©1998-2008
The DeKalb Choral Guild, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

In Concert - Polyphony

Saturday, May 18, 1996, 8 PM
Sunday, May 19, 1996, 3 PM
First Christian Church of Atlanta
4532 LaVista Road
Tucker, Georgia

Ave Maris Stella, Anonymous
Schola: Barry Geesey, Barbara Pettitt, Jeanette Gowen, Charles Gabriel, Kenneth Whipple, Judy Thompson

Freedom from Form: A Perspective on the Cantus Firmus Mass
Presented by Mary Evelyn Root

Missa Ave Maris Stella by Josquin des Prez (ca. 1440-1521)

Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus - Schola
Hosanna
Benedictus - Schola
Hosanna
Agnus Dei

INTERMISSION

A Child, My Choice (1994) by John Noel Wheeler (b. 1956)

Set Me as a Seal from A New Creation by René Clausen

Sicut Cervus (As the Wild Deer Is Longing for the Stream) by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)

Ave Verum Corpus by William Byrd (1543-1623)

Psallite Deo Nostro by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Songs from "Alice in Wonderland" by Irving Fine (1914-1962)
The Lobster Quadrille
Father William

Geographical Fugue by Ernst Toch (1887-1964)

Program Notes

By Michaelene Gorney

Missa Ave Maris Stella by Josquin des Prez (ca. 1440-1521)
Josquin des Prez was hailed by, contemporaries as "the best of the composers of our time." He was much renowned, partly due to the invention of music printing, and profoundly influenced those who came after him. "He is the master of the notes," said Martin Luther. "They must do as he wills; as for the other composers, they have to do as the notes will." Josquin began as a choirboy in the Netherlands, served at the court of the Sforza family in Milan, was a member of the Papal Chapel, and also served at the court of Louis XII of France. Later in life, he returned to the Netherlands. His works include twenty Masses, one hundred motets, and seventy chansons and other vocal works.

Josquin stood at the border of the Middle Ages and the modern world. Though the Mass was still the vehicle by which a composer demonstrated his craft, because of its liturgical formality, established text, and musical conventions, it offered less opportunity to experiment than did motets and secular (non-sacred) music. Most of Josquin's Masses, however, contain references to secular tunes used as a cantus firmus or cantus prius factus, a "melody previously made". (Some worldly, even obscene, melodies were worked into sacred music of the time, perhaps for the fun of getting away with it. The Council of Trent later squashed this practice, as well as complicated part-singing that made it difficult to understand the sacred words. See the notes on Palestrina) In Josquin's music we become aware of those features that marked the music of the Renaissance: an "ideal" sound of four or more voices equal in importance; the "ideal" medium of unaccompanied vocal ensemble (a cappella); vocal parts conceived as a homogenous whole rather than as separate melodic lines, with composers beginning to write all part simultaneously instead of successively, as they did in the Middle Ages.

A Child, My Choice (1994) by John Noel Wheeler (b. 1956)
John Noel Wheeler was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, studied music at East Carolina University and at the University of Georgia, where he received a Master of Music degree and pursued Doctoral studies. He was a Fulbright candidate in music composition in 1986. John has taught music at the University of Georgia, served as Associate Conductor of the DeKalb Choral Guild (1982-86), and was on the founding staff of the Gwinnett Festival Singers. He currently sings with the DCG and plays trombone in chamber ensembles. His compositions are largely instrumental chamber music and liturgically-based vocal and choral music.

Rhythm is important to the composer, who prefers that spoken text influence, and often dictate, the changing meters of his music. This influence, as well as a lengthening of important words, is heard in "A Child, My Choice," a poem by Robert Southwell. Says the composer, "I take what would be, on their own, relatively simple parts, and overlay them in a way that makes the sum of the parts more complex." Just as the narrator/subject relationship moves from simple to complex in Southwell's poem, so does the music. Stanza 1 beings with a unison melody, one part becoming two at its end. In Stanza 2, equal parts imitate each other, then become three. Stanza 3, generally homophonic (chordal), subtly divides into four parts at intense moments. Stanza 4 combines counterpoint and homophony in two duets, one imitative and one chordal. Thus, Stanza l grows through Stanzas 2 and 3 into the complexities of Stanza 4.

