THE PITTSBURGH CAMERATA

of the New World

THE MUSICAL CONQUEST

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CONTENTS

The Program...................................................................................... 3

About the Music................................................................................ 4

About the Musicians....................................................................... 10

About the Composers...................................................................... 13

About The Pittsburgh Camerata.....................................................18

Photo courtesy of John Filippone

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Deus in Adjutorium Juan Gutierrez de Padilla (c. 1590-1664) O Sacrum Convivium Antonio de Salazar (c. 1650-1715)

Corderito, ¿por qué te escondes? Juan de Araujo (1646-1712) Lamentaciones para Jueves Santo Juan Gutierrez de Padilla Alleluia. Dic Nobis Maria Francisco López Capillas (1615-73)

Intermission

How They So Softly Rest Healey Willan (1880-1968) How Excellent Thy Name Howard Hanson (1896-1981) Arise My Love My Fair One Stephen Paulus (b. 1949)

Thou Whose Harmony is the Music of the Spheres Stephen Chatman (b. 1950) There is no Rose Steven Caracciolo (b. 1962) Laudate Dominum in Sanctis Ejus Terry Schlenker (b. 1957)

Psalm 122 (I was Glad) Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)

The Musical Conquest of the

New World

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he program I have chosen may not

be the most obvious pairing of music. After all, as the picture to the right attests, the Spanish and the English have seldom gotten along particularly well, especially after the little incident of the English monarch assuming the headship of the Church of England, and putting aside the aunt of the Spanish monarch in the process. But then, music frequently makes for strange bedfellows.

I spent many years in Santa Fe, but it wasn’t until near the end of my time there I discovered the 16th through 18th century music of Central and South America. The University of New Mexico had a good collection of works originally found in the cathedral archives of Lima, Mexico City, and many others. (Just to clarify, these were not the originals. No pillaging involved...)

I was impressed with the quality of the late Renaissance and early Baroque style Latin works, and

intrigued with the wonderfully rhythmic Spanish-language works, and did some of them, including a mini-operetta, with my chorus in Santa Fe. But these works have mainly languished in my library since then, although I did dust off a few of them for some of my earlier Camerata programs. So it is with great delight that I share a larger group of them with you.

As for the British-inspired music, this style might be thought of as our bread and butter. But a New World take on the style is a different slant than the usual.

As to why I chose the program and the impulse behind it, that is

explained (insofar as the strange machi-nations of my brain can be explained) in the printed program. Suffice it to say that, as usual, all of the music is on the program because I love it.

Since there are two different styles of music on the Spanish portion of the concert, and at least

three other styles on the British portion, it is probably simplest to break the music down in that way. So first, the Spanish-style Renaissance music.

All of the Latin-text music is in Renaissance style, despite the fact the composers were all living and working during the Baroque era.

This seems as good a time as any to note the phenomenon of the stile antico and stile moderno. As the Baroque era dawned on January 1st 1600 (just kidding—I wanted you to know I remembered my music history...) and composers experimented with a shocking new style of music, there was a deliberate move to preserve the

About The MusicT

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older style of music for certain uses. Thus the stile antico or prima pratica was preserved for most church music, and Palestrina was considered the model. Meanwhile, the fire-breathing modernists such as Claudio Monteverdi (who, with his brother coined the terms prima pratica and seconda pratica) experimented with harmony and dissonance in search of a more immediately emotional exper-ience. The stile antico persisted throughout the Baroque, to one degree or another.

The first of the styles is the polychoral style popularized by Giovanni Gabrieli in Italy, although he certainly didn’t invent it. I have seen arguments for its inclusion both as a Baroque and as a Renaissance style, but it is generally considered to be a part of the High Renaissance style. Although the style continued and was developed in the early to mid Baroque by composers such as Heinrich Schütz, it was in use almost a century before Schütz by

composers across Europe, including Spaniard Tomás Luis deVictoria.

The Padilla Domine ad adjuvandum me is very reminiscent of Gabrieli, and would definitely profit from being doubled by an instrumental chorus. But alas, the exigencies of modern small-arts groups don’t allow for that, so organ will have to serve.

Much as we are accustomed to hearing in Gabrieli motets, there is an interplay between the duple and triple meter sections, governed by a rather strict tempo relationship. In this piece, the triple rhythm section is reserved for the “Gloria Patri” statement, and only for the initial portion “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.” Once the trinitarian statement is made, it reverts to the previous duple meter. The piece is quite short, and wasprobably written for the beginning of a festival service.

