Festival Repertoire: Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna

The Lux Aeterna was commissioned by the Board of Governors of the Los Angeles Music Center, and received its premiere in April of 1997 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia, under their esteemed conductor, Paul Salamunovich.   The LAMC is an organization that has championed his work throughout the years, and Morten has said that the piece was composed with the sound of the group in his mind. It is dedicated to them.  In his preface to the Lux, Morten writes, “It is my hope that this quiet meditation on Light will enrich and enlighten the lives of both performers and listeners in some way.” As someone deeply affected by the power of this music, and given its popularity among performers and audiences alike, it’s safe to say that Morten’s humble mission was more than accomplished.  Morten has also said that the process of composing the Lux helped him to heal during his mother’s final illness.

The Lux sets several Latin liturgical texts selected by Morten to explore the nature of eternal light forming a kind of requiem, but one that doesn’t hew to the usual order of a requiem liturgy.  This personal selection of texts seems to me a kind of variation on Brahms’ eschewing the liturgical texts altogether for his Ein Deutches Requiem, and the similarities don’t end there.

Both pieces begin with an instrumental introduction, and the choir makes the first statement of the text a cappella, or without accompaniment.  In the Lux, this the choral entrance begins the Introitus from the Latin Requiem, in a first inversion chord (the lowest note of the chord is not the root, but, rather, a third above) with an added second.  This chord is what I’ve come to think of as the quintessential Lauridsen chord – several of his pieces include it as a kind of sonic signature.  The harmony is also breathtakingly beautiful.  After a bar of instrumental interlude, both pieces continue with a longer a cappella exposition.  After that section, Morten departs from the Brhamsian model by starting a canon that uses a theme that echoes the Gregorian chant that is one of Paul Salamunovich’s specialties (recall, he was the conductor of the work’s premiere and a dedicatee).  This music is developed , and then returns to the original theme, again a cappella, only with the addition of a solo cello line of striking beauty.  The text of the movement is a prayer for rest to be granted to the departed, and that light perpetual shine upon them.

The second movement begins attacca, or without a break from the first.  In this movement, Morten has said that he is exploring the shadows, and he extracts the text from the Te Deum, a Latin hymn of praise. At the center of this bit of text is the line, “A light has risen in the darkness for the upright.”  This movement is the piece’s most dark – there is gentle dissonance and text painting, as well as the use of a statement of cantus firmus (in a parallel to two of the Bach cantatas also sung at this year’s Festival):  the melody of Herzliebster Jesu, or “Ah, Holy Jesus, how has thou offended?”  This movement also includes echoes of the Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez, who used similar voice pairings in some of his repertoire. There’s also a canon in inversion towards the end – the women state the theme, and the men repeat it after them, only upside down. The movement concludes with the text:

In thee, O Lord, I have trusted; let me never be confounded.

The orchestra plays a plaintive epilogue that then flows into the next movement, an a cappella  motet, O Nata Lux de lumine, “O born light of light.” The music for this movement echoes Morten’s first commission for the LA Master Chorale, his stunningly beautiful O Magnum Mysterium, and the composer has said that he wanted to continue to develop the sound of the O Magnum, with this movement.  It begins again with the kind of chord that is his harmonic signature, though voiced slightly differently from the first movement.  He uses Renaissance compositional techniques including canon and very consonant harmony that create a kind of quiet intensity that seems paradoxically peaceful.  When we began rehearsing this movement Greg asked to imagine the embers of a dying fire – a soft glow of orangish red, but with great warmth and intensity.

After the center movement, the orchestra returns with an exuberant introduction to the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, a Latin hymn to the Holy Spirit.  In the center of the movement is the verse:

O Light most blessed, fill the inmost heart of all thy faithful.  

The movement is set in three (composers often do this to acknowledge the third member of the Holy Trinity), and is full of great joy and splendor.

The piece concludes with a combination of the Agnus Dei and the Lux Aeterna texts, introduced by an orchestral interlude of exceptional harmonic beauty.  It’s first played by the septet of wind instruments, and then is echoed by the strings at the movement’s conclusion.  To my ears, this is the refraction of sun on water made sound – the harmonies evolve in unexpected ways that seem simply to sparkle.  In another echo of the Brahms, material from the first movement is recapitulated and developed, with the Lux Aeterna text replacing the Requiem aeternum.  At the conclusion of that recapitulation, Morten adds an alleluia section of powerful joy, and a resting amen section that, in the words of one of my baritone colleagues, lingers like a beautiful perfume. To me, the ending recalls the luminosity of the sky a few minutes after the sun has set.