Sicut Cervus (As the Wild Deer Is Longing for the Stream) by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)
Palestrina, the name of the small town where this composer was born, is now synonymous with the composer himself. From choirboy to choirmaster at St. Peter's, Palestrina lived his life in Rome, refusing offers which would have taken him away. His first published book of Masses was dedicated to Pope Julius III. During the latter part of his life, Palestrina revised liturgical books to accommodate changes made by the Council of Trent. The changes meant to purge Roman Catholic chant of "barbarisms, obscurities, contrarieties, and superfluities" which had come into them "as a result of the clumsiness or negligence or even wickedness of the composers, scribes, and printers." As a Counter Reformation conservative, Palestrina "blushed and grieved" to have written madrigals which used profane love poems as their text.

Palestrina's style relies on the clarity of individual parts and the absence of dissonance, or notes that clash. Other composers of the time, attending primarily to the flow of the melody, gave little consideration to the sound of parts together at any given point in time. Palestrina's approach gives the listener a strong sense of chordal harmony, which became the basis of Western classical music from the Baroque to the Twentieth Century.

Ave Verum Corpus by William Byrd (1543-1623)
Englishman William Byrd was the last great Roman Catholic composer of the 16th century. As a boy, he probably studied with composer Thomas Tallis, then went on to become organist of Lincoln Cathedral and a member of the (Anglican) Royal Chapel, a post he held until his death despite the fact that he remained Roman Catholic. Though Byrd wrote much music for the Anglican Church, his best compositions are his Masses and motets, unaccompanied choral works based on Latin sacred and meant to be performed in Roman Catholic services. Said Byrd, "I have found there is such a power hidden away and stored in those words [of Scripture] that ... to one who meditates on divine things, pondering them with detailed concentration, all the most fitting melodies... freely present themselves when the mind is alert and eager."

Psallite Deo Nostro by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Bach enjoyed an uneventful but successful career, similar to that of other musical craftsmen of his time in Lutheran Germany. He served as organist at Arrnstadt, as court organist at Muhlhausen and later concertmaster in the chapel of the Duke of Weimar, as music director at the court of a Prince of Cothen, and, finally, as Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, a respected, important position in the Lutheran world. Bach's musical output was usually dictated by the requirements of whatever position he held at any given time.

The melody of Psallite Deo Nostro is also that of Sicut Locutus Est (Psalm 117) from the Magnificat for five part chorus and orchestra.

The Lobster Quadrille and Father William by Irving Fine (1914-1962)
American Irving Fine studied music with Walter Piston at Harvard, with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and choral conducting with Archibald T. Davison. He taught music at Harvard University, Brandeis University and the Berkshire Music Center. Fine's music typically has decisive rhythms and a strong contrapuntal texture (basically "melody vs. melody" ). Both traits can be heard in tonight's selections. "The Lobster Quadrille" and "Father William" are from Three Choral Settings from "Alice in Wonderland," with words taken directly from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Geographical Fugue by Ernst Toch (1887-1964)
Ernst Toch, Austrian-born composer and pianist, first studied medicine, then philosophy, and then music, a discipline in which he was self-taught. He went to England in 1933, writing music for the BBC, then to the United States and Hollywood. Film scores to his credit include The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) and On Such a Night (1937). In 1904, he became professor of composition at UCLA. His concert works include chamber music, piano music, and four symphonies, the third of which won a Pulitzer Prize. Toch promoted the Viennese tradition n music through his teaching and his book, The Shaping Forces in Music. "The Geographical Fugue for Speaking Chorus" celebrates rhythm, that which regulates the flow of music in time. Said Toch, "It is the interplay of [rhythmic reiteration and contrast] that builds and feeds the skeleton of music." Though "fugue" usually refers to a short melody which is stated by one voice and taken up by others, the theme of Toch's fugue is not a melody, but a rhythmic pattern. Despite the lack of melody in the traditional sense, plenty of tonal variety in achieved through changing dynamics, vocal color, and the speech rhythms of geographical names.