It is, by the way, a myth that polychoral music was performed in San Marco, Venice by opposing groups singing from the various balconies. Instead, platforms were arranged in the front of the church so the smallest groups would be closest to the congregation and vice versa.

I got this straight from the horse’s mouth, you might say, or, more correctly, from the current director of music at San Marco, who has studied the documen-tation from the big festival services in Gabrieli’s time. Fortu-nately for us, the singers are equally split, so we don’t need to engage in any building projects to perform it.

The next piece, both in terms of style and in program order, is the Salazar O sacrum convivium. Salazar uses the text very cleverly, changing styles to emphasize certain words or concepts. In this he is composing more like a Baroque composer than a Renaissance one. He begins with

a simple statement of the initial text, “O sacred feast,” and the first choir is joined in a repeat by the second choir. It is quiet, contemplative, and just as we are pretty sure we

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know what sort of piece we have here, he takes the harmonic rhythm up a couple of notches and adds in some bouncy dotted notes on the text “in which we receive Christ and remember.” Remember what? Salazar separates “his passion” from the rest of the phrase and brings in the second choir, who have returned to the initial slow-moving, contemplative style, to sing those two words (“passionis ejus”). There is a brief interplay between the choirs of lively “recolitur memoria” and melancholy “passionis ejus” before they join to finish the thought.

The next section is much more contrapuntal/imitative, as each section individually sings “the mind is filled with grace,” but then the excitement rises to a fever pitch as they contemplate their “future glory.” But the rest of the phrase “to us a pledge is given” reminds the faithful that they aren’t there yet, and is in the more nearly homophonic style. However, the second sopranos and tenors can’t get over their future glory, and interject a statement of it at the point everyone else has resigned themselves to their present

unglorified state. Naturally it would be sopranos and tenors. But even they get the message, and the piece ends with a beautiful statement of “nobis pignus datur.” All of this, packed

into just over three minutes of music!

The final piece on the first half, the Capillas Alleluia, dic nobis Maria is in a late renaissance style reminiscent, oddly, of William Byrd or Orlando Gibbons. If it were English it would be called a verse anthem. The full chorus alternates with a solo group in a dialogue style well suited to the text. Only in the last “verse” do all four soloists sing together, a nice bit of text painting, as they are singing “We know Christ is truly risen from the dead.” The alto and

baritone have patiently explained what they saw in the previous verses, and apparently convinced the others.

Padilla’s Lamentaciones is a monumental work, perhaps as fine as any of the better-known settings such as that of Victoria or Tallis. It is the only unaccompan-ied piece on the first half of the program, and is in perhaps the most antico of the styles.

Which brings me to another misconception about Renaissance choral music—that it was typically unaccompanied. The same director of San Marco who enlightened me about the polychoral performance style also noted that only at the Vatican was there a tradition of singing Renaissance music a cappella. Almost everywhere else the singers would have been doubled, at the very least, by organ, and often with other instruments. Furthermore, the organist would generally improvise extravagant embellishments to the soprano line, which doubtless annoyed them to no end.

Not only are we going to eschewthis practice in the case of theLamentaciones, but our organist has been strictly instructed to stick to what was written out for him in the other pieces by his rather controlling wife. It’s tough

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being married to the boss.

“Lamentations” in general are settings of verses from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. In the book Jeremiah laments the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple which occurred during the latter part of the Babylonian conquest and depor-tation. Various sets of verses are designated for the services during Holy Week, beginning with the Thursday service. The Padilla set is for Thursday, and sets verses one through three.

One of the curious features, to me at least, about any set of Lamen-tations is the use of the Hebrew letter which precedes each verse. This is because of the special form

used. Each chapter except for Chapter 3 has 22 verses, and each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so it is an acrostic. (Chapter 3 has 66 verses, or three times 22.) Since the letters also represented numbers,

it was also a numeric listing of the verses.

Although it wasn’t possible to completely retain the poetic structure of the book, the early translators into Latin decided to at least keep the acrostic, so they began each verse with the Hebrew letter, suitably transliterated.

It became a convention when setting the text to have elaborate sections on just the initial statement “These are the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet” and on each letter.

If the Willan motet with which we begin the second half of the program were composed in the

same way, it would start with a section with the text “This poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” His name is sufficiently mellifluous that it might just work. To continue, each phrase of the poem would then be

preceded by an elaborate bit of music on the line number - say, “One,” and then we would finally get to “How they so softly rest.” An odd thought, but this is what you are hearing when you listen to the “Aleph” section and so on.

Lamentations for any of the Holy Week services end with a verse not in the original book, “Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.”(“Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God”). It is a quote from the book of Hosea (14:1).