I have avoided writing, thus far, about how this piece might make listeners feel, because I can claim absolutely no objectivity about this music.  I find it breathtakingly, life-changingly beautiful.  In our conversation, Morten mentioned the influence of the setting of his summer home on his compositional voice, and I think the Lux demonstrates that influence readily.  The music is suffused with the light of the sun (rising, setting, mid-day), and the sea.  A couple years ago, we listened to this music as my wife and I drove down the Outer Banks of North Carolina – it was transfixing to hear this music as we encountered the sun and the sea (if you vacation near water, take a recording along and see exactly what I mean).  Greg Funfgeld is excited about the upcoming performances, in part, because we’ll be singing the Lux at about 8:30 pm (it’s second in a program that begins at 8 pm, after Cantata No. 119), just after the sun has set. The stained glass windows will be aglow and the atmosphere of the Packer Memorial Church will be radiant with visual and aural beauty.  The piece also carves out a sense of time and place for meditation and reflection.  I think the audience and performers have a wonderful mandate from Morten, who said:

As I tell audiences, every single time this piece is done,  if you can get to that deep, personal space, it’s almost like a meditation, where you can reflect on those things that are important to you, that bring light in your own life.

I also believe that this piece speaks a profundity that transcends the text alone, and illuminates the text in a way that engages the imagination of the listener.  One of the great blessings of making choral music is that there remains enough abstraction to allow the imagination of the listener to fill in several blanks in the aesthetic experience.  In Morten’s music, there is a beautiful canvas, but one that is also diaphanous – the text and the music are concrete, but the affect may differ between thoughtful listeners.  I find it irresistible – and agree with the poet Dana Gioia, who was the Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts when Morten was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2007 at the White House:  Morten’s music will be played and sung hundreds of years from now.  How very extraordinarily blessed we will be for the privilege of singing and hearing it in May.

Morten has written about the Lux Aeterna here, on his publisher’s website.

Festival Repertoire: Cantatas 71 and 119

Imagine the scene:  In one of the big, powdered-wig moments in Bach’s early career (he was just 22 years old at the first performance of Cantata No. 71), the ratswechsel, or town council, has assembled at the Marienkirche in Mühlhausen for their installation.  They doubtless expect to hear fanfares and paeans to their leadership in a composition that dances the line between civic homage and sacred praise. That the composer was so young might have tilted their expectations more toward the former, the musician undoubtedly wanting to offer his respect to the civic leaders of his new city.  Without introduction the choir intones the word “Gott” (God).  A fleeting fanfare begins.  The choir repeats “Gott, ” rising in pitch and intensity.  The members of the ratwechsel raise their chins.  More fanfare, and then the crux of Bach’s composition is offered by the choir, “Gott ist mein König,” (God is my King).  I wonder what went through their minds! This was a cheeky reminder to the town elders of Bach’s ultimate allegiance and one of many reminders of Bach’s, shall we say, healthy disrespect for authority.

In fact, Bach had always evinced, through passive-aggression, disobedience, florid complaint, and even a bit of a temper, a disdain for authority figures, especially if they stood in the way of what he perceived as his mission in life, which was to develop as a musician to the highest levels, all to God’s glory.  Indeed, one of his greatest compositions, The Musical Offering, is thought to be a direct rebuke to Frederick the Great’s espousal of the (at the very least) musical values of the Enlightenment.  It shouldn’t surprise us that young Bach was tweaking the authorities, because it’s a pattern that weaves throughout his entire life.  It’s also a personality characteristic that endears him greatly to those of us who toil to make music in the church.

