Dr. Stephen J. Mulder, Artistic Director presents
The 2016-2017 Season
The mission of Griffin Choral Arts is to enrich our community through the performance of outstanding choral music from all traditions; ennoble our audiences with choral programs that elevate, educate, and entertain; excel in performance by welcoming challenge, discovery, and diversity; and enthusiastically support and promote the performing arts in the Griffin region.
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In October 2007, 46 auditioned singers performed the first Griffin Choral Arts concert, Flowers and Frost, in the Griffin First United Methodist Church sanctuary. Since that time, GCA has performed nearly 40 concert projects, collaborating with professional musicians and organizations such as the Carroll Symphony Orchestra, Tara Winds, the Vega String Quartet, the Kazanetti String Quartet, the Russian chamber choir LYRA, the Griffin Ballet Theatre, Monroe Crossing bluegrass band, the Atlanta Percussion trio, composer Paul Basler, Celtic fiddler Jamie Laval, and instrumentalists from the Atlanta Opera Orchestra. GCA has performed with area school choirs, the Southern Crescent Chorale, and the Clayton State University Chorale. STANDING OVATION! As we celebrate our Tenth Anniversary Season, we have put aside our themed concerts and focus on the music—the best choral music—and present favorites from the past nine seasons paired with works we have not yet performed. WELL DONE! We open the season in the same sanctuary venue as that first concert to present Faure’s stunning Requiem. In addition, the Chamber Choir will present a set of Lauridsen “Rose Songs” that we performed for that very first concert in 2007. CHEERS! In December we revisit the Pinkham Christmas Cantata (Season 2) and for the first time present Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. The Christmas concert is presented twice, Thursday night at Griffin First Baptist Church and again on Sunday afternoon at Griffin First United Methodist Church. The GCA Children’s Chorus makes their first appearance on Sunday afternoon, performing alone and with the adult choir. BRAVO! In March 2017, we collaborate with the Clayton State University Chorale at the Griffin Auditorium to present Haydn’s Mass in Time of War (Season 1) and also smaller “new” works by Mozart. ENCORE! We conclude the Standing Ovation season with a concert at Gordon State College featuring Carmina Burana by Carl Orff accompanied by two pianos and percussion ensemble. Founding accompanist Seth Davis will be our special guest, and the Chamber Choir will present works by Brahms. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in my office with Jan Whalen laying out the plans for our new regional community chorus. With the tremendous support of this community and dedicated Board members, it has been an amazing ten years of wonderful concerts and magnificent choral music. Here’s to many more years of the same!
Stephen J. Mulder Artistic Director Griffin Choral Arts
Dr. Stephen J. Mulder Conductor
December 1, 2016
Cathy Willis
Accompanist
December 4, 2016
First Baptist Church of Griffin
Griffin First United Methodist Church
featuring Kristi Pass, Harp The Barrister Brass Quintet & The Handbell Chorus of the First Baptist Church of Griffin
featuring Kristi Pass, Harp The Barrister Brass Quintet & The Griffin Choral Arts Children’s Chorus
There is so much to celebrate this December as we raise our glasses for a “Cheers!” toast! We welcome back our friends in the Handbell Choir of First Baptist Church of Griffin on Thursday night and introduce the GCA Children’s Chorus on Sunday afternoon. Our friends The Barrister Brass Quintet join us again for this, our most popular program of the season. The audience carols and the dramatic “Christmas Cantata” by Daniel Pinkham will feature these fine instrumentalists who have become ever-familiar faces through the years. The women of the choir are highlighted in the stunning and energetic “A Ceremony of Carols” by Benjamin Britten. What better way to start our holiday celebration?