Musically, Padilla uses the six-voice texture from the beginning until the third verse, which begins with “Ghimel.” He drops the low basses out for the entire verse, and they do not re-enter until the “Jerusalem, convertere” section which ends the piece. The text he is setting is “Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.” And although he

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uses five voices, the five voices never sing at the same time, so it is really a four-part texture. So we go from a rich six-part texture in the early part of the piece to a much thinner-sounding four parts. Furthermore, the bottom line never goes below e below middle c. This also gives an unstable feel to the music, and perhaps was written to depict the wandering of the nation of Israel who “finds no resting place.”

The basses return at the beginning of the statement “Jerusalem, return to the Lord thy God,” perhaps signaling where security and a solid foundation can be found. Does this mean the basses are the Voice of God? I leave that to you, dear reader/listener, to determine.

And now, for something completely different, a villancico. Although the style is very different, the text is related in content to the piece which precedes it, the Salazar “O sacrum convivium.” But the way the sentiments are expressed could scarcely be more different.

The piece under consideration isCorderito, ¿por qué te escondes? of Juan de Araujo. It was a tremendous amount of trouble, compared to which generating the scores for the rest of the South

American music was a breeze. I found the piece on YouTube while looking for something else, a frequent occurrence lately. I loved the piece immediately. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any hint of sheet music for it, whether a manuscript facsimile or a performing edition. Luckily, the person who posted the YouTube version also posted the text, because otherwise it would have been hopeless.

After several long hours of listening to the piece, measure by measure, I finally managed to get it all down on Finale. Then came the task of figuring out how to fit the text to the music, because in the usual way lots of words are elided or crammed together, and it moves very quickly indeed.

But finally I had a usable score. Then came the problem of translating the Spanish. I didn’t think this would be a problem, because my youngest son Edmund, doubtless thinking of just such occasions, thoughtfully married a beautiful young lady last summer. As she is a native of Mexico, her Spanish is excellent, and although her English is a work in progress, Edmund’s Spanish is good enough that she

could explain it to him, and he could attempt to render it into English.

But the difficulties were not so easily solved. Here is what he gave me for the first verse:

Tender little lamb, of a shepherdess that is of the heavenly aura, born in winter, from the eternal ab? (they had no idea what “ab” means)you’ve desire to be a man,

you would see yourself eaten,and it is not much of men

It didn’t get better in later verses. But he gave me a few alternatives or annotations (such as “heavenly aura” is in the same sense as the Aurora Borealis), and we wrestled through what it might be saying theologically.

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Part of the difficulty is it is full of word-play. For instance, the phrase “tender little lamb” is using the word “tender” both in the sense of an endearment and the sense of something succulent to eat. This seems rather gruesome, somehow, but then I’ve always found Spanish religious art to be rather more graphic than I personally find edifying, and the images I’ve chosen for this program are those that are more conventional.

I finally managed to turn it into something which makes marginal sense in English, at least if you are up to date with your soteriology.How faithful it is to the originalmeaning and how much was lost in translation, I have no idea.

The piece is sung by a quartet,and the singers were eager toknow what they were singing about. I promised to send them the translation, but in the mean-time tried to explain it. Finally

one singer asked “Is it supposed to be funny? Or sad? How should we be interpreting it?”

The answer is, I don’t really know. However, the texts for villancicos frequently juxtapose the sacred and the secular, the jocular and the profound. In one of my favorite villancicos, a bunch of peasants debate theology in Spanish, make fun of each other in Catalonian, sing what I suspect was a rather risqué 16th century comic song, and end by singing a decorus Laetatus sum in Latin (“I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord”). So the answer to her question is probably “yes.”

But I appear to have skipped a step, so let’s go back and talk about villancicos. To be technical, they are a musical form derived from medieval dance forms, characterized by a refrain/verse form, and frequently in triple

meter. They were originally secular, but by the time the Spanish were

colonizing Latin America religious versions had become popular. They were often (but obviously not invariably) composed on texts for Christmas.

The Latin American villancicos often incorporated African rhythms. In fact there was a sub-genre known as negritos which mimicked African speech patterns or used pseudo-African words.

This piece is neither on a Christ-mas text nor uses “African” themes or text. It is, however, very rhythmic and consequently tricky to sing. It exploits the ease with which one can manipulate 6/8 meter by dividing it into eithertwo or three beats, but Araujo, ashe so frequently does, muddies the waters by beginning the

(continued on page 19)

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Lenny Young, oboe

Lenny, in addition to being a sought-after collaborative artist and teacher, has parallel careers in vocal and instrumental music. A member of The Pittsburgh Camerata since 2004, he is also a member of the Mendelssohn Choir’s professional core. He has performed with the Pittsburgh Opera Chorus and Chorus of the Opera Theatre Of Pittsburgh. He conducts the choir at Third Presbyterian Church in Shadyside, for which he has written numerous choral arrangements.

