August 26, 2012 - Proper 16

Concerto for Clarinet: "Adagio" - W.A. Mozart
Sonata No. 1 in f minor: "Andante" - Johannes Brahms
Sonate: "Molto Allegro" - Camille Saint-Saens

Hymns: #524 St. Thomas, #440 Liebster Jesu,
              #517 Brother James' Air, #632 Munich

The music today centers around the clarinet. Throughout the course of the service we will follow the literature of the instrument starting with Mozart followed by Brahms and ending with Saint-Saens. Each of these composers wrote pieces that have become part of the standard canon of literature for the instrument. The clarinet got its start as the shepherd’s chalumeau, a simple reed pipe which probably looked like a recorder and sounded like the lowest octave of the clarinet. The “modern” clarinet existed as far back as 1740 and was invented by the Nuremberg instrument builder C.H. Denner by 1750 both Handel and Vivaldi had used them in compositions. By 1760 the Mannheim orchestra included two clarinets in its budget. As time went on the instrument acquired more and more keys and in 1839 the Boehm system became the standard system of fingering and keys for the instrument.

The Clarinet Concerto in A was written just weeks before Mozart’s death for his friend Anton Stadler. Stadler was a noted basset horn and clarinet player that was praised for his beautiful tone. Mozart wrote this concerto as well as the clarinet quintet for him. The piece was actually written for an instrument that doesn’t exist. Stadler had designed a clarinet with an extended low range which he called a basset clarinet. Neither the instrument nor the manuscript for the piece survive but a version for the basset horn was adapted by the publishers Breitkopf and Hartel where all of the notes outside the instrument’s range had been taken out and the piece was transposed from G to A. The second movement, “Adagio” is in rounded binary form and has a short cadenza in the middle. The piece was featured in the Oscar winning film Out of Africa (a personal favorite of mine.)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) wrote two clarinet sonatas. The “Andante” from the Sonata No. 1 in f minor was written in 1894 and dedicated to the clarinetist Richard Muhlfield(1856-1907). Muhlfield, like Stadler served as a source of inspiration to composers to write for the clarinet. Brahms even wrote letters to his longtime friend, Clara Schumann about the sound of the clarinetist. This movement is a dialogue between the piano and the clarinet traveling through various keys with the accompaniment varying from eighth notes to sixteenth notes and then triplets with interludes for the piano in between.

Camille Saint-Saens’ (1835-1921) clarinet sonata is one of three sonatas for solo woodwind and piano that was written in 1921 (the last year of his life.) This piece sounds and feels like Saint-Saens. It is filled with beautiful and expressive melodies. In the fourth movement the piano begins with low soft tremolos, the clarinet then burst in with fast sixteenth notes that are traded back and forth with the piano. As with the other two pieces, the pianist is not merely an accompanist, but a full-fledged collaborator which interjects its own ideas in the dialogue. The piece closes with a repeat of the melody from the first movement in an expressive 12/8 over triplets in the piano drawing the piece to a peaceful close.

August 19, 2012 - Proper 15

Elijah: "If With All Your Hearts" - Felix Mendelssohn
Sonata No. 6 in d minor: "Chorale and Variations",   
                               "Finale - Andante" - Felix Mendelssohn

Hymns:#423 Laudaute Dominum, #488 Slane,
             #760 New Life, #427 Laudes Domini

This week’s music is from the pen of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). The prelude and postlude are from the Opus 65 organ sonatas and the communion anthem is taken from Elijah, Opus 70. Although Mendelssohn only lived to be 38 he made major contributions to the classical canon. The six organ sonatas and his oratorio as well as his symphonies, Songs Without Words for piano, violin sonata, and incidental music including his Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream have placed him among the greatest composers of classical music.

Elijah along with Handel’s Messiah and Haydn’s The Creation are perhaps to be considered the triumvirate of oratorio literature. The work was written for the 1846 Birmingham Festival, a four day event which included performances of the aforementioned works as well as portions of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis. The text for this work is taken from the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Kings. It tells the story of the prophet Elijah and his struggle to lead the Israelites away from the pagan worship of Baal, the god of Queen Jezebel and back to the God of their ancestors. The work also depicts Elijah’s personal struggle to retain his own faith and to continue serving God amid the challenges of the world around him. The work is often cited as Mendelssohn identifying with his Jewish heritage by setting the story of one of the greatest Old Testament prophets. Scholars have however suggested that Mendelssohn actually focuses on Elijah as a Christ figure rather than as an Old Testament Jewish hero.

The aria If With All Your Hearts is the fourth movement of the oratorio and is sung to Elijah by the prophet Obadiah. According to the Rabbinic tradition Obadiah was the head steward to Ahab and Jezebel who was chosen to prophecy to the Edomites because he was one of them and because he lived with these two wicked people but did not become like them. He received the gift of prophecy for hiding the one hundred prophets of God from Jezebel. In this aria Obadiah reminds Elijah that if the Israelites seek God that they will find Him and the drought will be ended. The aria is in ABA from and scored for flute, clarinets, bassoons, and strings. The opening line has a beautiful operatic quality to it with a large leap from “if” to “all” followed by suspensions highlighting the word “seek”. The B section becomes more agitated with the text “Oh that I knew where I might find him” this is accompanied by throbbing chords in the orchestra before the tenor returns with the A theme. This return has a heightened sense of strength and comfort which is supported by the slightly varied line and stronger accompaniment which leads into a coda that allows the tenor to showcase both his musicianship and range drawing the listener in with the final statement “ye shall ever surely find me, thus saith our God.”