PROGRAM CAROL: Once in Royal David’s City........................................................................................................Arr. David Willcocks Erynn Lefevre, soloist (Thursday only) Where Shepherds Lately Knelt..................................................................................................................................... Carl Schalk CAROL: O Come, All Ye Faithful...............................................................................................................Arr. David Willcocks A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28...........................................................................................................................Benjamin Britten Procession Wolcum Yole! There Is No Rose That Yongë Child Valerie Gill, solo Balulalow Allie Bankston, solo As Dew in Aprille This Little Babe Interlude Kristi Pass, harp solo In Freezing Winter Night Alison Kirkland, solo Spring Carol Curran Golightly and Cathy Willis, duet Deo Gracias Recession Ave Maria...................................................................................................................................................................................Franz Biebl
INTERMISSION
CAROL: Joy to the World........................................................................................................................Arr. Cathy Mocklebust
GUEST PERFORMANCES Handbell Choir of First Baptist Church of Griffin
performing Christmas Pastorale............................................................Michael Herma Marty Watts, director (Thursday)
The Barrister Brass Quintet Selections to be Announced
The Griffin Choral Arts Children’s Chorus performing
The Heavens Declare....................................J. S. Bach, arr. Burkhardt
Patapan............................................................................ Arr. Audrey Snyder
There Was a Pig.................................................... Traditional Lancashire
A New Year Carol.............................................................Benjamin Britten (From Friday Afternoons, Op. 7) Adison Smith, solo
Do You Hear What I Hear?...............................................................................................................................Arr. Harry Simone Christmas Cantata (Sinfonia Sacra)..................................................................................................................Daniel Pinkham Quem Vidistis Pastores O Magnum Mysterium Gloria in excelsis Deo ENSEMBLE: Kate Evans, Valerie Gill, Sylvia Hollums, Susan Bartholomew, David Stivers, Christopher Davis, Ross Iddings CAROL: Festival First Noel....................................................................................................................................Arr. Dan Forrest
CHILDREN’S CHORUS Founding Singers
Tracy Threlkeld
Assistant Director
Julia Chang
Assistant Director/Accompanist
Ella Averett
Ellie Foster
Maryanne Postin
Meredith Barnes
Anna Foster
Maddy Pye
Bethany Berner
Brittain Gill
Ellen Searcy
Amy Boggs
Audrey Hare
Elizabeth Shepard
Jana Brooks
Emma Kate Kirkland
Laura Shepard
Mary Ramsey Collins
Erynn Lefevre
Adison Smith
Alice Claire Cowden
Noah Matthews
Katelyn Ward
Evan Craig
Brianna Morris
Avery Woods
Sara Elizabeth Cramer
Grace Mulder
Harper Droegmiller
Olivia Peters
The Reverend Marty Watts
James Allen Christopher Davis Justin Evans Art Hammond Joshua Smith David Stivers
ALTO
Cynthia Armstrong Allie Bankston Erin Bernier Peggy Carroll Debby Daniel-Bryant Pat Dodson Kate Evans Valerie Gill Curran Golightly Jean Gregory Sally Hartman Sylvia Hollums Linda Jones Alison Kirkland Diane Mostiler Gina Puckett Edith Ray Patsy Sturdivant Joan Thomas Tracy Threlkeld Patsy VanHoy
BASS
TENOR
SOPRANO
Assistant Conductor
Gerry Bankston Susan Bartholomew Kit Benson Allison Berna Millie Beverly Erin Brooks Jackie Clark Jennifer Durham Gay Fortson Janet Hale Beth Hobbs Amy Huffer Margie King Eunice Kuiper Katrina Lazenby Gwen Milner Patti Morrow Susie Whatley Olivia White
Alan Benson George Brown Richard Chewning Danny Clark Ross Iddings Carey Jones Bill Pasch Michael Puckett Bruce Reid Ken VanHoy Lewis Voyles
FBC HANDBELL CHOIR
SINGERS
Sarah Borton Melanie Gilmer Brad Glass Kathy Gore Donna Ingersoll James Johnston Patsy Kingsley Linda Long Diane Mostiler Laura Smallwood Alicia Stratton Alexis Walker Marty Watts
Also Featuring
The
Barrister Brass Quintet and
Alan Benson percussion
AUDIENCE CAROLS Once In Royal David’s City Verse 1 solo WOMEN: He came down to earth from heaven, Who is God and Lord of all, And His shelter was a stable, And His cradle was a stall; With the poor, and mean, and lowly, Lived on earth our Savior holy. MEN: For he is our childhood’s pattern; Day by day, like us He grew; He was little, weak and helpless, Tears and smiles like us He knew; And He feeleth for our sadness, And He shareth in our gladness. Verse 4- GCA Only
ALL: Not in that poor lowly stable, With the oxen standing by, We shall see Him; but in heaven, Set at God’s right hand on high; Where like stars His children crowned All in white shall wait around.
Oh Come, All Ye Faithful ALL: O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the King of angels; O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Verse 2- GCA Only ALL Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation; O sing, all ye citizens of heaven above! Glory to God, all glory in the highest! (Refrain) ALL Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning; Jesus, to Thee be glory given; Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. (Refrain)
Joy To The World ALL: Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing. WOMEN: Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy. MEN: No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found. ALL: He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders, of His love.
