Reno, erat Rudolphus

A quick one, before the Christmas season ends.  Listen carefully....

(Hint:  "Reno" means "reindeer.")

"Seattle’s Compline Tradition"

A nice article about St. Marks' Sunday Compline at The Living Church:

Joel Connelly writes for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website:

The pews at St. Mark’s Cathedral fill as 9:30 approaches on a Sunday night, and soon young people are lying on the floors of the cavernous “Holy Box” high atop Capitol Hill.

They are coming, and have been for half-a-century, to hear the chanting of an ancient monastic “office” and fulfill the desire of people to experience the sacred and divine. The crowd is, as always, predominantly young.

“Compline is proof that we are spiritual in this region,” said Austin Rickel, a 17-year-old Center School student who recently completed a video on the service.

Read the rest. The Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel, Bishop of Olympia and father of Austin, writes briefly about the service on his weblog.

Song for Athene (Tavener)

Sung here by the Westminster Abbey Choir.



From Wikipedia:

"Song for Athene", which has a performance time of about four minutes,^[4] is an elegy consisting of the Hebrewword alleluia ("let us praise the LORD") sung monophonically six times as an introduction to texts excerpted and modified from the funeral service of the Eastern Orthodox Church and from Shakespeare's Hamlet (probably 1599–1601).^[4] The lyrics were written by Mother Thekla (18 July 1918 – 7 August 2011), an Orthodox nun who co-founded the Orthodox Monastery of the Assumption near Whitby, North Yorkshire, and whom Tavener called his "spiritual mother". Tavener had come away from the funeral of Athene Hariades with the music of Song for Athene fully formed in his mind. He called Mother Thekla the same day, and said to her: "I want words." She sent him the lyrics by post, which arrived the next day.^[6]

The music reaches a climax after the sixth intonation of alleluia with the lines "Weeping at the grave creates the song: Alleluia. Come, enjoy rewards and crowns I have prepared for you." Alleluia is then sung a seventh time as a coda. Following the example of traditional Byzantine music, a continuous ison^[7] or drone underlies the work.^[4]

Lyrics	Original texts	Source
Alleluia. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.	Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. – Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!	Hamlet, Act V Scene ii,[8]c. f. In paradisum
Alleluia. Remember me, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.	O thou who reignest over life and death, in the courts of thy Saints grant rest unto him [her] whom thou hast removed from temporal things. And remember me also, when thou comest into thy kingdom.	Orthodox funeral service,[9]Luke 23:42
Alleluia. Give rest, O Lord, to your handmaid, who has fallen asleep.	Where the choirs of the Saints, O Lord, and of the Just, shine like the stars of heaven, give rest to thy servant who hath fallen asleep, regarding not all his [her] transgressions.	Orthodox funeral service
Alleluia. The Choir of Saints have found the well-spring of life and door of Paradise.	The Choir of the Saints have found the Fountain of Lifeand the Door of Paradise. May I also find the right way, through repentance. I am a lost sheep. Call me, O Saviour, and save me.	Orthodox funeral service
Alleluia. Life: a shadow and a dream.	Guildenstern: Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Hamlet: A dream itself is but a shadow.	Hamlet, Act II scene ii
Alleluia. Weeping at the grave creates the song: Alleluia. Come, enjoy rewards and crowns I have prepared for you.	Thou only art immortal, who hast created and fashioned man. For out of the earth were we mortals made, and unto the earth shall we return again, as thou didst command when thou madest me, saying unto me: For earth thou art, and unto the earth shalt thou return. Whither, also, all we mortals wend our way, making of our funeral dirge the song: Alleluia.... Ye who have trod the narrow way most sad; all ye who, in life, have taken upon you the Cross as a yoke, and have followed Me through faith, draw near: Enjoy ye the honours and the crowns which I have prepared for you.	Orthodox funeral service
Alleluia.

From the YouTube page:

"Song for Athene is another elegiac tribute, not, as one might suppose, to the mythological goddess Athene, but to a young family friend, Athene Hariades, half Greek, a talented actress who was tragically killed in a cycling accident. "Her beauty," write Tavener, "both outward and inner, was reflected in her love of acting, poetry, music and of the Orthodox Church." Tavener had heard Athene reading Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey and, rather as in the case of the Little Requiem, conceived the piece after her funeral, lighting on the effective ideas, so touchingly realized, of combining words from the Orthodox liturgy with lines from Hamlet. Between each is a monodic "Alleluia", and, following the example of traditional Byzantine music, the whole piece unfolds over a continuous "ison" or drone.