In his other professional life, Lenny is Principal Oboe of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Pittsburgh, Wheeling and McKeesport Symphonies. Currently, he plays in Duo Paginas with his wife, mezzo-soprano Raquel Winnica Young,

and is a composer member of the new-music group Alia Musica Pittsburgh. Lenny holds BFA and MM degrees in oboe performance from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied oboe with Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, improvisation with Eric Kloss and composition with Reza Vali.

Kathryn Copeland Donaldson, soprano

Kathryn earned a B.M. at Westminster Choir College in New Jersey and a Postgraduate Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

During her time in the UK, Kathryn sang at Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Albert Hall, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. She regularly performed with Gabrieli Consort, English Concert, BBC Singers, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Brompton

Oratory Choir and has toured the UK and Syria with All Souls Orchestra.

Most recently, Kathryn performed as a soloist with the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh and Opera Western Reserve, sang the role of Countess Rosina in Undercroft Opera's 'The Marriage of Figaro,' and is a chorister with the Pittsburgh Opera.

Jane Potter Baumer, mezzoJane Potter Baumer sings,

teaches voice and piano, and conducts two small choirs in Indiana, PA. She has a B.A. in Music and International Studies from Emory University, and an M.S. in Music Education from the University of Illinois. She has taught voice, sight-singing, music theory, and history, on the faculties of Mars Hill College and Middle Tennessee State

About the Musicians

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University. In addition to concertizing and recording extensively with Robert Shaw’s choirs from the late ‘80s through the mid-‘90s, Jane has sung with the Ohio Light Opera, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Oregon Bach Festival, and has served on the teaching faculty at the Berkshire Choral Festival.

Jane conducts the First Unitarian Universalist Church choir in Indiana and teaches Class Voice at Indiana University of Pennsyl-vania. Jane is also the musical director for Children’s Footlight Theater at IUP in the summers, and the director for the new Community Music School, also at IUP, which will open this August.

Jane is currently deepening her understanding of the workings of the human voice as a student in the speech pathology department at IUP.

Jennifer Lawyer, alto

Jennifer, a native Marylander, ispleased to call Pittsburgh her

home for the second time! She currently works at the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, teaching first grade.

Jennifer holds degrees in music education and trumpet performance from Peabody Con-servatory and Yale University. She has sung with the Yale Camerata, The Silvermine Consort, the Pittsburgh Compline Choir, and church choirs around the east coast. She currently sings in the Shadyside Presbyterian Choir. In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys cooking, knitting, and reading.

Ian Witter, bass

Although he is a graduate student of philosophy, Ian Witter has numbered music and cooking among his major pursuits. Beginning in church choirs and a children's Renaissance choir in Leesburg, VA, he continued as a first soprano in later years with boys' choirs and then, to his own surprise, as a bass-baritone. As his voice finally stopped dropping

during his studies at Magdalen College, NH, where he received a B.A. in Liberal Arts, he partici-pated in the college choir, performance choir, and polyphony choir in addition to work as a soloist. Seminary studies near Lincoln, NE allowed him the opportunity to direct Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony. He continued after leaving seminary and entering doctoral studies at the University of Dallas at Irving. He joined the Dallas Bach Society during their Fall, 2011 season. Now a Pittsburgh resident, Ian hopes to continue his philosophy studies, but stay balanced with a healthy mix of music, cooking, and good friends.

Sean Donaldson, guitar

Sean is a bass-baritone from the Pittsburgh area. He sings with local opera companies in addition to his work in I.T. Support. Recent operas include Lizbeth and Fan-tastic Mr. Fox with Microscopic Opera, The Marriage of Figaro, Il Tabarro, and La Traviata with Undercroft Opera, and Gianni

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Schicchi with Pittsburgh Savoyards. Sean earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music from Allegheny College.

Brian Doherty, guitar

Baritone Brian Doherty is a native of Lancaster, PA. Although he has a degree in Trombone Performance from Indiana University, he saw the light and studied with acclaimed baritones John Darrenkamp and Russell Smythe. Brian spent a number of years in Britain, where he was a Choral Scholar at Exeter Cathedral, England, and a Lay Vicar at Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, Ireland.

In his spare time, Brian enjoys playing classical guitar and spending time with his wife and daughter.