The First Noel ALL: The First Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay; In fields as they lay, keeping their sheep, On a cold winter’s night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Born is the King of Israel. WOMEN: They look-ed up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far, MEN: And to the earth it gave great light, And so it continued both day and night. (GCA ONLY on Refrain) ALL: Then let us all with one accord Sing praises to our heavenly Lord; That hath made heaven and earth of naught, And with his blood mankind hath bought (ALL on Refrain)
TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS Where Shepherds Lately Knelt Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel’s word, I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred; But there is room and welcome there for me. In the unlikely place I find him as they said; Sweet, newborn Babe, how frail, and in a manger bed; A still small Voice to cry one day for me. How should I not have known Isaiah would be there, His prophecies fulfilled? With pounding heart, I stare: A Child, a Son, The Prince of Peace—for me. Can I, will I forget how Love was born and burned Its way into my heart, unasked, unforced, unearned, To die, to live, and not alone for me. Text by Jaroslav J. Vajda. Reproduced by permission from Augsburg Fortress.
A Ceremony of Carols I. Procession (sung in Latin) Hodie Christus natus est: hodie Salvator apparuit: hodie in terra canunt angeli: laetantur archangeli: hodie exsultant justi dicentes: Gloria in excelsis Deo. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Today Christ is born: Today the Savior has appeared. Today the angels sing on earth: The archangels rejoice. Today the righteous exult, saying Glory to God in the highest.
II. Wolcum Yole! Wolcum, Wolcum, Wolcum be thou hevenè king, Wolcum Yole! Wolcum, born in one morning, Wolcum for whom we sall sing! Wolcum be ye, Stevene and Jon, Wolcum, Innocentes every one, Wolcum, Thomas marter one, Wolcum be ye, good Newe Yere, Wolcum, Twelfthe Day both in fere, Wolcum, seintes lefe and dere, Wolcum Yole, Wolcum Yole, Wolcum! Candelmesse, Quene of bliss, Wolcum bothe to more and lesse. Wolcum, Wolcum, Wolcum be ye that are here, Wolcum Yole, Wolcum alle and make good cheer, Wolcum alle another yere, Wolcum Yole, Wolcum! (Anonymous, 14th century)
III. There Is No Rose [The text is “macaronic,” mixing Latin and English.] There is no rose of such vertu as is the rose that bare Jesu. Alleluia, alleluia. For in this rose conteinèd was heaven and earth in litel space, Res miranda, res miranda. [wonderful thing] By that rose we may well see there be one God in persons three, Pares forma, pares forma, [equal in nature] The aungels sungen the shepherds to: Gloria in excelsis,
gloria in excelsis Deo. Gaudeamus, gaudeamus. [Let us rejoice!] Leave we all this werldly mirth, and follow we this joyful birth. Transeamus, transeamus, transeamus. [Let us go forth.] Alleluia, res miranda, pares forma, gaudeamus, Transeamus, transeamus, transeamus. (Anonymous, 14th century)
IV. “That Yongë Childe” and “Balulalow” That yonge child when it gan weep with song she lulled him asleep: That was so sweet a melody it passèd alle minstrelsy. The nightingalë sang also: Her song is hoarse . . and nought thereto: Whoso attendeth to her song and leaveth the first. . then doth he wrong. (Anonymous, 14th century)
... O my deare hert, young Jesu sweit, Prepare thy creddil in my spreit, And I sall rock thee to my hert, And never mair from thee depart. But I sall praise thee evermoir With sanges sweit unto thy gloir; The knees of my hert sall I bow, And sing that richt Balulalow. (Scots: James, John, and Robert Wedderburn, 1548, 1561)
V. As Dew in Aprille I sing of a maiden that is makèles: [matchless] King of all kings to her son she ches. [chose] He came also stille there his moder was, As dew in Aprille that falleth on the grass. He came also stille to his moder’s bour, As dew in Aprille that falleth on the flour. He came also stille there his moder lay, As dew in Aprille that falleth on the spray. Moder and mayden was never none but she: Well may such a lady Goddes moder be. (Anonymous, c. 1400)
VI. This Little Babe This little Babe so few days old, is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, though he himself for cold do shake; For in this weak unarmed wise the gates of hell he will surprise. With tears he fights and wins the field, His naked breast stands for a shield; His battering shot are babish cries, His arrows looks of weeping eyes, His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed. His camp is pitched in a stall, His bulwark but a broken wall; The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes; of shepherds he his muster makes; And thus, as sure his foe to wound, the angels’ trumps alarum sound. My soul, with Christ join thou in fight; stick to the tents that he hath pight. [pitched] Within his crib is surest ward; this little Babe will be thy guard. If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy. (Robert Southwell, 1561?-1595)
