Program Notes
Coro Allegro and David Hodgkins, Artistic Director, welcome you to a season of celebrations as we mark 25 years as Boston’s classical chorus for members, friends, and allies of the LGBT community. We open and close today’s program with radiant and grand rejoicings by Bach. In between, as part of our season-long retrospective on Coro Allegro’s past quarter century, we revisit a set of pieces that reminds us of music’s power to move and inspire us.
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And when the beauty of this music rings out, we lose sight of the world with all its unrest, its care and sorrow. We are alone with Bach, who soothes our souls with the wonderful peace of his own heart and lifts us above all that is, was, and shall be. — Albert Schweitzer, from J.S. Bach, Volume II
Of all the truly exceptional music written by Johann Sebastian Bach, the six motets must certainly be characterized as some of his most exquisite works. Although dwarfed in sheer scope by such works as the Mass in B minor and the various passions, the motets still somehow manage to be both grand and intimate at the same time, giving the performer and listener an inspirational and completely satisfying musical experience.
The motet can loosely be defined as a style rather than a specific form of composition. In the Lutheran liturgy during Bach’s time, the motet, usually scored for single choir in Latin, was sung at the beginning of the service, and served as a warm-up to the main event. Clearly, Bach’s motets were not written for this purpose. These six gems are the main event. It is known from an authenticated original manuscript that one of the motets, Der Geist hilft, BWV 226, was written for a funeral service on October 24, 1729, and three others were probably written for similar occasions. The first of the motets, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225, which opens today’s program, was most likely written in 1727 to celebrate the birthday of the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich August I.
Singet dem Herrn is one of four motets scored for two SATB choruses. Continuo (organ, with any combination of cello, bassoon, and double bass) should be used to accompany the motets, and although there is only some evidence that the voices could be doubled by instrumentalists, the original surviving instrumental parts are for the second motet, Der Geist hilft, which is not proof positive that all the motets were meant to have orchestral doubling. Today’s performance presents the motet with continuo only.
The form of each motet is different, and is determined solely by the shape of the text. Singet is in the standard three-movement form of a Baroque concerto (fast–slow–fast). The opening is different from the other double-chorus motets in that the others employ the two choirs in a purely antiphonal manner (i.e. each choir alternating in turn, bandying a single idea). In Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied [Sing to the Lord a new song], Bach intertwines all eight voices right from the start and presents three independent ideas simultaneously — a warmly inviting two-note repeating motive on the word “singet” [sing] in choir 2; long, joyous, polyphonic melismas in choir 1 (the new song); and a long sustained pedal on the tonic sung by the basses — to create a much more deliciously complex and intricate texture of sound. The second movement juxtaposes the traditional chorale, about the frailty of the human condition, with a free-composed, more personal “aria” where the text, possibly also written by Bach himself, assures that God will comfort, care, and protect. The third movement returns to the standard antiphonal treatment of double choruses, but unites the two into a single chorus for a final uplifting fugue on the text “All who have life and breath, praise the Lord.”
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The year 1936 found Samuel Barber composing at the American Academy in Rome as a result of winning a Pulitzer traveling scholarship and the Prix de Rome. Here he wrote, among other pieces, his only string quartet, opus 11. Soon after, Barber transcribed the second movement of the quartet for full string orchestra, entitling it Adagio for Strings. In 1938, Arturo Toscanini premiered and recorded the Adagio for Strings, which became not only an audience favorite, but also came to embody the expression of public sorrow after being played at the funerals of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. In 1967, Barber again reworked the Adagio for Strings, this time for a capella chorus, adapting its lines to the Agnus Dei, the final plea for mercy and for peace that concludes the Latin Mass.
There are echoes of the Romantic string quartet tradition in Barber’s rich harmonic language, expressive tempos, expansive layered textures and sudden silences. But Barber’s Agnus Dei also recalls a Renaissance polyphonic mass movement, in aspects of its musical architecture and the tension and release of its long intertwining melismas. The spiraling melody that unfolds in in the soprano line passes in turn to the altos, basses, and tenors, winding upward on pairs of voices towards climax. The Agnus Dei loses little in the transference from bow to breath. Instead it becomes perhaps even more transcendent, as human voices cry for mercy, soar upwards towards the heavens and murmur repeated prayers that never achieve the expected catharsis of resolution, but somehow come to rest in peace.
