Program Notes for June 4, 2004
Riverside Choral Society
Alice Tully Hall, New York City
Program notes by Patrick Gardner and John Shepard
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Our concert tonight is meant to honor Lou Harrison and the spiritual
concepts that were such an important part of his music and his life.
It centers on two works: the Mass to St. Anthony--including
the premier of the percussion version of this early work--and La
Koro Sutro; the rarely heard work for chorus accompanied by
a gamelan of Harrison's own design. Our opening work, Vaughan Williams'
Five Mystical Songs, provides a contrast in musical style
but shares a focus on the humanizing of the deity in our life.
Through his symphonies, operas, songs, concertos,
film scores, and sacred works, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
spearheaded the revival of English music in the 20th century. An
avid collector of folk songs in the English countryside, Vaughan
Williams acquired many of the melodic characteristics of vernacular
music for his own compositional palette, and through the influence
of his work he forged a new national school. The Five Mystical
Songs, written in 1911 on a commission from the Worcester Three
Choirs Festival, set the verses of the Anglican priest George Herbert
(1593-1633). Vaughan Williams' biographer Simona Pakenham wrote
that the country parson Herbert "met his God familiarly in his own
churchyard and rectory garden." William Rose Benét wrote of Herbert
that "his characteristic mood is one of sweetness and equilibrium,
a trusting, intimate friendliness with God." In the Mystical
Songs, Vaughan Williams responds to this mood with serene and
happy music, which draws much of its melodic character from the
ornamental flourishes of medieval plainchant ("the natural outpouring
of people when their mystical emotions found no outlet in words
alone," as Michael Kennedy wrote). The third of the Mystical
Songs ("Love bade me welcome") quotes an actual plainchant-the
antiphon "O sacrum convivium" ("O sacred banquet")-before the baritone
soloist sings "So I did sit and eat." Michael Kennedy wrote that
the fourth song ("The Call") is "one of those simple tunes which
came naturally to Vaughan Williams…and are entirely personal to
him yet sound as if they had always existed." The final "Antiphon"
("Let all the world in every corner sing") projects an exultant
mood which was to be repeated in a number of later works, such as
the Festival Te Deum and Dona Nobis Pacem.
The first work of Lou Harrison
we offer tonight is an early one, his Mass to St. Anthony.
An early version, written for percussion orchestra and chorus, was
never performed and the manuscript was thought to have been lost.
Towards the end of his life, Harrison found the original version
and reworked that instrumentation, which is strikingly different
from the published version for string orchestra, trumpet, harp,
and chorus.
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The opening Kyrie was written as
the Second World War began.
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I set (it) to a shocking military sound
of snare drums, bass drums, etc., over which the voices cried
"Have mercy!" The Sanctus I accompanied with the sound
of many bells - and so on.... I moved to New York, with its close
connection with Europe, and some years later Europeanized the
composition by composing to the same songs a contrapuntal accompaniment
based on Medieval methods, and with stone-structure acoustics...in
mind.
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Prior to the intermission
we will present the version for strings, trumpet, and harp that has
received many performances since its premiere in 1954. After the interval
we will perform from manuscript the "percussion" version" which Lou
reconstructed in 2001.
Harrison's skill in using neoclassic procedure, "that dusty charm,"
is on display throughout the Mass. He has often spoken of his unreserved
delight in polyphony and heterophony. The western neoclassic elements
which appear in his works are naturally derived from his personal
tastes in early composers. |
(My) standards in the history of music are
determined largely by the stylistic orientations of Machaut, Vittoria,
Gibbons, Frescobaldi, Gesualdo, Purcell, Locke, Handel and Couperin,
with a glance at Monteverdi.
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The medieval atmosphere
Harrison referred to is established in the Kyrie. The first
interval in the chorus' unison line is the half step between the notes
E and F that characterizes the ancient Phrygian mode used throughout
the movement. The polyphonic lines maintain a clear independence from
each other throughout the entire Mass.
The Mass was first performed in New York City in February 1954. At
that time Harrison included this note concerning the title of the
work:
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I originally dedicated this second version
of the Mass to the glory of God, but further thought has convinced
me that simply living the lives we are assigned is for me sufficient
respect to deity, and I've changed the dedication to St. Anthony.
