QUIRE CLEVELAND - CD THE LAND OF HARMONY

Popis - THE LAND OF HARMONY:
As at any large public event, the concert from which this recording is made began with the National Anthem. For this version, I have used the earliest musical sources for the piece (including Stafford Smith’s Anacreontick Song, on which the setting is based), along with Francis Scott Key’s own manu of the poem. The result is a melody and harmony slightly different from the versions commonly used today, but which represents a choral setting as it might have been heard in 1815 or so, with all four of the original verses. Singing more than one verse has fallen out of favor in recent decades (at the 1869 Peace Festival, they sang 3 verses), so we are happy to reinstate them all for this recording. Following this are two selections from the Bay Psalm Book, published in Boston (or, more probably, Cambridge) in 1640. Its first edition is recognized as the first book printed in North America — not the first music book, but the very first book! Modeled on the long-famous Sternhold & Hopkins metrical psalms of 1562 and Henry Ainsworth’s Psalter of 1612 (which was favored in the Plymouth settlement), it contained texts for all of the psalms, in new translations by various divines in the Boston area. However, none of those translators is mentioned in the Bay Psalm Book, nor even the presumed publisher, Stephen Day. The only person mentioned by name is the Englishman Thomas Ravenscroft, who published four-voice musical settings by various composers in his Whole Booke of Psalmes of 1621. I used that music for Psalm 98, setting the Bay Psalm Book lyrics to Ravenscroft’s harmonization of the tune known as “Winchester.” If the melody in the tenor part sounds familiar, it may be because it later became famous as one of the tunes for the Christmas carol “While shepherds watched their flocks by night.” The earliest version of the Bay Psalm Book to include actual music was the ninth edition of 1698, with the musical settings there taken from the 1671 Psalms & Hymns of John Playford. For Psalm 23 (as with the other psalms), the Bay Psalm Book just prints the melody (in this case, a tune called “Canterbury”) with Playford’s bass line. But in fact, Playford’s setting is for four voices, which we have used as the “implied” harmonization. Reprinting settings borrowed from English publications continued for many decades to be the standard means of providing music for the colonies. The first publication to break that pattern was the collection, Urania, published in Philadelphia in 1761 by James Lyon. New Jersey-born Lyon was a preacher, rather than a professional musician, but his collection includes a handful of indigenous American works (helpfully *starred* in the publication), among which is “The Lord descended from above,” a setting of verses from the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalm 18. It’s surprisingly virtuosic for a first American choral piece, with florid sections for soloists and some colorful word painting, such as the written-out trill at “he rode,” and melodic flourishes at “flying” and “wings.” William Billings of Boston is one of the best known composers on this recording. His numerous collections from the second half of the 18th century have provided selections for Quire’s recordings of Carols for Quire from the Old & New Worlds. Here, we offer first the famous and poignant round, “When Jesus wep’t the falling tear,” published by Billings in 1770. Rounds are a very old form of music — written examples date back at least to the 13th century — and this one is simple, yet heartfelt and direct. “The dying Christian’s last farewell” is an unusual work that presents a solo tenor as a man about to die and “go to his reward.” The other voices in turn wish him well on his journey, and look forward to a harmonious reuniting of souls. It ends with repeated “Farewells,” omitting the tenor part, as if the dying man were no longer present. The final work of this Billings set, “I am the rose of Sharon” presents a biblical love lyric from the Song of Songs, in a lively and highly varied setting. Note the colorful word painting (“skipping,” “rise up”), frequent changes of meter, and places where the harmony is incomplete by European standards, giving it a kind of primitive quality. But the feeling is honest and joyful and the music itself is completely infectious. It is no wonder that Billings is regarded as a giant in American musical history. Next are two unusually self-conscious musical compositions. The first is by Billings’s younger New England colleague, Daniel Read. “Down steers the Bass” is a travelogue through the musical texture, with the voice parts entering one by one, a conscious “rising” of angelic accents, a “winding” of voices in imitation, concluding with a “rolling rapture” of a lush musical texture — “a sweet enchanting melody of sound.” “Modern Music” by Billings situates itself as a tongue-in-cheek performance, with different roles for singers, composer, and audience. Again, there is a variety of textures, discussion of the different meters along the way, an announced change to the minor mode at one point and an amusing anticipation of the patter song, made famous by Gilbert & Sullivan operettas of a hundred years later! The next selections are from so-called “tunebooks” of the 1840s. Lowell Mason was another New England church composer and educator, sometimes credited in his later years with helping to establish congregational singing in American churches. His “O look to Golgotha” was published in Boston in his Carmina