20th Century Choral Music

[Maciek]

Colin has mentioned Penderecki's Polish Requiem, which has some sublime moments (the Lacrimosa and Agnus dei), as well as some terrible lows (the Dies irae, IMHO). But the two pieces I personally find indispensable are Passion according to Saint Luke and Credo - two great pieces representative of the two main "periods" in Penderecki's output. Mike, you already know at least a section of the Passion - the Stabat Mater (which you have sung, IIRC).

[karlhenning]

I need to revisit Penderecki's St Luke Passion, it's decades since I heard it last.

[zamyrabyrd]

Perhaps the answer to my superficial approach to Tippett is to get to grips with the music in a detailed way; from the inside if possible, grow my affection for his music instead of leaving it on the shelf.

Mike

Hi Mike,
As a rather latecomer to the thread, I really appreciated your post on the Dream of Gerontius, also happy to see Yvonne Minton's name connected to an earlier recording with Britten--gotta buy that !!!

But your writeup of your personal experience with Child of Our Time was really exceptional. The process of getting to know a musical work is still shrouded in mystery. I am teaching somewhat (in other words, sometimes I don't have a clue what to do next to interest the students), a course in Piano Literature that is more a glorified Music Appree. I find the personal touch or anecdote the ideal handle to get a grip on what is otherwise frustratingly elusive.

Did anyone mention Chichester Psalms by Bernstein?

ZB

[Dundonnell]

I included 'Chichester Psalms' in my list on page 2 of this thread

Great work

[Christo]

I need to revisit Penderecki's St Luke Passion, it's decades since I heard it last.

Exactly the piece we always played in Kindergarten too ! 

[Dundonnell]

Exactly the piece we always played in Kindergarten too ! 

That would have scared the little kids no end

[karlhenning]

That would have scared the little kids no end

You never know! They might groove!

[knight66]

ZB, Thanks for the comments. I hope you hit on a way to inspire the students.

Mike

[zamyrabyrd]

ZB, Thanks for the comments. I hope you hit on a way to inspire the students.

Now, if I could find a way to impress my kids, THAT would be an achievement!!

ZB

[Maciek]

Szymanowski's 3rd Symphony and Stabat Mater have been mentioned earlier. I would second those recommendations, especially the Stabat Mater which is, I think, Szymanowski's greatest work. But there's another piece I'd rank almost as high (or perhaps just as high): the Kurpie Songs (the 6-movement choral cycle; there's also a slightly later, and longer, cycle for voice and piano) - a neglected masterpiece, IMO. And the same should be said of two cantatas: Demeter (for alto, female choir and orchestra) and Litany to the Virgin Mary (for soprano, female choir and orchestra), breathtakingly beautiful, the both of them - the first is extremely dramatic, the second more meditative.

Harnasie should be mentioned as well, though to call it "choral music" might be stretching it a bit... It is "choral" in the sense that Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé is. Szymanowski does employ a choir here but, strictly speaking, Harnasie is a ballet. So I guess I'm submitting the Ravel as well... In both works, the choir is indispensable.

[Maciek]

Oh, and speaking of chances to hear Penderecki's St Luke Passion: it will be performed at Canterbury Cathedral on 2nd May, as part of the "Polish Season" in Britain, which starts this May and ends May 2010. I guess that will be the opening concert. The closing one is just as interesting: a performance of Roman Maciejewski's Requiem - a piece considered by some to be the best mass setting written by a Polish composer in the 20th century. And yes, it does include choir, so I'm not mentioning it here just offhand - as far as Polish 20th century choral music goes, this one is a must!