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Notes by Patrick Gardner
"When Lou Harrison couldn't find the sound he imagined within
the Western orchestra, he looked elsewhere for inspiration – to other
cultures (Korea, Indonesia, Mexico), other sound sources (flower pots,
brake drums, oxygen tanks), or other disciplines (dance, drama, literature).
And if he still couldn't find it, he made it. … He delights in combining
disparate styles into untried syntheses; for instance, writing for
Chinese instruments tuned in Just Intonation; composing concerti for
Western instruments accompanied by Indonesian ensembles; using Esperanto
for Buddhist texts; or requiring home-made instruments to join the
standard symphony orchestra." (Lou Harrison: composing a World
by Leta E. Miller and Fredric Lieberman).
This wonderfully accurate description of Lou Harrison's musical personality
and some of his working methods found in Miller and Lieberman's book
must now unfortunately be read in the past tense. Lou (as anyone from
student to Oxford Dean would have called this personable and generous
man) passed away on February 2, 2003.
While the most obvious aspects of a work such as "La Koro Sutro" are
the use of an unusual sonority, the pentatonic modes, and compositional
figures derived from Asian music, this work and others also show the
influence of Lou's close musical interaction with several of the 20th
century's most significant musical minds. The original American "maverick"
Henry Cowell was an early teacher of Harrison's; he studied with him
as an undergraduate at San Francisco State starting in 1935. Cowell's
influence is seen in Lou's composition of "melodicles", short cells
of three or four note motives in combinations of retrogrades, inversions,
and inverted retrogrades. These became an important part of Harrison's
strict compositional style – a style constant to nearly all of his
music, whether a serial composition or a piece in modal counterpoint.
Lou Harrison was perhaps the only musician in America with access
to the complete works of Ives in the 1930's. At Henry Cowell's suggestion,
Lou wrote to Ives requesting scores that he might perform in San Francisco.
Ives replied by sending him a large crate containing most of his chamber
music, all of the songs and several of the symphonies - almost none
of which had received performances. Lou was "probably the only living
composer who had a ten-year access to the complete works of Ives,
in effect… and I absorbed them like a sponge". (Miller and Lieberman).
While Ives' specific methods of composition did not have as significant
an effect as did those of Cowell and Schoenberg, the spirit of liberation
from European models in these compositions was an important influence.
He related to Vivian Perlis, "one of the things so very exciting to
me as a young man about the scores of Ives was their proclamation
of freedom". Harrison took Ives' ideal of freedom at face value. His
percussion works of the thirties were truly radical experiments. Harrison
and his friend and collaborator John Cage made the most important
contribution to the furthering of percussion sonorities since Varèse
(Harrison having already written over 14 percussion symphonies and
his Canticles by 1942), and these two had been the first to write
for tack piano and prepared piano.
In 1942, Harrison studied with Arnold Schoenberg at U.C.L.A., producing
works of such high quality that Schoenberg mentioned the young Harrison
among those whom he considered America's most characteristic and promising
composers – a list that also included Copland, Sessions, Cowell, and
William Schuman. Harrison was also influenced by the strictly chromatic
music of Carl Ruggles, and his own "chromatic" style is probably more
reminiscent of Ruggles than of Schoenberg.
Despite his mastery of the styles of music prevalent in western music
in the 20th century, Lou found himself increasingly drawn to the music
of the east and dissatisfied with tempered tuning, the modern tuning
system used in western classical music since the time of Mozart. Influenced
by the writings of Harry Partch and his own experimentation with "just
intonation" (mathematically pure tuning systems) Lou found himself
studying the music of the world that did not rely on the compromises
inherent in the tempered tuning system. Writing works with mathematically
specified tunings, then building instruments such as the American
Gamelan, and finally creating his own tunings and scales for the Indonesian
style gamelans he built, Lou found a creative freedom that pervades
his works from the late 1960's until his death.
