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

Winter Lights

Bryan F. Black, Director
Leanne Elmer Herrmann, Accompanist

In conjunction with Arts & Ideas at Oglethorpe University

Saturday, December 20, 2003
Conant Center for the Performing Arts
Oglethorpe University
Atlanta, Georgia

Tonight the Guild welcomed Dr. Carol Nigro, Professor of English at Georgia State University. Dr. Nigro guided us through our winter celebration with her original narration.

Le Semeur (1999), arr. by George Emlen, Traditional Breton folksong
Performed by the Chamber Singers
Nancy Heape and Stephen Shaver, soloists
Dania McDonald, harp

Green Grow'th the Holly, music by King Henry VIII (1491-1547)
Texts: verse 1 by an anonymous author, verses 2 and 3 by Daphne Slocombe

Evensong "Let Evening Come" (1999) by Mary Lynn Place Badarak, poem by Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming (1990) by Michael Prætorius (1571-1621) & Jan Sandström (b. 1954), traditional German carol (16th century), English text (1894) by Theodore Baker

A Little Christmas Cantata (1976) by Ivana Loudová (b. 1941), words by Václav Fischer, English text by Jane May
Dania McDonald, harp, and Yvonne Toll, trumpet

Judea by William Billings (1746-1800)

Chanticleer, arr. by Francis Judd Cooke (1910-1994), text by William Austin (d. 1633)

Yeoman's Carol, arr. by Francis Judd Cooke (1910-1994), text by Don Cohen

Maoz Tsur (Rock of Ages), arr. by Jerome Epstein, 13th century Hebrew texts, translations by M. Jastrow and G. Gotthiel
Yvonne Toll, trumpet

Light One Candle (1983), words and music by Peter Yarrow (b. 1938), arr. by Robert DeCormier
Terry Carpenter and Ellery Trafford, guitar, and Billy Puckett, bass

Program Notes

by Michaelene Gorney

With this concert on Winter's Eve, the DeKalb Choral Guild celebrates the traditions of Solstice, Christmas, and Chanukah, anticipating the New Year with expressions of hope for new growth in fields and hearts, celebrating the mystery and joy of the Season, admonishing ourselves and others to not lose faith in a better world!

The Winter Solstice marks the first day of winter, when the sun is farthest south and the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset is at a minimum for the year.¹  [The word "solstice" is derived from the Latin words "sol", meaning "sun," and "sistere," "to cause to stand still."]  Celebrations of Solstice date back at least to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, whose festivities recognized, respectively, the birth of the god-man Osiris, the death and rebirth of the harvest god, Dionysus, and Saturn, the god of agriculture.²  While it is commonly acknowledged that many contemporary symbols of the Season – the holly and the ivy, mistletoe, yule logs, gift-giving, evergreens, mummeries, masques, to name a few – have roots in non-Christian ritual, these have been readily adapted to represent the beliefs and values of those adopting them.  This only serves to point up commonalities within diverse systems of belief and pays tribute to the seemingly universal human need to indulge in introspection and to join in social celebration - or, as some might say, "to party hearty"!

We begin with a Breton folksong, "Le Semeur," or "The Sower," arranged by George Emlen, conductor, organist, composer, music educator, and Music Director of Revels, Inc., since 1984.³  This song has its roots in Brittany, a coastal region in western France, in ancient days a part of Armorica and the center of a confederation of Cymric Celtic Tribes.  Here, a farmer looks forward to the coming year as he toils in the fields, his sweat fertilizing the ground, his thoughts on the bread that he will provide for the villagers and the birds that will be fed with the seed he sows.  The French text by Father Copée is a translation of the original Breton.⁴  "Under the broad winter sky….I give alms to a hundred little birds."

"Green Grow'th the Holly," attributed to King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), speaks to the evergreen-ness of the holly and the ivy, a metaphor for a lover's constancy.  According to The Oxford Book of Carols, the words of the first verse originally served as the refrain for a love song for which no tune is preserved.⁵  Henry VIII was known to have played well several instruments and, per Henry Peacham, could "sing his part sure."⁶  So, it seems certain that he would have sung this, a song of his own composition, in his own court and at one of the seasonal revels on which he spent fantastic sums of money.⁷  The new second and third verses, by writer Daphne Slocombe, reinforce the themes of natural renewal and rebirth.⁸  "Seeds sleep in back earth…."