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“A peacock takes its perch upon a county hall, a sign that freedom comes to many folk in thrall.” — Fölszállott a Páva(The Peacock), Zoltán Kodály, lyrics by Endre Ady
We conclude the first half of the program with three Hungarian folk songs by Zoltán Kodály, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. In the 12 days between the October 23 demonstration that burgeoned into a spontaneous national uprising, and November 10 when it was brutally put down by invading Soviet forces, 2,500 Hungarians were killed and another 20,000 were wounded. 200,000 fled the country. Today, when so many people are forced to flee from conflict and repression in their homelands, Kodály’s folk songs, rooted as they are in the Hungarian experience, still offer a beautifully humane reminder of the suffering and hope of people everywhere.
Bela Bartok said of his colleague, “If I were to name the composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit, I would answer, Kodály...the deep inner reason is his unshakable faith and trust in the constructive power and future of his people.” Kodály’s music was profoundly influenced by the Magyar folk music of the small towns in rural Hungary in which he grew up. That affinity deepened at the Academy in Budapest, where Kodály’s degrees in composition and education culminated in a Ph.D in musicology for his thesis on the strophic structure of Hungarian folk song.
With Bartok, Kodály traveled rural areas collecting folk melodies whose pentatonic scales and characteristic rhythms informed the bones of their compositional technique as much as the Western chamber music they studied in Budapest and Paris. Kodály felt strongly about this:
"One of the most useless things a composer can do is to quote a few folk melodies in his score and think that in so doing he has created something national and genuine. This is no more the case...than a bunch of flowers cut and put in vases on a shelf is the garden. The garden is made of seeds that have taken growth from the ground."
Kodály also understood of the power of folk song to convey hidden political meaning and give hope to the oppressed. Norwég Leányok (Norwegian Girls), written in 1940, has been read as message of solidarity to the people of Norway under Nazi occupation, although we can also just enjoy the expressive story telling of Kodály’s musical alliteration. Drawing on the marked prosody of Hungarian, Kodály lets us hear the patter of rain drops ["Esik, esö"], the lilting groups of strolling girls, and the "greenish tousled, meandering sea," whose waves bear the speaker away. The rhythms of Akik Mindig Elkésnek (Too Late) alternate between the “tired steps” and the "sad" gait of the oppressed and the vividly flickering 16th-note flames ["lángra lobban"], that consume the hopes of a people who "cannot even die in peace."
Kodály starts with a simple folk melody in Fölszállott a Páva (The Peacock), then draws on a variety of textures to convey the nuances of each phrase. The fluid rush of wind through trees gives way to hushed homophonic chords on "await, await" [“várjuk már, várjuk”]. The flourish of counterpoint and horn calls invoking the hope of burning down the tyrant’s hall contrasts the heavy, unison weight of the "yoke" binding the people together. The Peacock has become an anthem of the Hungarian people. But Kodály offered the hope in its lines to the broader world, when he penned Variations on a Hungarian Folksong 'The Peacock' (1938- 1939) for the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, celebrating their 50th anniversary in the shadow of the Third Reich.
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For the past 25 years, the orchestras Coro Allegro has been blessed to work with have played a tremendous part in our success. Most of the fine musicians in these orchestras have been contracted and led by concertmaster Kristina Nilsson. We wish to thank Kristina and all the players she has led with a solo bow in recognition of all their work and in gratitude for their partnership and many contributions to our mutual music making.