Sacra collection of 1843, and begins as a straightforward translation of “Schau hin nach Golgotha,” by Friedrich Silcher (1789–1860). Mason adds a chorale at the end, which gives the piece the effect of a Bach cantata. The poem “Amazing Grace” was written in 1779 by the English preacher John Newton (1725–1807). Its earliest musical version is by the South Carolina singing master William Walker, who set it to the tune “New Britain,” already circulating in tunebooks of the time. This felicitous marriage of tune and text became one of the most beloved American hymns of all time, although Walker’s original arrangement from his Southern Harmony collection — which we sing here — is rarely heard. Next is a setting of Robert Burns’s love poem “Flow gently, sweet Afton.” The original arrangement for voice and guitar was published in Philadelphia in 1838 by J. E. Spilman; a setting for three voices appeared in Warren’s Minstrel, a shape-note collection, published by James Sullivan Warren in Columbus, Ohio, in 1857. Sung now as Warren conceived it, it is the first of three Ohio-related pieces on this recording. Stephen Foster published “Come where my love lies dreaming” just five months after his mother died in 1855, and only a few weeks before his father died, as well. Whether or not it carried special meaning for him because of those life events, it seemed to hold a special place in his heart. When the composer himself died in 1864, a brass band played two pieces: “Old folks at home” and “Come where my love lies dreaming.” In this setting, the three lower parts act in concert throughout, with the soprano adding a kind of arabesque above — a wistful evocation of happy times. The “Hymn of Peace” was a centerpiece of the National Peace Jubilee, held in Boston in 1869, to commemorate the end of the Civil War. The Jubilee organizer, Irish immigrant bandmaster Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, called for a grand Music Festival as part of the celebration, including a signature piece for the purpose. With renowned Boston poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Europe, Gilmore turned to Longfellow’s friend and fellow-poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, a physician and father of the eponymous jurist. He wrote the hymn on very short notice and it was set to the music of “Speed our republic,” a patriotic song by the German immigrant composer Matthias Keller. “Angels of peace” was sung by a chorus of 10,000 (!) and an orchestra of 1,000 on June 16, 1869, to rapturous applause. Why do Americans not know this song today? I couldn’t even find an edition of it, except for the original of 1869. “Minuet” is by Cleveland composer Patty Stair, a friend and contemporary of Cleveland Orchestra founder, Adella Prentiss Hughes. Stair was a leader in such organizations as the Fortnightly Musical Club and the Singer’s Club of Cleveland, both of which are still active today. She also taught for over 30 years at the Cleveland Conservatory of Music, which was affiliated with the College for Women (later Mather College) at Western Reserve College. “Minuet” tells the story of an aunt’s playing of a minuet on the spinet and mysteriously bringing tears to her eyes. “Through the house give glimmering light” is by Amy (Mrs. H. H. A.) Beach, a leading composer of her time, known as “the American Brahms” and the first president of the Society of American Women Composers. It is a lilting setting of Oberon’s lines near the end of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, charging his fairies to “sing and bless this place.” Stair’s “So sweet is she” begins, “Have you seen but the white lily grow,” recognizable as a lyric by the Renaissance poet and playwright Ben Jonson, which was set as an exquisite lutesong in the early 17th century by theatrical composer Robert Johnson. In fact, Stair calls her setting “a madrigal.” Also for low voices, “The Witch” is by Edgar Thorn, a pseudonym for the famous composer Edward MacDowell. Why he used that alias for two years from 1896 to 1898 is not known, although it certainly confused his early biographers! The well known composer R. Nathaniel Dett was, like me, born in southern Ontario. After his family moved to Niagara Falls, NY, he eventually completed studies on piano and composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Dett pioneered the use of spirituals in classical compositions, and was the first composer of African descent in the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. “Don’t be weary, traveler” is one of his most ambitious choral works, which he called, “Motet, on a Negro Folk Song Motif.” It includes multiple sections, use of the famous Messiah chorus text “His yoke is easy,” and the exhorting refrain “Come along home to Jesus.” The piece won the Francis Boott Prize at Harvard in 1920. Finally, we step back in time to 1877, and the “Hymn to Music” by Dudley Buck. Connecticut-born and Leipzig-trained, he was an important figure in American choral music in the late 19th century, yet not well known today. When “Hymn to Music” was published, he had just started a long tenure at Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn. Probably inspired by Schubert’s An die Musik (though much more grandiose), Buck’s work is a p?an to music, its charms, and its powers, including colorful deions of instruments sounding (? la The Music Man), and an exciting depiction of a tempest, complete with “rolling thunder.” The piece is splendid, and we can all appreciate the sentiment concerning music — “O glorious Art!” —Ross W. Duffin