. His lush setting of the Christmas text, O Magnum Mysterium, [LISTEN] expresses the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation – that profound intersection of human history with God’s eternal plan and the wondrous juxtaposition of earthly and divine realms (“that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their manger.”) Carrillo’s music has been described as atmospheric prayerfulness, and there is a tender intimacy which pervades this work.

Born to Die to Set Us Free – Dickau

David Dickau is director of choral activities at Minnesota State University, and has filled several prominent commissions including the Dresden Canticles, celebrating the 2005 rebuilding of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany, and View from the Air, commissioned by the Charles and Anne Murrow Lindbergh Foundation to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of Lindbergh’s historic trans-Atlantic flight. Born to Die to Set Us Free [LISTEN] is a haunting, melancholy motet that places the Incarnation in the context of God’s sacrificial love. The road to Jerusalem begins in Bethlehem, and the nativity story takes on greater poignancy in light of all that lies ahead for the Christ-child. The motet will be preceded by an instrumental arrangement of the American folk-hymn Wondrous Love: “What wondrous love is this, O my soul, what wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to lay aside His crown for my soul.” As Dr. Brown said in last Sunday’s sermon, God is not content simply to love us from afar.

Wonderful Counselor – Talbot

John Michael Talbot was touring with the 70’s rock band Mason Proffit, opening concerts for such legends as Janice Joplin, when he had an epiphany. Standing on an empty stage one night after a concert, he gazed out on a sea of empty alcohol bottles, beer cans and drug paraphernalia; it was then he grasped the emptiness of the rock star life. He embarked on a spiritual quest which would eventually lead him to Christ, and to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1978 he sold all his possessions and joined a Franciscan Order, and in 1982 he founded his own Franciscan community in Eureka Springs, AK called The Little Portion Hermitage. It has canonical status in the Catholic Church, and its 40 members, who call themselves Brothers and Sisters of Charity, include celibates, singles, married couples and families. Talbot’s concert tours and millions of albums sold worldwide go to support the community. As exampled by Wonderful Counselor, his music cannot be labeled classical, folk, gospel, or contemporary Christian, although it has elements of each. For Talbot it is simply sacred, for in his words, “Music, based on faith, can take the listener on a closer walk with God, actually taking them into the heart of the Lord. It brings out the mysterious and speaks the unspeakable, bringing to light that which is beyond human reason.”

Quem Pastores Laudavere – Bassi

The work of New York City composer, James Bassi, encompasses choral, orchestra, instrumental music, song-cycles and theater works. His sacred compositions are heard regularly in services at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis premiered at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. His Latin motet, Quem Pastores Laudavere, [LISTEN] (heard in English translation in this service) is a work of profound beauty which exhibits Bassi’s lyric gift. In this marriage of music and text there is a sweet wistfulness which beckons the listener to step back and reflect on the magnitude of all that transpired on this most holy night.

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