The six organ sonatas were commissioned by the English publishing company, Coventry and Hollier in 1844. In addition to his contributions as composer, conductor, and pianist, Mendelssohn was a virtuoso organist and enjoyed a concert career in England. He was asked to write a set of three voluntaries but as he was working he quickly realized that his project was larger than the scope of the commission. These pieces were so influential that they helped to change the way that organs were built in England. Prior to the writing of these pieces English organs rarely had pedal boards and possessed shortened swell keyboards. These works would have been unplayable on these instruments.

This sixth sonata in d minor opens with a chorale and variations on Vater Unser im Himmelreich (Our Father, who art in heaven). We first hear the harmonized chorale which then seamlessly flows into the first variation with the tune played on 8’ and 4’ flutes in the right hand with flowing sixteenth notes in the left and a sighing appoggiatura figure in the pedal on an 8’ stop without 16’ sound at all. In the second variation the manuals play sharp chords while the pedal plays a buoyant line in walking eighth notes. The third variation is a common chorale treatment with the melody played on a reed stop in the tenor register with the right hand and pedal providing the accompaniment. This flows into another seamless transition leading to a toccata with the chorale in the pedal and then in long notes in the soprano before the final statement of the chorale on full organ at the end of the movement.

The finale is further evidence that these pieces were not conceived as sonatas but rather as individual movements that were grouped together by Mendelssohn’s publisher. The first movement gives way to a fugue that is still based on the chorale melody but this final movement in 6/8 is based on the English hymn tune Rockingham which is commonly paired with the test When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. This meditative close to the sonata seems to have little to do stylistically with the movements that precede it. The movement lasts only two and a half minutes but in its short span it has beautiful soaring lines, interesting harmonies, and it is accessible to most organists and listeners. It is a beautiful piece and a suitable opening to the liturgy.

                                                                                                                                                               

August 12, 2012 - Proper 14

Hommage a Frescobaldi: "Communion" - Jean Langlais
Panis Angelicus - Cesar Franck
Mass for the Convents: "Agnus Dei" - Francois Couperin

Hymns: #410 Lauda Anima, #577 Ubi Caritas(Murray),
              #339 Schmucke Dich, #593 Dickinson College
The music for today’s service is centered on the Eucharist. The pieces all come from the French Catholic tradition but cover a broad spectrum of time periods gradually moving backwards from Langlais to Franck and ending with Couperin.

The prelude was written by Jean Langlais (1907-1991), a blind organist and composer. The piece is taken from his Hommage à Frescobaldi, op.70. This eight movement work written in 1951 is his second organ mass. Langlais added three movements to the five movement mass. The final movement, Épilogue, uses the opening theme of Messa della Madonna from Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali. Anne Labounsky writes: “Although each movement is short, several of them demonstrate his ideal of mysticism: to draw the listener into a state of contemplation…through the suspension of time.” Communion is based on the Sacris Solemnis, a hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas for Corpus Christi. The one of the strophes of this hymn is the source of the text Panis Angelicus. This piece showcases Langlais unique use of organ registrations to create mood. The piece consists of a clear statement of the chant melody combined with highly chromatic chords. The tune is first heard on the Vox Humana, or “human voice”, a thinly voiced reed that is usually combined with the tremolo (a device which gently disturbs the airflow to create a soft waiver in the tone). The tune is then passed to an 8’ flute stop with a very angular countermelody on the 4’ flute and nazard, a stop which plays the note an octave and a fifth above the key played. Langlais continues to alternate between these two solo registrations ending with a single note on the nazard.

Panis Angelicus is perhaps the best known and most often performed work of Cesar Franck (1822-1890). This piece is a setting of the last verse of the Sacris Solemniis a hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas for Corpus Christi for tenor, harp, cello, bass, and organ. The text translates as:

Lo! the Angelic Bread
Feedeth the sons of men:
Figures and types are fled
Never to come again.
O what a wondrous thing!
Lowly and poor are fed,
Banqueting on their Lord and King.

In this version for solo voice and organ, the melody is introduced by the organ and then restated by the soloist. After a brief interlude from the organ the soloist and organist enter into a duet with the melody presented in canon. Franck slightly varies the ending of the hymn for a coda which ends the piece. Franck served as organist of Ste. Clotilde from 1858 until his death in 1890. Panis Angelicus is taken from Messe solennelle, for 3 voices, chorus, organ, harp, cello and double bass, Op.12, M.61. It replaced the O Salutaris movement which was the piece originally composed for this place in the mass. It is likely that Panis Angelicus was written for use with the choir at this church. In 1872 he accepted the position as professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire where he was known as Pere Franck by his students.

Francois Couperin (1668-1733) was born in to a family of musicians and organists. He was taught by his father and in 1685 he inherited his father’s position as organist of St. Gervais, Paris. This position was held by many members of the Couperin family. To close the service I selected the two settings of Agnus Dei from the Mass for the Convents. The first is played on the “plein jeu,” a combination of principal and flute stops and the second is a “Dialogue on the Grands jeux,” the fullest sounding chorus of the French Classical organ which includes the mixtures and reeds. The term “dialogue” refers to the way that the organist moves from manual to manual utilizing the full resources of each manual and showcasing the different tonal resources and the way in which different divisions of the organ speak from different parts of the case and allow for interesting effects such as the illusion of dialogue.