What everything comes down to… Concert Choir David P. DeVenney, Director Friday, February 8, 2019 Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre Performing Arts Center 7:30 PM Sunday, February 10, 2019 St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia 3:00 PM
PROGRAM I Aristotle ................................................................................................................. Robert Maggio (b. 1964) When David Heard ...................................................................................... Norman Dinerstein (1937-1982) For One Who Fell in Battle ................................................................. Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935)
II Four Madrigals ...................................................................................................... Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) I. With Serving Still II. Tangled I Was in Love’s Snare III. At Most Mischief I Suffer Grief IV. Hate Whom Ye List Four Reveries ....................................................................................................... William Hawley (b. 1950) I. Echo II. Remembrance III. My River Runs to Thee IV. Meeting at Night III Black Is the Color .................................................................................................. arr. DeVenney The Water Is Wide ................................................................................................ arr. DeVenney
Concert Choir
David P. DeVenney, director
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PROGRAM NOTES The title for our program is taken from near the end of Billy Collins’ poem, Aristotle, which opens the concert. My colleague Robert Maggio has penned a wonderful setting of this thought-provoking poem. The images in Aristotle are all ambiguous: they evoke instant pictures in our brains, but for each, the consequence to the poetic image can be anything, can result in many different endings. “What everything comes down to” sums up neatly the ideas in both Aristotle and in this concert program, which explores life, loss, and love as we may experience them in our own journeys – not knowing exactly what life will hand us. Norman Dinerstein’s When David Heard, tells the biblical story of David mourning the death of his young son Absalom. Dinerstein’s setting is immensely moving, a profound and eloquent exploration of grief and loss. Foremost among American Impressionist composers, Charles Martin Loeffler’s For One Who Died in Battle is a rich, full-throated elegy to heroism, sacrifice, and memory. Written in 1928 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the end of World War I, Loeffler’s setting is enormously complicated harmonically, using militaristic rhythms, and at several points bugle call melodies, in an paean to patriotism and remembrance. [As an aside: this work has long been neglected and forgotten among American scholars and conductors. There is no recording of the work, although Concert Choir will record it this spring for future release.] The second half of our concert is an exploration of love. Thea Musgrave is Scottish, but has lived in America for decades – over half of her 90 years. The Four Madrigals are early works and explore love and the rejection of it in four short, rather humorous pieces. In the first, love has been professed but rejected; the second poem revels in the escape from the grasp of love (although it is unclear if the singer is actually happy about this!). The third poem, like the first, is mournful because proffered love has been rejected. The fourth setting, however, changes everything: the singer no longer cares about love and whether or not it will be returned. Musgrave added her own verse (mostly sung by the altos) to Thomas Wyatt’s Elizabethan poetry. William Hawley’s Four Reveries for eight-part choir also explore the cycle of love. In the first, the singer longs for a lover who is no longer alive, aching each night for the lover to visit and longing for sleep so that he or she may reappear. Remembrance explores the ache when love has ended. My River Runs to Thee is about longing: we love someone and hope it will be returned: “Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me?” Lastly, the fourth reverie uses the metaphor of a journey at sea, crossing into the “cove,” where love is found and two are joined. The concert ends with two folksong settings. Black Is the Color is about absent love – perhaps because of death or simply being away at war. The Water is Wide is about the acceptance of death and, in the best of all worlds, “crossing o’er”: going through life with your loved one at your side. Indeed, “what everything comes down to...” — DPD
Texts and Translations Aristotle (Billy Collins) This is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is where you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land, the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page. Think of an egg, the letter A, a woman ironing on a bare stage as the heavy curtain rises. This is the very beginning. The first-person narrator introduces himself, tells us about his lineage. The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings. Here the climbers are studying a map or pulling on their long woolen socks. This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn. The profile of an animal is being smeared on the wall of a cave, and you have not yet learned to crawl. This is the opening, the gambit, a pawn moving forward an inch. This is your first night with her, your first night without her. This is the first part where the wheels begin to turn, where the elevator begins its ascent, before the doors lurch apart. This is the middle. Things have had time to get complicated, messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore. Cities have sprouted up along the rivers teeming with people at cross-purposes— a million schemes, a million wild looks. Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack here and pitches his ragged tent. This is the sticky part where the plot congeals, where the action suddenly reverses or swerves off in an outrageous direction. Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph to why Miriam does not want Edward's child. Someone hides a letter under a pillow. Here the aria rises to a pitch, a song of betrayal, salted with revenge. And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge halfway up the mountain. This is the bridge, the painful modulation. This is the thick of things. So much is crowded into the middle— the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados, Russian uniforms, noisy parties, lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall— too much to name, too much to think about.
