May 27, 2012 - Pentecost

Reflection on Down Ampney - Alice Jordan
Gloria: "Cum Sancto Spiritu" - Antonio Vivaldi
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt BWV 68:
                                    "My Heart Ever Faithful" - J.S. Bach
Komm, Gott, Schopfer, heiliger Geist - J.S. Bach

Hymns: #513 Bridegroom, #516 Down Ampney,
              #347 Litton

This week’s music with the exception of the prelude is all taken from the Baroque era. To me, the light high energy feeling of the melismatic writing of Bach and Vivaldi perfectly captures the image of the Holy Spirit descending on the day of Pentecost.

The prelude is a setting of the beautiful English hymn tune Down Ampney written by Ralph Vaughan Williams(1872-1958) and arranged for organ by Alice Jordan (1916-2012). Ms. Jordan was a lifelong resident of Iowa and in 2002 was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. She was an avid patron of the arts and served on the board of several arts organizations. During her long career she composed more than 250 choral and organ works, many of which were commissions. This setting of Down Ampney makes use of the organ’s ability to hand off the melody and accompaniment from hand to hand, changing the character but not the quality of the sounds. The melody remains primarily in the middle register of the reed solo, somewhat evoking the sound of and English horn. It is accompanied by the flute stops before giving way to a lush rich coda played on all of the celeste stops on the organ. This piece is taken from the Marilyn Mason Music Library, a collection of pieces commissioned by and dedicated to Marilyn Mason, the longtime organ professor at the University of Michigan.

The Gradual anthem is the final movement of Vivaldi’s(1678-1741) Gloria (RV 589). Antonio Vivaldi composed three known settings of the Gloria, one of which has been lost and is identified only in catalogs of his works. Of his two surviving settings the two works have a great deal of similarities. The two works were probably composed while he was employed by Pio Ospedale della Pietà, and seem to draw inspiration from one another. The text “Cum sancto spiritu in Gloria dei Patris, Amen” (with the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father, may it be so) is set as a stile antico double fugue. This type of writing is a nod to the counterpoint of such Renaissance masters as Palestrina. Usually the movement is written using long note values, in the case of Cum Sancto Spiritu the piece is in 4/2.  The piece exists in another form in the lesser known RV 588 Gloria. It appears to be an arrangement of a piece by the lesser known composer Giovanni Maria Ruggieri whom Vivaldi greatly admired. There are some truly spectacular moments in this powerful fugue not the least of which is the powerful closing statement with the altos, tenors and basses singing the spirited dotted figure against the sopranos who seem to float above all of this on the opening theme.

The communion anthem is My Heart Ever Faithful taken from J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 68,  Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt. This aria is actually borrowed from one of Bach’s secular cantatas, his Cantata 208 the Weimar Hunting Cantata. This piece opens with a statement of pure joy first in the ritornello (the melodic figure that introduces the piece and is repeated throughout). The more turbulent middle section contains drastic harmonic shifts and a more active accompaniment before the return of the theme of joy. The contrast of mood is even more evident when one considers the placement of this aria in the cantata. The opening chorus which precedes this is in a minor key and is rather dark. This piece then bursts forth adding greatly to the feeling of joy that is evident from the opening ritornello through the final concertato.

The postlude also comes from the pen of J.S. Bach. This time, it is his setting of the chorale Komm, Gott Schopfer, heiliger Geist, BWV 667. The chorale text is:

Come Holy Ghost, creator blessed
Come Almighty God, Holy Ghost
Come God, Creator, Holy Ghost
Come gracious spirit, heavenly dove

And is a setting of the familiar hymn Veni Creator. This piece begins with a rhythmic motive in the hands and the pedal playing on the third eighth note of each group, probably representing that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. The chorale tune is first presented in the soprano before being introduced in the pedal. This chorale is light and flowing despite the full registration that it seems to warrant. This piece is one of the “18 Leipzig chorales” and as with the aria of Cantata 68, captures the lightness but also the joy of the “spirit” (pun fully intended) of the day of Pentecost.