It should also be said that Bach was able to, in many instances, use what had to have been considerable charm to assuage whatever roiled feelings he left in his path (though not always – his disregard for authorities once landed him even in jail!).  In fact, later in Cantata 71, he tips his hat to the outgoing mayor in an aria, and concludes the piece by asking God’s blessing on the new government. He certainly charms listeners with beautiful music.  In one of the most evocative movements, on the text of a verse of Psalm 74 “You would not give the enemy the soul of your turtledove,” he creates a sound picture of murmuring doves, with trilling flutes and oboes, as the choir sings the text in a rare homophonic setting.  Likewise there is one of his great early arias, a piece for bass soloist with the text, again, from Psalm 74 (16-17), “Day and night are yours.  You have arranged that both sun and stars have their assigned course.  You set for every land its boundaries.”  The bass sings “Tag und nacht ist dein,” in a wonderful descending melody. The first and last movements conclude in a kind of whimsical anti-climax, after the choir predicts, with God’s blessing, good fortune, well-being and great triumph, the orchestral epilogue consists of oboes, and then two flutes, playing a fanfare figure in a kind of anti-fanfare of reduced instrumentation, which Greg Funfgled has remarked reminds him of Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony.”   The entire piece is charming and shows the fires of creativity and experimentation that marked Bach’s early years.   This piece will open the Friday afternoon concerts on May 3 and 10th.

We return to the inauguration of a town council later in Bach’s career, this time in Leipzig, in August of 1723.  Bach is now 38 years old, and in a particularly fertile time of creativity, and Cantata No. 119 represents his growing maturity as a composer.  Gone are frequent gear shifts of tempo and mood within individual movements, and his music has a much more evolved sense of flow and his contrapuntal facilities are operating at a very, very high level. He has also, it should be said, figured out how to tow the line with the civic authorities – this cantata is much more artful in its dance between sacred and secular.  There’s even a bit of text in an alto aria that asserts and asks:

Authority is God’s gift, indeed the very likeness of God.  Whoever fails to measure its power must also forfeit all memory of good:  how would his word otherwise be fulfilled?

The cantata begins with a French overture with fanfares from the uncharacteristic four trumpets of the orchestra, ornately regal dotted rhythms, a kind of florid, slow moving dance.  Things pick up with the entrance of the choir on a text of praise that morphs into a dexterously moving dance in three, with heavily ornamented lines of counterpoint.

After a recitative, an evocative aria for tenor, continuo, and two oboes da cacia, or in our use, English horns, with their more rustic sound.  The lovely text:

Fortunate are you, people of linden groves, fortunate are you, your lot is good. How much of God’s blessing together with his favor filled to overflowing, can you find among your number.

A lovely aria for two flutes in unison, continuo, and alto follows a bass recitative.  This the aria extolling authority creating an aural picture of devoted obedience.

After a soprano recitative, there follows another choral dance, with more fanfare figures from the four trumpets, a prayer of praise and gratitude, and a request for God’s blessings on the new government.  This is one of Bach’s most infectiously cheerful choruses – I dare you not to smile or tap your foot!  Bach is at his most playful with this contrapuntally and rhythmically zippy chorus.

After a concluding recitative from the Alto, the piece ends with an earnest prayer of hope and a request for God’s protection and blessing.  The harmonization of this final chorale is a smidge more chromatic than usual, adding a sober conclusion to the festivities, once again remind as he did many years ago in Mühlhausen, that no matter the government in power, the promises of Jesus Christ, in whom he believed so fervently, were the ultimate source of authority and deliverance.  Cantata No. 119 will begin the Friday evening programs on May 3rd and 10th.  The shift in mood of the closing chorale will help prepare our ears for Morten Lauridsen’s euphorically beautiful Lux Aeterna, which will follow it in the program, and, about which I will be posting next!

Five Questions with Tom Goeman

Tom Goeman is The Choir’s fabulous Assistant Conductor, Accompanist, and Organist of the Bach Festival Orchestra.  His bio is very impressive:

Tom has served as accompanist for The Bach Choir as well as organist for The Bach Choir since 1987. He also works with Greg Funfgeld as Associate Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Bethlehem, PA. He has been a frequent soloist with the American Boychoir and has toured widely throughout the united States, Europe and Russia, including a performances in St. Petersburg, Vienna, Salzburg, Leipzig, Munich, Copenhagen and London. Also in demand as a recording artist, he is organist for Angel, Virgin Classics, Dorian, Warner Brother and Alfred and Harold Flammer Publishing companies. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio and on the BBC. He has also accompanied for such notable conductors as Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Andre Previn and Raphael Kubelik. Thomas Goeman holds degrees in church music and organ performance from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI and Westminster Choir College, Princeton NJ, and has studied accompanying with Martin Katz at The University of Michigan.

