A Holiday Diversion

Hymne à la Vierge (1955) by Pierre Villette (1926-1998), from a poem by Roland Bouhéret

What Cheer? (1961) by William Walton (1902-1983), words from Commonolace Book by Richard Hill (16th century)
    The Chamber Singers

Gloria (1959) by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
    Patricia Nealon, soprano

The British Highway Code, chants by Havergal, Hopkins, Felton and Barnard
Text from the Ministry of Transportation and Civil Aviation

A Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas (1990), traditional carol arr. by Craig Courtney

1. A Partridge from 6th Century Rome
2. Two Turtle Doves from 15th Century France
3. Three French Hens from 16th Century Italy
4. Four Calling Birds from 17th Century Italy
5. Five Gold Rings from 18th Century Germany
6. Six Geese a-Laying from 18th Century Austria
7. Seven Swans a-Swimming from 19th Century France
8. Eight Maids a-Milking from 19th Century Germany
9. Nine Ladies Dancing from 19th Century Austria
10. Ten Lords a-Leaping from 19th Century Italy
11. Eleven Pipers Piping from 19th Century Russia
12. Twelve Drummers Drumming from 20th Century United States

Oedipus Tex (S. 150) P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742)?
Discovery wrapped up by Professor Peter Schickele, September 1985
    Billie Jo Casta: Cheryl Boyd-Waddell
    Madam Peep: Linda Vaughn
    Oedipus Tex: Jack Sartain
    Narrator: Patrick Hagan
    Amy Black, Horn
    Eric Lyons, Percussion

1. Prologue
Recitative: "Well"
2. Aria: "Howdy There"
Recitative: "And It Wasn't Long"
3. Duet: "My Heart"
Recitative: "But"
4. Aria: "You Murdered Your Father"
Recitative: "When Billie Jo Heard"
5. Aria: "Goodbye"
Recitative: "When Oedipus"
6. Chorale and Finale

Program Notes by Michaelene Gorney

John Rutter (b. 1945), the founder of the Cambridge Singers, is well known as a choral conductor and as a masterful arranger of songs, anthems and carols. Rutter's compositions, written in a traditional style interspersed with 20th century rhythmic and harmonic inflections, are almost exclusively choral, but he has also written large orchestral works, opera, pop and light music, and music for the BBC.

The text of "What Sweeter Music" is a poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674), an English country clergyman. The poem also appears as "Herrick's Carol" (No. 122) in The Oxford Book of Carols, where it is set to a 17th century German melody, one almost synonymous with that of the contemporary favorite, "While Shepherds Watched." In Rutter's version, pairs of verses are set to an original two-part melody, the first part identified by melodic leaps and the second by a smoother step-wise movement. Changes of melodic direction and the 3/4 meter lend to this piece a rocking, dance-like character, akin to a lullaby, which is reinforced by the piano.

Pierre Villette (1926-1998) was born in Duclair, France, into a family of musicians, and began studying organ at the age of six. A winner of the Prix de Rome in 1949, he composed consistently throughout his life and produced over 80 works, several of them in more than one version. His output consists primarily of chamber and religious music, but he also wrote music for orchestra and theater, as well as symphonic jazz.

In "Hymne à la Vierge," written in 1955, Villette acknowledges traditional harmony in the form of a few major and minor chords at the beginnings or ends of phrases. These are the exceptions rather than the rule, however, as they are used merely as starting points for voices which quickly move elsewhere. This gives the music a feeling of unending development and constant motion, assisted after the first four measures by a fairly consistent rhythmic movement in eighth notes. The piece is rounded off with a repeat of the opening words, "O toute belle Vierge Marie." From the F major chord which marks this close (as it did the beginning of the piece), Villette proceeds to envelope the listener with a soft cluster of sound, finally coming to rest on the same chord, subtly altered with the addition of a tenth and a sixth above the bass. Such sweet dissonance lends a true and perfect ending to this poem by Roland Bouhéret.

William Walton (1902-1983) was born into a musical family and studied at Oxford. He became internationally famous in the 1920s for his orchestral works and went on to produce three major works: Belshazzar's Feast, a massive choral work; the First Symphony; and a Violin Concerto commissioned by Jasha Heifetz. Walton's compositions for state functions, such as the Crown Imperial march written for the coronation of King George VI, A Queen's Fanfare and Orb and Sceptre, both written for Queen Elizabeth II, the Anniversary Fanfare, written for EMI's 75th Anniversary Concert, and March for the History of the English-Speaking Peoples, showed him to be a master of ceremonial music, music that is harmonically and rhythmically fresh without the staidness or stodginess that the term "ceremonial" might imply.

"What Cheer?" is a contemporary setting of a text from Richard Hill's Commonplace Book, a collection of songs, carols and miscellaneous poems of the 16th Century. Though probably accommodating the rhythms of the text as originally sung or spoken, Walton infuses this setting with an infectious rhythmic spirit that is uniquely his, along with sliding harmonies that are unmistakably 20th Century.

As a young composer, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) was a member of Les Six, a group of French composers who were, as Jeremy Cox says, "something of a byword for urbane, frivolous, and calculatedly naïve musical style." When his good friend, composer Pierre Octave Ferroud, died in an auto accident, Poulenc returned to the Catholic church in which he had been immersed as a child and a new-found spirituality came to be reflected in his works. Gloria (1959), along with the Stabat Mater (1951) and Dialogues des Carmelites (1956), represents the culmination of the composer's career as well as that period in life when he chose to produce religious, rather than secular, works. Devotional though these works are, Poulenc was criticized for the exuberance and the jazzy stylistic elements that he incorporated into them. "I like the spirit of religion to be expressed clearly in the sun," he said, and described the tone colors of the Gloria as "very clear, primary colors - rude and violent like the Provence chapel of Matisse." To critics of the second movement he said, "In writing it, I simply thought of those frescoes of Gozzoli [the 15th century Italian painter] in which the angels are sticking out their tongues and also of those serious Benedictine monks whom I spotted one day playing soccer."