The American Gamelan
The American Gamelan designed by Lou Harrison and built by Lou and
his colleague Bill Colvig consists of four high bells called "sarons"
after the Indonesian percussion instrument they resemble, two large
"genders" and a collection of traditional western percussion instruments,
and "found" instruments such as the sawed-off oxygen tanks and wash
tubs. The sarons and genders are tuned to a mathematically "pure"
scale that resembles the D Major scale but is in fact Ptolemy's Diatonic
Syntonon or "stretched diatonic" scale. One of the earliest "just"
tunings, it was described by both early Chinese and Greek theorists.
The text of La Koro Sutro - The Heart Sutra
The Heart Sutra is one of the most beloved and famous sutras (a literary
form of Buddhist scripture) of the Mahayana Buddhist religious tradition.
It has been recited by millions of Buddhists since approximately the
time of Christ. It describes the path one must take to attain Nirvana.
Harrison set the Heart Sutra in Esperanto, a synthetic language created
for universal use by Dr. L. Zamenhof in 1887. Harrison's use of this
language in many of his compositions was intended as both a political
and a social statement, reflecting his commitment to world peace and
a hope for society to transcend national, religious, and ethnic boundaries.
Prologue – The text is a simple declaration of praise "to
the Perfection of Wisdom"
This palindromic movement reflects the Heart Sutra's basic philosophical
idea – that when one reaches the center, one is at rest. A tone cluster
that resembles a chord one would play on a Japanese sho (a mouth organ
used in Gagaku music) played by the organ, a sweet gerontak (a bell
tree) , unpitched percussion, acetylene tanks, gongs, bass drums,
and ranch triangles accompany the chorus. The melody is from a mode
Lou called "the prime pentatonic, practically the human song". Harrison
said that this D major pitch set was picked as a consequence of the
choice of this mode; the final movement will return to this exact
"D Major" pentatonic and all major tonal areas presented in La Koro
Sutro are relative to it as the original mode.
First Paragrafo (movement)
Avalokita, the holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course
of the perfect wisdom. He looked down from on high; he beheld but
five heaps; and he saw that in their own being they were empty.
The description of Avalokita moving in the course of perfection implies
that he is a "transcendent" rather than earthly Buddha – he can assume
bodily form in order to help lesser beings. He sees the "five heaps",
the compounds out of which all material objects are composed in the
illusory world. An understanding that the material world is illusory
is necessary for the attainment of Nirvana.
This movement is a lyric vocal strophe with an introduction and a
postlude played on the sarons (the high bells) accompanied by two
metal drums (inverted galvanized washtubs). A regularly recurring
ostinato, functioning as a tala in Indian music or a Western talea
in mediaeval music, is heard in the washtub part. The C# drone that
"fills in" the melody, played on the sarons, functions as an Indian
"jahla" – which Lou called "India's answer to the Alberti bass."
Second Paragrafo
Here, O Sariputro, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form,
emptiness does not differ from form, nor does form differ from emptiness;
whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is
form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
Shariputra was one of the original disciples of the Gotama Buddha.
Here, in dialogue with Avalokiteshvara, he describes Nirvana as the
"absolute void".
Harrison called this his "Perotinus" movement, and the 13th century
Notre Dame style of organum (a type of harmonized chant) is apparent
immediately. The syncretic ideal is reinforced here by the use of
this through-composed polyphonic conductus; Harrison reminds us that
polyphony before 1500 utilized the same quintal, vertical, and horizontal
materials that are found in the rest of the world's musical systems.
Third Paragrafo
Here, O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are
neither produced nor stopped, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither
deficient nor complete.
Dharmas are elements of the illusory human beings which are constantly
rearranged, as beings are disintegrated and then reborn in the cycle
of rebirth (samsara). The five heaps mentioned previously are dharmas,
as are the five sense organs (i.e. the ear) and the five sense objects
(i.e. that which is heard by the ears) and the eighteen elements which
include the six consciousnesses (vijnana) of the eye, ear, nose, tongue,
body, and mind. Shariputra tells us again that these are empty and
as such are part of the emptiness that is Nirvana.
This movement utilizes a quite different
sonority. All of the instruments used are non- pitched, with the exception
of a drone "g" on a muted saron. The percussion accompanies a vocal
line which uses all 12 chromatic pitches composed in such a way as
to imply a tonality centered on the pitch "g".
