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The DeKalb Choral Guild, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

A Concert for Valentines

Annual Season Fund-Raiser Event

Bryan F. Black, Director
Leanne Elmer Herrmann, Accompanist

Saturday, February 14, 2004
Lupton Auditorium
Embry Hills United Methodist Church
Tucker, Georgia

A Choral Valentine

Selections from Liebeslieder Walzer (1869) by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Text from Polydora by Georg Friederich Daumer (1800-1875)
Leanne Elmer Herrmann and Robert Amar, piano

1. Rede, Mädchen
4. Wie des Abends shöne Röte
6. Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel
7. Wohl schön bewandt war es – Susan Hodges, soprano
8. Wenn so lind dein Auge mir
9. Am Donaustrande
11. Nein, es ist nicht auszukommen
17. Nicht wandle, mein Licht – David Beckers, tenor
18. Es bebet das Gesträuche

Song of Love (1921) from Blossom Time by Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951)
Victoria Lawson and Ben Bailey

Nigra Sum (1966) by Pablo Casals (1876-1973), text from Song of Solomon

Night and Day (1932) from Gay DivorcéCole Porter (1891-1964)
Peggy Emery

In the Night We Shall Go In (1997) by Imant Raminsh (b. 1943)
Words by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), translated by Donald D. Walsh
Amy Black, French horn

Heavenly Crystal (Kristallen den fina) arr. by Peder Karlsson, Swedish folk ballad

And So It Goes (1989) from the album Storm Front by Billy Joel (b. 1949)
Robert Amar

Love and Pizen (Springfield Mountain) by Kirke Mechem (b. 1925)
from Choral Variations on American Folksongs (1995)

Dessert Intermission

Cabaret DCG

My Funny Valentine from Babes in Arms by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart
Terese Rabbitt

More Than You Know by Vincent Youmans, William Rose & Edward Eliscu
Mary Slaughter

I Have Dreamed from The King and I by Richard Rogers
Lauren Pickard

As Long As He Needs Me by Lionel Bart
Nancy Nersessian

Sisters from White Christmas by Irving Berlin
Mary Gowing and Michaelene Gorney

Jazz for Lovers
featuring the Atlanta Freedom Marching Band Jazz Ensemble

Critical Mass by Jeff Jarvis

C Jam Blues by Duke Ellington, arr. by Frank Mantoot

In a Mellow Tone by Duke Ellington, arr. by Frank Mantoot

Caravan by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills and Juan Tizol, arr. by  Frank Mantoot

Do Nothing ‘Til You Hear from Me by Duke Ellington and Bob Russell, arr. by Frank Mantoot

Angel Eyes Matt Dennis and Earl Brent, arr. by Allan Harrey

Lazy Afternoon by Frederick

String of Pearls by Jerry Gray, arr. by John Warrington

In the Mood by Joe Garland, arr. by Paul Lavender

Special Thanks for Tonight's Concert

Embry Hills United Methodist Church for providing the Guild's rehearsal home and tonight's concert venue, The Reverend Mark Westmoreland, Pastor.

The Stone Mountain Barbershop Chorus for providing our risers and stage lighting.

The German Cultural Center Atlanta, Friends of Gœthe and the Gœthe Institut Atlanta for providing concert assistance.

Program Notes

by Michaelene Gorney

Without the aid of a court position or a public appointment, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) made a place for himself in the musical life of Hamburg, Germany, as a pianist, as a diligent, inspired, composer, and as the founder and conductor of a women's choir.  Though not overwhelmingly accepted by the public of his time (despite Robert Schumann's welcoming him as "a new musical force"), neither was he a stranger to recognition, particularly after his Requiem, Liebeslieder Walzer, and Rhapsody appeared in close succession during his thirties.¹  Acclaimed for his modesty as well as his talent, Brahms, now considered the epitome of Romanticism, once declined an honorary degree from Cambridge, and throughout his life continued to favor informal dress, simple restaurants, and, says Nicolas Slonimsky, "a great deal of beer."²

The texts of the Liebeslieder Waltzer ("Lovesong Waltzes") are taken from Polydora, ein weltpoetisches Liederbuch, 1855, by the German poet and philosopher Georg Friederich Daumer (1800-1875). This collection of translations and imitations of folk poetry, primarily Russian, Polish, and Magyar (Hungarian), mirrors the many facets of love – longing, reluctance, denial, sadness, obsession, joy, rapture, and more!  Brahms' waltz settings, romantic in every sense of the word and with the character of the Viennese ländler (a dance with the rhythm and character of a slow waltz), pay tribute to "Waltz King" Johann Strauss, for whom the composer expressed great admiration.  The fact that they were written "for piano duet with voices ad libitum" implies that the waltzes could be performed without voices.  But the vocal parts have such integrity of their own and contribute so substantially to the music, how could one without them relate so immediately to the emotional outpourings of the Magyar and Slavic poetry that inspired them?³