Poulenc's Gloria, a setting of the second part of the Roman Catholic Ordinary of the Mass, begins with a majestic instrumental announcement of this declamatory song of praise. In the exultant "Laudamus te," lines of text are introduced by sopranos and tenors, then repeated by the altos and basses. In this movement, as in others, Poulenc assigns to each line of text a unique melodic motive which can be heard each time the text is sung. The mysteriously evocative and prayerful "Domine Deus, Rex coelestis" introduces the soprano soloist, supported by the chorus. In "Domine Fili unigenite," Poulenc's religious fervor is quite evident as the composer commands our attention with intense statements and re-statements of his belief in Jesus Christ. The solo soprano is heard again in the beautiful and supplicating "Domine Deus, Agnus Dei," with a distinctive rising melody which encompasses an octave. The final movement, "Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris," opens with an a cappella choir whose prayer is punctuated by instrumental interjections that are repeated throughout the movement. A faster middle section ends with a return to the serenity of "Domine Deus, Rex coelestis," as the soprano heralds the end of this section - and the end of the Gloria - with a fervent "Amen."

According to Guild Music Director Bryan Black, "The Highway Code" is taken word-for-word from a publication of the Ministry of Transportation, London, and was originally performed in this fashion about thirty years ago on BBC television by a male quartet called "The Cathedral Singers." In keeping with Anglican and Episcopal tradition, the chorus chants in four-part harmony and provides variations by singing the "verses" to tunes by composers Havergal, Hopkins, Felton and Barnard.

Craig Courtney, now living in Columbus, Ohio, began playing piano at the age of three and cello at the age of seven. After studying at the University of Cincinnati, where he received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in piano performance, he spent three years in Milan, Italy, where he performed for the Associazzione Musicale "Gustav Mahler," worked as a vocal coach, and was invited to join the music faculty of the famed Mozarteum in Salzburg. Due to the unavailability of music in the English language, Courtney began composing choral music for the choir he directed at the Salzburg International Baptist Church. His published works include over 50 sacred choral pieces, four vocal collections, and works for chorus and orchestra.

"A Musicological Journey through the Twelve Days of Christmas" was written for the Columbus Symphony Chorus 1990 Holiday Pops Concert. The "journey" of musical styles begins in 6th Century Rome, with the first line of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" sung in the style of Gregorian Chant, and continues on to the United States in the 20th Century, with the Twelve Drummers very appropriately introduced to the strains of John Philip Sousa. In between are recognizable tributes (not quite in the style of P. D. Q. Bach!) to other well-known composers and their works. Our Holiday challenge: Can you name them all?

Peter Schickele, born 1935 in Ames, Iowa, studied composition with such 20th Century notaries as Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud, and Vincent Persichetti and has taught at the Juilliard School of Music since 1962. In 1965, he achieved fame in a concert featuring himself as the mythical P. D. Q. Bach (1807-1742)? composer of such musical travesties as Gross Concerto for Divers Flutes, Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra, Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycles & Balloons, Missa Hilarious, and many others equally as irreverent. In 1967, he organized a chamber-rock-jazz trio, Open Window, which presents his serious compositions, among them works for orchestra, voice, film, television, and chamber groups.

Professor Schikele, from the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, has this (and much, much more!) to say about P. D. Q. Bach and Oedipus Tex, a "Dramatic Oratorio or Opera in One Cathartic Act": "It is becoming increasingly apparent that P. D. Q. Bach's importance lies not only in his having been the late 18th century's most iconoclastic, forward-looking and reckless composer, but also in his being the sole source of our knowledge concerning the presence of ancient Greeks in the new world. The discovery, in 1962, of his now- classic cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn rocked the worlds of musicology and Hellenic study, and dealt a severe psychological blow to Italian-Americans, still reeling from the dethronement of Christopher Columbus by Leif Ericson as the first European to reach these shores. Now the unearthing of P. D. Q.'s oratorio/opera Oedipus Tex establishes beyond any possible doubt that the Greeks predated (by more than a millennium) the Spaniards in what is now the American southwest. ...

"The influence of ancient Greek drama pervades Oedipus Tex. The inexorable turning of the wagon wheel of fate stops for neither high nor low, man nor woman, young nor old, with it nor out of it. … And most audience members agree that by the end of a performance they have experienced catharsis - that feeling of calm you have after you vomit."

In this oratorio version, "recitatives are accompanied by a continuo group consisting of solo cello and keyboard harmonica - an authentic touch, since keyboard harmonicas were very popular among cowboys who had gone to conservatories. … The manuscript of this prototypically Western work was found, quite by chance, during a visit to San Antonio's most popular tourist shrine, the Alamo. (Few people, incidentally, are aware of the derivation of that name: it comes from the French, meaning 'in the style of the Three Stooges.') Noticing something light-colored peeking out of a tear in the shirt worn by Davy Crockett, the present author received permission to open the case and examine it. Imagine his surprise when he found that the entire score of Oedipus Tex had been sewn into the shirt in a vain attempt to create a bulletproof vest. Fortunately, it proved possible to reconstruct the missing notes, notes that were presumably buried with and within the body of the scout, politician, soldier and violinist (did you know that?) who became one of America's most famous and beloved martyrs. ...

"P. D. Q. Bach desperately wanted to defend his reputation against the attacks of his detractors, and I think that, after hearing Oedipus Tex, we must all agree that he was just as successful as were the defenders of the Alamo."