Fourth Paragrafo
Therefore, O Shariputra, where there is emptiness there is neither
form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness;
no eye, or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind; no form, nor
sound, nor smell, nor taste, nor touchable, nor object of mind; no
sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to; no mind- consciousness
element; there is no ignorance, nor extinction of ignorance, and so
forth, until we come to, there is no decay and death, no extinction
of decay and death; there is no suffering , nor origination, nor stopping,
or path; there is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.
This paragrafo enumerates that which does not exist and is a statement
of the paradoxical nature of Nirvana. If Nirvana is the Absolute Void
which is all of reality, then there is no Path to Enlightenment, for
it is an illusion as well. One cannot wish to attain Nirvana, for
that is desire and desire is part of the cause of the perception of
phenomenal existence. This leads us to the next paragrafo which contains
the quintessential definition of Nirvana.
The sonority of this F# pentatonic movement is quite similar to that
of the First Paragrafo, and once again we hear the use of the Indian
jahla figure and a tala, or rhythmic ostinato. Formally it displays
characteristics similar to a rondo from a late French Baroque keyboard
work. Eight vocal refrains are surrounded by a palindromic arrangement
of instrumental refrains, recalling the experiments with rondeaux
by Couperin and Rameau, two of Harrison's favorite composers.
Fifth Paragrafo
Therefore, O Shariputra, owing to a Bodhisattva's indifference to
any kind of personal attainment and through his having relied on the
perfection of wisdom, he dwells without - thought coverings. In the
absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble, he has
overcome what can upset, in the end sustained by Nirvana.
The Bodhisattva has reached a point of mental, physical and emotional
quiescence. He will remain there forever, in a state of bliss.
Formally this movement resembles a responsorial chant similar to a
Gregorian Gradual or Alleluia of the Roman Catholic Mass written in
the eleventh century. There are four polyphonic sections followed
by four sections of melismatic chant. It is in a six note b minor
scale – the E natural is left out as it would be out of tune in justly-tuned
syntonon diatonic. Lou had this in mind when he composed this movement,
so he "removed the offending tone".
Sixth Paragrafo
All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time - they
are fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment of
wisdom.
This text asserts that the Buddhas of the past, the present and the
future have all reached Nirvana through the Prajnaparamita.
The statements of Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, and Peter Yates that
Lou Harrison is one of the finest melodists of the twentieth century
are borne out in the relationship of melody to form in this paragrafo.
The pitch series is nearly identical to that of the pitch series of
the other chromatic movement, paragrafo three. By altering the points
of emphasis through a different rhythmic construction, Harrison creates
a new melody which sounds quite different from the previous chromatic
movement. These two movements center on G and A respectively, forming
subdominant and dominant plateaus in the total formal design. The
clangorous ritornello played on the gamelan alternates with the vocal
line to create what Harrison describes as a "folk rondo" or French
Rondeau in his Music Primer (Frog Peak Books).
Seventh Paragrafo and Mantro Kaj Kunsonoro
Therefore one should know the Prajnaparamita as the great spell, the
spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequaled spell, allayer
of all suffering, in truth - for what could go wrong? By the Prajnaparamita
had this spell been delivered. It runs like this: gone, gone, gone
beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all hail!
In the penultimate movement the gamelan drops out and the chorus is
accompanied by harp, allowing the piece to move out of the basic D
major tonality. It returns to the D major pentatonic melody used in
the first paragrafo for a a triumphant epilogue that begins with a
massive gamelan sonority and ends with the non-pitched percussion
that emphasizes the deep sounds of the big bells – oxygen tanks struck
with baseball bats!
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John
Corigliano (born 1938) has composed in an astonishing array
of genres: solo instrumental music, chamber music, art songs, operas
(The Ghosts of Versailles was a hit at The Metropolitan Opera),
symphonies, concertos, film music (Altered States and The
Red Violin are among his credits); he even has arranged rock
music for commercial record labels and created an "electric rock opera"
after Bizet called The Naked Carmen. Nevertheless, choral
music has figured strongly in his output. Fern Hill (1961,
after Dylan Thomas), for mezzo soprano, chorus, and chamber ensemble,
was Corigliano's first publication, issued by G. Schirmer after Samuel
Barber 's strong recommendation. Corigliano has described his first
period-extending from Fern Hill through the Dylan Thomas
Symphony (1976)-as "a tense, histrionic outgrowth of the 'clean'
American sound of Barber, Copland, Harris, and Schuman."