[pjme]

Yes, Maciek, the Szymanowski works you mention are exquisite - and moving. Harnasie ,with its grand choral outbursts, never fails to astonish me. The impact of a chorus can be totaly overwhelming - sad & sinister in the final scene from Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin or sweet and mysterious as in Debussy's Sirènes....
I would like to mention Hilding Rosenberg's 4th symphony, "The revelation of St.John" ( baritone, chorus & orchestra) - it switches between the grandiose and simple a capella settings . Those choral sections ( very "classical" and restrained) are ...breathtakingly beautiful.( at least on the Caprice recording - with Eric Ericson ).
I am also a great fan of Zoltan Kodaly's choral works - again classical & restrained - but some of the Psalms are very affecting.
I've mentioned before a particular favorite of mine : Jehan Alain's Messe modale en septuor - for girls or women's chorus, flute & organ ( or flute & stringquartet). It was written for students or amateurs, but due to its "simplicity" achieves - for me at least - great luminosity,a childlike directness...
And another old favorite ( on Timpani) : Gabriel Pierné's ballet ( cfr. Ravel, Szymanowski) "Cydalise et le chëvre-pied" in it's complete version ,with chorus. lovely!

[Dundonnell]

Very much agree about the Rosenberg and the Pierne

My Caprice version of Rosenberg's 4th is conducted by Sixten Ehrling with Hakan Hagegard as baritone soloist(1992). Is there another?

I am wearying of repeating how much we need a new Rosenberg cycle on disc. BIS and CPO seem determined to record every other Swedish composer except the man who could be said to have dragged Swedish music into the 20th century CPO has now started on a Natanael Berg cycle with Edvin Kallstenius to follow. Why not Rosenberg??

[Lethevich]

I would second those recommendations, especially the Stabat Mater which is, I think, Szymanowski's greatest work. [...] And the same should be said of two cantatas: Demeter (for alto, female choir and orchestra) and Litany to the Virgin Mary (for soprano, female choir and orchestra), breathtakingly beautiful, the both of them - the first is extremely dramatic, the second more meditative.

I can confirm how good these works are, thanks to this great Naxos disc. Strangely they seem to have changed the cover art (I think they did the same with a Górecki disc too) - the replacement artwork is much worse...

[pjme]

My Caprice version of Rosenberg's 4th is conducted by Sixten Ehrling with Hakan Hagegard as baritone soloist(1992). Is there another?

Sort of : it is a historical recoding from the première Dec.6th, 1940. Caprice 21508 (1992 - a large box with many more historical recodings). The symphony is not complete ( 36'41'')  and has a reciter (Anders de Wahl) instead of a baritone soloist. Rosenberg conducts.

P.

[Maciek]

Moving on to other Polish composers, I of course have got to mention Pawel Szymanski. While I'm generally crazy about Szymanski, I am not all that crazy about his choral pieces (In Paradisum, Miserere, Lux aeterna) except for one: Gloria for female chorus and instrumental ensemble. It's rather "early" Szymanski (1979) but just as good as many much later pieces (it was awarded a prize at the 1981 UNESCO Rostrum).

Unfortunately, AFAIK, the only commercial recording available is a DVD of a concert from the Pawel Szymanski Festival (disc no. 2 from this set):

An excellent performance but an audio-only recording would be nice too...

[Maciek]

Two piece I forgot to mention earlier are Penderecki's Song of the Cherubim, one of my favorite Penderecki pieces, and Symphony no. 2 "Morgenrot" by the Belgian composer Piet Swerts. This is the only piece by Swerts I've heard so far and it is very impressive. It is a symphony, oratorio, requiem mass, song setting - all-in-one. But it forms a fairly coherent whole. I would compare it to post-1980 Penderecki or Maciejewski's Requiem. It is a similar brand of neo-romanticism (or post-romanticism or late romanticism or whatever). And it's worth mentioning that Swerts somehow manages not to make this pretty large work (72 minutes!) sound self-indulgent. In fact, I was surprised by how easy it was to swallow, in comparison to some shorter but much more pompous compositions by Penderecki.

[Maciek]

And of course another Polish composer whose choral output is worthy of mention is Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. Lethe already brought up (in passing) the Naxos disc with the 2nd Symphony (for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra), and that would be my top recommendation. But Gorecki has also written some excellent a capella works, such as the often recorded Totus Tuus and Amen. But also others, written to Polish texts, which should probably explain why these are less popular with choirs around the world: Szeroka woda, Pieśni Maryjne, Hej, z góry, z góry! Kóniku bury - these are actually all paraphrases of folk songs and religious songs but then Górecki is not one to avoid musical quotations - cf. his string quartets. The last of the cycles mentioned is a set of songs from the Kurpie region - it could nicely complement the Szymanowski cycle. I've been told Gorecki's choral writing is pretty tough on the performers because of the exceedingly slow, suffocating tempos...

