Day 25: April 11 - Netflix and Vigil
Since we’re stuck inside on this Holy Saturday, some tunes sacred and profane for a personal vigil or just for some nice listening. Whatever floats your boat. Today’s music focuses on light and worship.
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Vespers: 4. Svete tikhyi (O Joyous Light)
Rachmaninoff wrote these resplendent works in a very short span at the beginning of 1915 and wound up becoming his favorite work, along with Op. 35, The Bells (a proper banger). Rachy even had the fifth vesper sung at his funeral. For many years, Rach had been studying traditional Russian chanting which he wove into these works. The fourth, O Joyous Light, and the fifth are both ‘Kyiv chants,’ which are shorter, have more pronounced distinction between recitative and melismatic textures, and repeat certain parts of the text, which is entirely unique among Russian chanting traditions. The text comes from Psalm 140 and praises the light which comes at the end of evening and of Christ, to whom the metaphor is extended. The work is scored for four-part choir with basso profondo, who starts us off with an incipit. The women then descend on words of thanks until the men slowly enter, building up from the basso profondo. A tenor solo leads us into the first of two luscious and earthshattering climaxes. This service begins in darkness and, during this work, candles are slowly lit, filling the church with radiance. Imagine yourself in 1915, two years before the Revolution, in a Russian cathedral after a Russian winter, deep in prayer and darkness, and the accumulation of this profound mass of sound and faint light. Imagine the physical pressure a large choir creates when they sing full throatedly. It’s no wonder that this is so treasured. It’s literally awe-inspiring. Performed here by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Paul Hillier.
Dr. Seuss - Let Us Sing
This is a very silly long (Larry). But it does describe the joy that comes with congregational singing and is just a DELIGHT! (also has the phrase ‘gusty, lusty notes,’ which is just pure fun). Tres cute!
Patrick Burgan - Soleils: II. Soleils
Soleils means light in French and Patrick Burgan wrings luminous harmony out of this women’s chorus. That sound at the beginning, a widely-spaced Viennese trichord, wreaks of a fragile suspension, an colloid of harmony. The rest of the track never lingers, but drives us forward with quick recitations, spoken interjections, Scottish snaps, and unfolding multiplicities of sound within the texture, like the rainbow hidden with light itself. A gem. Performed here by Mikrokosmos under Loic Pierre.
Morten Lauridsen - O Come, Let Us Sing Unto The Lord
More(ten) Lauridsen. I’ve loved this album for a while, which is why it keeps popping back up (same with Prince). Lauridsen’s ability to balance accessibility and fresh harmonic and rhythmic materials is evident here. An easy piece for choirs to put together, it’s also a satisfying work which doesn’t dull after repeated listens (much contemporary choral repertoire dulls within the first notes). This performance in particular is very lively and never drags. Performed here by the Minnesota Choral Artists, with Lauridsen at the piano again.
Greek Orthodox Hymn - Hymn of the Holy Saturday Morning
I have no idea about this. I found it while researching and was fascinated by the sound. I can’t find much information either, which is frustrating. Just a chant over a basso profondo ground, but the accidental heterophony arising between the singers is fascinating and rich and re connects us to singing as a communal activity which is felt as much as coordinated. I wish I knew what the text meant, other than that it as meant for Holy Saturday mornings, and who performed it.
Carlo Gesualdo - Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday: O Vos Omnes
Keeping up my love of Gesualdo, here is another Tenebrae Responsory. O Vos Omnes asks us to pay attention to the suffering around us, like the Good Samaritan, and to not slip into tunnel vision like those who walked past the traveller. The traveller here, though, is also Christ himself:
O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:
if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
The harmony here is as wickity-wack as ever, moving by thirds at the opening (feel how sharp each new chord feels), building into a brash dissonance in the soprano line which break all convention. A second section follows (‘if there be any sorrow’), full of those descending, dropping interwoven lines of chain suspensions (one dissonance is set up, which resolves after the next chord, but a nother dissonance comes which must be resolved in another voice) which so effectively depict sorrow and despair that opens up into a short lively refrain of the instruction to pay attention before returning to drooping sorrow. Performed here by Tenbebrae (fitting!) under Nigel Short.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band With Roy Acuff - I Saw The Light
I clearly have a thing for these studio outtakes. I just really enjoy hearing the performers be people before they become these musical objects. Here, we get to see Roy Acuff being a total professional with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (who also went by, delightfully, The Toot Uncommons. Love it.). The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were sort of an evolutionary link between the old country and the new, so this ‘71 recording with old hand Roy Acuff singing a Hank Williams classic is a little musico-Darwinian artifiact. The tune was written by Hank Williams in 1947 and is not as simple and plaintive as it seems. Williams was returning from a show, passed out from in the back of his mom’s car. As they approached Montgomery, Alabama, Williams’ mom woke him to say she ‘saw the lights'.’ Williams would die in 1953 after complications from drinking at not much older than myself. Roy Acuff led the congregation in singing this song at Williams’ funeral.
Orlande de Lassus - Aurora lucis rutilat
Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky, heaven thunders forth its victor cry,
the glad earth shouts its triumph high, and groaning hell makes wild reply:
Renaissance Franco-Flemish composer Orlande de Lassus (spelled differently by different authors) closes us out (or begins us again???). This motet is meant for the end of Easter Vigil and the first taking of Communion after Lent. The text speaks of Light rising with might and strength and vanquishing Hell, depicted wonderfully here by Lassus intricate counterpoint and imitation and his short phrases and quick hard cuts. Again, imagine yourself in an Italian cathedral as the sun finally rises over your dark Easter night and you take your first communion in months. Performed here by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge under Graham Ross.