At the Festival, Tom will be the piano soloist for Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy (about which I’ll be writing more soon).  Tom was kind enough to answer a few questions for me via e-mail.  I was excited for our audience, long familiar with his arch musical abilities, to also know what a thoughtful and fantastic thinker he is.

1.  Your educational background includes the study of organ and church music at both Calvin College and Westminster Choir College.  When did you start studying piano and organ, and what were your formative years like as a student of music?

A: I really want to pay tribute to my parents who in my formative years gave me access to the best teachers. I began piano study at age 5.  My first important teacher was Elzada Milliken Bennet, who was a 1922 graduate of Oberlin College.  She always stressed that music should ‘sing’. It was thrilling for a young piano student like me, because she had two Steinway grand pianos next to each other in her studio. She would sit at one piano and be able herself to demonstrate musical ideas, while I would play for her my lesson repertoire at the other.  I then studied with Anthony Kooiker who was head of piano at Hope College in Holland, MI.  He was very animated and more theatrical in his approach.  In high school and then later at Calvin College I studied with Ruth Rus, who had been trained at Eastman.  She was a meticulous teacher. Very exacting and did so much for me learning about the mechanics of the piano as an instrument and how to maximize the expressive range.  Then, finally, I studied with both Charles Fisher and Martin Katz at the University of Michigan for a year of graduate study.  They both were so helpful in elevating my musicianship and helping me develope technically. I really only studied the organ formally for a year with my church organist when I was 11 — to learn how to play for my oldest sister’s wedding.  But then continued to play in church and be self-taught until I studied organ formally in a degree program in my junior year at Calvin College.

2.  In rehearsals, you’re often asked to play a specific vocal part, and, to my ear, those examples then become the platonic ideal of phrasing, articulation, and expression.  Musicians often seek a singing quality to their playing  - is that something you intentionally work toward, or do you conceive your interpretations through a different lens?

Trying to be vocal is at the heart of everything for me.  I love the human singing voice, and think breathing and line and phrasing and shape and stressing the text is so important. It think it probably has a lot to do with the fact that in my musical life I have mainly aspired to be a collaborative artist and have tried to develope a vocal empathy and intuition.

3.  You’ve been hard at work on the Beethoven Choral Fantasy for quite some time, and we’re all quite excited to hear your playing.  Beyond your mastery of the technical aspects of the music (which are legion), what are you seeking to convey in the performance? 

A lot of people have said to me that they think the Beethoven is a big, flashy piece, but I have tried maybe (I hope) to find some other qualities and subtleties, and  at least make the piano part as colorful as I can and see it in terms of its context in the orchestral fabric.  Technically, it has been a big stretch for me learning the Choral Fantasy.

4.  You’ve had a long and exceptionally distinguished tenure with the Bach Choir.  Are there any performances that stand out in your memory?

It is hard to pinpoint just one performance, but probably the one that was most emotional for me was the B Minor Mass at Thomaskirche in Leipzig — those are really defining moments.  But you know I have happy memories of playing an electric keyboard with no music stand in the freezing cold out on Main Street last Christmas with members of the choir singing. For me the cumulative experience of my work with Greg and The Choir is an indescribable blessing.

5.  In addition to your much-lauded performances around the world, you’re a seasoned traveler, musical connoisseur, and patron of the arts.  What experiences stand out in your memory as a member of the audience?

In recent years I have heard live two complete Wagner Ring cycles — one at the Royal Opera in London and the other, which was so very amazing, with the San Francisco Opera.  It was directed by Francesca Zambello, and the combination of her vision and the quality of singing, especially Nina Stemme as Brunnhilde and Mark Delavan as Wotan, not to mention the orchestral playing led by Donald Runnicles was truly superb. I think it’s fun to hear opera all around the world!

Many thanks to Tom for participating – you’ll be able to hear his work in the Beethoven at the Friday afternoon concerts at the Festival.  We heard a preview of the first section for piano solo, and his playing was somehow simultaneously epic and nuanced.  We’re all in for a big treat!

