BellevueChamberChorus@yahoo.com

June 2007: Hail Britannia!

Bellevue Chamber Chorus
Sing Joyfully … William Byrd (1543–1623)

The Blue Bird … Charles Stanford (1852–1924)
Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One … Healey Willan (1880–1968)
I Beheld Her, Beautiful as a Dove

The Moon Is Distant from the Sea … David Childs (b.1969)
Keith Ruby – pianist

Down By the Fair River … traditional Nova Scotian, arr. Alexander Tilley (b.1944)
Loch Lomond … traditional Scottish, arr. Jonathan Quick

Yakima Chamber Singers
Pastime with Good Company … Henry VIII (1491–1547)
O, Lord, Increase My Faith … Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625)
Remember Not, Lord, Our Offences … Henry Purcell (1659–1695)

And I Love Her … John Lennon, Paul McCartney, arr. Bob Chilcott
Blackbird … Lennon, McCartney, arr. Daryl Runswick
Can't Buy Me Love … Lennon, McCartney, arr. Keith Abbs

INTERMISSION

Combined Choirs
Mass in G Minor … Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958)
Kyrie (soloists: Laura Donnelly, Sonja Handeland, Mike Grube, Gene Buchholz)
Gloria (soloists: Maria Bayer, Pam Younghans, Lee Huffman, Gordon Buck)
Credo (soloists: Debra Nielsen, Vanessa Bradford, Jeff Pierce, Frank Trujillo)
Sanctus / Osanna / Benedictus / Osanna
(soloists: Kristine Bryan, Marta Chaloupka, Larry Richardson, Dennis Defotis)
Agnus Dei (soloists: Debra Defotis, Melanie Grube, Marc Popkin-Paine, Frank Trujillo)

Program Notes

It was said that the sun never set on the far-flung lands of the former British Empire. The same could legitimately be said of the wide-spread influence of the English choral tradition. With our special guests the Yakima Chamber Singers, we explore in this program a bit of the long and glorious choral legacy of Britain and some of the countries shaped by English rule.
William Byrd’s lively six-voiced anthem Sing Joyfully is one of the best known English-language works by this great master of the Renaissance. Written while he was serving Queen Elizabeth I in the Chapel Royal as a singer, composer, and organist, it is a fine example of the music he provided for the Anglican Church. Himself a devout Roman Catholic, Byrd also composed many Latin liturgical works for the private use of his fellow Catholics.
Born and raised in Dublin and educated at Cambridge, Charles Stanford played a seminal role as composer, conductor, and teacher in the later renaissance of English music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His greatest contribution may have been as professor of composition at the Royal College of Music and at Cambridge, where for some forty years he taught such notable students as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, and many others. His setting of Mary Coleridge's (1861-1907) verse The Blue Bird is a classic of English secular song – a glorious miniature of color and atmosphere,  and a perfect fusion of words and music.

The lake lay blue below the hill,
O’er it as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.
The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ‘ere the bird had passed,
It caught its image as it flew.

Pianist, organist, choir-master, and composer Healey Willan was one of the leading figures in 20th -century Canadian music. Born and educated in London (and another student of Stanford, among others), he moved to Toronto in 1913 to teach at the Conservatory of Music and later at the University, and also has held posts at various Anglican churches. Fluent in various compositional genres, his sacred choral music (as well as his influence as a conductor of the same) remains arguably his most important musical contribution. His three Motets to Our Lady (1928), which include Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One and I Beheld Her, Beautiful as a Dove, both with texts from the Song of Solomon, are deservedly his most popular choral works. Like much of Willan’s sacred music, they display a gentle, mystical mood, and reflect his deep interest in plainsong and polyphonic music with their modality, fluid vocal lines, and rhythmic freedom.

New Zealand born and educated, David Childs also has graduate degrees in composition and conducting from Florida State and Louisiana State Universities, and now teaches at Vanderbilt University. His lovely setting of Emily Dickinson’s reflective The Moon Is Distant from the Sea was
written in 2003.

