The
season from Advent to Christmas abounds in
great music. Carols are the jewels of the season,
but the texts of the Magnificat and the Advent
antiphons that herald Christmastide have also
inspired composers since the Middle Ages.
Christmas itself is the culmination of a unique
period of reflection and resolution; its poetic
imagery is suffused with ideas of awakening, of
moving from darkness into light. The prophecies
foretelling a messiah are first proclaimed at
Advent. Next, the Annunciation of Mary and her hymn of praise, the
Magnificat, give the first
tangible evidence of the fulfillment of Advent’s
promise. Finally, the pastoral felicities of the
Bethlehem manger fulfill the Old Testament
prophecies. This is the “rising dawn,” and the ancient progression
from darkness to light has
determined the shape of this recording, with John
Muehleisen’s The Great “O” Antiphons and Gerald Finzi’s Magnificat
centering the selections.
The
Advent hymn Veni, veni Emmanuel, with its
powerful imagery of the rose rising from the root
of Jesse, inspired Hugo Distler and Zoltán Kodály
to embellish the plainsong with evocative
harmonies. Distler’s are sumptuous and plangent,
while Kodály’s are austere and reverential,
honoring the Gregorian heritage of the tune. Egil
Hovland’s The Glory of the Father also has its
origin in chant, which admirably enhances the
meditative character of the words from the Gospel
of John. The seventeenth-century text My Soul,
There Is a Countrie echoes a deep longing for peace
through “the Rose that cannot wither” in this
sweet and hopeful setting by C. H. H. Parry,
written near the end of his life.
John
Muehleisen's The Great “O” Antiphons
(commissioned and given first performances by
Opus 7) is a work of major dimensions. The Latin
chants are from the Roman Catholic Office of
Vespers for the last seven days before Christmas
(December 17 – 23). Each antiphon precedes and
follows the singing of the Magnificat. The texts are
a series of salutations to the coming Messiah, each
beginning with the vocative “O.” (The verses of
the familiar Advent hymn O come, O come
Emmanuel are a succinct compilation of all seven
antiphons.) In Muehleisen’s work, each chant is
followed by a full choral setting of the English
translation. Without obviously borrowing from
the chant, Muehleisen has achieved a remarkable
unity of expression, which bonds his own
postmodern harmonic style with the urgency and
gravity of the old tunes. His spacious phrasing and
choral dynamics were inspired by the resonant
acoustic of Seattle’s St. James Cathedral.
We
feel the exuberance of Mary’s spirit in the first
arching melodies of Gerald Finzi’s Magnificat. The
marriage of organ and voices is crucial to the
expression of joy Finzi found in the text. Like his
compatriots Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippet,
Finzi always went to the heart of the text for his
inspiration. There is an electrifying moment on
the first repetition of the opening phrase, when
the organ thunders through a massive arpeggio to
underline the fervor of the words. The quiet
benediction is as gentle as a Pre-Raphaelite
Madonna.
The
remaining songs view the Christ Child in the
manger. Traditional carols have embellished the
simple stable with visions of angels and the
starlight of the Magi’s beacon. In the same way
that Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts portray the Nativity through the eyes of
his century, so do
composers of our own time take the old tunes
and, using the harmonies of our century, bring a refreshing feeling of
today to such beloved carols
as Silent Night and Once in Royal David’s City. In
the same spirit, we feel the hush of expectation
fulfilled in Britten’s A Boy was Born, and the
nostalgia for Christmas past in Charles Ives’s simple Christmas Carol.
Some
poets and composers look beyond the
warmth and beauty of the manger scene. Lajos Bárdos’s haunting
Hungarian tune and John
Tavener’s sometimes alarming harmonies join
Herbert Howells’s beloved Sing Lullaby in subtly forecasting a life
destined for pain. But Finzi’s
chanticleer, the herald of the rising dawn, awakens
the world on Christmas morning with his vibrant
anthem All This Night, even as Peter Wishart’s
Alleluya, a new work is come on hand welcomed us to this celebration of
the glorious music of the
season.