Anthony Rollett, organ/piano

Anthony Rollett, ARCM, MA (Cantab), PhD, was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford and then studied Metallurgy & Materials Science at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1976. He began organ studies at the age of 15 with Peter Ward-Jones and was awarded an Associate Certificate in Organ Teaching by the Royal College of Music in 1973.

While at Clare, he was a choral scholar in the chapel choir underthe direction first of Peter Dennison and then John Rutter. He also studied the organ with Gillian Weir.

In 1995 he moved to Pittsburgh to become the Department Head of Materials Science & Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. he returned to full-time teaching and research in 2000. Since coming to Pittsburgh, he has been active as a substitute organist in the area.

Edmund Rollett, translator

Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother with the translator (although the explanation in the section about the music shows what a fine art it is,) but I ran across this picture and needed an excuse to put it in the program. I really should have a picture of his wife as well, but she probably doesn’t wish to be associated with Edmund in this incarnation.

The gentleman on the right is his former roommate Joram, another gringo with no right to wear a sombrero.

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About the ComposersJuan de Araujo

Between the Spanish conquest in 1526 and the 18th century Peru, which was the administrative center of essentially all Spanish South America, and Mexico were the two most important parts of the Spanish colonial empire. So it isn’t surprising that all of the South American music I have chosen comes from one or the other.

Although he was born in Spain, Araujo spent most of his life in South America, as his father was a civil official and was assigned to Lima when Araujo was still young.

All of his training was in South America, at the University of San Marcos. After a tumultuous student career which eventually got him banished from Peru, Araujo settled down, trained as a priest, and from then until his death worked as a choirmaster. His first position was in Panama, where he apparently went after his banishment. After a suitable passage of time

allowed him to regain respectability (and his obvious gifts made him valuable) he was allowed to return to Lima to become the choirmaster at the Cathedral. He disappeared (at least from our standpoint) between 1676 and 1680, at which time he was appointed the choirmaster at the cathedral in La Plata, Bolivia, a position he held until his death.

He was a prolific composer, particularly of villancicos, and was constantly in search of novel

rhythmic affects which continue to afflict performers of his music. The picture, obviously, is not of Araujo, as none are known. But this is where he worked, and pretty nice it is as well.

Francisco López Capillas

It is not at all certain whether Capillas was born in Spain or in the New World, but certainly he spent most if not all of his life in Mexico. (For the record, the BBC website declares he was born in Mexico City, and the “Here of a Sunday Morning” website says he was the “first Creole composer of

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significance.”) At any rate, he worked first in Puebla under the directorship of the same Padilla we shall soon encounter, and was an organist and bassoonist. But the choirbook of his own compositions which he sent to the authorities in Mexico City impressed them sufficiently that he was hired as both organist and master of the chapel choir. He worked there until his death. Capillas’ compositions were sufficiently respected that they were widely disseminated in Spain.

His workplace was equally as splendid as that of Araujo. Unlike the Lima Cathedral, though, the Mexico City Cathedral is sinking into the ground, and some of the floor is on a slant. This would not have been the case in Capillas’ day, fortunately. Surely he would have found it distracting.

Stephen Caracciolo

A nationally known composer and arranger whose choral works have been performed throughout the United States and Europe, Dr. Caracciolo has accepted commissions from

numerous organizations, and was awarded the prestigious Individual Artist's Fellowship in Composition from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Dr. Caracciolo holds degrees from Capital University, Westminster Choir College, and Indiana University. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Maryland Baltimore County where he conducts the UMBC Camerata and teaches voice and choral related courses. In addition, he sings as a professional bass at Washington National Cathedral.

Stephen Chatman

One of Canada's most prominent composers, Chatman is Professor and Head, Composition Division at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver . He is the first

Canadian ever short-listed in the BBC Masterprize international competition. He is recognized internationally as a composer of choral, orchestral, and piano music. In 2012, Dr. Chatman was

appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

Dr. Chatman's approximately 100choral works are widely performed and recorded. In 1988-89, Dr. Chatman became British Columbia’s first ‘composer in residence’, composing several works for Vancouver’s Music in the Morning concert series. He was ‘composer in residence’ with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 2004.

The only North American to have won three consecutive BMI Awards to Student Composers, Inc. (New York) prizes (1974,’75,’76), Dr. Chatman has

also received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a M.B. Rockefeller Fund Grant, and a U.S. Fulbright Grant for

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at the Hochschule fur Musik in Cologne.

Howard Hanson

Born to parents who emigrated from Sweden to America when they were young, Hanson’s Scandinavian roots played a very important role in Hanson's aesthetic and spiritual make-up. After graduating from North-western University he taught theory and composition at the College of the Pacific in San Jose.

