Recently I had an email exchange with the director of the Thirteen, Matthew Robertson when I asked him for examples of interviews with the Thirteen. He was busy and instead gave me three major pieces which will be on the Oct. 22 program. Actually many musicians would rather have the music speak for them.
There is a common thread through some of these pieces in celebrating St. Cecilia, a Roman who suffered martyrdom around 230AD. Her day is November 22 and she is the patroness of music, appropriately. It is written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord."
1. Thomas Tallis – "Gaude gloriosa Dei mater"
We have covered this 16th century British composer before and how he had to deal with back and forth change between Catholicism and Protestantism. Music had to fit the prevailing winds.
The reformed Anglican liturgy was inaugurated during the short reign of Edward VI (1547–53), and Tallis was one of the first church musicians to write anthems set to English words, although Latin continued to be used.The Catholic Mary Tudor set about undoing the religious reforms of the preceding decades. Following her accession in 1553, the Roman Rite was restored and compositional style reverted to the elaborate writing prevalent early in the century. Two of Tallis’s major works, this work, Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater, and the Christmas Mass Puer natus est nobis are believed to be from this period.
And the words could change. The ironic thing is that in 1978 hidden in a wall cavity musicians found a part of this piece from the time of Queen Elizabeth with English text instead of Latin.
I find this music is best appreciated when you can free you mind of distractions and follow the different course of the music. Some of it spotlights a solo soprano and other parts are more group oriented. Try to put yourself right in the middle of the musicians and watch how it builds and particularly how the soprano weaves in and out of the piece. I find it both haunting and exhilerating.
The piece divided into two sections, the first based on triple meter or three beats to the measure and the second two. The music proceeds in sections marked by contrasts of texture, from solos to full six-voiced climaxes in which imitative motives are passed upwards through musical space.
Tallis is possibly the best example to understand the charateristics of Renaissance music. He uses polypany with the many voices on their own path. He manipulates the textures for word-painting effect, such as the wide spacing between two men’s voices and a high soprano at the mention of "angels," or the rich texture of divided upper voices for one verse.
2. Benjamin Britten – "Hymn to St. Cecilia"
Britten provides a 20th century perspetive on choral singing with a greater harmonic and rhythmic variety.
Britten was a 20th century composer but like other British composers preferred to stick to older melodic forms rather stay current with the experiments with dissonance . Hymn to St. Ceciliae by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is a setting of a poem by W. H. Auden written between 1940 and 1942. Auden’s original title was "Three Songs for St. Cecilia’s Day", and he later published the poem as "Anthem for St. Cecilia’s Day (for Benjamin Britten);"
For a long time Britten wanted to write a piece dedicated to St. Cecilia for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was born on St. Cecilia’s day; secondly, St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music; and finally, there is a long tradition in England of writing odes and songs to St Cecilia. The most famous of these are by John Dryden ("A song for St. Cecilia’s Day" 1687) and musical works by Henry Purcell, Hubert Parry, and George Frideric Handel.
Britten began setting Hymn to St. Cecilia in late 1940 in the United States. In 1942 (the midst of World War II) Britten and Pears decided to return home to England. Unfortunately, the customs inspectors confiscated all of Britten’s manuscripts, fearing they could be some type of code. Britten re-wrote the manuscript while aboard the MS Axel Johnson, and finished it April 2, 1942.
The piece is in three sections, plus three iterations of the refrain, with slight variations, following each section. The text itself follows in the tradition of odes, including an invocation to the muse: "Blessed Cecilia/Appear in visions to all musicians/Appear and inspire". Britten uses this as a refrain throughout piece, whereas it is the last portion of Auden’s first section.
3. Palestrina – "Missa Cantantibus Organis Caecilia"
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) was a contemporary of Tallis though who lived in Italy.
This is a unique work being a collaborative effort. The "Compagnia dei Musici di Roma" was a group of top Roman composers during the tenure of Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585). They issued a collection of madrigals with contributions by its individual members, among other works. By this time Palestrina was well established as an exemplary Roman composer. A total of eight composers, including Palestrina himself, were involved, with the Kyrie and Credo each split into three sections and the Gloria into two. The mass is a splendid work, expanding the five voices of Palestrina’s model to a thick 12-voice texture, and it has apparently never been recorded before.
It was based on a motet by Palestrina and composers of the Mass were acolytes of Palestrina, who extended his imitative techniques to encompass multiple choirs pitted against each other . The mass gives vocalists many opportunities to dazzle
The above selection is only an excerpt.