Abbie Betinis

Mary and Gabriel

Poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), who, incidentally, never wore socks, was the most famous of the Georgian poets. He delighted in life, and is said to have equally celebrated both the mundane and the extraordinary. He and his many friends in literary circles were known for their progressive thinking, their struggles for women's rights, and political idealism. They knew Brooke as a brilliant companion who "infused the purely academic with the very spirit of youth." Athletic and handsome, Brooke was almost as well-known for his dashing good looks as for his poetry. In fact, the composer must confess she was quite distracted (or shall we say... "inspired") by his picture while working on this musical setting of his compelling and explicit text. Much of Brooke's work was inspired by his deep love for England, and his early death in World War I was, according to many poets of the time, "one of England's great literary losses." Indeed, he died at age 27. In the spirit of Brooke's reputation for free-thinking, I have taken some liberties with his text, namely shortening it up a bit to accommodate a choral piece. Still, I feel an obligation here to reprint his original (stunning!) poem in its entirety, written at age 25.

Mary and Gabriel

Rupert Brooke (1912)

Young Mary, loitering once her garden way,
Felt a warm splendour grow in the April day,
As wine that blushes water through. And soon,
Out of the gold air of the afternoon,
One knelt before her: hair he had, or fire,
Bound back above his ears with golden wire,
Baring the eager marble of his face.
Not man's nor woman's was the immortal grace
Rounding the limbs beneath that robe of white,
And lighting the proud eyes with changeless light,
Incurious. Calm as his wings, and fair,
That presence filled the garden.
She stood there,
Saying, "What would you, Sir?"
He told his word,
"Blessed art thou of women!" Half she heard,
Hands folded and face bowed, half long had known,
The message of that clear and holy tone,
That fluttered hot sweet sobs about her heart;
Such serene tidings moved such human smart.
Her breath came quick as little flakes of snow.
Her hands crept up her breast. She did but know
It was not hers. She felt a trembling stir
Within her body, a will too strong for her
That held and filled and mastered all. With eyes
Closed, and a thousand soft short broken sighs,
She gave submission; fearful, meek, and glad....

She wished to speak. Under her breasts she had
Such multitudinous burnings, to and fro,
And throbs not understood; she did not know
If they were hurt or joy for her; but only
That she was grown strange to herself, half lonely,
All wonderful, filled full of pains to come
And thoughts she dare not think, swift thoughts and dumb,
Human, and quaint, her own, yet very far,
Divine, dear, terrible, familiar...
Her heart was faint for telling; to relate
Her limbs' sweet treachery, her strange high estate,
Over and over, whispering, half revealing,
Weeping; and so find kindness to her healing.
'Twixt tears and laughter, panic hurrying her,
She raised her eyes to that fair messenger.

He knelt unmoved, immortal; with his eyes
Gazing beyond her, calm to the calm skies;
Radiant, untroubled in his wisdom, kind.
His sheaf of lilies stirred not in the wind.
How should she, pitiful with mortality,
Try the wide peace of that felicity
With ripples of her perplexed shaken heart,
And hints of human ecstasy, human smart,
And whispers of the lonely weight she bore,
And how her womb within was hers no more
And at length hers?

Being tired, she bowed her head;
And said, "So be it!"

The great wings were spread
Showering glory on the fields, and fire.
The whole air, singing, bore him up, and higher,
Unswerving, unreluctant. Soon he shone
A gold speck in the gold skies; then was gone.

The air was colder, and grey. She stood alone.

---

Judith Cloud

Anacreontics or "Love, Heaven and Wine"

While many people may have heard the name Anacreon (born c. 570 BC), few are familiar with what is known as an Anacreontic poem. It is most often defined as "a poem in the manner of Anacreon; especially: a drinking song or light lyric." Anacreon's life and work inspired poets centuries later to honor him with imitation of his style. (Those who appreciate the lieder of Hugo Wolf may be familiar with Anakreons Grab to the poem of the same name by Goethe.) The first poem in "Anacreontiques" by Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) is Love: I'll sing of Heroes, and of Kings. Cowley modeled it after Anacreon's ode To the Lyre:

Of th'Atrides I would sing
Or the wand'ring Theban king;
But when I my lute did prove,
Nothing it would sound but love;
I new strung it, and to play
Herc'les labors did essay;
But my pains I fruitless found;
Nothing it but love would sound:
Heroes then farewell, my lute
To all strains but love is mute.

Here is Cowley's version:

I'll sing of Heroes, and of Kings;
In mighty Numbers, mighty things,
Begin, my Muse; but lo, the strings
To my great Song rebellious prove;
The strings will sound of nought but Love.

My setting begins with the chorus as confident poet. The guitar enters in a "heroic" fashion and soon becomes "rebellious" after a short section accompanying the singers. The chorus and guitar as poet attempts to break away from the attraction of "Love."

I broke them all, and put on new;
'Tis this or nothing sure will do.
These sure (said I) will me obey;
These sure Heroic Notes will play.
Straight I began with thundering Jove,
And all th' immortal Powers, but Love.

The effect "Love" has on the poet is expressed in suspension of this grandeur. In the chorus is heard the "gentle airs":

Love smil'd, and from my enfeebled Lyre
Came gentle airs, such as inspire
Melting love, soft desire.
This resignation is followed by resolution and acceptance:
Farewell then Heroes, farewell Kings,
And mighty Numbers, mighty Things;
Love tunes my Heart just to my strings.