Festival Preview

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting much more frequently about the repertoire for the 106th Bethlehem Bach Festival.  There is much beautiful music, wonderful fellowship, and stunning artistry on tap for this year’s Festival, as we celebrate 30 years of Greg Funfgeld’s visionary artistic leadership.  The schedule for the Festival follows:

Fridays, May 3 & 10, 2013
2pm Distinguished Scholar Lecture – Dr. Michael Marissen
Black Box Theatre, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University

4pm Bach Cantatas & Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy
Packer Memorial Church, Lehigh University
Bach Cantata 71 – Gott ist mein König
Bach Cantata 180 – Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele
Beethoven – Choral Fantasy for chorus, orchestra, & piano solo, Op. 80

5:30pm Buffet Dinner with informal talk – Dr. Larry Lipkis
Asa Packer Room, Lehigh University Center

8pm Bach Cantatas & Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna
Packer Memorial Church
Cantata BWV 119, Preise Jerusalem, den Herrn
Morten Lauridsen, Lux Aeterna
Cantata BWV 1, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern

Saturdays, May 4 & 11, 2013
10:30am RIOULT Modern Dance Company with the Bach Festival Orchestra
Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center
RIOULT presents a passionate all-Bach program performed with the Bach Festival Orchestra: Celestial Tides to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6; City to the Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 6 in G Major; and Views of the Fleeting World to seven movements of Bach’s great Art of Fugue. Founded in 1994, RIOULT is based in New York City and tours nationally and internationally. It has fast become an established name in modern dance with a reputation for creating and presenting the sensual, articulate, and
exquisitely musical choreography of Pascal Rioult.

12:30pm Festival Picnic Lunch
An up-scale picnic lunch (Place TBD). Members of the Heritage Society and Guarantors in the top three giving circles ($750+) are our guests.

2:30pm The Mass in B Minor (Part 1) and 4:30pm (Part 2)
Packer Memorial Church
The Mass in B Minor has been the heart of the Festival since 1900. Bring a friend, family member or young student who has never before experienced the emotional power of Bach’s monumental masterpiece.

Friday 4pm concerts – Adults: $20-$28 Students: $10
Friday 8 pm concerts – Adults: $20-$28 Students: $10
Saturday 10:30 am – Adults: $27 Students: $10
Saturday Mass in B Minor – Adults: $40 – $57 Students: $20

I plan to post about the repertoire by writing about the Lauridsen and Beethoven separately, and then a few combined posts about Cantatas No. 180 and 1, and Cantatas No. 71 and 119, and will post updates during the week of orchestral rehearsals, next week.  Along the way, I’ll share an interview I had with Tom Goeman, our fantastic Assistant Director, Organist, and Accompanist, and you can read an interview I had with Morten Lauridsen, the composer of the Lux Aeterna, which is on the program for the Friday night concerts, that I’ve already posted.  It’s a banner year for The Choir, and we’re celebrating with an embarrassment of riches.  Stay tuned!

A Chat with Morten Lauridsen

I recently read Roger Ebert’s elegiac last review for the Chicago Sun Times.  It was a review of Terrance Malick’s To the Wonder, which I’m eager to see, but something Ebert said in the final paragraph really struck me:

There will be many who find “To the Wonder” elusive and too effervescent. They’ll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.

The bit about evoking rather than supplying strikes a chord for me about choral music – that, though concrete in concept and hopefully in performance, choral music has about it an abstraction that allows deep contemplation and stimulates the imagination.  I read the review as I was preparing to chat with Morten Lauridsen, the composer of the sublimely beautiful Lux Aeterna, which is part of the program for our 106th Bethlehem Bach Festival, and I don’t think I could find words to better describe Lauridsen’s work myself, though in his beautiful music, Morten both supplies and evokes. The review suggests a heretofore unknown artistic similarity, because I strongly believe that Morten’s music reaches deep, deep beneath the surface, and finds – and comforts – the soul in need. Both Malick and Lauridsen have made an important facet of their work the contemplation of light and how it can be expressed in their respective disciplines. Both succeed, to my thinking, beyond measure. Morten was kind enough to chat with me about his music and life in a wide-ranging interview, in which allusions to all kinds of wonderful art, poetry, and music were colorfully scattered throughout our conversation.

