Welcome!Thank you for joining us for our first-ever live-streamed performance. We've put a lot of work into it and we hope you enjoy it. We are thrilled to be singing together in our first live program in over 18 months, and we're so glad you could be with us for this event.
With The Cloud-Capp'd Towers, we've found ourselves exploring Shakespeare texts including sonnets and famous excerpts from some of his best-known plays, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Richard II. True to our own values and mission, this program features many living composers and new music, including the U.S. premieres of two sets, the East Coast premiere of Evelin Seppar's Sonnet No. 43, and the live world premiere of Reena Esmail's Quarantine Madrigals. While admission to tonight's concert is free of charge, the scores, licenses, venues, and rehearsal time we need in order to perform are not. If you are able to donate, we would greatly appreciate it. Whether $5 or $5,000, any amount helps support our continued work! Should you choose to donate, you can donate securely online right here on this page or by clicking here. Program notes by Robby Napoli, Austin Nikirk, and John-Paul Teti. Special thanks to our families and friends, and to Christ Church, Georgetown & Thomas Smith for allowing us to perform in this beautiful space. Thank you to Frank Napoli for photography and especially to John Vengrouskie, our recording engineer. Thank you to St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville, Md and to St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Baltimore, MD for providing rehearsal space. |
|
Please use the buttons below or scroll through this webpage to navigate to the live-stream and the program notes.
Live-Stream
Program notes & texts can be found below the live-stream video.
Program NotesWHEN TIME IS BROKE (MCDOWALL) U.S. Premiere A highly regarded composer, London native Cecilia McDowall (born in 1951) has enjoyed an award-winning compositional career, including commissions from some of today’s foremost choirs. In her own words, her music often fuses “fluent melodic lines with occasional dissonant harmonies and rhythmic exuberance.” When time is broke is a recent commission for the BBC Singers, which premiered in January 2016 in London. Melding together texts from different Shakespeare works, she combines lines masterfully, keeping both literary and musical themes intact throughout. 1. Give me some music The first movement from this set begins rather mysteriously, with waves of sound fading in and out as each line adds to its previous thought. Then, in complete contrast, the sopranos and tenors begin a traditional style of singing known as puirt à beul, or “mouth music”, native to Scotland, Ireland, and Cape Breton Island, located in Nova Scotia. Traditionally, puirt à beul was used for dancing when no fiddles or other instruments were available—fitting for a text comparing the cycle of love to traditional dances, especially given the first comparison is to a Scottish jig. As the metaphor continues, we see marriage, and finally repentance, which grows faster into a lively dance, as do the rhythms in the lower voices, “till he sink into his grave.” 2. Mark how one string In this, the only movement which pulls from just one text, McDowall sets Shakespeare’s Sonnet 8. Throughout this piece, McDowall plays with different modes, or scales, to achieve the harmonic colors and direction she wants. In both the beginning and the end, we hear McDowall set melodies in octaves between either basses and altos or tenors and sopranos, and in both instances, the text references singular notes. As the piece progresses, we hear the texture of the piece thin quite a bit, then gradually thicken again, as the text describes how each individual line in the music combines just as a family does, joining together to create pleasing harmonies. 3. How sour sweet music In the final piece in this set, McDowall creates an almost maddening effect, combining texts from three different plays, all bemoaning “sour” music, whether out of time or tune, heralding troubling events for the speaker. We begin almost in a frenzy with King Richard, locked away in the castle of Pomfret, still coming to terms with his newfound isolation from the world he once knew. Out of a murmur we hear the treble voices sing the song of the lark, foreshadowing Romeo’s impending death. The main theme returns once again before transitioning to the end of the piece. Switching plays yet again, McDowall depicts Hamlet’s words describing Gildenstern’s manipulation fairly literally, climbing from the bass’s low E to a soprano’s high G-sharp, concluding with Hamlet’s final words of the play, as he succumbs to his death. THREE SHAKESPEARE CHORUSES (BEACH) Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944) was a composer and performer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When she married young to Dr. Henry Beach, she moved to Boston and took up composing full-time. The years of their marriage, 1885 until 1910, were some of her most productive compositionally, and all of her large-scale works were composed during this period. Choral music represents a small but important part of her compositional output. These Shakespeare choruses come relatively early in her oeuvre, but present several of the techniques and features distinctive of her later career. 2. Come unto these yellow sands Come unto these yellow sands, taking its text from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, is quick to move away from its original key center and reluctant to return, finally doing so only just before the end of the piece. Beach’s practice of moving fluidly between keys is well-documented, and her synesthesia allowed her to text-paint in a fairly literal sense by ascribing colors to keys, resulting in interesting and unexpected harmonies. 