And I think I forgot to mention earlier that one of Maciejewski's is also a set of Kurpie songs for choir (Henryk Czyz rated it highly, I'm not sure if I've ever heard it).

[knight66]

This last week the UK has seen a short tour by the Minnesota choir known as the 'VocalEssence Ensemble Singers'. It is a professional choir of about 40 who concentrate mainly on contemporary music.

On Tuesday they came to London and London remained resolutely at home. That was London's loss. The choir mustered an audience of about 100 in the substantial St John's Smith Sq venue.

I went, prompted by Bruce from this site, whose brother-in-law is the rich bass voice at the very bottom of the soundpicture; with what a chorus master I know referred to as, 'That desirable big-black-velvet thing that every choir needs'.

Reading the programme while waiting for the start of the concert, I saw that the conductor had been with the choir for 40 years.....'Oh', I thought....'Squeezing the last juice out of it all.' However, I could not have been more wrong, the artistic sap was clearly still rising. Philip Brunelle is a great choral trainer who has built a network of connections with composers. An early example was talking Copland into conducting the ensemble in his own music; commissions to a wide number of contemporary writers have followed.

The choir has a beautiful blend and is well disciplined without sounding drilled. I could hear all the words without the ends having to be attacked. The acoustic in the hall is warm, but not reverberant; they may have had to resort to more aggressive use of consonants when later in the week they appeared at Kings College chapel Cambridge. If folk have discs by the Cambridge Singers, the sound is similar, I regard that as a compliment. I would have liked a little more obvious juice from the altos, who really sounded to me like second sopranos. But that is a marginal issue.

The programme was one of American Masterpieces. It was full of contrast and contained several really virtuosic and complex pieces. My favourite was by Eric Whitacre. born 1970. Here was a madrigal with a modernist twist, 'Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine' Sounds and words gave a kaleidoscopic effect of fragmented dreams and plans. I almost expected Stockhausen's helicopters to descend at the end, engaging and exciting.

The choir also does straightforwardly beautiful. Another Whitacre piece, 'Water Night' was among a number that clearly left the audience enjoying a benedictory silence at the end before their enthusiastic applause.

Most pieces were short, song length. These included Kernis 'I cannot Dance O Lord', a cannon, its humorously emphatic claims leading to a the gradual joining of the voices in near unison, then the sound goes into a washing machine on spin. Another accessable piece was Ned Rorem's 'Sing, my soul' a delight. The 'Native American Piece' by Brent Michael Davids is another that left a strong impression, ethnic music absorbed into a western idiom without becoming soft centred. The new music was interspersed with spirituals including one I did not know, 'My soul's been anchored in the Lord'. It was pointed out by the conductor that all spirituals, though born from desperate circumstances, reflect hope and faith in something better. I had not really grasped this about the genre. The choir ripped through these enjoying them as much as the more challenging items.

I bought one of their discs; they record for Clarion; as I write I am listening to a Bluegrass Mass, a combo new to me and very enjoyable. On the disc were several I heard this week including the Kernis, Billings, Roram and Whitacre's 'Water Night'.

As this turned out to be Inauguration day, the concert could not end without reference to that celebration by Americans who clearly could not be there on their own soil to celebrate. We finished with the US national amthem and Battle Hymn of the Republic.

A really great choir; perhaps next time round London will be drawn from its torpor and fill the seats.

Mike

[bhodges]

On Tuesday they came to London and London remained resolutely at home...perhaps next time round London will be drawn from its torpor and fill the seats.

   

Well, so happy you were there!  (And I know Jim was, too.)  Great report on what sounds like a superb concert.  And I like Eric Whitacre's work (the little I've heard) a lot. 

Brunelle used to direct a choir in the UK if I recall.  He is definitely one of the best around for contemporary choral music. 

--Bruce