January 19, 2014 - Epiphany 2

Esquisses Byzantine:"Campanile" - Henri Mulet
Elijah:"Hear ye, Israel" - Felix Mendelssohn
The Lamb - John Tavener
Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in G Major - Felix Mendelssohn

Hymns: #7 Ratisbon, #757 Mary Alexandra, #533 Lyon

The music this week tells stories from a variety of perspective. An angel with a message from the Lord, a little child singing of the birth of another little child, and a bell tower overlooking the countryside. These stories offer perspective on the lessons of the day and show not only different points of view but contrasting musical styles as well.

Part two of Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809-1847) opens with the soprano aria, Hear ye, Israel! In the first part of this monumental oratorio Elijah has foretold the coming of a draught, healed a widow’s son, and slain all of the false prophets of Baal. This aria begins with a message of warning and then one of comfort with back and forth trumpeting between the soprano and the orchestra. Mendelssohn places a great deal of pressure on the soprano who must sing this. Not only is it the movement that opens the second half but she only has five measures of recitative to completely change character. The aria moves immediately into a gigantic chorus, Be Not Afraid which employs the full resources of orchestra, choir, and organ.

Speaking of Mendelssohn and organ, one of the skills Mendelssohn was known for during his life was his organ playing, and his ability to improvise. He is often credited with renewing interest in the writing of J.S. Bach and was the first significant composer of organ music in Germany since Bach. His Three Preludes and Fugues were dedicated to Mozart’s student, Thomas Attwood, the organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. English organs at that time were very different from their German counterparts having either no pedalboard or a “pulldown pedal” which merely doubled the lowest notes of the manuals. The popularity of Mendelssohn’s music in England led builders to begin adding independent pedal divisions to their instruments to allow for the performance of pieces like today’s postlude, the fugue from Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in G Major.

Henri Mulet (1878-1967) was a French organist and composer and cellist. He studied the organ with Guilmant and Widor and served at several different churches before settling down at St Philippe du Roule in Paris. He was a professor at the Ecole Niedermeyer and at the Schola Cantorum. Mulet was quite eccentric, had few friends, and wrote little music that has survived. He burned many of his own manuscripts in 1937 and left Paris for Draguignan in Provence. He spent the last thiry years of his life in seclusion. Esquisses Byzantines (Byzantine Sketches) is a collection of ten character pieces inspired by elements of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Paris. Campanile, (Bell Tower) has an inscription which translates: “All white, it overlooks the vastness of the countryside.”

John Tavener’s(1944-2013) music also deals with vastness. Known for his avant-garde piece, The Whale he has undergone many spiritual changes in his nearly 70 years. Tavener grew up in the Presbyterian tradition but left it in favor of Catholic Mysticism and then turned to the Eastern Orthodox Church. All of this was reflected in his music. His life was plagued with health problems. He suffered a stroke in 1979 and was later diagnosed with Marfan syndrome. He had a heart attack in 2007 and another in 2008 that left him physically and emotionally destroyed. He died in his home on November 12, 2013. His setting of William Blake’s The Lamb from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. The simple anthem is centered around four notes and runs the gamut from extreme dissonance to lush deep harmonies that could easily be associated with the Orthodox ties that Tavener formed during his life. Tavener states that the piece came to him fully developed and he was inspired by his three year-old nephew Simon.