December 13, 2009 - 5:00 PM PROGRAM NOTES Advent is the season of expectation and preparation, as Christians the world over await the coming of the Word Made Flesh in the form of a little child. Special Advent hymns and carols mark the weeks leading up to Christmas, and no liturgical-musical celebration is more beloved than the service of Lessons and Carols. The singing of carols goes back to the early Christian era. Like religious art, sculpture and drama of the Middle Ages, carols told the story of the Incarnation to a largely illiterate populace. The etymology of the word “carol” is obscure, but scholars believe that it derives from the Greek koros, a circle of dancers and singers whose commentary supplemented the action and dialogue of Attic drama. The tradition of Lessons and Carols originated in England with Cambridge University’s King’s College Choir at the conclusion of World War I, and has continued almost without interruption since. This service, consisting of scriptural readings and seasonal carols and hymns, is also broadcast live around the world each Christmas Eve. The Anglican Singers, like many choirs on both sides of the Atlantic, have adopted the British model, though they celebrate Lessons and Carols midway through the Advent season. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) was, and still is, considered a musical innovator in his day, who exploited the trend toward the Italian baroque style initiated by his predecessor William Byrd (1543-1623) and fulfilled in the genius of his successor Henry Purcell (1659-1695). And it is no surprise that the editor of Tomkins’ “Behold the hour cometh” was British composer and historian Bernard Rose (1916-1996), who both collected and studied Tomkins’ works and was greatly influenced by his technique. In a sense, “Behold, the hour cometh” reflects the style of Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), in particular Gibbons’ mini-oratorio, “This is the record of John,” in which the soloist’s narrative is complemented by the full chorus’ response. John Tavener (b. London, 1944) has composed in several genres: classical, sacred, and popular. He resurrected his “Song for Athene,” written in memory of a young woman who died in 1993, as a eulogy to Princess Diana on the occasion of her funeral in 1997. (In like wise did pop singer Elton John rework a tribute to Marilyn Monroe - “”Candle in the wind” – into a memorial to Diana.) Tavener, becoming dissatisfied with what he saw as the “rigidity” of Western music, and following his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church in the ’70s, reoriented his compositions to the more ethereal ambience of Russian ecclesiastical music. His later sacred pieces are suggestive of the minimalist, shadowy style of Estonian composer Arvo Part (b. 1935). “The Lamb” is part of a body of poetry by William Blake (1757-1827), “Songs of Innocence” being the companion to his collection entitled “Songs of Experience.” Whatever Blake’s intended message, “The Lamb” is exquisitely suited to the Christmas and Easter stories. Deceptively simple, it is utterly profound. The same child (God’s Lamb) who comes to earth as a helpless baby becomes the ultimate, once-for-all-time sacrifice and oblation for the sins of the world. Tavener’s arrangement of “The Lamb” expresses the composer’s eclecticism and mysticism. It is a haunting motet in which passages of sweet tunefulness are punctuated with weird and unexpected harmonic constructions. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) has taken his place in the pantheon of great British composers of sacred music of the early to mid-twentieth century. Of course, he composed much more than church music: writing song cycles, “political” pieces (Britten was an ardent pacifist), and instrumental works, as well as a ballet and opera. Perhaps Britten’s most enduring legacy is “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” completed in 1946, and adapted in 1958 by famed American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) for children’s television and for youthful audiences at Carnegie Hall and later the Lincoln Center in New York City. Britten brings to the delicate motet “A Hymn to the Virgin” a wonderful freshness and originality, and his macaronic (English interspersed with Latin) texts and antiphonal musical lines delight the ear. The eminent British-American composer Ronald Arnatt (b. 1930), a long-time friend of the Anglican Singers, whimsically observed that, with the publication of “In the bleak midwinter,” composer Harold Darke (1888-1976), with whom Mr. Arnatt studied organ, had instantaneously become a sort of one-note Johnny. But what a wonderful carol to be remembered by: tenderly bringing to musical life the romantic poem of Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). The musically endowed Pierre Villette (1926-1998), who was born and raised in Normandy, studied with the eminent Marcel Durufle before entering the Paris Conservatoire. His musical genres range from medieval chant to jazz and blues. Villette’s oft-performed “Hymne a la Vierge,” composed in 1954, is set to a prayer-poem by Roland Bouheret, which apotheosizes the Virgin Mother and her role in creation. The medieval carol “A Spotless Rose,” elegantly arranged by Herbert Howells (1892-1983), depicts the fulfillment of Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of the coming of Messiah, not as a warrior armed with glory and power, but as a tender bud, a sweet blossom, born of a young girl in the darkness of a cold winter’s night. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Once again the Anglican Singers wish to extend greetings and thanks to the Parish of St. James and the City of New London, to whom they dedicate the service of Lessons and Carols each year. And it is their hope that all in attendance – of whatever religious or non-religious persuasion – will take from this experience the beauty and joy of the season. Anne Carr Bingham |