VII. Interlude (Harp Solo) VIII. In The Freezing Winter Night Behold, a silly tender babe, in freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies. Alas, a piteous sight! The inns are full; no man will yield This little pilgrim bed. But forced he is with silly beasts in crib to shroud his head. This stable is a Prince’s court, this crib his chair of State; The beasts are parcel of his pomp, the wooden dish his plate. The persons in that poor attire His royal liveries wear; The Prince himself is come from heaven; This pomp is prized there. With joy approach, O Christian wight, Do homage to thy King, And highly praise his humble pomp, wich he from Heaven doth bring. (Robert Southwell, 1561?-1595)
IX. Spring Carol Pleasure it is to hear iwis, the Birdes sing, [It is certainly a pleasure to hear the birds’ singing] The deer in the dale, the sheep in the vale, the corn springing. God’s purveyance for sustenance, It is for man, it is for man. Then we always to give him praise, And thank him than. (William Cornish, 1465-1523)
X. Deo Gracis (Macaronic [Latin and English]) Deo gracias! Deo gracias! [Thanks be to God!] Adam lay ibounden, bounden in a bond; Four thousand winter thought he not to long. Deo gracias! Deo gracias! And all was for an appil, an appil that he tok, As clerkes finden written in their book. Deo gracias! Deo gracias! Ne had the appil take ben, the appil take ben, Ne hadde never our lady a ben hevene quene. Blessed be the time that appil take was. Therefore we moun singen. Deo gracias! Deo gracias! Deo gracias! Deo gracias! (Anonymous, 15th century) XI. Recessional (Repeat the Processional)
Ave Maria
(sung in Latin) Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu sancto.
The angel of the Lord announced to Mary that she was pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Hail and bountiful thanks to you, Mary! The Lord is with you, blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Maria dixit: Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
Mary said: Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.
Et verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
Hail and bountiful thanks to you, Mary! The Lord is with you, blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Amen.
The Heavens Declare Thy Glory The heav’ns declare thy glory, the firmament thy Pow’r; Day unto day the story repeats from hour to hour. Night unto night replying, proclaims in ev’ry land, O Lord, with voice undying, the wonders of thy hand. The sun with royal splendor goes forth to chant thy praise, And moonbeams soft and tender their gentler anthem raise. O’er ev’ry tribe and nation the music strange is poured, The song of all creation, to thee, creation’s Lord. (Psalm 19:1-6, 14; trans. Thomas R. Burks, 1874)
Patapan Willie, take your little drum. Robin, bring your flute and come. Let the music that you play. Turelurelu, patapapan; Let the music that you play make a joyful holiday. As the men of olden days gave the King of kings their praise, Hear the flute and drum, Turelurelu, patapapan; They would hear the flute and drum making Christmas frolicsome! God and man this day become more at one thah flute and drum. Now, together sing and play, Turelurelu, patapapan; Now, together sing and play on this joyful Christmas day! (Traditional Burgundian carol, transcribed Bernard de la Monnoye, 1641-1728)
There Was A Pig There was a pig went out to dig, Chrisimas Day, Chrisimas Day, There was a pig went out to dig on Chrisimas Day in the morning. There was a cow went out to plow . . . There was a crow went out to sow . . . There was a sheep went out to reap . . . (Traditional Lancashire children’s carol)
A New Year Carol Here we bring new water from the well so clear, For to worship God with this happy New Year. Refrain: Sing levy dew, levy dew, the water and the wine; The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine. Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe, Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go. (Refrain) Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin, Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in. (Refrain) (Traditional Welsh; trans. Walter de la Mare, 1873-1956)
Do You Hear What I Hear Said the night wind to the little lamb, “Do you see what I see? Way up in the sky, little lamb, Do you see what I see? A star, a star, dancing in the night With a tail as big as a kite, With a tail as big as a kite.” Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy, “Do you hear what I hear? Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy, Do you hear what I hear? A song, a song high above the trees With a voice as big as the sea, With a voice as big as the sea.” Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king, “Do you know what I know? In your palace walls, mighty king, Do you know what I know? A Child, a Child shivers in the cold-Let us bring him silver and gold, Let us bring him silver and gold.” Said the king to the people everywhere, “Listen to what I say! Pray for peace, people, everywhere, Listen to what I say! The Child, the Child sleeping in the night He will bring us goodness and light, He will bring us goodness and light
Do You Hear What I Hear by Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne. Copyright © 1962 (Renewed) by Jewel Music Publishing Co., Inc. ASCAP.