His first major success as a composer came in 1921 when he was awarded the first American Prix de Rome in Music for his California Forest Play for solo voices, chorus, dancers, and orchestra. George Eastman chose the young Hanson to be director of the recently founded Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, in 1924. Hanson headed the school for 40 years, and made Eastman one of the most influential

music conservatories in the world by broadening its curriculum and raising the standards of its orchestra to a near professional level.

Always fascinated by Gregorian Chant, he frequently uses that style as a source for his melodic shapes and often quotes chorales, or re-imagines the choral style in his music as well.

Juan Gutierrez de Padilla

Padilla was born in Spain, but moved to Mexico at the age of 30. He remained in Mexico until his death. He was the maestro de capilla at the cathedral in Puebla, which in those times was more important than Mexico City. He is considered one of the most important of the Mexican composers.

Interestingly, this was recognized even during his lifetime. When his health began to decline in the early 1660s, the cathedral authorities mounted an effort to bring together and preserve his music in the

archives.

Of his extant 700+ pieces, the majority are sacred, with Latin texts in the stile antico. Many are for double choir. He also wrote sacred villancicos in the vernacular.

Stephen Paulus

Although Paulus has written in a great many genres, his best-known work is for the voice, either as choral works, solo voice, or opera.He has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland

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Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and the like. His choral works have been performed and recorded by some of the most distinguished choruses in the United States. He is one of the most frequently recorded contemporary composers with his music being represented on over fifty recordings.

A recipient of both Guggenheimand NEA Fellowships, Paulus is also a strong advocate for the music of his colleagues. He is co-founder and a past Board Vice-President of the highly esteemed American Composers Forum, the largest composer service organization in the world. Paulus serves on the ASCAP Board of Directors as the Concert Music Representative, a post he has held since 1990.

Antonio de Salazar

Also born in Spain, Salazar made his way to Mexico in 1688, 28 years after Padilla’s death, and assumed the position Padilla had held. Musicologist Bruno Turner, in the liner notes for the Hyperion CD “Masterpieces of Mexican Polyphony,” declared Salazar “represents the last of the truly conservative Hispanic composers before the all-conquering Italian style took Spain and its empire by storm.” When we note Purcell was

composing Dido and Aeneas in 1688, we feel the force of this comment.Later in his life Salazar moved to Mexico City to assume the position of maestro de capilla there. In addition to sacred motets, he wrote a number of villancicos and negritos.

Terry Schlenker

Before I give you Dr. Schlenker’s very interesting bio, I want to express my gratitude to him. I found a recording of Laudate Dominum through his website, sung by the St. Martin’s Chamber Choir in Denver. But the piece is not yet published, so I used the contact link to try to see if I could purchase it directly. However, something was wrong with the link or the address and my email kept bouncing back. I really wanted to put the piece on this program, though, so I sent an inquiry to the St. Martin’s Chamber Choir. In due time the delightful man who is their administrator called

me. He had obviously checked out my bona fides, and so after a nice chat he gave me Dr. Schlenker’s new email. I got a reply which included a PDF file of the piece and Dr. Schlenker’s very kind permission to reproduce enough copies for the group, at no charge. So thank you again! As to the piece itself, when you hear it I think you will see why I persisted when my initial efforts were unsuccessful!

Terry Schlenker studied music composition at the University of North Dakota and at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, from which he holds a Master of Art’s Degree in Composition. A composer of many orchestral, piano, and chamber works, Schlenker has focused much of his recent energy on a cappella choral music. His choral works are widely recorded, published, and have been per-formed on five continents.

For Schlenker, to compose music is not to engage in an esoteric, intellectual exercise, but to articulate beauty, to express his deepest self, and to make a connection with the spiritual, both for himself and for others.

An embryologist by profession, Schlenker co-founded and for 12

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years directed one of the most successful human in-vitro fertilization laboratories in the world. Several years ago he partially retired, in order to focus more time on composing music. He continues to work part- time as an embryologist and consultant in embryology, and frequently speaks internationally on the topic.

Leo Sowerby

Born in Grand Rapids, MI, Sowerby began composing at an early age, and by the age of 18 he had written a violin concerto premiered by the Chicago Sym-phony. Strangely, Sowerby is also said to be the first winner of the American Prix de Rome, in 1921, so he and Howard Hanson will just have to duke it out.

He received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 for his 1944 work Canticle of the Sun.