The moon is distant from the sea –
And yet, with amber hands –
She leads him – docile as a boy –
Along appointed sands –
He never misses a degree –
Obedient to her eye
He comes just so far – toward the town –
Just so far – goes away –
Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand –
And mine – the distant sea –
Obedient to the least command
Thine eye impose on me –

Alexander Tilley has lived and worked as an educator, composer, and conductor in the Halifax, Nova Scotia, area for many years. His compositions range from instrumental works to film scores to over two dozen choral pieces, including this haunting arrangement of the Nova Scotian folk song Down by the Fair River.

Jonathan Quick sings, conducts, and composes in the Vancouver, B.C., area. His popular arrangement of the well-known Scottish folk-song Loch Lomond was written for the vocal group musica intima, of which he is a member. The text is most likely a tale about two of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s men, captured and left behind in Carlisle after the failed uprising of 1745. One is to be executed, while the other is set free. According to Celtic tradition, the condemned man’s spirit would return to his homeland via the “low road”; it would reach Scotland before his comrade reaches home, but he would never meet his true love again.

While Henry VIII usually is associated with many wives and an upset pope, he also enjoyed music and was known to have composed a few pieces. Catherine Bennett's arrangement of Pastime With Good Company reflects Henry's enjoyment of life and is a party song. One can easily imagine him partaking in the music making.

Orlando Gibbons is one of England's premier late Renaissance composers following the generation of William Byrd. His motet O Lord, Increase My Faith was composed for the Church of England and thus is in English, not Latin. Gibbons was a chorister at King's College, Cambridge, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and organist at Westminster Abbey.

Remember Not, Lord, Our Offences by Henry Purcell comes from the mid-baroque tradition of England and contains wonderful examples of Purcell's unique harmonic colors. Purcell was also a chorister at the Chapel Royal and later became well-known as an organist and composer. In addition to the wealth of church music he composed, his theater music was also in high demand, most notably the only genuine opera he composed, Dido and Aeneas.

It may be unusual for the names of John Lennon and Paul McCartney to appear on the same program as Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell, but it is doubtful that there are any more familiar names in English music history than theirs. As part of the Beatles, they invaded the popular music world of the 1960's with such energy that their influence can still be felt throughout the pop music performance arena. Another English singing group, the King's Singers, commissioned a series of arrangements of Beatles’ songs from which comes the three well-known tunes on this program.

No composer looms larger in English music of the first half of the twentieth century than Ralph Vaughan Williams. Like his fellow students of Stanford, Vaughan Williams was searching for – and successfully added to – a musical tradition that was unequivocally English, for which he found much of his inspiration in early English hymnody, folksongs, and the polyphony of William Byrd and other 16th century composers. In addition to his splendid compositions, his place of honor is attested to by the location of his tomb near those of Purcell and Stanford in Westminster Abbey.

Though he considered himself a benign atheist, Vaughan Williams wrote some of the greatest church music of his time, including his majestic Mass in G minor for a cappella double chorus and soloists. Composed in 1921, the Mass is dedicated to the composer's good friend and colleague Gustav Holst, and to the Whitsuntide Singers that Holst directed; it was given its concert premiere by the City of Birmingham Choir in December, 1922. The first liturgical performance took place at Westminster Cathedral (the main Roman Catholic church in London) in March, 1923, conducted by Sir Richard R. Terry, who also had led the Cathedral’s magnificent choir in reviving works of Taverner, Tye, Tallis, and Byrd. The Mass was later sung at Holst’s funeral in Chichester Cathedral.

A work of immense power and significance, especially for a nation that had just come through the horrors of World War I, the Mass brilliantly captures the old liturgical spirit and atmosphere. Its soaring melodies, contrapuntal richness, and masterful use of antiphonal interplay between the choirs and the
soloists make it a fitting tribute to the Tudor giants that Vaughan Williams so admired.

Kyrie
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Gloria
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to those of good will.
We praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we glorify you;
we give thanks to you for your great glory,
Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty.
Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of the Father,
Lord God, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
have mercy upon us, receive our prayer.
You who sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us.
For you only are holy, you only are the Lord, you only are the most high,
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Credo
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, light from light, true God from true God.
Begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who for us and our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made human.
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again glory to judge the living and dead; his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified,
and who spoke through the prophets.
And I believe in one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church,
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Sanctus
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.\

Benedictus
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

Agnus Dei
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.