Henning's Headquarters

[mahler10th]

That's a work-in-progress yet, John. Still thinking about the scoring in fact.

The texts you are going to set are superb.  I do hope you pick up on it again when you can.  Henning music to those texts as Cantata would most definitely be a HIT.  Bravo Karl.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks! I hope to write so as to justify your kind confidence!

[Karl Henning]

Karl, thank you so much for sharing The Passion According to St. John. It is a very lovely and intimate work, incredibly affecting. I love the flow of the piece, and especially the final minutes with the solo female over the sustained voices, quite emotional. I can tell there is a lot of heart put into a piece such as this.

Also, I'm always impressed with your versatility, Out In The Sun is a favorite of mine that I love revisiting, going from that to The Passion... is very inspiring.

Bravo, my friend!

Many thanks, Greg. The Passion is a piece for which I never find the right word. It still feels as if I only finished writing it last week.

[TheGSMoeller]

Many thanks, Greg. The Passion is a piece for which I never find the right word. It still feels as if I only finished writing it last week.

You're welcome, Karl.
What is the scoring for the piece?

[Elgarian]

But . . . we do have parakeets in the home. Just saying . . . .

It's nice when theory and observation come so close. I'd been working on the idea of budgies, but parakeets will do just fine.


By the way, Svetlanov's LSO recording of Scheherazade (the reallly s...l...o...w... one) is presently puzzling me no less than the Nunc Dimittis.

[Karl Henning]

But — the jugged fish is halibut our parakeets are budgerigars. Izzere a difference? (Or is this US [mis]use?

[Karl Henning]

You're welcome, Karl.
What is the scoring for the piece?

Choir unaccompanied, divided into up to seven parts.

[Elgarian]

But — the jugged fish is halibut our parakeets are budgerigars. Izzere a difference? (Or is this US [mis]use?

I'm not an expert, but it's my understanding that while all budgerigars are parakeets, all parakeets are not budgerigars. So my budgies represented a more sharply focused beam of ornitho-musical analysis that, in the event, I am glad to broaden in the hope of making the composer trill more happily.

[Karl Henning]

Excellent.

I once fed some lorikeets at the San Diego Zoo, upon reports of which activity our budgies cast one mirthful and one dropping eye.

[Cato]

For Elgarian and others who have found Karl Henning's Nunc Dimittis charming and enchanting:



As with all good and great music for church, the setting by Karl Henning for the Nunc Dimittis enhances and illuminates the text, rather than drawing attention to itself.  And although under 4 minutes long, the work also connects with the tradition of all good and great ecclesiastical music by taking the listeners away from the ticking of the clock and offering them a small taste of timelessness.

The opening bars demonstrate this with the slow and simple statement of the first four words of the text to match the happy humility of the elderly Saint Simeon.  Listen to how the opening two bars of each voice have the same length: dotted half note with a quarter note.  The syncopation in the bass and in the tenors' bars 4-5 helps to cancel the awareness of time, and lead the ear into an illusion of eternity.  This rhythm will link the opening to musical events throughout the work. 

One hears how the soprano line in A major (note the G# in bar 7) is a variation of the opening D major melody in the alto voice.  But by keeping a gentle and poignant dissonance going with 7ths and 9ths (bars 9-15) on the words Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace ("Lord, according to your word, in peace"), the composer emphasizes the A major relief on the last syllable of pace ("peace").

The excitement of seeing the Lord's Salvation (Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum) is delicately expressed by somewhat faster themes (quarter notes and eight notes abound) with ecstatic leaps of a fourth and even a fifth: listen to how the intervals D-G/D-A/A-D in bars 17-18 on the word "Because" (Quia) link with the leaps of a fourth in bars 20-26 on the beginning syllables of  "Salvation" (Salutare).  The same joyous leaps are heard again in the first two notes of the Quod parasti ("which you prepared") in the female voices, and are heard again in all 4 voices starting with the bass on the word omnium ("of all...). 

A subtle point: observe how the A major ending on the final syllable of faciem ("face") contrasts with the darkly humble B minor of the last syllable of populorum ("of your people").  This leads to the slow and mysterious Lumen ad revelationem gentium ("A Light of revelation for the Gentiles"), where the bass voices rise irresistibly an octave on an A scale, and are eventually joined by the tenors with their rising notes, and again A major is heard (bar 43).  The joy bursts through immediately again with the sopranos on the words et gloriam, linked again to earlier such expressions with the sopranos' line rising a fifth, matched by the bass voices with a leap of a fourth (bars 43-45).