After living in Rome for three years at the American Academy he returned to the US. He joined the faculty of the American Conservatory in 1932 and taught for 30 years. He was the organist-choirmaster at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Chicago, and worked there from 1927 until his retirement in 1962. One could scarcely call him impulsive.

He didn’t get to rest for long, as he was asked to become the founding director of the College of Church Musicians at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. He held this position until his death. In 1963 he was awarded an honorary fellowship at Trinity College, London and the Royal School of Church Music.

During his lifetime he composed over 500 works in every genre but opera and ballet.

Healey Willan

Called the “Dean of Canadian Composers,” Willan was raised and educated in England. He famously described himself as "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption." He moved to Toronto in 1913 to head the Theory Department of the Toronto Conservatory of Music. In

1921 he became the Precentor of the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto, a position he held until his death.

In 1953 Willan was commissioned to write an anthem for the coronation of Elizabeth II. In addition to this work, O Lord our Governour, he wrote 800 compositions. About half of them were sacred works for choir. He also wrote many secular choral and solo vocal works. In the instrumental realm, he wrote two symphonies, a piano concerto, numerous chamber works, ballad operas, incidental music for stage works, and an opera.

Editorial Disclaimer:

Information on the contemporary composers was primarily drawn from their websites or that of their publisher.

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About The Pittsburgh CamerataThe anecdotal history of The Pittsburgh Camerata indicates it was formed in either 1974 or 1975 by a local conductor, Arthur Wenk. Thus far the group has performed close to 1000 different pieces of music, some of which are 2 minutes long and some of which are 2 hours long.

Through the many directors the group has had and over 35 years of public performing, the type of repertoire has remained very similar. Each director has brought a somewhat different emphasis, but there are very few things on this huge repertoire list that would not fit right into one of our current programs.

When Arthur Wenk moved away in the early 1980s, Robert Shankovich and Alan McCullough in turn conducted the group for the next few years. After that, the group went through what Susan Barclay, a singer who joined the

group in 1982, refers to as the revolving-door years, when various people conducted, some for quite a short time.

In 1987 Gayle Kirkwood was hired as Artistic Director. She galvanized the group and put it on a much more formal and stable footing. Under her tenure The Pittsburgh Camerata recorded the 1995 CD A Christmas Mosaic. It was, rather unexpectedly, a local hit, and really put the organization on the map. Gayle was Artistic Director until the end of the 97-98 season, and that’s where I come into the picture.

I moved to Pittsburgh in 1995, and in 1998 I completed a Masters degree in Choral

Conducting at Carnegie Mellon University. Near the end of my final semester at CMU I discovered Gayle Kirkwood was leaving. I applied for the position, and now, 14 years later, here we are. Many things about the group have changed, as tonight’s program is testimony to, but one thing never has, nor, I suspect, will—the desire to do the very best choral music in a way which will both honor the music and win new adherents to the repertoire.

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SOUNDING AS MANY, SPEAKING AS ONE

PITTSBURGH CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY

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(continued from page 9)

rhythmic pattern in the middle of a bar, or even on the last eighth note, thus throwing off the accents. And once everyone is thoroughly confused, he brings it back to the chorus, making it all the more clear something is amiss. It’s a terrific piece, though, and worth all the trouble, so we hope you will enjoy it!

I’ve written more than six pages and haven’t even gotten to the second half, which has more pieces and a greater range of styles, so you might want to get a snack and make yourself comfortable as we travel north to Nouvelle Bretagne.

The first piece is from way north. Healey Willan spent most of his career in Canada, and wrote a great deal of beautiful music. Much of it is liturgical in nature, but this particular piece, although Willan calls it a motet, sets a Wadsworth poem which is only marginally religious in nature.

As I mentioned many thousands of words ago, I have (very possibly quite artificially) divided the styles for the second half of the program into three categories, and this piece falls into the earliest of them—the late Romantic style

of Parry and Elgar. And once again, although Willan calls this a motet, it is very like the secular part-songs of Parry or Stanford.The other piece in this style is the last work on the program,

Sowerby’s Psalm 122. And to be absolutely honest, Sowerby’s style owes as much to Max Reger as it does to the late 19th-century English composers. This work, however, is much less chromatic and dense than much of his other music, particularly the organ music, and as a consequence I like it much better. It was written for

the seating of the Presiding Bishop when Sowerby was the Director of the College of Church Musicians at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Said presiding bishop was the

Right Reverend Henry St. George Tucker, and the anthem is dedicated to him.

