BellevueChamberChorus@yahoo.com

December 2006: On Christmas Night

(Please hold applause until the end of each group of pieces.)

Verbum caro factum es..............................................................Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)

Psallite........................................................................................ Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)

Quem vidistis pastores...............................................................Richard Dering (d.1630)

The Shepherds’ Farewell  (from L’enfance du Christ )..................Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden  (from Sechs Sprüche )............Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Contenti n’andremo  (from Lauda per la Nativitá del Signore )...Ottorino Resphighi (1879-1936)

Ave Maria ...........................................................................................Franz Biebl (1906-2001)

soloists – Frank Trujillo, Larry Richardson, Marc Popkin-Paine

solo trio – Debra Defotis, Vanessa Bradford, Michael Grube

Kristine Anderson – organ

How Far Is It to Bethlehem trad. English carol...................................... arr. Stephen Paulus 

soloists – Shawna Shapiro, David Williams, Maria Bayer

flute – Louise Baldwin

little tree .....................................................................................Steve Heitzeg (b.1959)

Bethany Man – harpist

INTERMISSION

Tyrley Tyrlow.................................................................................Peter Warlock (1894-1930)

soloist – Larry Richardson    Bethany Man – harpist

Pastores a Belén trad. Puerto Rican carol............................... arr. Greg Smith

Lulajže, Jezuniu trad. Polish carol............................................. arr. Paul Brandvik 

Sing We Now of Christmas trad. French carol..........................arr. Fred Prentice

A Ceremony of Carols.................................................................Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Procession

Wolcum Yole!

There is No Rose

That Yongë Child

soloist – Melanie Grube

Balulalow

soloist - Laura Every

As Dew in Aprille

This Little Babe

Interlude

In Freezing Winter Night

 soloists – Maria Bayer, Marta Chaloupka, Mike Grube, Jeff Pierce

Spring Carol

soloists – Kris Bryan, Lynn Hinrichs

Deo Gracias

Recession

Bethany Man – harpist

Program Notes

Welcome to our program presenting the glorious sounds of Christmas through the ages.  We begin with three beautiful motets from the end of the Renaissance period, all by composers that were heavily influenced by the Italian style spreading through Europe at the time.  Both Hassler and Praetorius were leading German composers during the late 1500s and early 1600s.  In 1584, Hassler traveled to Venice where he became exposed to the Venetian polychoral style (in which two or more distinct choirs alternate back and forth).  His Verbum caro factum est  portrays this style as it exploits the contrast of high versus low voices.

Praetorius was one of the most prolific composers during this time, writing and editing over forty volumes containing more than 1,500 works.  Most of his works were based on protestant hymns, with many written in the Italian style which he learned while working at the Saxon court in Dresden.  With its mixture of vernacular Latin and German texts, the delightful Psallite is more in the style of a sacred madrigal or carol.

Dering was an English Catholic musician who spent several years in self-exile in Belgium in order to practice his faith.  It was there that he fell under the influence of the Italian practice, and composed the double-choir motet Quem vidistis pastores, which also features the contrast of treble and low voices. 

Our second group contains motets and cantata excerpts from the 19th and 20th centuries. The origin of Berlioz’ The Shepherd’s Farewell is a fascinating tale. Out of boredom at a friend’s party, the composer scribbled a short and simple andantino for the organ, and as a joke, signed the piece with the name of a fictitious composer from the 17^th century.  Shortly thereafter,  Berlioz added a text about the shepherds bidding adieu to the Holy Family fleeing into Egypt, and performed his little piece to rave reviews on a program he conducted in Paris, though he kept its true origins a secret, claiming he had found it in an old chest in Sainte Chappelle.

Berlioz later expanded on the theme to create a cantata, or “Sacred Trilogy”, which he called L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ).  It was performed for the first time in Paris on December 10, 1854 and achieved incredible success, one of the few times that his music was well received by the Parisian public and critics.  With typical acerbic wit, Berlioz wrote in his autobiography that the favorable response was due to the fact that “the subject naturally lent itself to gentle and simple music, and for that reason alone it was more in accordance with the taste and intelligence of the public.”

