“Veni Sancte Spiritus,” the first section from my Vespers, showed up on The Early Music Show April 21st on BBC Radio 3. Lucie Skeaping profiled Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, and among Weelkes, Finck, and Susato, there I am, with Joan, Bob, and The Crossing. Thanks, BBC, thanks, Piffaro!
Saturday, May 5th, 2012, 5:00-6:00
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963). Five Pieces for String Orchestra, Op. 44, No. 4 (1927). Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Werner Andreas Albert. CPO 999783. 12:00
Hindemith. Trauermusik (1936). Dmitri Jakubovsky, viola, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Saulius Sondeckis. CBS/Sony 48372. 7:55
Hindemith. Symphony in E-flat (1940). BBC Symphony Orchestra, Yan Pascal Tortelier. Chandos 9060. 29:58
Once the darling of new music and his country’s rulers, Hindemith ran afoul of both groups, and lately it seemed as if nothing was going right.
This was new to him. He was one of the best-prepared composers of the 20th Century. He played violin so well, at 23 he was concertmaster of the Frankfurt Opera (he also married the conductor’s daughter). He founded a string quartet, moved to viola, and eventually learned to play every instrument he could find, modern or ancient. He started music festivals, wrote theory books, soloed and conducted internationally. Everything he wrote was immediately performed and published.
But he made some enemies along the way. He had long since rejected the 12-tone orthodoxy in new music’s rising tide, and its influential disciples were quite happy to ignore him.
The new German Reich liked his educational leanings (exemplified by Five Pieces for String Orchestra, written for intermediate players), but finally wearied of his dissonances and thinly veiled swipes at authority. His wife was partly Jewish, and he worked with too many Jews to suit their purposes. Goebbels had him placed on the Entartete (“degenerate” music) list.
In 1936 London he was trying to make the transition to a more international profile, as opportunities in Germany dried up. He was to perform his viola concerto Der Schwanendreher with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The folk-tune-filled Schwanendreher (the person who turns the roasting swan on the spit: always humorous, Hindemith identified with the swan) would be a springboard for his usefulness as both composer and soloist.
But two days before the concert, England’s King George V died, and all performances were cancelled. It was a national tragedy, but a personal blow to Hindemith, trying to patch together a career. A lesser artist might have moped, cursing his fates, but Hindemith was practical to the core. From 11 am to 5 pm he sat down in an office at the BBC and composed Trauermusik (“music of mourning”) for solo viola and strings. Sir Adrian Boult gathered the BBC string players into a studio the next day, and they performed it in a live broadcast with Hindemith as soloist, galvanizing a grieving country.
Trauermusik quotes from Schwanendreher, from Mathis der Maler (his operatic jab at national-socialist repression), and from a Lutheran chorale, usually translated into English as “When in the hour of utmost need.” This last melody made the British perk up, not because they knew it, but because it sounds very much like the beloved “Doxology,” or “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” Hindemith hadn’t a clue, but proved Seneca’s dictum, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Four years later, an almost unknown immigrant in the U.S., he would write his outstanding Symphony in E-flat, and his career re-blossomed, commissions and students flocking to him. Hindemith was nothing if not prepared.
On the first Saturday of the month Jack Moore and I host Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection on WRTI 90.1 FM in Philadelphia and on the all-classical webstream at wrti.org. We also broadcast encore presentations of the entire Discoveries series (now ten years and counting!) every Wednesday at 7:00 pm on WRTI HD-2. For a look at all the shows, click here.
Listen to Rutgers University’s excellent Kirkpatrick Choir in my setting of “Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn” from Vespers, conducted by Daniel Spratlan April 28th. The text and my translation are here, along with a video of a performance by the Virginia Chorale from two years ago. It’s interesting for me to compare two fine performances, by choirs of different sizes.
Dan is such a sensitive conductor and knows Vespers inside-out, having sung every performance of it with The Crossing from his customary spot over in second bass country. I’m grateful not only for his consideration of this hymn setting, but also for his further commitment to make the entire Vespers the subject of his doctoral dissertation.
Thomas Lloyd agrees and disagrees a bit with me in the Letters section of the Broad Street Review. We corresponded quite a bit on this, after my article (itself a response) on Bach, the St. John Passion, and the charge of anti-Semitism. Our emails drifted into the area of historical criticism of the authorship of John’s Gospel, but Dan Rottenberg’s editing spared BSR readers from our wisdom on that topic, for now.
Lloyd directs the Bucks County Choral Society, and choral and vocal studies at Haverford College. Bach is in good hands with Tom’s championing of his music, as I also have been!
This Sunday, Apr 29, 10–11 pm.
Steven Burke. Nervosa.
Dave Brubeck. Strange Meadow Lark.
Dave Brubeck. It’s a Raggy Waltz.
Philip Koplow. Variations on a Hymn Tune.
Patrick Beckman. Stomp.
Denman Maroney. I’m Yours.
Kile Smith. American Spirituals, Book 1.
Eric Whitacre. i thank you God for most this amazing day.
An encore broadcast of our 100th show. In addition to wonderful works evocative of my thoughts on the series, I set the bar lower and play my own music, only time I’ve done this.
Now is the Time, American contemporary music, Sundays at 10 pm. On WRTI-HD2 and on the classical stream at wrti.org, it’s all styles of concert music by living American composers. Here are the recording details and complete schedule, and because you really wanted to know, here’s the theme music and how it was written. Tell me what you think (if I can’t take it, I promise to write back), and ask me where to send CDs for broadcast consideration.
How hard could it be to write a unison choral piece? How about a piece for unrehearsed singers—not a choir— who get only one shot at it?
Well, that’s much of church music, the congregational singing part of it, anyway. I’ve written many hymns for just this situation, but with those you at least get multiple verses to figure things out. With service music, such as a Mass, you go though it once and, until a week later, that’s it.
The Association of Anglican Musicians commissioned me to write music for the Closing Eucharist of their National Conference in Philadelphia, June 17–22, 2012. I completed it about a month and a half ago, and after field-testing and tweaking, sent the unison congregation part to the printer yesterday for inclusion in the bulletin.
The Mass for Philadelphia will be sung during the Closing Eucharist, 3:30 pm Thursday, 21 Jun 2012, at St. Luke and The Epiphany, Philadelphia. Assisting in the congregational singing will be a massed children’s choir from churches in the greater Philadelphia area. The Mass is for unison congregation, organ, and optional cantor and descant.
Actually, the congregation for this premiere will be mostly musicians, of course, and will include many fine singers (or those like me, who are just bold singers), but we’re hoping for this to be the start of many more opportunities for its use by all sorts of churches, big and small. I’ll also be an exhibitor at the Conference, bringing along lots of my choral music, including full scores of this Mass.
My deepest thanks to Phillip and Heather Shade and the AAM.
Looking forward to this Sunday, 29 Apr, 4pm, for the Mendelssohn Club concert (in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Girlchoir) featuring Andrea Clearfield’s fascinating new work Tse Go La.
I’m moderating a panel discussion beforehand, 1:30 at fye, Broad & Chestnut, which will illuminate the work and its background. I know it will be illuminating because of the panelists, who, in addition to Andrea, are anthropologist Sienna Craig, Mendelssohn Club Artistic Director Alan Harler, The Venerable Losang Samten, and Tsering Jurme of The Tibetan Association of Philadelphia.
Also on the concert, the Fauré Requiem. Hope to see you there!