Christmas Cantata (sung in Latin)
I. Quem vidistis, pastores! Dicite. Annuntiate nobis in terris quis apparuit. Natum vidimus natum et choros angelorum collaudantes Dominum. Alleluia.
What do you see, shepherds! Tell us! Proclaim to us what happened to you here on earth. We saw a newborn Child and a chorus of angels together praising the Lord. Alleluia.
II. O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum jacentum in praesepio. Beata virgo cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum.
O great mystery and wonderful sacrament That all creatures see the newborn Lord lying in the manger. Blessed Virgin, whose womb was worthy of bearing the Lord Christ.
III. Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Jubilate Deo omnis terra, servite Dominum in laetitia. Introite in conspectus ejus, in exultatione. Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse Deus, ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos. Alleluia!
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all humankind of good will. Praise the Lord, all the earth, serve the Lord with thanksgiving. Come into His presence with rejoicing. Know that the Lord is God; it is He who has made us and not we ourselves. Alleluia!
PROGRAM NOTES
Welcome to “Cheers,” the tenth-anniversary edition of the popular winter holiday concert by Griffin Choral Arts—this year including for the first time the GCA Children’s Chorus, which will have its debut in the Sunday afternoon concert. We also welcome back our popular guests the Barrister Brass from Macon, as well as other guest musicians who join us in celebrating the season. As with other Tenth Anniversary Season concert titles, “Cheers” suggests plaudits, we hope from the audience toward the performance, but even more importantly from everyone connected with GCA back in gratitude to you, the audience, without whom none of this would be possible. Of course, the concert title also calls to mind the many “cheers” of the season, including-- but certainly not limited to-- convivial holiday toasting. So here’s to us all! Cheers!
Once in Royal David’s City Arr. David Willcocks (1919-2015)
Since 1919 perhaps the most famous Christmas Eve processional in English-speaking Christendom, this carol has been the traditional opening of the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College Chapel at Cambridge University in England. A special honor for a boy soprano in the Chapel Choir is to be selected to sing the opening stanza (and, to spare the nerves of potential honorees, the soloist is not named until just before the service begins). The fact that our Thursday night soloist is female is reinforced by the rapidly increasing numbers of girl and young women singers in British church and college-chapel choirs (with King’s College now an increasingly rare exception). The text is by Irish hymnist Cecil Frances (Fanny) Alexander (1818-1895). The hymn tune IRBY is by English composer Henry J. Gauntlett (1805-1876), and tonight’s arrangements are by A. H. Mann and David Willcocks, the latter music director at Kings’ College Chapel from 1957 through 1974.
Where Shepherds Lately Knelt Carl Schalk (b. 1929)
Published in 1987, this new carol reflects the deeply-moving ability of prominent Lutheran church music composer Carl Schalk and his frequent collaborator-lyricist Jaroslav J. Vajda to bring us as frail mortals individually to the Manger Scene. Perhaps Schalk’s (and Vajda’s) best-known Christmas anthem is the very similar Before the Marvel of This Night, which opened the first “Christmas with Griffin Choral Arts” in 2007.