When I mentioned the deeply healing nature of the Lux Aeterna, Morten shared a bit about how his the piece has been received:

“There are lots of hospices, I’ve heard, that use the Lux Aeterna.  Of course, I wrote that piece to heal myself as my mother was dying.  I simply wanted to go to those texts that gave me great strength and comfort – timeless texts about enlightenment of all sorts: intellectual, and, of course, spiritual, artistic.  I wanted to write a very beautiful piece, a meditative piece, on those words, to transport people.”

He remarked that he has received volumes of mail from people all over the world who tell him of how his music, and the Lux, in particular,  helped them through times of hardship, and that writing the piece helped him through his own time of difficulty.  He shared a touching anecdote about how, when he lost his brother, KUSC, a Southern California classical station, called him and asked him to tune in, and then played the Lux for him, the composer. Likewise, as 9/11 unfolded, KUSC stopped their regular programming and played the Lux  as an antidote to the events in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.

Beyond the innumerable personal connections, the critical reception of his work has also been extremely favorable.  The first recording of the piece, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale received a Grammy nomination.  Lauridsen received the National Medal of Arts at the White House from President Bush in 2007.  He was a subject of a beautiful documentary by the filmmaker Michael Stillwater (which will be screened in Bethlehem on Monday, April 29th, at the Banko Cinemas at the ArtsQuest SteelStacks at 7:30 pm – more on that later in this article).  He is probably the most often performed American choral composer, and recordings of his music by choirs around the world have won rave reviews.

In reflecting on the Lux, Morten discussed the marriage of text and music:

“I chose those clear, kind of consonant chords from the High Renaissance, and to put the text in a certain period of time.  Then, I chose other features from that period, especially the music of Josquin (des Prez, a particularly accomplished Renaissance composer): the use of modality, intricate counterpoint, the word-painting, the use of non-harmonic tones, the use of a cantus firmus, the chant-like melodies, all of that kind of stuff to center it in that era.  But, then, to write a very direct piece, that would actually transport the listener, as well as the performer, into a certain, deep, personal space, so that they could reflect upon those words.  Also, as I tell audiences, every single time this piece is done,  if you can get to that deep, personal space, it’s almost like a meditation, where you can reflect on those things that are important to you, that bring light in your own life.  We think of loved ones, both living and departed.”

He recalled a performance in Houston in which the piece concluded, and there was considerable silence, as the audience didn’t want to break the spell.   This echoes The Choir’s own performance of the Lux in 2008 – there was considerable silence before a rapturous ovation ensued.  Of that moment in Houston, Morten added, “This is something that music can do, and we get to those places with all sorts of arts, and I am constantly refreshing my soul with great paintings, certainly with great literature. I read poetry every single time I have a class, I begin my class session with a poem.”

One of Morten’s particular gifts as a composer is his ability to select and set texts.  Because poetry is, in its very nature, a kind of abstraction, this is a challenge for composers, and one that he surmounts with particular skill. Indeed, he gave a succinct yet deep analysis of the arc of the poems about winter by the great poet, Robert Graves, for his Mid-Winter Songs that evinced an uncommon understanding of the poet’s biography and artistic intent.   I asked him to reflect on his entrée into the world of literature and poetry:

“I loved reading as a child very much, though my main interest, then, was in history.  Then, when I got into college, I took classes in contemporary British and American poetry, and I became very, very fascinated with that, and then took up the practice of simply reading it every day.  I have a vast library of poetry, and it’s something that my interest was piqued through my college studies, and I continued it.  So, what I’m doing, and have done with my life, my creative life, for decades is to combine those things: the sound of the human voice, the most personal of instruments, plus poetry.  If you look at the poetry I’ve set over the years, these are giants in the literary world.  One can learn so much from Rilke, and Neruda, for example, Lorca, Graves – all these great poets, and the great, timeless texts of the Latin liturgy. “

He spoke of the importance of conductors and musicians spending time digesting these texts, as well as studying the artists who wrote them, and the context in which they lived.  He also reflected on the time he spent studying them long before he set them to music, and discussed that process:

“I’m very interested, always, in making my music gracious for the singer, to construct lines that I think are well-crafted, that are beautiful.  I want to write music that, also, is impactful on the listener.  Now, some of my music is very, very abstract – the cycle on Lorca poems are completely atonal, but they have a tremendous effect on the audience because they’re so passionate and colorful, even though they’re quite dissonant.  But the music, there, is tailored to texts that are abstract themselves – about time and night.  It’s a very rewarding thing for me to find poems and poets that speak to me, in poetry that is very well-crafted, that has a message that can be turned into a universal message.  I think that’s one of the reasons that people connect to my music.  They can connect with the beauty of the written word.  I’m a very fortunate man, not only to have set a wide variety of texts over the years, and texts in many different languages, but to have this music (as a way) to appreciate it.”