The opening notes of Simeon's prayer are now halved (dotted quarter note plus eighth note) and the sopranos repeat the ecstatic leap of a fifth on the word Gloria (bar 48), and one soon hears the same rhythm on Filio and Spiritu ("Son" and "Spirit").  And in bar 49 a slight variation in that rhythm on the opening two bars is heard on Patri ("Father").  Another link in the chain is provided by the A major chord on the last syllable of Filio (bar 60).  The liberal use of eighth notes in the final bars for Sicut...saeculorum ("As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be") lets the music wander harmonically, as if in fact tracing Creation from beginning into eternity, although the bass voices ground everything eventually with a long held G, and the sopranos slow things down with a D above.  (GoD is therefore encompassing everything.)  A dark cluster (the notes A,B,C# in the higher voices, joined by an octave G in the bass), perhaps a symbol of the chaotic singularity of creation, heard on the first syllable of Amen, gently and luminously resolves to D major (a symbol of creation's "Lux fiat"" perhaps, after that chaotic cluster?) in the final bar.

The goal of good and great ecclesiastical music is to provide an impression of the sounds of Eternity, which means that the music cannot sound like secular music, and that "catchy" themes should not be used (or if they are, that they are handled in a delicate way).  Also important are the natural cadences of the text: the composer is bound to follow them. so that its message can be clear to the listeners.  In both of these aspects, Karl Henning's Nunc Dimittis joins the best of the ecclesiastical tradition.

[Karl Henning]

Thank you, indeed, Cato — not least because some of what you've written about the piece, I myself never realized.

The Nunc dimittis has a preface! That is, it comes from a full Evening Service in D, which I composed while serving as Interim Choir Director at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.  We planned to sing it during Lent, so I decided to make use of a pair of trombones, both to leave the organ silent, and by virtue of their austere sound.

Thus: the Preface to the Nunc dimittis

[Karl Henning]

The texts you are going to set are superb.  I do hope you pick up on it again when you can.

I'm hoping to interest a Boston ensemble in the project, which will open up possibilities for an even bigger accompaniment than I had envisaged.

[Karl Henning]

I've been busy, in fact, loading stuff up onto SoundCloud.  For those who may be interested:

Hodie Christus natus est, Op. 76 (five-part choir and clarinet)

Suffrages from the Evening Svc in D, Op. 87 (officiant and four-part choir)

Nuhro (Hymn of Light), Op. 74 (choir divided in up to seven parts)

Alleluia in A^b, Op. 33 (four-part choir)

Pascha nostrum, Op. 62a (four-part choir)

[Elgarian]

Ah Cato, there's something immensely humbling about this - and after all perhaps that's appropriate. While there are small fragments of your essay that I understand, most of it is several feet above my head. I really am a musical ignoramus. (I can guess Bob Dylan's chord changes well enough to play them - but that's the end of my road.)

However, all is not lost. I read your essay three times through, slowly, each time with the music playing. And despite my caveats noted above, some small fraction of what you're saying is getting through, and each time I found I was able to 'hear' the music differently, and (more to the point) more richly. Thank you. I shall come back to this, not once, but several times, to repeat the process.

[Cato]

Ah Cato, there's something immensely humbling about this - and after all perhaps that's appropriate. While there are small fragments of your essay that I understand, most of it is several feet above my head. I really am a musical ignoramus. (I can guess Bob Dylan's chord changes well enough to play them - but that's the end of my road.)

However, all is not lost. I read your essay three times through, slowly, each time with the music playing. And despite my caveats noted above, some small fraction of what you're saying is getting through, and each time I found I was able to 'hear' the music differently, and (more to the point) more richly. Thank you. I shall come back to this, not once, but several times, to repeat the process.

Every composer wishes for such listeners!  Many thanks to you for sticking with Karl's work, and giving it such effort!  Many moons ago I found myself in an unusual position: unable to grasp Pelleas und Melisande by Arnold Schoenberg.  Oddly, the Five Pieces for Orchestra were no problem!   

But after repeated hearings, and different conductors, one day everything coalesced, and it remains one of my most favorite works!

Thank you. I shall come back to this, not once, but several times, to repeat the process.

I am happy that the little essay has helped!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Thank you, gentlemen both.

[Karl Henning]

I had hoped, as part of my SoundCloud-palozza yesterday, to get some of the Volcanic Airborne Event program loaded up there; but I found (a little to my surprise) that I could not find the discs at home.

I've got 'em now, so . . . maybe to-night.  Or, I might load it up to Instant Encore, which was probably what I meant to do originally.

Well, and why not both?  That is, the entire program onto Instant Encore, and a couple of select pieces for SoundCloud. Yes, that sounds like a plan . . . .

[Papy Oli]

Nuhro (Hymn of Light), Op. 74 (choir divided in up to seven parts)

Alleluia in A^b, Op. 33 (four-part choir)

I particularly like those two, Karl, on par with Nunc Dumittis. Thank you again for sharing.

[Cato]

I particularly like those two (Nuhro, Alleluia in Ab, Karl, on par with Nunc Dumittis. Thank you again for sharing.

Nuhro was the work which proved to me, when i first found GMG, that Karl Henning is a composer of highly estimable creations!

[TheGSMoeller]

Nuhro was the work which proved to me, when i first found GMG, that Karl Henning is a composer of highly estimable creations!

Words of truth right here!
Just listened to Nuhro for the first time. Left me spellbound by it's beauty.
Again, bravo, Karl.