A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Britten’s famous suite of carols has for many years been a favorite inclusion on yuletide concerts, including “Christmas with Griffin Choral Arts” in 2009. When on that concert only excerpts were sung, and in arrangements for both women’s and men’s voices, tonight’s performance features the entire work as sung by women’s voices—Britten’s original intent. No better appreciation of the origins and power of this work can be found than in the 2009 program note by the Clerestory ensemble (an affiliate of the San Francisco early Music Society):
Perhaps the most enchanting and haunting feature of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols is its simplicity. What could be more sublimely austere than medieval carols in Middle English, sung by robed choirboys, accompanied by the plucked strains of a lone harp? The picture and the sound evoke the hopeful, watchful sense of the days leading up to Christmas. All of this goes a long way to understanding [the enduring popularity of] A Ceremony of Carols, . . . and the piece is indeed all of these things that it appears to be. But as is often the case with much-loved music-- particularly when much is known about the composer’s life and times-- there is more to the story. Britten wrote Ceremony in 1942 while crossing the Atlantic aboard a Swedish cargo ship-- a dangerous proposition at any time, but much more so during wartime while German submarines prowled the ocean. (Britten actually intended to use the month-long voyage to complete what would become his wellknown Hymn to St. Cecilia, but these early sketches were confiscated by customs authorities, who feared that the music was in fact a secret code.) Britten had departed his native England at the outset of the war in 1939 and headed for the United States, where his fame was growing quickly, and where, it must be noted, he was unlikely to be conscripted into the British army. After several years abroad, he . . . found it time to return home, and . . . embarked on this voyage not knowing if Britten’s return home would be greeted by admiration for his boldness, anger at his flight, mere indifference, or-- as it turned out-- a mixture of the three. Shortly before departing the U.S., Britten had received a commission to compose a harp concerto, and in the meantime he had begun to familiarize himself with the instrument. This provided the basis and probably the inspiration for his choice of harp to accompany the vocal parts in Ceremony. Although the first published edition of the work recommended that boy sopranos-- not an uncommon lot in Britain-- sing the three treble lines that comprise the chorus, Britten’s early manuscripts show that he originally conceived of them as women’s parts. Some years later, Britten authorized an arrangement of the piece for four-part mixed voices (possibly at the suggestion of his publisher). A Ceremony of Carols consists of eight polyphonic settings of mostly anonymous 15th- and 16th-century poems, which Britten had discovered in a handbook called The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems that he found in Nova Scotia while the ship was in port. These eight carols are bookended by statements of the Gregorian chant “Hodie Christus Natus Est” (“Christ is born today”), and
midway through the set is an astounding interlude for harp solo that features this same plainchant tune. The carols themselves show a remarkable diversity of styles, from the jubilant exultations of “Wolcume Yule” and “Deo Gracias,” to the pastoral solos of “That Yongë child” and “Balulalow,” to the martial urgency of [the expanding canon] of “This Little Babe.” (http://www.clerestory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ Ceremony- of-Carols-Program.pdf) While Britten’s masterful fitting of musical styles to the texts is evident in the texts themselves (see the Texts and Translations section of this program), of special interest is the source of the famous “This Little Babe” movement. The text was written by Robert Southwell (1561-1595), a poet and a religious martyr–hanged, drawn, and quartered for being a (Jesuit) Roman Catholic in the purges of the reign of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. (The text of “In Freezing Night” is also Southwell’s.) Of further significance in the rather horrific context of the text of “This Little Babe” is that the warlike imagery— especially the attack against “Satan’s fold” (reminiscent of the ancient trope of Christ’s “Harrowing of Hell,” though in this case not the resurrected Christ but the newborn Christ)—surely reminded Britten’s original listeners of the horrors of World War II they were experiencing firsthand. The music imitates the spiritual battle, with jagged rhythms and intensifying complexities in canonic, rapid-fire voice entrances. At the Sunday performance the GCA Children’s Chorus will join in the singing of this carol.
Ave Maria
Franz Biebl (1906-2001) Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria was made immensely popular by the San Francisco-based men’s choral ensemble Chanticleer, and continues to be the group’s most requested piece. The setting combines the traditional Angelus (the annunciation from Archangel Gabriel to Mary that she will bear the Son of God, to which Mary responds in humble obedience) with the Ave Maria itself (often known as the Rosary prayer, petitioning Mary to help intercede with God on behalf of her fellow mortals). Also included in the text is a quotation from John 1:14 (Et verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”). Wilbur Skeels, publisher of several of Biebl’s works, recounts the 1964 composition of the piece: Herr Biebl told me that when he was organist/choirmaster and teacher in the Fürstenfeldbruck parish near Munich he had in his church choir a fireman. It was common for companies, factories,
police and fire departments, etc. to sponsor an employee’s choir, which often would participate in choral competitions and festivals with other similar choirs. This fireman asked Biebl to please compose something for his fireman’s choir for such an occasion. The result was the Ave Maria (double male choir version). The piece gained practically no attention in Germany for many years. However, when Biebl was the head of choral programs for the Bayerischen Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio) he made a habit of inviting American choirs to come to Munich and sing on the radio and with other German choirs. One of these choirs [the Cornell University Glee Club] was introduced to his Ave Maria and brought it back to the U.S., where it became increasingly popular. When Chanticleer recorded it, it became a hit, not only in the U.S. but in Germany too, which now considered the piece must be special as it was such a hit in America! Biebl did arrangements for other voicings, and the seven-part mixed choir arrangement is now probably the most popular. Biebl’s setting blends two musical styles: Gregorian chant in the solo trio verses followed by modern Romantic harmonies in the choral refrains. The result is a prayer-meditation that sounds much older than it actually is, but which in its compelling simplicity is one of the most ravishing compositions in all choral literature. Not surprisingly, Biebl is known mainly for this piece, but he is widely esteemed in Germany as one of its most distinguished composers of choral music. During his incarceration in a prisoner of war camp near Battle Creek, Michigan, in World War II, he was allowed to continue his choral composing and even to arrange concerts of choral and chamber music.