The next style on the program is what I would call the Mid-Century sound. I just made up that name, and so it means whatever I want it to. What I want it to mean is a style similar to the Vaughan Williams/Holst folksong arrangements, with a modal flavor. This doesn’t mean ‘simplistic.‘ Those folk-song arrangements are quite sophisticated as a rule.

The obvious candidate for this category is the Stephen Paulus Arise, My Love. Although it is in “regular” A minor, a lot of the chords are based on fourths, and often the fundamental is missing, giving it a slightly hollow feel.

The final section is a murmuring ostinato sung by the men over parallel first inversion chords in the women’s parts, very reminiscent of Vaughan Williams.

When I handed the music out, one of the sopranos looked at it and said “I’ve sung this! A lot!” She was in Joseph Flummerfelt’s

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choir at Westminster Choir College, and this piece was commissioned by the university and dedicated to Flummerfelt. The choir not only sang it at a concert, it was on their tour. However, apparently Flummerfelt didn’t like the coda, and they left that part off. Loath as I am to disagree with Flummerfelt, I think he’s wrong.

The text is from the Song of Solomon, and is a wonderful setting of this beloved text.

Howard Hanson’s How Excellent Thy Name is a bit harder to characterize. There are definite hints of Holst’s orchestral works, though, so I’ve decided to stick the piece in this category. Hanson himself cited Grieg and Sibelius as influences to his avowedly neo-Romantic style, so I suspect he wouldn’t be offended at the com-

parison to Holst. The piece was written in 1953, and is a setting of portions of Psalm 8. It was written for “treble” choir, which I suspect is meant to be “young trebles,” but I think

you’ll agree our women sound fabulous.

He builds the section of the piece with the text “When I consider Thy heavens” around a nine-note scale, which gives a curious effect which isn’t quite like whole-tone, not quite like modal. He does something which seems similar for “and hast crowned him with glory,” but this time he using ascending Lydian scales over an ostinato bass in the piano. After all of this harmonic interest he pulls the women back, not just to unison from four parts, but to intoning on a single

note for “Thou madest him to have dominion,” which is very striking. The final section, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent Thy name, Alleluia” is ethereal and peaceful, getting increasingly lower and softer, and ending on a d minor chord. Not at all what one would expect, but a memorable effect.

Also on the theme of the heavens is Stephen Chatman’s Thou Whose Harmony is the Music of the Spheres. A setting of a text by Robert French Leavens, it was written for the First Unitarian Society of Madison, Wisconsin in 1994. Chatman also plays with the relationship between “normal” and modal scales, and juxtaposes full chords with open harmonies.

I’m not sure why it has an oboe part. Perhaps the church had a resident oboist. There are a few choral pieces for solo oboe and chorus, but not many. The effect in this piece is quite wonderful. It is rather curiously constructed,

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though. Generally when one is composing for an obbligato instrument, the part is an independent melody, but this really isn’t. Most of what the oboe does is outline chords, with a leading tone to the fundamental or the fifth. But despite this the oboe part is quite independent of the singers, moving on its own agenda. The singers, meanwhile, are basically homophonic, with little independent movement.

I suppose it isn’t too much of a surprise that the oboe part would be completely independent of everything else. Oboists are often like that.

In the meantime, modern physics appears to havedetermined that the early universe was more like a giant organ pipe

than anything else. If I understand what I read correctly, the galaxies, rather than architecture, arefrozen music. Nice thought...

Next is the Stephen Caracciolo There is no Rose. The style is reminiscent of the beautiful Elizabeth Poston Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, which we sang on the Christmas concert. It begins and ends with a simple unison statement of the melody by the sopranos, and the other verses are four-part harmonizations of the melody. However, as each verse is so short, Caracciolo has written a variant melody which he uses every other verse.

As I did a web search using the terms “Virgin Mary” and “rose” for an image to use for this piece,

I found it disturbing how many of the hits I got were tattoos. But I suppose that’s just me being old-fashioned.

Finally, we come to the Terry Schlenker Laudate Dominum in Sanctis Ejus. It is absolutely stunning, and it reminds me a bit of John Tavener. It is written in the Dorian mode, seemingly, but added seconds and unexpected harmonic shifts make it feel very different than the modal pieces of the early 20th century British composers.

It is also unexpected in that the

text is a triumphal praise to God. Yet even in the fortissimo sections it doesn’t feel in the least, well, cheerful. And the last statement of “omnis spiritus laudet Dominum” (let everything that breathes praise the Lord) omits the sopranos altogether and is in the lowest register of the other voices, pianissimo. Perhaps the sense is more “while you have breath.” Whatever the intent, the effect is unusual to say the least.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope our performance does justice to the wonderful music, and you enjoy it!