Song for Athene perfectly exemplifies that inner serenity, purity and radiance which gives Tavener's music its consolatory attraction in troubled times. " Richard Steinitz

John Tavener (1944-2013)

I've loved John Tavener's music ever since the first time I heard one of his pieces.  This was Funeral Ikos, sung at a commemoration for 9/11.  Here it's sung by the Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge; the words are taken from the Orthodox liturgy for "The Order for the Burial of the Dead (Priests)" - and they are stunningly beautiful.

Funeral Ikos (1981)

Why these bitter words of the dying,
O brethren, which they utter
as they go hence?

I am parted from my brethren.
All my friends do I abandon,
and go hence.

But whither I go, that understand I not,
neither what shall become of me yonder;
only God who hath summoned me knoweth.

But make commemoration of me with the song:
Alleluia.

But whither now go the souls?
How dwell they now together there?
This mystery have I desired to learn,
but none can impart aright.

Do they call to mind their own people,
as we do them?
Or have they forgotten all those
who mourn them and make the song:
Alleluia.

We go forth on the path eternal,
and as condemned, with downcast faces,
present ouselves before the only God eternal.
Where then is comeliness?
Where then is wealth?
Where then is the glory of this world?
There shall none of these things aid us,
but only to say oft the psalm:
Alleluia.

If thou hast shown mercy
unto man, o man,
that same mercy
shall be shown thee there;
and if on an orphan
thou hast shown compassion,
that same shall there
deliver thee from want.
If in this life
the naked thou hast clothed,
the same shall give thee
shelter there,
and sing the psalm:
Alleluia.

Youth and the beauty of the body
fade at the hour of death,
and the tongue then burneth fiercely,
and the parched throat is inflamed.

The beauty of the eyes is quenched then,
the comeliness of the face all altered,
the shapeliness of the neck destroyed;
And the other parts have become numb,
nor often say:
Alleluia.

With ecstasy are we inflamed
if we but hear
that there is light eternal yonder;
That there is Paradise, wherein
every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth.
Let us all, also, enter into Christ,
that all we may cry aloud thus unto God:
Alleluia. 

Later, I heard As One Who Has Slept, and suggested using it to our choirmaster; to my delight, we sang it one year for Easter.  Again, this is a liturgical text, from the Liturgy for Great and Holy Saturday:

"As one who has slept the Lord has risen
And rising he has saved us. Alleluia."

Again, just remarkably beautiful; the man was really a genius.  The piece is sung here by the Westminster Cathedral Choir.




Here's an excerpt from a piece from today in the Guardian.

Tavener's is an essentially spiritual music, but in a much more intellectually fearless way than his detractors think. He wanted his music to tap into a region beyond conventional understanding – "I wanted to produce music that was the sound of God. That's what I have always tried to do" – but increasingly, his music offered doubt and darkness in its evocation of that unknowable vastness instead of a comforting musical palliative.

In 2007, Tavener suffered a heart attack in Switzerland that almost killed him. When he recovered, he was living in a new world of constant pain and shortness of breath. He found himself responding instinctively to music of terse difficulty that had previously not attracted him – late Beethoven, Karlheinz Stockhausen – and rediscovering the music that had inspired him to become a composer as a child, Stravinsky and Mozart.

When I last saw him, Tavener spoke of his recent music, such as his version of Tolstoy's nihilistic The Death of Ivan Ilyich, which was premiered at this year's Manchester Festival, as epiphanies of pain transfigured into music.

"Suffering is a kind of ecstasy, in a way. Having pain all the time makes me terribly, terribly grateful for every moment I've got," he said. But Tavener seemed to find a joy in that difficult truth.

At its best, Tavener's music is a cathartic confrontation with the biggest of all life's questions. Yet, like the man who wrote it, the music invites you into its world with charm, gentleness, humility, and a twinkle in the eye.