Pablo Casals (1876-1973), the great cellist and composer, was born in the region of Spain called Catalonia.  At the age of 21, he was awarded the Order of Carlos III by the Queen of Spain, thus ensuring his career as a virtuoso.  He toured extensively throughout the world, in the course of his travels playing for United States Presidents Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 and John F. Kennedy in 1961.  Casals ardently supported the Spanish Republican government, vowing after the Spanish Civil War (1936) never to return to Spain until democracy was restored and refusing engagements in countries that supported the Franco regime.  In 1956, he made his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, his mother's birthplace.  Casals did not live to see Spain's liberation, but he was posthumously honored by the Spanish government, which issued a commemorative stamp to honor the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Nigra Sum, for women's voices, is a setting of selected Latin verses from the Song of Solomon, a book of the Old Testament attributed to Solomon.  The book is also referred to by the opening words of its first verse, "The song of songs…," as the "Canticle of Canticles" (Canticum Canticorum in Latin), and as the Hebrew "Shir Ha-shirim."  It is undoubtedly a love poem, both passionate and erotic, but its words may also be taken to represent more than bodily passion.  "In the guise of the portrayal of love between a man and a woman," writes Isaac Asimov, " Jews would have it speak of the love between Yahveh and Israel; Catholics of the love between Christ and the Church; Protestants of the love between God and man's soul."⁴  The word nigra, though often translated as "black," may also be taken to mean "tanned" or "swarthy."  So is our speaker the Egyptian woman who married Solomon?  Is she the Arabian Queen of Sheba?  Or is she a peasant, her skin darkened from working in the vineyards?  Regardless of her identity, what a legacy!  To have inspired this ageless poem linking lovers both sacred and sensual, ancient and modern.  Casals' setting features flowing arpeggios in the piano, the women singing as with one voice even as they harmonize.

Imant Raminsh (b.1943) was born in Latvia and came to Canada in 1948, where he received diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto.  In 1968, he established the music department at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, British Columbia, and is the founding conductor of the New Caledonia Chamber Orchestra.  He is currently principal second violinist of the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and the Music Director and conductor of the Aura Chamber Choir and the Nova Children's choir.  Raminsh has received several commissions from Canadian choral groups and the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and the premier of his Credo was conducted by composer Krzystof Penderecki.⁵

"In the Night We Shall Go In" is the first line of the poem, "The Stolen Branch,"⁶ by Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), heard here in a translation by Donald D. Walsh.  Walsh, who has translated many of Neruda's poems, is acknowledged by one reviewer Alejandra Vernon as capturing "the fluid rhythm, the emotion, and the fire" of the Chilean's poetry.⁷  Though committed to political activism and socialist causes in his life and writing, Neruda also explored loneliness, depression, the details of daily life,⁸ and, as exemplified by tonight's selection, tenderness, sensuousness, and passion.  In this setting of Neruda's poetry, Raminsh opens with the French horn's "singing" of the opening words, even before their eloquent expression by the altos and sopranos.  This opening melody heralds the last verse as well, a beautiful re-affirmation of the spring that follows the winter's darkness.

"Heavenly Crystal," or "Kristallen den fina," is a Swedish folk ballad adapted and arranged by Peder Karlsson.  Karlsson sings tenor in The Real Group, an a cappella vocal jazz ensemble which has won several pop and jazz awards, individually and as a group, for their original songs, arrangements, recordings, and vocal artistry.⁹  The English lyrics for this arrangement were written by Gunilla Marcus-Luboff, Swedish television and radio personality who was married to Norman Luboff, choirmaster and founder of the Norma Luboff Choir.¹⁰  Annotator Jonathan M. Miller describes "Kristallen den fina" as "an old Swedish tune, medieval in the way it expresses love for the virgin Mary with sensate, quite passionate images."¹¹  Pedersson surrounds the melody with elements of jazz, supporting it with Bach-like chromatic voice-leading and easy-going vocal riffs while maintaining the unaffected simplicity of the original tune.

Kirke Mecham (b. 1925) has written over 250 compositions, primarily choral and orchestral, and his international stature is such that his opera Tartuffe has been performed over 260 times in Austria and Germany, and has been translated into Mandarin, German, Japanese, and Russian.  Raised in Kansas, Mecham pursued creative writing at Stanford before turning to music.  The DeKalb Choral Guild has also performed his "Island in Space," a setting of the "Dona Nobis Pacem," the words of Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweikart, and the poetry of Archibald MacCleish.

In "Love and Pizen [Springfield Mountain]," from the Choral Variations on American Folk Songs, Mecham sees himself as continuing the folk song tradition, in which tunes are "handed down by memory from singer to singer, from region to region, from generation to generation," with changes and improvements along the way.  "Springfield Mountain" tells the tale of Thomas Myrick of Springfield Mountain (now Wilbraham), Massachusetts, who was engaged to marry Sarah Blake, but who was bitten by a rattlesnake in Connecticut on August 7, 1761, and died.  The song originally was a somber one, urging listeners to repent and to "be prepared when God doth call."  It soon became the subject of parody and many different versions, even one for the music hall stage in the 1830s.  Mecham's version contains the comic melodrama of the music hall plus an original refrain with a text composed of nonsense syllables, some intended to imitate the banjo.

References:

¹ Liebeslider Walzer by Johannes Brahms, Lawson-Gould Music Publishers, Inc., 1961, Introduction by Thomas F. Pyle

² The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music, Nicolas Slonimsky, ed., Schirmer Book, New York, New York, 1978.

³ Lieberlieder Walzer, Op. 52, by Johannes Brahms, Lawson-Gould Music Publishers, Inc., 1961, U.S.A, introduction by Thomas F. Pyle

⁴ Asimov, Issac, Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament, Avon Books, New York, New York, 1968

⁵ Canadian Music Centre, Directory of Associate Composers, www.musiccentre.ca

⁶ Pablo Neruda in Translation, www.angelfire.com/nc/millay/neruda.html

⁷ Spotlight Review of Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda, www.amazon.com

⁸ Nobel e-museum, Pablo Neruda – Biography, www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html

⁹ Primarily A Cappella:  The Real Group,  www.singers.com/jazz/realgroup.html

¹⁰ Songwriter, "ABBA manager/Co-Writer Stig Anderson:  Sweden's Mr. Record Business," by Pat and Pete Luboff, July-August 1981 www.abbamail.com/feature/songwrit_stig.htm

¹¹ Chicago a cappella, "Holidays a cappelle," notes by Jonathan M. Miller, December, 2002, www.chicagoacappella.org/about_us/prg-holidays02.htm