In 1774, twelve years after the premiere of Christopher Willibald Gluck's original version of Orfeo ed Euridice, written to reform what he saw as the ornate excesses of Italian opera, the composer mounted an altogether new version in Paris. To please the tastes of Parisian audiences, Gluck revised the libretto from Italian to French, recast Orfeo from a rarefied castrato to a more heroic high tenor, and added a variety of colorful ballet sections. Today we hear the famous Mélodie from Orfeo ed Euridice, taken from the "Dance des Champs Eylsées" (also known as the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits"), Act II, Scene II. This enchanting melody, originally featuring solo flute, has gained popularity beyond the opera world and has been transcribed for a variety of solo instruments. Orpheus and his lyre have charmed his way past the savage Furies guarding the gate to Hades and reached the fields of Elsyium, the abode where heroes and the spirits blessed by the gods repose in happiness. As the stately spirits dance, a pleading, melody in a relative minor key suggests Orfeo's passionate yearning as he searches among the dead for his lost wife Euridice.
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The Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243 by Johann Sebastian Bach is truly a jewel of the oratorio repertoire. Originally written in 1723 in E flat major and performed at Christmas, Bach reworked the piece in 1732 by changing the key to D major to accommodate trumpets, by adding flutes, and by tightening the orchestration and most notably removing the four interjections of Christmas texts (which had weakened the impact of the Magnificat text). These revisions allowed the Magnificat to be performed at any time of year.
Bach set each of the 12 verses of text as a separate movement, and his imaginative orchestration and adept word painting highlight the many emotional and descriptive nuances of the text. The flow of the piece is aided by the fact that the solos are not da capo arias (ABA form) as one would normally find in the cantatas and passions; rather, they are exquisite, colorful miniatures supported by a framework of festive choral and orchestral pillars.
The Magnificat establishes that framework with a joyous introduction that balances both a sparkling lightness and flourishes of grandeur within the beautifully contained expanse of its writing. Bach explores the paradox of emotions that Mary feels on receiving the news of the annunciation in the next two arias. The lilting, fluttered exultation of "Et exsultavit spiritus meus" gives way to the poignant, doubting humility of "Quia respexit humilitatem" with its descending duples and augmented seconds on "humilitatem" [low estate]. The simple human wonder of Mary's exclamation "ecce, ecce" [behold, behold] is dramatically interrupted by "Omnes Generationes" [all the generations] of the chorus, with staggered entrances that ascend the scale, accumulating into the timeless multitudes who will be affected by the birth of her child.
The vigorous ground bass and expanisve "potens" [power] of the solo bass aria, "Quia fecit mihi magna," contrasts with the mercy invoked by the comforting intimacies of the tenor and alto duet "Et misericordia," with its destabilizing key shifts on the word "tementibus" [for those who fear]. "Fecit potentiam" demonstrates the strength of the Lord through unison choral declarations and the reach of his arm ["brachio suo"] in its long 16th-note passages. The proud are dispersed as the word "dispersit" is scattered through the choir. Continuing that theme, Bach's vigorous tumbling scales in "Deposuit potentes" cast down the mighty while the humble are lifted into ornamented splendor. Bach's humor is wonderful; in "Esurientes implevit bonis" [the hungry he has filled with good things], more and more notes are added to the word "implevit" [filled] as the movement goes on, while the rich are sent away literally empty handed, as the accompanying flutes suddenly vanish into empty air on the final cadence.
Into that silence, three vocal lines of "Suscepit Israel" rise intertwining like a Renaissance motet around the traditional plainchant melody of the Magnificat in the oboes. The stately choral fugue of "Sicut locutus est" recalls the promise to Abraham and his seed forever (repeated urgently, and with timeless chains of suspension). "Gloria Patri" opens with voice upon voice joining a rippling triplet passage that ascends to the heavens to glorify the Trinity (a gesture that is repeated three times to underline the numerology). The music from the opening movement returns at the end with the text "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be," bringing an architectural symmetry to the work, as a whole, and the Magnificat to a glorious close.
Program notes © Yoshi Campbell and David Hodgkins, 2016. These notes are published here for patrons of Coro Allegro and other interested readers. It is permissible to use short excerpts for reviews. For permission to copy, publish or make other use of these notes, please contact office@coroallegro.org and make a donation to Coro Allegro.