8 minute read
About the Music
GRANT US PEACE
Today’s program begins with a prayer: Pēteris VASKS’ setting of the Pater noster, written in memory of his father, who’d been a Baptist pastor. The elder Vasks had often asked: ‘Son, when will you compose “The Lord’s Prayer”? One that the congregation could sing in faith – simple but convincing.’ Vasks kept postponing the idea, claiming he hadn’t matured enough; eventually his father died, and he finally set the Pater noster. ‘That’s why for me,’ he says, ‘the piece has a kind of duality – it is for my own father, and for our common Father.’ Musically, Vasks heeds the request for something a congregation could sing: the setting is short and scored in four parts, with unashamedly tonal harmonies.
Advertisement
Vasks brings a strong personal faith to his composing. ‘For me,’ he says, ‘music exists only if it has a spiritual content. . . . Whether it has a spiritual text or is instrumental music is irrelevant. Music must carry a message, with an ideal form, with spiritual concentration.’ An idealist, he doesn’t seek to communicate the awfulness of the world but its beauty. ‘I’m a bit different from Arvo Pärt,’ he continues, referring to his Estonian contemporary, ‘he’s already living in Paradise, and his music comes from there! There’s no emotion, no drama. My ideal is there, but I am living here, and my compositions deal with the contradiction between the ideal and reality.’
There’s excitement in the air as we reconnect with each other, our audiences, our fellow choristers and instrumentalists. As concert halls open once again, we can fill our lives with the restorative power of music. Our aim is to replace the lost income of the past two years by presenting live concerts. But box office income alone is not enough to sustain our company. We need your help to drive our efforts further. Please consider a tax-deductible gift to Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Your gift will help to sustain our company as we look to a bright music-filled future.
Scan the QR code, visit sydneyphilharmonia.com.au/donate or call (02) 8274 6200 to make your donation today.
LOPES My Life Flows On
The composer writes… My Life Flows On is a musical journey capturing the uncertainty of our times and an intimate expression of hope, as well as the intrinsically musical nature of life.
The text is a composite, interleaving the writing of disparate voices throughout history – 19th-century hymn writer Robert Lowry, England’s first Poet Laureate John Dryden and Heraclitus of Ephesus – with my own contribution, to explore the way meaning can coincide and deepen new understanding. In this way, I allow the music to emerge from the text in an intuitive way and am led in unexpected directions. Some key textual themes have inspired the music: the idea of ‘flow’ in life, points of creation, and the musical nature of life, from primal beginnings to the end of time as we know it.
The work begins with Lowry, describing the flow of life as a song. The text then develops the concept of creation in diverse forms, interleaving Dryden’s poetic use of music as a creative force in shaping the universe. From here, Lowry’s rhetorical question (‘How can I keep from singing?’) ushers in new sections examining the sound world of neonatal life and the role sound shapes our entire lives (using a nautilus shell simile). Sound resonates within us and we attune ourselves to it as in Heraclitus’ flow of life.
The second half draws on Baroque influences, featuring the final grand anthem of Dryden’s Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day from 1687 as it celebrates emerging from a time of uncertainty to a dance of joy. The musical effect is kaleidoscopic: sometimes modal, Baroque inspired, with parallel harmonies and a nod to orthodox church music and contemporary influences.
GREENBAUM The Night that the Museum Burned
The composer writes… The Night that the Museum Burned sets a new text by poet Ross Baglin, written specifically for this Sydney Philharmonia commission. It contrasts the removed opulence of a high-rise penthouse arts function simultaneously with the museum burning below at street level. The poem alludes to rioting on the streets, but doesn’t directly say whether the museum is a deliberate target or incidental collateral damage. The inference, however, is hard to escape: the preservation of culture and history can’t be taken for granted.
VASKS Dona nobis pacem
The first sacred work of Pēteris Vasks’ mature years, his setting of the Pater noster, fired something in him. When the request came for a new work from Latvia’s pre-eminent choral group (and there are plenty vying for that title in this song-rich country), Vasks again turned to sacred text to fulfill the commission for the Latvian Radio Choir. Dona nobis pacem. ‘Only three words – “Grant us peace”,’ says Vasks, ‘but do we even need more?’ It’s arguably one of the shortest, most concentrated prayers, and yet, ‘these words are so all encompassing.’