Corigliano dedicated his Psalm 8 (also 1976) to the memory of his
father (also John), the violinist who served for many years as the
concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Responding to a commission
to celebrate the installation of a new organ in San Antonio, Texas,
Corigliano began Psalm 8 with a solo for that instrument, introducing
themes later taken up by the choir. Psalm 8 resembles aspects of Ives's
Psalm 90-to be heard later in our program-in that a quiet, hymn-like
music alternates with an angular, sometimes anguished, chromatic idiom.
As with the Ives, Psalm 8 concludes with the consolation of the peaceful,
hymn-like music ("For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels").
John Cage (1912-1992) and Lou
Harrison came to know each other in the 1930s San Francisco new music
scene which revolved around their teacher Henry Cowell. Their acquaintance
grew into a warm friendship characterized by mutual support and artistic
collaboration. Cage wrote his Third Construction for percussion
in 1941, the same year he collaborated with Harrison on Double
Music, for which each composed two percussion parts to be played
concurrently. Both men viewed the percussion battery as a gateway
to new worlds of sound. The sounds in the Third Construction
emanate from sources as diverse as tin cans, Indo-Chinese rattle,
tom-tom, and lions' roar (a drum skin with a hole, through which the
player pulls a rope) and are organized within a pattern of varying
phrase lengths which rotate through the four players.
Lou Harrison sought out the music of Charles
Ives (1874-1954) - that earliest and most American of avant garde
composers-while he was still a teenager. At Cowell's suggestion, Harrison
wrote Ives to request copies of his scores, which were promptly sent;
Harrison said of these scores: "I absorbed them like a sponge." Years
later, Harrison edited for publication Ives's. Third Symphony, which
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. Ives held as his greatest musical
influence the teachings and career of his father, George Ives, the
leader of the town band in Danbury, Connecticut. The elder Ives conveyed
to his son his reverence for all the indigenous New England vernacular
musics (hymns, 19th-century popular songs and sentimental ballads,
dance music, ragtime, brass band marches), along with a love for the
great art music of the past (Handel and Beethoven), but he also conveyed
to his son a thirst for experimentation.
Charles Ives completed his musical education at Yale under Horatio
Parker. After received his degree in 1898, he moved to New York City
and began work in the insurance business. Concurrently, he held various
church jobs, until he accepted the prestigious position of organist
at Central Presbyterian Church in 1900. While there, he composed music
for the church choir, including a Psalm 90 for choir and organ. Ives
left his post at Central Presbyterian in the middle of 1902 to devote
all of his free time to composing. He left behind the music he composed;
unfortunately, the church staff subsequently threw it out.
The years 1923 and 1924 found Ives at the end of his career: a serious
heart attack in 1918 weakened him, and continued hard work to provide
a trust fund for his wife damaged his health further. One of his very
last compositional tasks was to remember and reconceive his Psalm
90, supplementing choir and organ with an ensemble of bells and low
gong. The resulting composition is a summation of Ives's style, encompassing
both the wholesomeness of New England hymnody and the shock of wildly
polytonal chords evoking the wrath of God.
Virtually all the elements of the composition are presented in microcosm
in the organ's introduction. In the score of this section, Ives labeled
the successive organ chords as concepts: The Eternities-Creation-God's
wrath against sin-Prayer and Humility-Rejoicing in Beauty and Work.
These chords come back later in the choir's music (for example, the
dissonant harmony for "God's wrath against sin" returns when the choir
sings the words "power," "anger," "fear," and "wrath" ). The choir
first enters in unison with a hymn-like music; the unison spreads
to a mysterious eight-part harmony as the choir sings of the generations
of humanity. The contrast between diatonic hymn-like melody and dissonant
polytonal harmony continues throughout Psalm 90, but the hymn style
gains ascendancy in the final verses ("O satisfy us early with thy
mercy"). In this last section, there are indeed polytonal (and polyrhythmic)
parts for bells, but rather than jarring, the effect is like singing
in the choir loft while hearing bells from other nearby churches.
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