A Roger Wagner Celebration

Program Notes

by Steven Lacoste The repertoire presented in this concert spans at least 1,000 years of song: selections from Gregorian chant, Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic choral works, to arrangements of American folk and western songs, to mid-20th century opera. This smorgasbord of diverse styles, periods and geographies is representative of the musical breadth and culture of the Master Chorale's Founding Director, Roger Wagner, to whom we pay homage this evening. Two of the greatest composers of the Roman school of late Renaissance sacred polyphonic composition were the Italian Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525- 94), and the Spaniard Tomas Luis de Vittoria (1548- 1611). Both composers, having been in the service of the church, concentrated nearly exclusively on sacred (the mass and motet) as opposed to secular vocal forms (chanson, madrigal, etc.). The motet Ave Maria by Vittoria is prefaced by the Gregorian chant of the same name. Aside from the text, the only material common to both the chant and motet is the incipit on the words Ave Maria .. The motet is in two parts, paralleling the division of the text. The first part is a polyphonic setting, the second is note against note. Palestrina's four-part motet Super Flumina Babylonis is based upon the text of Psalm 136 "Upon the rivers of Babylon .... " Palestrina gives great stress to the words et flevimus (and we wept), temporarily halting the flow of the rivers by the flow of tears. As the mourners remember Sion and hang their instruments onto the willows in their midst, a variant of the opening melody carries the sad confluence of their thoughts to the end. The Christmas anthem Hodie Christus Natus Est for five voices by the Dutch composer and organist Jan Sweelinck (1562- 1621) is based upon the text of the preceding chant. An interesting structural device used by Sweelinck is that of placing the word Hodie in triple meter, which brings into relief the Latin quantities of the syllables. He adds to the given text the nonsense syllables Noe which, like the Alleluia, function as a burst of joyful commentary to the message of the text. Secular song, both accompanied and unaccompanied, was an importatnt and honored musical form during the entire period of the Renaissance. Composers as renowned as Guillame Dufay (1400-74), Johannes Ockeghem (1420-97) and Josquin des Prez (1450-1521) were celebrated equally for their chansons, masses and sacred motets. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was first active during the latter part of the Renaissance and was perhaps the most important composer contributing to the formulation of Baroque aesthetic and musical practice. His atmospheric Ecco Mormorar L'onde from Book 2 of madrigals (1590) is based upon an aubade in praise of nature personified as Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn. The term "chanson" refers to song settings of French words, both in polyphonic and homophonic textures. Bonjour Mon Coeur by Netherlander Roland de Lassus (1532-94) is a mostly homophonic setting for four voices in which the French predilection for textual clarity is realized. Il Est Bel Et Bon by French composer Pierre Passereau (1509-47) is a polyphonic work in two-and four-part textures in points of imitation characteristic of the generation that preceded Lassus. Mon Coeur Se Recommande a Vous, again by Lassus, reflects the harmonic language of the Italians, from whom he received much of his educaton. The chanson is in ABA song form, paralleling the divisions of the text. French composer Clement Janequin (1485-1560) is associated with the so-called Parisian chanson of the 1530's and 40's. The part-writing of Au Joli Jeu du Pousse Avant is a fine speciman of the elegance and simplicty of the Parisian chanson that is exemplary of the French spirit. Interestingly, the entire Baroque period is represented by the great composer of the High Baroque, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The duet Wir eilen mit schwachen for soprano and alto is a duet aria from Cantata No.78, Jesu, der du meine Seele (1740) for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. The very popular Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring is from Cantata No.l47, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (1716). In Germany, as the cantata grew in prominence, the motet became relegated to funerals, weddings, and other similar services. It is not known for what occasion Bach composed Motet No.6 Lobet den Herrn, aile Heiden, but it is unique to Bach's essays in this genre. It is in one movement divided into three sections, two of which are fugal. There is no chorale, and it is for four voices throughout (four of the motets are for double chorus). The closing fugue is built on the word Alleluja, a word not to be found in Psalm 117, but which certainly expresses in sum the sentiments of the text. Johannes Brahms (1833-97) first achieved popularity with the chorale works Ein Deutches Requiem (op.45), Liebeslieder Walzer (op.52), and the Alto Rhapsody (op.53) during the years 1866-69. As a young conductor of a women's chorus in his native Hamburg, Brahms had arranged folk songs and composed original choral works, an indication that he was well acquainted with the medium for most of his career. In Liebeslieder Walzer he melds the folk-like qualities of the poems with the sophistication of the Viennese Waltz. For his texts, Brahms chose poems from Daumer's Polydora, a collection of translations and imitations of the folk poetry mostly of Russian, Polish, and Magyar (Hungarian) sources. The poems entwine the imagery of nature's grandeur and motion with the natural sentiments of human emotions in their longing for erotic love, but with a simplicity and directness that matches the stereotype of the folk in relation to their rustic setting. The slow waltz time of the musical flow accompanying the folk-like poetry hearkens more to the Viennese landler in the Schubertian mold than to the waltzes of Brahms' contemporary Johann Strauss. With Vocalise for soprano solo and four-part chorus of men's voices by Los Angeles composer and organist Wilbur Chenoweth, we have reached the 20th century. The piano accompaniment functions something like a pedal as the sustained tones of the male chorus, doubling the piano, soften its attacks, rendering a velvet accompaniment to the quasi-improvisatory melody of the soprano soaring above. Roger Wagner's arrangments of folk and traditional songs came about as a request from Capitol Records, resulting in Songs of the Old World and Songs of the New World. These arrangentents continue to be sung beyond the borders of the United States. The first group - Black is the Color, Shenandoah, Glendy Burk, Beautiful Dreamer and Battle 0' Jericho - are arranged for a cappella choir. Two songs, Shenandoah and Beautiful Dreamer, feature baritone and tenor solos, respectively. The second group of Western songs - I'm a Poor Lonesome Cowboy, Home on the Range, Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo, Green Grow the Lilacs, Oh Bury Me Not, and I'm on My Horse - feature the male voices with piano accompaniment arranged as a medley of popular cowboy tunes. Danny Boy, the last of the arrangements by Roger Wagner for four-part chorus of mixed voices a cappella, is the text most famously attached to the melody Londonderry Air. The melody was heard with this text in 1913. The Promise of Living for quintet and Stomp your Foot for mixed chorus to words by Horace Everett are both extractions from Aaron Copland's opera The Tender Land (1952-54). Both works are accompanied by piano duet. The Promise of Living is a song of thanksgiving for the land and the relationships stemming therefrom; its gentle opening ends in an exalted paean to love and friendship. Stomp Your Foot stresses the distinctions of masculine and feminine preoccupations (pre-Women's movement days) which, however, meld into one concern: the dance that whirls, stomps and obliterates all distinctions in merriment.

Archival Recording