Where some of Vasks’ choral works have explored modernistic, experimental techniques, in his sacred music he returns to more traditional methods. ‘With simple, honest sounds, I want to express that which is simplest and most essential.’ And besides, all that experimentation was a process he had to go through as a younger man. Its time had passed.
The Dona nobis pacem emerges slowly from the simplest of sounds – absolute
CHRISTMAS CHOIR 2022
SING WITH US THIS CHRISTMAS!
Christmas is a time for singing and celebration, and we do it in style at Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. This year we’ll perform Handel’s Messiah in the newly refurbished Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. As a member of our Christmas Choir, you’ll be joined on stage by our auditioned choirs, guest soloists and a professional orchestra, led by conductor Brett Weymark. Make this Christmas unforgettable with your live performances in the Sydney Opera House!
Scan the QR code to register your interest
unison. Gradually the melody departs from its home tone of ‘A’, but only by a single step, and always returning to the safety of unison. Complexity and tension build to a climax which sees the voices drop out and the strings continue. When the voices rejoin, it is once again with a singular harmony. Vasks meditates here on ‘the absolute void of harmony in our lives, [and] our world.’ It’s his plea that the music serve to remind us of stability, something that the past few years have shown us to be a precious commodity indeed.
VASKS Missa
Music comes slowly to Pēteris Vasks. Far from a prolific composer, he works deliberately, taking pains with every separate sound that’s committed to the page. Which makes his Missa rather an outlier in his oeuvre. It began as an a cappella work in 2000; a year later he created a version for choir and organ, which he viewed as an improvement, but one which resulted in a new problem. ‘The distanced sound of the organ,’ explains Vasks, ‘and the open emotionalism of my music, and its “direct message” seemed almost at odds with one another.’ Vasks finally arrived at a place of personal peace with the work when he returned to his beloved strings for the accompaniment. ‘They sound so beautifully together… because both sing – the choir sings, the strings sing – so the effect is twofold.’ And happily, it is this third version from 2005 you enjoy today.
If you’re familiar with some of Vasks’ other works, you’ll recognise the string writing in the Missa – at times epic, almost filmic in quality (the Benedictus), elsewhere leaning in hard towards pain and plight (Gloria), and sometimes even playful (Sanctus).
Raised in a Protestant family with a Baptist minister father, Vasks was never exposed to the Latin language. When working with words, he says, ‘you’re no longer alone with your musical material. You live together with the text.’ What a delight then to find he was so strongly drawn to the Latin liturgy. ‘This text has such contrasts!’ Rolling the words around in his mouth, he says ‘First “Qui tollis peccata mundi”... and then – “Dona nobis pacem” ... in Latin it sounds so beautiful.’ Similarly, the music of language appeals to Vasks elsewhere in the liturgy: ‘On the [one] hand – “Kyrie eleison”. That is a moment of desperation, when no one else can help you. But then the “Christe eleison” which follows, breathes life into this faith.’ In essence, for Vasks the humanity of Christ is relatable, whereas the unyielding awe of the Lord is harder to approach, and he hears this contrast in the liturgical text.
Latvian culture is steeped in paganism, with a deep love and understanding of the natural world. Vasks often chooses evocative titles for his instrumental works –Landscapes of a burnt-out earth and Music for flying birds are just two examples. His vocal music is more a mix of the sacred and the profane. For Vasks, the true mission of music is: ‘to talk about eternal spiritual values that rise above the secular. Until my last breath I will remind others that a human being is more than just a creature ruled by passion to buy and sell.’ By composing a Mass, Vasks says, ‘it was necessary and important to convey [this message] in such a traditional form with sacred texts [with the] hope that it will ignite some light, some fire within in the listener.’ Program notes © 2022 by Yvonne Frindle (Pater noster), Genevieve Lang (Dona nobis pacem and Missa) and the composers.