"Evensong: Let Evening Come" (1999) was written by Mary Lynn Place Badarak.  While living in Atlanta, Dr. Badarak was a member of the Atlanta Symphony Chorale under Robert Shaw, taught music theory and composition at Georgia State University, Clayton State College, and Spelman College, and was composer-in-residence at Episcopal Church of the Epiphany.  Recently, she has worked with composer Alice Parker at the Melodious Accord Institute and is the Founding Director of the Santa Cruz Chorale and the professional chamber choir, Impromptu.  Since moving to New Mexico in 2003, she has been Guest Conductor for the Sangre de Cristo Chorale in Santa Fe.  Her many published works are performed at composers' forums and in concert by soloists and choruses.⁹

In 1998, a friend gave Dr. Badarak a copy of "Let Evening Come," a poem by Jane Kenyon (1947-1995).  This poem, first published in 1990, was quoted by Bill Moyers in "A Life Together," a 1993 Public Television broadcast focusing on the life of Ms. Kenyon and her husband, fellow poet Donald Hall.  In the interview, the poet explained that she had returned to their farm in New Hampshire after a difficult visit with her husband's doctors.  With publishers "nagging" her to provide a title poem for her newest collection, she sat on the porch and reflected;  "Let Evening Come" came to her all in one piece.  Dr. Badarak kept this interview until the morning after singing in the Robert Shaw Memorial concert, when she composed this work – like Kenyon – all in one piece.¹⁰  In this poem, the poet speaks to herself, consciously willing an acceptance of the inevitable turns of life, just as she accepts the fall of evening and its effects on life at Eagle Pond Farm.  Though at the time inspired by her husband's condition, "Let Evening Come" might also have served as preparation for her own death from leukemia five years later.  Badarak's music mirrors Kenyon's thoughts with seemingly free-form harmonies, some the result of passing melodic movement; others of structural importance made fuller by the addition of seconds and sevenths, like softly comforting jazz.  Repeated motives support the meditative quality of the poem, with voices in imitation strengthening the visual images and minor thirds circling to resolution.  "Let the wind die down…Let the shed go black…"

Although the celebration of Christmas as the birthday of Jesus Christ is taken for granted in today's culture, Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Catholic Church and its observance was not common among Christians until the end of the eighth century, by which time it had spread from Europe to Egypt to England and as far as Scandinavia.¹¹  As to the true date of this celebration, the Gospels are contradictory.  A Roman census facilitating the Holy Family's trip to Bethlehem might have been possible during the winter months, but how likely is it that shepherds would have herded their flocks during cold, rainy nights?  It is more likely that the significance of already-established mid-winter celebrations, such as Saturnalia, Juvenalia, and Natalis Invicti, (a solar fest actually celebrated on December 25), was changed to recognize and celebrate what was originally referred to as the Feast of the Nativity.  Reference to this feast as "Cristes Maesse" in Old English first appears in 1038.¹²

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" ("Es ist ein Ros entsprungen") first appeared in print in the Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirkengesang in 1599, but it may have originated in the 15^th Century as a German Christmas or Twelfth Night carol.  The German text is a paraphrase of Isaiah 11:1:  "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."  The "rose" of which the carol speaks represents the Virgin Mary; the flower, the Christ Child.  Thus this carol combines secular images of winter with a biblical prophecy whose promise is the source of Christian hope.  The English translation heard tonight was written in 1894 by Theodore Baker, the American scholar who first compiled the Biographical Dictionary of Musicians in 1900.  The 16^th Century tune, by an anonymous composer, is heard most often in an arrangement by Michael Praetorius, who harmonized it for his collection Musae Sioniae in 1609. ¹³  Praetorius' arrangement, sung by the Chamber Singers, is enhanced by Jan Sandström (b. 1954), a Swedish composer who began his musical career as a chorister and who teaches at the University School of Music in Peteä.  Described as "one of his most devout works," this version of "Es ist ein Ros" (1990) seems to embody Sandström's study of spectral analysis, minimalism, and Eastern philosophy¹⁴ as he backs Praetorius' harmonization with an abstract wall of sound suggestive of brittle, icy, [almost] silent winter winds rising and falling in the night.  "It came a floweret bright…"

"A Little Christmas Cantata" (1976), for children's choir with trumpet and harp, was written by Ivana Loudová (b.1941) in 1976 as welcoming gift for her newborn son.¹⁵  The music of this Czech composer, who studied with Miloslav Kabelac and Olivier Messaien, defies classification as she adapts her writing to the spirit of the text or occasion, whether inspired by Italian Renaissance poetry, medieval Latin, contemporary poetry, teaching needs, or the ballet.  Traditional methods, modality, aleatorics, and experimental techniques – all are within her grasp as a composer.  Loudová has received several international accolades and since 1992 has taught at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Prague.¹⁶  "A Little Christmas Cantata," text by Vaclav Fischer and translation by Jane May,¹⁷ expresses child-like delight in the mysteries of winter, joy heightened by fantasy, and an exhilarating, barely-suppressed anticipation.  "Like crystal castles bright with lights that gently flicker…"