He said that he’s received lots of mail from individuals moved by his setting of  a particular text, who have added the complete works of that particular poet to their library.  As he said this, I chuckled as I looked at my volume of the complete poems of Robert Graves, acquired to sate a fascination I’ve had with the poet since performing Morten’s deeply spirited and moving Mid-Winter Songs.  He reflected on the sources of his inspiration, making particular mention of this article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal about the inspiration for his setting of the O Magnum Mysterium he found in Francisco de Zurbaran’s Still Life With Lemons, Oranges and a Rose.

We then spoke a bit about Michael Stillwater’s stunning documentary about Morten and his music.  I was particularly interested in the relationship of place to his music.  Morten teaches at the University of Southern California, and splits his time between a residence in the Hollywood Hills, and a home on the remote Waldron Island, which is part of the San Juan Islands in Washington State.  Before I even saw pictures of this setting, I felt that his music was somehow suffused with a certain kind of beauty that seems to echo water and sunshine.  Seeing the place where he composed the Lux, brings that sense in to a much clearer contextual focus.  Screenings of the film have taken him to Wales, Denmark, London, Cambridge, Dallas, on the east coast, and he’s recently been invited to the Albuquerque Film Festival this summer.

“It’s a very beautiful film by Michael Stillwater, and it gives great insights into how I function as a person, and of great interest to people is this whole business about me being on a very remote island in my summertimes, and writing the O Magnum Mysterium and the Lux Aeterna, in a very rustic cabin on the beach, with no electricity or running water, on a $50 piano, basically by candlelight.  Of course, the serenity, and beauty, and quiet calmness, and stillness up there certainly has gotten into my music.  How could it not?  You can feel it in the Lux Aeterna:  this stillness, the quietness, the meditative quality, and I’m writing it in the quietness on a very remote island, with no other sounds than the natural sounds.  You can hear the lapping of the waves against the shore, the birds, the wind.  It’s a place that has allowed me to go very, very deeply , and I’m able to tap in to very deep emotions.”

When I asked if the solitude of that particular place helped to tap into those emotions, he agreed heartily.  We talked a little more about the healing qualities of the music, and Morten reflected on how individuals who have written to him use his music in their lives, including the late painter, Andrew Wyeth, who received the National Medal of Arts with Morten in 2007:

“I have people who say they play it every day, as part of their day.   There are people who do Tai-Chi to it.  I got the most wonderful letter from Andrew Wyeth about it. I gave him a copy of the CD and told him much I appreciated his work over the years, and then I got the most wonderful letter from him, saying it was one of the finest gifts he’d ever received, and that he painted to it.”

I mentioned my own deep admiration of Wyeth’s paintings, and noted the similarity of their work: the clarity of solitude, space, and light that seem to come to life in the paintings of Wyeth and the music of Lauridsen.

“When I talked to him, I said, I want to talk to you about islands, because I go to my island, and he goes to his up in Maine.  When he sent me a letter, he also sent me a beautiful signed print of a painting he did of a basket of blueberries that are picked in this beautiful field, and I said, that settles it, you have to come to Waldron Island and pick blueberries in August, and I wanted that to happen so much, but he died shortly after that.”

He concluded the conversation with characteristic Lauridsenian grace and kindness with gratitude and well-wishes for everyone associated with our upcoming performances. I am deeply grateful that he took the time to speak with me – it was such a treat to speak with one of my biggest musical heroes.  I will write more about the Lux Aeterna soon, but want to encourage everyone in the Bach Choir family to take advantage of the screening of Michael Stillwater’s beautiful documentary, Shining Night, on Monday, April 29th, at 7:30 pm at the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas at the ArtsQuest SteelStacks, in South Bethlehem.  The screening will be introduced by Dr. Larry Lipkis, Moravian College’s Composer in Residence, and friend of The Choir.  It’s a splendid introduction to Morten and his soul-stirring music, and will prepare listeners for our upcoming performances of the Lux at the 106th Bethlehem Bach Festival, on Friday evenings, May 3rd and 10th, at Packer Memorial Church.  Visit http://www.bach.org for more information and to order tickets.  