"Song of the Angel" is not liturgical, but is beautiful:



Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.

The Staple Singers - Sit down servant

"Happy World Organ Day"

Today at the Chant Café:

Today, hundreds of concerts will take place around the world to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the founding of the Paris Cathedral. This one in Boston is among them.

Anonymous 4 News: "Secret Voices" CD Released

Anonymous 4 News

From their latest newsletter:

NEW RELEASE! Secret Voices: Chant & Polyphony from The Las Huelgas Codex, c. 1300

Anonymous 4's newest program is a return to the heart of their favorite century, and to a repertoire that proved to one and all that medieval women could, and did, sing the most complex polyphony in the Gothic era.

This varied repertoire of 13th-century polyphony and sacred Latin song was collected for a convent of noble and aristocratic women, who were clearly used to having their own way. In spite of a rule forbidding the singing of polyphony by the women of their order, these sophisticated ladies sang the most beautiful, advanced and demanding music from all over Europe in the 13th century.

There are elegant French motets here, like the Benedicamus domino setting Claustrum pudicicie/Virgo viget/FLOS FILIUS, the original text of which describes pastoral love in the springtime; and the hybrid 4-voice conductus-motet O Maria virgo/O Maria maris stella/[IN VERITATE]. There are virtuoso conductus, like Ave maris stella and Mater patris et filia, with unpredictable rhythms and lively hockets. A playful Benedicamus domino à 3 is written in rondellus fashion -- like a catch or round -- typical of 13th-century British polyphony. There are also heartfelt laments, like the monophonic song O monialis conscio, a planctus written on the death of a beloved member of the sisterhood; and elegant duos with intertwining lines, like the sequences Verbum bonum et suave and In virgulto gracie.

We also get a glimpse into the musical dedication of the convent in a unique "solfeggio" exercise, Fa Fa Mi / Ut Re Mi, for the sister's music lessons, where they practiced singing their hexachords under the watchful ear of the music mistress.

The repertoire of the Codex Las Huelgas manuscript provides the proof that Anonymous 4, far from singing "men's music," are following in the footsteps of their much-older sisters who had no difficulty (except from their male monastic superiors) in finding and performing the most virtuosic, avant-garde polyphonic music of their time. It's time now for Anonymous 4 to bring them to life again.

***

Visit the Secret Voices discography page to hear track samples, read the program notes and reviews, and purchase on Amazon.com

We'll be touring with the Secret Voices cd program, and with a version featuring master instrumentalists Shira Kammen and Peter Maund. The music from Secret Voices is also included in our program Sisters in Spirit. Check our concert listings to find a performance near you.

Studio Access: New York Polyphony Gregorian Chant Remix Opportunity - Indaba Music

Studio Access: New York Polyphony Gregorian Chant Remix Opportunity - Indaba Music

It's an interesting idea; check it out, and send them something!

New York Polyphony Gregorian Chant Remix Opportunity

Enter the 3 Opportunities Below to Win $1,500 in Cash and a Release on Sony's Ariama Online Classical Music Store!

Gregorian chant lies at the very heart of Western music. It's a thread that runs unbroken through nearly two thousand years of musical expression and its presence can be felt not only in countless creative works, but also in our modern concepts of harmony, melody and form. The influence of plainchant is so complete, it’s as if we know these melodies—consciously or not—at the genetic level.

For centuries, Gregorian chant has been subjected to every compositional technique, treatment and device imaginable—remixed long before anyone even thought to call it that. But now, with the tools available to musicians in the 21st century, it’s time for the next generation of reinvention. Now it's your turn.

Acclaimed classical vocal quartet New York Polyphony and Indaba are giving you the opportunity to put your own unique spin on Gregorian chant. They are providing the stem sets to three different plainchants: "Victimae paschali laudes”, “Gaudeamus in omnes Domino”, and “Beati mundo corde”. Each chant is featured in its own contest, allowing you to remix your favorite.

Submit your music and breathe new life into these ancient melodies.

YouTube - F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy - (4/4) Symphony No. 5 in D minor "Reformation" - IV. Andante - Allegro

YouTube - F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy - (4/4) Symphony No. 5 in D minor "Reformation" - IV. Andante - Allegro



HT Dan.