"Judea," "Chanticleer," and the "Yeoman's Carol," selected for tonight's program for their rustic exuberance and joyful abandon, represent the "west gallery" carol tradition.  This tradition began about 1700 in English churches and non-conformist chapels as an effort to "improve the quality of psalmody" for folks who wished to participate in singing, but who had little regard for "proper" church, music sung by chancel choirs, during which they were expected to sit in silence.  The result was a wealth of choir and band music produced by musicians both amateur and learned and the erection of galleries in the west ends of churches - hence the term "west gallery."¹⁸  Gallery musicians developed unique local styles, blending contemporary folk and classical music and re-writing hymns "for the use of country choirs."¹⁹  This popular genre, permeated by the equivalent of village dances, pub songs and parade music, was entirely suppressed by about 1850 in response to enforced conformity:  west gallery music had become too diverse for populous towns whose growth was spurred by industrialism and Victorian parliaments and churches sought to impose their authority by requiring the use of older, simpler hymns.  As Gordon Ashton writes, "barrel-organs replaced bands, the instruments were scrapped, the tune-books burned."²⁰  But the music lives on in a revival by members of the West Gallery Association on both sides of the Atlantic, whose studying, playing, and singing (like ours!) maintain this priceless folk tradition.

"Judea," by the American William Billings (1746-1800), is a setting of text from John Arnold's The Compleat Psalmist.²¹  Billings was a pioneer composer of hymn, anthems and "fuguing tunes," a tanner's apprentice who gained a rudimentary knowledge of music by reading printed treatises and who, at age 24 published his first book of choral pieces, The New England Psalm Singer, its frontispiece engraved by Paul Revere.  Billings described his own fuguing tunes as "more than twenty times as powerful as the old slow tunes," well in keeping with the entrepreneurial spirit inspired by the west gallery movement.  Unhampered by rules, Billings relied on his own inventiveness, producing one tune with nothing but dissonances, several popular hymns, including "Chester" and "The Rose of Sharon," and the exquisite canon, "When Jesus Wept."  "Then let us be merry, put sorrow away…"

The traditional English melody of "Chanticleer," paired in The Oxford Book of Carols with a poem by William Austin (d.1633),²² is here arranged by composer Francis Judd Cooke (1910-1994), who taught at the New England Conservatory of Music.²³   Cooke re-harmonized this tune to be sung by a small troupe of birds in his children's opera, The Tailor of Gloucester (1992), based on a work of the same name by Beatrix Potter.²⁴  "Wake, and joy this Sun to see!"

The "Yeoman's Carol," whose original text and tune are from an "old church-gallery tune-book, Dorset,"²⁵ is heard here in another arrangement by Francis Judd Cooke but with a new text by Don Cohen.  Nym Cooke calls Cohen's text "a miracle of aptness and lyricism."  This arrangement of the Yeoman's Carol originally served to close a production of Dickens' The Christmas Carol.²⁶  "When miracles of light and warmth burn clear."

Today marks the first day of Chanukah, the eight-day Jewish festival of rededication first celebrated in 164 B.C.E (Before the Common, or Christian, Era), also called the "festival of lights."  It recalls the taking back of the Temple from the Selucid Greek government, which had allowed it to be defiled with the sacrifice of pigs, a non-kosher animal deemed unfit for this purpose.  According to tradition, at the time of the Temple's rededication, there was little [undefiled] oil left for the menorah, which was supposed to burn through every night.  But one night's supply lasted eight days, exactly the time needed to prepare a new supply.  It is this miracle – not the military victory - that is celebrated with Chanukah.²⁷

"Maoz Tsur" is a well-known Chanukah hymn, with lyrics dating back to approximately the 13^th century C.E. and music dating back at least to the 18^th century, perhaps the 15^th.  The text is attributed to Rabbi Mordecai Ben Isaac Halevy because the name Mordecai is encrypted in the first letters of the five stanzas.  A literal translation of the first line reads, " Rocky Fortress of my Salvation, it is delightful to praise you." This is commonly translated as, "Rock of ages, let our song praise thy saving power."²⁸  As sung tonight, "Maoz Tsur" is arranged by Jerome Epstein, director of the New York Revels for many years, also a folk music editor, performer, and teacher.  The English verse, written for Revels by Lawrence Rosenwald, "draws a connection between the renewal of the Temple, symbolized by the lighting of the Menorah, and the annual rebirth of light (the winter solstice)."²⁹  "Then the flame sprang up anew…"

We end tonight's concert with a tune by Peter Yarrow, the words of which have served as the theme for many a Chanukah sermon and Holocaust remembrance.  Yarrow, a member of the folk-singing trio Peter, Paul & Mary, is a social and political activist in his own right who has used his time and talent to draw attention to issues such as hunger, homelessness, education, and equal rights.  His advocacy permeates "Light One Candle," "which has become an anthem for the Jewish ethical legacy, Judaism's commitment to a better world."³⁰  His song is presented tonight in an arrangement by Robert DeCormier, noted choral conductor, a graduate of Julliard who spent many years as Harry Belafonte's arranger and who has been music director for Peter, Paul and Mary for the past twenty years.³¹  Whatever we do, wherever we go, Yarrow simply beseeches us:  "Don't let the light go out!"