Bach at Noon Wrap-Up

We had very-full attendance for the last Bach at Noon of the season, and also our 60th.  We celebrated this milestone with extremely festive music, Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and the Easter cantata, No. 31.

Greg, Liz Field, and Robin Kani played a concerto with much panache and elan – but also the whimsy required by the composer.  The performance was as glorious as the lovely day outside – if you look carefully at the branches in the photo above, you can see the beginnings of buds – and it’s about time!  It gave great pleasure to hear Robin and Liz chasing one another with musical figurations that elicit a great sense of play and zest, and to hear Greg burn through the perpetuum mobile of the harpsichord part, including a fierce cadenza.  They were given outstanding instrumental support from their colleagues in the Bach Festival Orchestra.

There was some white-knuckle trumpeting, and all of the orchestra sounded fantastic on the sonata that begins the cantata.  The Choir broke in with the celestial laughter of the opening chorus, and it was an absolute joy to sing.  Kudos to my colleagues in the first soprano section – their part is in the stratosphere, and they sang with great poise and joy – it’s a bit of a musical tightrope walk.   Chris Nomura, Robert Pitello, and Rosa Lamoreaux all sounded in fine form on their solos, and the instrumental obbligatists all played marvelously.

Greg alluded to the Saturday morning Festival performances of the Rioult Dance Company, who will be joining the Bach Festival Orchestra for a wonderful, all-Bach program, including the Sixth Brandenburg.  You’ll not only be able to hear the piece, but you’ll be able to see it, as well!  Stay tuned to the blog in the coming weeks – there will be lots of information about the music and programs of our 106th Bethlehem Bach Festival.   You won’t want to miss it!

Bach at Noon, April 9th: The Laughter of Angels

Join us on Tuesday for the last Bach at noon of the 2012-2013 Season.  It promises to be a fabulous welcome to spring, and a wonderful way to cap your Easter observances.  We’ll be joined by soloists Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano, Robert Pitello, tenor, and Christòpheren Nomura, bass, as well as instrumental soloists Robin Kani, flute, and our concertmaster, Elizabeth Field.  There will be festive trumpets and timpani, as well as some of Bach’s most charming and ebullient instrumental music.

The program will begin with Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, which is a particularly lovely concerto for a trio of instruments:  harpsichord, flute, and violin, with accompaniment by strings.  Our conductor, Greg Funfgeld, will lead from the harpsichord.  It’s hard to avoid repetitions of the word charming to describe this piece.  There’s great whimsy, a wonderful sense of dialogue among the solo instruments, and an infectious joy to the entire enterprise.  Greg, Liz, and Robin have played this piece many times together, and I can hardly think of a more apt prelude to the cantata that will follow.  Listen for the sense of play that animates the performance – this is  music that gives great pleasure.

Following the concerto, the program will continue (and conclude) with some of Bach’s cheeriest Easter music.  Composed in 1715, while Bach was working in Weimar, this piece begins with a sonata for trumpets, reeds, and strings, a kind of fanfare that begins in unison, and then is developed contrapuntally.  After the sonata, the choir begins a series of melismas, in part, on the word lacht, or laugh.  These evocative runs sound like heavenly laughter, and the earth replies in kind.  Later in the work, during a lovely soprano aria, this sense of dialogue continues with an instrumental chorale (in this case, a solo oboe) laid over the aria.

With this concert, we will also reach an exciting milestone – this will be our 60th Bach at Noon!  How appropriate that we’ll celebrate with such festive music – and with a sense of festivity that will be a foretaste of the 106th Bethlehem Bach Festival, coming in early May.  It’s Greg’s 30th anniversary season, and much special music and celebration are on offer.  I’ll be writing lots about that in the coming week, including some special visitors to the blog.  Please stay tuned, and, as always, plan to arrive tomorrow soon after when the doors open at 11:30 am, to secure yourself a good seat!