And this is the end, the car running out of road, the river losing its name in an ocean, the long nose of the photographed horse touching the white electronic line. This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade, the empty wheelchair, and pigeons floating down in the evening. Here the stage is littered with bodies, the narrator leads the characters to their cells, and the climbers are in their graves. It is me hitting the period and you closing the book. It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck. This is the final bit thining away to nothing. This is the end, according to Aristotle, what we have all been waiting for, what everything comes down to, the destination we cannot help imagining, a streak of light in the sky, a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves. When David Heard (II Samuel 18:33) When David heard that Absalom was slain, he went up to his chamber over the gate, and wept, and thus he said: Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! would God I had died for thee, Oh Absalom, my son, my son. Dirge for One Who Fell in Battle (Thomas Parsons) Room for a Soldier! lay him in the clover; He loved the fields, and they shall be his cover; Make his mound with hers who called him once her lover: Where the rain may rain upon it, Where the sun may shine upon it, Where the lamb hath lain upon it, And the bee will dine upon it. Bear him to no dismal tomb under city churches; Take him to the fragrant fields, by the silver birches, Where the whip-poor-will shall mourn, where the oriole perches: Make his mound with sunshine on it, Where the bee will dine upon it, Where the lamb hath lain upon it, And the rain will rain upon it. Busy as the bee was he, and his rest should be the clover;
Gentle as the lamb was he, and the fern should be his cover; Fern and rosemary shall grow my soldier’s pillow over: Where the rain may rain upon it, Where the sun may shine upon it, Where the lamb hath lain upon it, And the bee will dine upon it. Sunshine in his heart, the rain would come full often Out of those tender eyes which evermore did soften: He never could look cold till we saw him in his coffin. Make his mound with sunshine on it, Plant the lordly pine upon it, Where the moon may stream upon it, And memory shall dream upon it. “Captain or Colonel,”—whatever invocation Suit our hymn the best, no matter for thy station,— On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! Long as the sun doth shine upon it Shall glow the goodly pine upon it, Long as the stars do gleam upon it Shall memory come to dream upon it. Four Madrigals (Thomas Wyatt) 1. With serving still This I have won, For my goodwill To be undone. And for redress Of all my pain, Disdainfulness I have again. And for reward Of all my smart, Lo, thus unheard, I must depart. Wherefore all ye That after shall By fortune be, As I am, thrall, Example take What I have won, Thus for her sake To be undone. 2. Tangled I was in love's snare, Opressed with pain, torment with care, Of grief right sure, of joy full bare, Clean in despair by cruelty, But ha! ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.
The woeful day so full of pain, The weary night all spent in vain, The labour lost for so small gain: To write them all it will not be, But ha! ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty. 3. At most mischief I suffer grief, For of relief Since I have none, My lute and I Continually Shall us apply To sigh and moan. Naught may prevail To weep or wail. Pity doth fail In you, alas. Mourning or moan, Complaint or none, It is all one As is this case. For cruelty Most that can be Hath sovereignty Within your heart, Which maketh bare All my welfare: Naught do ye care How sore I smart. No tiger’s heart Is so pervert Without desert To wreak his ire. And you me kill For my goodwill, Lo how I spill For my desire. There is no love That can ye move, and I can prove None other way. Therefore I must Restrain my lust, Banish my trust And wealth away. Thus in mischief I suffer grief, For of relief, Since I have none,
My lute and I Continually Shall us apply To sigh and moan. 4. Hate whom ye list, for I care not; Love whom ye list, and spare not; Do what ye list, and dread not; Think was ye list, I fear not; For as for me I am not; But even as one that recks not, Whether ye hate or hate not, For in your love I dote not; Wherefore I pray you forget not; But love whom ye list, for I care not. Four Reveries Echo (Christina Rossetti) Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream; Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream; Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years. Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet; Where thirsting longing eyes Watch the slow door That opening, letting in, lets out no more. Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again tho’ cold in death: Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Remembrance (Percy Shelley) Swifter far than summer's flight – Swifter far than youth's delight – Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone – As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left lone, alone. The swallow summer comes again -The owlet night resumes her reign -But the wild-swan youth is fain To fly with thee, false as thou. -My heart each day desires the morrow; Sleep itself is turned to sorrow; Vainly would my winter borrow Sunny leaves from any bough. My River Runs to Thee (Emily Dickinson) My River runs to thee. Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me? My river awaits reply. Oh! Sea, look graciously. I'll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks. Say, sea, Take Me! Meeting at Night (Robert Browning) The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Concert Choir David P. DeVenney, director Brett Bailey Isabella Bennett Kyleigh Bleacher Ian Brady Spencer Camacho Janna Collins Kathryn Corbino Ian Edge Leanne Frist Stephen Gliatto Matthew Hascha Matthew Hayden Sarah Holderith Daemyung Hyun, bass section leader Won Kim Sergey Kravets Lauren Longhi, vice president, soprano section leader Samuel Loposky Brenten Megee, tenor section leader Felicia MulĂŠ Evan Nelson Isabela Pazdzierski, president, alto section leader Connor Riley Devaney Ross Cassie Rumbough, secretary/treasurer Chase Sanders Jordan Shomper Jennifer Smith Strummer Steele Andrew Walls Olivia Yachnik
UPCOMING WELLS SCHOOL OF MUSIC EVENTS For full event details visit www.wcupa.edu/music or call (610) 436-2739 Monday, February 11, 2019, 7:30 PM Faculty Recital: Randall Scarlata, baritone: Maureen Mahon, NYU Randall Scarlata, director Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre Performing Arts Center Wednesday, February 13, 2019, 8:15 PM Chamber Winds & Concert Band Andrew Yozviak & M. Gregory Martin, directors Madeleine Wing Adler Theatre Performing Arts Center Friday, February 15, 2019, 4:00 PM Senior Recital: Brand Davis, trumpet & Thomas Richardson, trombone Robert Skoniczin & Daniel Cherry, directors Ware Family Recital Hall Swope Music Building Friday, February 15, 2019, 6:00 PM Senior Recital: Zachary Prowse, trumpet Robert Skoniczin, director Ware Family Recital Hall Swope Music Building Friday, February 15, 2019, 8:00 PM Senior Recital: Danielle O'Hare, horn Elizabeth Pfaffle, director Ware Family Recital Hall Swope Music Building *Tickets required for this event.
Steinway & Sons Piano Technical, Tuning and Concert Preparations by Gerald P. Cousins, RPT A majority of performances are available to watch via live stream at Facebook.com/ArtsAtWCUPA and LiveStream.com/wcupa. Mr. Robert Rust, Audio & Visual Technician Events at the Wells School of Music are often supported by individual sponsors and organizations. Contributions to the Wells School of Music may be made out to: West Chester University Foundation 202 Carter Drive, West Chester, PA 19382
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