3. Through the house give glimmering light Aside from her affinity for moving between keys, another characteristic of Beach’s art song to appear in her choral music is syllabic text setting. This means that words with one syllable are set on one note, two syllables are set over two notes, and so on. Words that are set melismatically, or with one syllable over several notes, tend to be the most important word in the phrase or stanza. An example of this comes in the second line, “By dead and drowsy fire,” where the word “drowsy” is set on a long melisma in the Soprano 1 part, and extended by the other parts in a slightly less dramatic fashion. The text, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is often set quite literally as well, such as the rest after the word “hop,” creating a gap to hop over, or the trilling sensation setting the word “warbling.” SONNET NO. 43 (SEPPAR) East Coast Premiere Evelin Seppar is an Estonian composer whose music has been performed internationally, including performances from groups like the Latvian Radio Choir and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. We’re happy to bring her piece, Sonnet No. 43, which premiered in Estonia in 2013, back to life after a 5 year hiatus. The Shakespeare sonnet Seppar sets, for which the piece is named, uses themes of dark and light throughout: Shakespeare writes that the subject of the poem could brighten shadows with only their own. Seppar reflects Shakespeare’s imagery with her own harmonic language. Throughout the piece, we hear Seppar use thick harmonic textures to represent darkness, contrasted with moments of stark clarity. The first instance of this comes after introducing the dreams of which Shakespeare writes at the beginning of the piece, when we find ourselves in an almost muddled musical texture with vocal lines overlapping throughout. As the shadows are brightened by the poem's subject in the following lines, we find a clearer texture, until nearly every vocal part sings “thy much clearer light” in unison. SHAKESPEARE SONNETS (ŁUKASZEWSKI) U.S. Premiere Pawel Łukaszewski (born in 1968) is one of Poland’s foremost living composers. Primarily a cellist by training, he has become known for his sacred choral writing, although he has written for nearly every type of standard western classical ensemble. His Shakespeare Sonnets, which are among his fairly rare secular pieces, were originally written for the contemporary vocal sextet proMODERN for their program, “Shakespired”; setting Sonnets 60 and 27 in a style distinctively Łukaszewski’s—one which he refers to as “renewed tonality”. 1. Like as the Waves This piece is a setting of Shakespeare’s 60th sonnet, which, like a large portion of Shakespeare’s sonnets, is a love poem addressed to a handsome young man. This particular sonnet focuses on the passing of time. As the piece begins, we feel the push and pull of the waves in the back-and-forth between the upper and lower voices. At the moment Shakespeare names time, a sort of villain in this text, we feel a heavy shift in the direction of the piece. In a sort of musical pun, Łukaszewski shifts the time signature back and forth. Between each repetition, Łukaszewski sets lines of the sonnet describing the harms inflicted by time, each diminishing as if from age, with stark dissonance between the altos and tenors. Finally, as Shakespeare ends hoping that his words will permanently recall the things time destroys, Łukaszewski shifts from his tense harmonic language to close the piece with a much more serene, almost relieved theme. 2. Weary with Toil Łukaszewski’s setting of Sonnet 27 begins as Like as the Waves ends, linking the two settings musically just as the theme of time occurs in both sonnets.. As the sonnet develops, Łukaszewski matches the exhaustion in the text as each chord lowers progressively. Suddenly, when the speaker’s mind focuses on the object of the sonnet, we hear yet another sudden shift in tone, this time towards a more passionate theme. Soon, we reach the climax of the piece, as the speaker imagines the object of their love as a radiant jewel shining in a dark night. THREE SHAKESPEARE SONGS (VAUGHAN WILLIAMS) Nearing the end of an accomplished compositional career, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) wrote Three Shakespeare Songs, one of his most celebrated sets of choral music, almost begrudgingly. As President of the British Federation of Music Festivals, he was preparing for their annual choral competition when his associate composer, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, suggested Vaughan Williams compose a new piece for the choirs to perform, rather than the customary choral standards. After Gibbs’s letter was without reply for some time, he’d assumed the idea was struck down, until he received the manuscripts for Three Shakespeare Songs along with a note: “Dear Armstrong. Here are three Shakespeare settings. Do what you like with them… Yours ever R.V.W.” 1. Full Fathom Five Featuring text from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” Full Fathom Five immediately throws us into a dark and mysterious sound-world, with clusters in the upper voices. In the play, Alonso, though presumed dead in a shipwreck, magically transforms while in the depths of the ocean. The spirit Ariel sings this song to Ferdinand. As the upper voices begin to describe Alonso’s transformation, Vaughan Williams uses triplets and a modulation to a new key to portray the “sea-change” which has come over him. 2. The Cloud-Capp’d Towers The namesake of our program also quotes “The Tempest,” though this time much farther along in the play. The piece sets a monologue delivered by Propsero, which comes as he suddenly remembers Caliban’s plot to kill him, abruptly ending a masque celebrating his daughter’s engagement. Vaughan Williams uses the thick, low-seated texture of the piece to mirror the gravity of Prospero’s solemn speech. Vaughan Williams continues to play with key modulations, but here, he uses them as an indicator of the speaker’s point of focus. As Prospero shifts from one idea to the next, so too does the pitch center. 