Though born into a Jewish family, Mendelssohn and his siblings were later baptized into the German Lutheran church, for which the composer eventually wrote many sacred choral works.  Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden, or Weinachten (Christmas) is one of the Sechs Sprüche, a cycle of six pieces which covers the main festivals of the liturgical year.  The cycle was commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm IV for the Berlin Cathedral. 

A devoted musical scholar and restorer of Italy’s baroque traditions, Resphighi is known primarily for his colorful orchestral tone poems like The Pines of Rome and The Fountains of Rome. His 1930 cantata Lauda per la Natività del Signore (Laud to the Nativity of the Lord) is the only sacred choral work he ever created.  The archaic Italian text, attributed to the medieval monk Jacopone da Todi, portrays a dialogue between shepherds, angels, and Mary in praise of the Christ Child.  Resphighi’s music evokes the flavor of early Baroque motets and madrigals, as in the chorus Contenti n’andremo, where the shepherds reluctantly depart from the manger.   

Franz Biebl played an influential role in choral music in Germany and Austria in the 20^th century as professor in choral music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, as organist/choirmaster in churches and choir schools around Munich, and as founding director of the chorus of Bavarian State Radio from 1959 until his retirement at age 65.  As a composer, Biebl is chiefly known in America through his wonderful Ave Maria, written in 1964, but made hugely popular by a recording by the group Chanticleer some 30 years later.  Composed originally for an amateur male chorus of firemen for a choral competition, then later arranged for various vocal combinations, it exhibits Biebl's characteristic tenderness, simplicity of form, and sumptuous harmonies.

Next we offer two delightful views of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a child. The lovely arrangement of the traditional English carol How Far Is it to Bethlehem imagines a visit to the manger to visit the Christ-child.  The charming little tree then presents a heartfelt monologue of a child to his/her Christmas tree, with a whimsical text by e.e. cummings.  Both pieces were commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers from prominent Minnesota composers.

After intermission comes a group of carols of international provenance, either newly-composed in the 20^th century or contemporary arrangements of traditional carols.  Eccentric English composer Peter Warlock composed many wonderful vocal and choral works, including the lively Tyrley Tyrlow, which sets an old English text to a lilting rhythm that always seems somewhat off-kilter.  Pastores a Belén is a traditional Puerto Rican carol about the shepherds visiting the baby Jesus.  From Poland comes the sweet Lulajže, Jezuniu, a tender lullaby.  Sing We Now of Christmas is a setting of a popular carol from France, known in its native tongue as Noël nouvelet. 

After a self-imposed exile of three years in America to protest WWII, Benjamin Britten boarded a cargo vessel in March 1942 for a perilous five-week crossing of the North Atlantic to return to Britain.  During the voyage the boat berthed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Britten came across a book of medieval and Elizabethan poems.  Some of these he set during the voyage as A Ceremony of Carols, a work that ever since has been one of the most popular and oft-performed pieces of the Christmas repertoire.

Written for three treble voices and harp (and later rearranged for the mixed chorus version performed on this program), Britten created sonorities that were quite unprecedented for its time.  Alternating between lively, dance-like choruses, plaintive solo movements, and tender choral ballads, the work is framed by ancient plainsong (the Hodie chant is proper to Vespers on Christmas Eve), which also returns in the haunting harp Interlude at the work’s mid-point. This sublime movement lays out the chant tune in the uppermost voice, with an impressionistic accompaniment that is worlds away from its ancient roots, but apt and poignant in context.

While much of the piece is chordal in texture, Britten cleverly uses canonic counterpoint (a texture involving the rhythmic displacement of the same melody in different voices) to recreate the raindrop effect of “dew in Aprille”, to reinforce the intensity of contrasts of the "freezing winter night", and to depict the Holy War between the newborn Babe and the powers of evil in This little Babe. In the latter, as the rhythms of the accompaniment build relentlessly, the war grows as the chorus splits first into a two-part canon, then into three to create a vivid picture of chaos of apocalyptic proportions

In this 30^th anniversary year of Britten’s death, the Chorus is proud to present this beloved 20^th-century masterpiece for your holiday inspiration.