The following four works, sung by the GCA Children’s Chorus, will be presented only on Sunday, December 4.
The Heavens Declare
J. S. Bach; arr. Michael Burkhardt This arrangement, by prominent American church music composer Michael Burkhardt, was composed for the Southern Illinois Children’s Choir, in Carbondale, in 1997. The music comes from Bach’s Cantata 68 and employs two treble instruments plus piano in support of the voices. The text comes from Psalm 19:1-6, 14, in an 1874 English translation by Thomas R. Birks.
Patapan
Arr. Audrey Snyder (b. 1953) This French (Burgundian) carol is by Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728) and arranged by Audrey Snyder. The late Renaissance character of the piece is reinforced by the addition of flute and hand drum. Arranger Audrey Snyder completed her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music Education from the University of Oregon and did additional postgraduate work in England. During her many successful years as a public school music teacher she began to write choral music for her own students, publishing her first choral piece in 1978. Since that time she has published numerous original choral compositions and arrangements spanning the entire spectrum of choral music from Top 40 pop to the classics and from elementary through high school levels.
There Was a Pig Traditional Lancashire
While many familiar holiday carols featuring animals are of the “Friendly Beasts at the Manger” variety, there are exceptions, such as this charming secular carol from Lancashire in northwestern England. The only direct connection with the religious holiday is the “Chrisimas Day in the morning” timing of the animals’ actions, made all the more charming by the text’s likening those actions to human farming chores.
A New Year Carol Benjamin Britten
This comes from an early Britten collection of secular carols entitled Friday Afternoons, published in 1936, seven years prior to the publication of A Ceremony of Carols. As musicologist Rosamund Strode notes in the edition, “Over the months from May 1933 to August 1934 Benjamin Britten composed a series of twelve songs with piano for children, . . . written for his brother’s preparatory school at Prestatyn [in northern Wales], where the singing classes took place on Fridays.” The text is a traditional Welsh folk song, used in a transcription by English poet Walter de la Mare and included in his 1931 collection Tom Toddler’s Ground. Many references in the text are obscure, likely conflating Christian references to the Virgin Mary, baptism, and communion with earlier Celtic New Year’s symbols and customs. The repetition of the phrase “levy dew” in the refrain may come from the Welsh llef y Dduw (“a cry to God”) or to the French levez à Dieu (“raise to God”). Also possible is the baptismal/renewing association of the English “lave,” from the Latin lavare for washing/cleansing.
Do You Hear What I Hear Arr. Harry Simeone (1911-2005)
It may surprise that this famous commercial “hit” originated in response to a world emergency. In October 1962 the then-spousal song-writing team of Noel Regney (19222002) and Gloria Shayne (1923-2008) created the song as an impassioned plea for world peace during the Cuban missile crisis. The Harry Simeone Chorale recorded the piece later in 1962, and this version sold a quarter-million copies in its first week. While the lyrics may be familiar, they take on shocking new significance when such references as “way up in the sky” and perhaps even the title line “Do you hear what I hear?” may (re)sound as hints of barely-repressed fears of launched nuclear missiles. It is no wonder that the composers’ most emphatic line in the text was “Pray for peace, people everywhere!”—an exhortation surely at least as relevant today as when GCA first performed this song in 2009. Making such a consideration of the future even more poignant is the joining in of the new GCA Children’s Chorus at the Sunday performance. Hollywood arranger and choral director Harry Simeone is even better known as the 1958 popularizer of “The Little Drummer Boy.”