3. Over Hill, Over Dale Unlike the first two from The Tempest, Vaughan Williams’s third Shakespeare song comes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just the second line of Act II, the text—the fairy’s song to Puck—describes the mythology of Titania, the Fairy Queen. Vaughan Williams’s setting evokes the playful energy and speed one might expect from a fairy servant in the midst of planning dances for their Queen. QUARANTINE MADRIGALS (ESMAIL) Indian-American composer Reena Esmail (born in 1983) works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and has received awards from and been commissioned by some of the leading musical organizations in the United States. A Resident Artist for both the L.A. Master Chorale and Seattle Symphony, she focuses her work on promoting cross-cultural music which connects traditions of Indian and Western classical music. As such, her music often plays with modes and tonalities that we may not often be used to in the Western classical canon, combining them with more familiar musical ideas. When Austin, Texas-based Conspirare commissioned her to write a set of pieces easily performed from home and on stage, Esmail delivered a set of seven short madrigals; each set to a different haiku written in response to the feelings experienced especially by singers and musicians throughout the covid-19 pandemic. “Every restraint is an opportunity for a composer,” Esmail said. “During the pandemic, I thought about what it meant for choral singers, who are used to the feeling of singing together, to be isolated.” “What follows is a set of short madrigals (yes, the title is a play on ‘florentine madrigal’) that trace the break from society, the descent into isolation, and the eventual return to one another. Each madrigal slowly loses one voice at a time until the middle of the piece, and then gains a voice back until the end. The entire set is designed to be sung by a single singer, of any voice type, recording the parts over themselves. “This piece was a collaboration with Amy Fogerson, a lifelong ensemble singer who I have worked with for years, in so many capacities. Amy wrote me many options of each haiku, and then when the music was written, she test-recorded each madrigal to make sure it worked effectively for a single singer to compile. I wrote the music, but Amy did pretty much everything else! “If you are a choral singer, missing your choir, I hope this set resonates with you. I hope it challenges you in some of the ways you loved to be challenged in ensemble singing, and I hope it feels like fun to build a multi-movement, multi-part ensemble work with just the sound of your own voice.” |
TextsWHEN TIME IS BROKE (MCDOWALL) Texts by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1. Give me some music Give me some music — music, moody food Of us that trade in love. (Antony and Cleopatra) The first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and anciently; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. (Much Ado About Nothing) 2. Mark how one string Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, pleasing note do sing. (Sonnet 8) 3. How sour sweet music Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept! (Richard II) It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. (Romeo and Juliet) You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass… The rest is silence. (Hamlet) THREE SHAKESPEARE CHORUSES (BEACH) Texts by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
2. Come unto these yellow sands Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Curtsied when you have, and kissed The wild waves whist. Foot it featly here and there, And, sweet sprites, bear The burden. Hark, hark! (The Tempest) 3. Through the house give glimmering light Through the house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire. Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier. And this ditty, after me, Sing and dance it trippingly. (A Midsummer Night's Dream) SONNET NO. 43 (SEPPAR) Text by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. SHAKESPEARE SONNETS (ŁUKASZEWSKI) Texts by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1. Like as the waves Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. (Sonnet 60) 2. Weary with toil Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul’s imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous and her old face new. Lo! Thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee and for myself no quiet find. (Sonnet 27) THREE SHAKESPEARE SONGS (VAUGHAN WILLIAMS) Texts by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1. Full Fathom Five Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong bell (The Tempest) 2. The Cloud-Capp'd Towers The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest) 3. Over Hill, Over Dale Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire I do wander everywhere. Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. (A Midsummer Night's Dream) QUARANTINE MADRIGALS (ESMAIL) Texts by Amy Fogerson
|