Postlude:  From seeds sleeping in black earth and the shed going black, to the blooming of flowerets and crystal castles, let us now be merry and wake to the joy of miracles and warmth.  May your light shine in the New Year and always!

End Notes

¹ "Eric Weisstein's World of Science," http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/WinterSolstice.html.

² "Winter Solstice Celebrations:  a.k.a. Christmas, Saturnalia, Yule," http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm, which further references Charles Panati, "Sacred origins of Profound things: The stories behind the rites and rituals of the world's religions," Penguin Arkana (1996), pgs. 215-217.

³ Revel, Inc., is a national organization that presents seasonal celebrations across the United States.  Its mission is "to celebrate the seasons and cycles of human life through performance and participatory experience, and to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of traditional music, dance, drama and ritual drawn from the world's cultures."  See http://www.revels.org/about_revels/about.htm.

⁴ "Le Semeur," arr. George Emlen, published by Revels, Inc., Thorpe Music Publishing Company, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1999.

⁵ The Oxford Book of Carols, Percy Williams, Martin Shaw, and R Vaughan Williams, eds., Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 1997.

⁶ The Compleat Gentleman, Clrendon Press, Oxford, England, 1934 reprint of 1634 edition

⁷ Musica Brittanica, John Stevens, ed.

⁸ Awake to Joy!  Christmas Carols for Part-Singing, Nym Cooke, collector and editor, Toad Hill Music for the Compiler, Lyme, New Hampshire, 1997.

⁹ Villa Wisteria Publishing, www.villawisteria.com. 

¹⁰ Correspondence from Mary Lynn place Badarak to Michaelene Gorney, December 10, 2003

¹¹ History Channel.com, "The Real Story of Christmas," http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/holidays/christmas/real.html

¹² The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III, Rpbert Appleton Company, 2003, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

¹³ The Hymns & Carols of Christmas, Douglas D. Anderson, 1996-2003, http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/ (this is a compilation of information from other sources which are cited on this site)

¹⁴ Jan Sandström, http://www.jansandstrom.com/

¹⁵ "Report from the 7^th World Harp Congress" by Anne LeBaron, http://home.mindspring.com/~annelebaron/congress.html

¹⁶ "Czech Music Information Center 01-30-2003," http://www.musica.cz/loudova/

¹⁷ "A Little Christmas Cantata" by Ivaná Loudova, G. Schirmer, Inc., 1991.

¹⁸ "West Gallery Music" by Gordon Ashton, 1994, http://www.gallerymusic.co.uk/articles/Ashman94.html 

¹⁹ West Gallery Music Association:  Pubeck Village Quire, http://www.wgma.org.uk/quires/Purbeck_Village_Quire.html 

²⁰ "West Gallery Music" by Gordon Ashton, 1994, http://www.gallerymusic.co.uk/articles/Ashman94.html 

²¹ Awake to Joy!  Christmas Carols for Part-Singing, Nym Cooke, collector and editor, Toad Hill Music for the Compiler, Lyme, New Hampshire, 1997.

²² The Oxford Book of Carols, Percy Williams, Martin Shaw, and R Vaughan Williams, eds., Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 1997.

²³ WUGA Playlist for October 2002, http://www.wuga.org/guides/2002/october/octplay1.html

²⁴ Awake to Joy!  Christmas Carols for Part-Singing, Nym Cooke, collector and editor, Toad Hill Music for the Compiler, Lyme, New Hampshire, 1997.

²⁵ The Oxford Book of Carols, Percy Williams, Martin Shaw, and R Vaughan Williams, eds., Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 1997.

²⁶ Awake to Joy!  Christmas Carols for Part-Singing, Nym Cooke, collector and editor, Toad Hill Music for the Compiler, Lyme, New Hampshire, 1997.

²⁷ Judaism 101:  Chanukkah, http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm 

²⁸ Judaism 101:  Chanukkah, http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday7.htm 

²⁹ "Maoz Tsur", arr. Jerome Epstein, Theodore Music Publishing Company, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1995.

³⁰ Peter Paul & Mary, 2003, http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/

³¹ Vermont Festival of the Arts, Counterpoint Choral Ensemble, http://www.vermontartfest.com/templateevent.cfm?EventID=70