Christmas Cantata
Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006) Daniel Pinkham was quoted in a 1981 Boston Globe interview as observing that “the single event that changed my life was a concert [he heard as a teenager at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts] by the Trapp Family Singers in 1939, right after they escaped from Germany. . . . Here, suddenly, I was hearing clarity, simplicity. It shaped my whole outlook.” These traits are abundantly clear in Pinkham’s now-famous Christmas Cantata (subtitled Sinfonia Sacra), commissioned in 1958 by King’s Chapel in Boston, where Pinkham served as organist for 42 years, and dedicated to the chorus at the New England Conservatory of Music, on whose faculty Pinkham served for 48 years. Musically, Pinkham’s cantata may be described as neo-medieval, showing the influence of the composer’s interest in the simplicity of medieval plainchant, modal composition, and folk-dance- like rhythmic variations. Pinkham is also paying homage to Renaissance settings of medieval Church hymns by the Venetian Gabrieli family (Giovanni of whom is also represented in tonight’s concert), in the use of vocal contrast, brass choir, and organ. Yet the piece is also modern, showing the influence of Pinkham’s teachers Walter Piston and Aaron Copland (at Harvard) and Samuel Barber and Arthur Honegger (at Tanglewood). Other influences in the musical style of the Cantata include the twentieth century enthusiasts of “early music” Carl Orff and Maurice Ravel. As an example of Pinkham’s musical wit, we can even hear a quotation from Ravel’s sensuous Bolero, cleverly at the reference in Movement Two to the animals’ watching over the newborn
Christ Child lying in the manger. Even for all these notable similarities to his admired models, both medieval and modern, Pinkham’s musical style is clearly also his own, and accessibly so. The structure of Pinkham’s cantata closely follows the traditional Gregorian chants that were musical dramatizations of crucial scenes in the life of Christ. From the tenth century onward, chants such as the Quem Quaeritis (“whom are you seeking?”—the angel’s question to the Maries visiting the tomb of the risen Christ) became the basis for actual mini-dramas, in which actors portrayed the characters in the biblical stories. In the case of the Christmas shepherds, the chant was the Quem vidistis pastores—Shepherds, whom did you see?—in which witnesses ask the dramatic question of the shepherds, who then tell of their visit to the Christ Child. Pinkham draws us into these dramatic dialogues by combining the traditional dramatic tropes with musical effects appropriate to those texts. The first movement is subdivided into a bold, dramatic opening (maestoso), followed by a quick, energetic, dance-like conclusion (allegro molto ritmico). Movement Two is marked adagio but could as easily have been called misterioso, particularly for the other-worldly writing for female voices and for the organ. The great O Magnum Mysterium is the ancient text sung in monasteries at the first light of dawn (Matins) on Christmas Day. Movement Three—the Gloria in Excelsis Deo—is probably the most recognizable section in the cantata, bursting with hearty joy reminiscent of a medieval estampie (a footstomping dance style). Its text combines parts of the High Mass (the “Glory to God” from the Christmas Gospel of Luke) with Psalm 100. In keeping with GCA’s celebration of its tenth anniversary season, this is another work in tonight’s concert that serves as retrospective of its history to date, the Pinkham Christmas Cantata having been performed in December 2008 in its entirety and then the Gloria in excelsis deo movement again in December 2013.
Peace, Peace
Rick and Sylvia Powell; arr. Fred Bock This popular “closer” at yuletide concerts was composed in 1962 by Rick Powell (19352006) and Sylvia Powell (b. 1937) when they were students at Florida State University. Also an FSU alum, GCA director Dr. Steve Mulder has either sung or conducted this choral benediction on every Christmas concert (whether as a student or conductor in church, school/college or community chorus) since 1982. He is especially pleased to have the GCA Children’s Chorus join in this year’s singalong.
Program notes by Bill Pasch, © (except as otherwise noted) 2016, with thanks to Steve Mulder and David Stivers.
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Auditions are usually scheduled in the off-season (June-August), but can be arranged at any time during the year. Auditions include singing a familiar song unaccompanied, tonal memory, sightreading, and scale exercises to determine range (about 10 minutes). Membership is open to those 16 and older. Annual dues (collected in September) are $40 and help cover the cost of music and other expenses. Griffin Choral Arts rehearses each Monday evening, September through May, from 7:00 to 9:30 PM in the choir room of Griffin First United Methodist Church. Singers must attend at least 80% of rehearsals to perform with Griffin Choral Arts.
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