I searched for complimentary poems and found Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. His Roundel: The Lute And The Lyre was attractive as was Ovid's wine quotation from "The Art of Love." I even found a suitable quote by King Crimson's lead guitarist Robert Fripp ("Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.") I chose instead Wallace Stevens' Le Monocle de Mon Oncle excerpting freely from Canto VII and Canto VIII:

The honey of heaven may or may not come,
But that of earth both comes and goes at once.
[Like a dull scholar,] I behold, in love,
An ancient aspect touching a new mind.
It comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.

This sentiment, while perhaps a stretch from what is regarded as "Anacreontic" in terms of form, provides a relief from the heroic tone of the first poem. It is Stevens' philosophic view of love with its "ancient aspect" that leads us back in time yet requires the reader to consider love's more illusive properties. The setting beginning in ¾ time again allows the guitar to establish a "coming and going" rhythmic pattern with the chorus. I chose an a cappella section for the chorus for the second part of the poem, followed by a brief soliloquy by the guitar and ending with the chorus adding the final punctuation.
For the final movement I selected this excerpt from Homer's Odyssey that provided me the opportunity to let the guitar enchant the listener in a "beguiling" way, then continue with energetic play.
"Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile."
I decided to create a sound world using alternative tunings of the guitar strings, 3 to F# and 6 to D. This tuning limits harmonic movement yet keeps the beguiling quality present even as the frolicking is taking place. The piece ends as quietly as it began with the chorus providing a satisfying sigh of contentment.

Anacreontics or "Love, Heaven and Wine"

I. Love
I'll sing of Heroes, and of Kings;
In mighty Numbers, mighty things,
Begin, my Muse; but lo, the strings
To my great Song rebellious prove;
The strings will sound of nought but Love.
I broke them all, and put on new;
'Tis this or nothing sure will do.
These sure (said I) will me obey;
These sure Heroic Notes will play.
Straight I began with thundering Jove,
And all th' immortal Powers, but Love.
Love smil'd, and from my enfeebled Lyre
Came gentle airs, such as inspire
Melting love, soft desire.
Farewell then Heroes, farewell Kings,
And mighty Numbers, mighty Things;
Love tunes my Heart just to my strings.

-- Abraham Cowley

II. The honey of heaven
The honey of heaven may or may not come,
But that of earth both comes and goes at once.
I behold, in love,
An ancient aspect touching a new mind.
It comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.

-- Wallace Stevens

Stevens, Wallace. "Le Monocle de mon Oncle." Harmonium. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1937. Rpt. in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York: First Vintage Books Edition, 1982. 13.

III. Wine
"Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile."

-- Homer, Excerpt from the Odyssey (9th c. B.C.)

---

Jocelyn Hagen

Benedictus

Benedictus was commissioned and premiered by The Singers - Minnesota Choral Artists in the spring of 2007 as part of a multi-year commissioning project. I will complete the entire mass setting in 2010, and that work will be premiered in February of 2011 in Minneapolis. This movement begins with an ostinato in the male voices that continues throughout. The women, divided into four sections, enter gradually over the top of the ostinato, representing the idea that all people come to faith and their belief in God in their own way and in their own time.

Benedictus Qui venit In nomine Domini.
Blessed Who Comes In the name of the Lord.

---

Martha Sullivan

Nisi Dominus

For many years I have wanted to write a Vespers on the scale of the Monteverdi or the Mozart Vespers, combining elements of both but in a modern idiom. This year's Sorel competition provided an opportunity to start work on the project, since the parameters of the competition allowed for a respectable number of instruments, namely as many as Bach used for his Magnificat (a stand-alone piece but one whose text also figures in both Monteverdi's and Mozart's Vespers). Nisi Dominus uses double SATB choir, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 3 trumpets, 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, bass, bassoon, and organ.

This setting of Psalm 127 (or 126 in the Vulgate) owes more to Monteverdi than Mozart, although I have tried to use Mozartean contrasts of texture and drama in declamation. There are more obvious borrowings from the Nisi Dominus movement of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, however. You can hear them in the echoed block chords of the words "Nisi Dominus" passed from choir to choir; in the patterns of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes that chase each other up and down scales, sometimes offset by half a beat; and in the places where choir and continuo sustain a big chord while the winds play fast riffs over the harmony. In general, there is also plenty of word painting, particularly in rising lines on words such as "aedificaverit" (build) and "surgere" (rise), or in dissonant chords on words like "doloris" (sorrow). Composers other than Mozart and Monteverdi have used word painting, of course, particularly in oratorio repertoire, where the music and text often work together as much to instruct as to delight, since the texts are drawn from Scripture. This piece honors that tradition.

Nisi Dominus is not, however, a liturgical piece. For one thing, it does not retain the Gloria Patri text traditionally sung at the end of Vespers psalms-this piece is not meant to be sung as part of a church service. (The full work to which it belongs may be called "Vespers" only if the word means "A collection of psalms to be sung at nightfall".) For another, I feel somewhat uncomfortable tacking a Christian trope onto the end of a text that comes, ultimately, from the Jewish scriptural tradition. I also removed the sixth verse of the psalm, which continues with warlike imagery; it seemed jarring in relation to earlier images of love and childbearing.

Musically this piece departs from the oratorio tradition in its relentless bitonality, which usually pits F major against D-flat major. This allows for plenty of dissonance, but not the dissonance of atonality or 12-tone procedures, which insist that every note carry equal status. This particular bitonality privileges certain notes (B-flat, C, and F occur in both keys) and harmonies. Choir I always sings in F or a related key, and Choir II in D-flat or a related key. To assign colors to the choirs, the high woodwinds stay in the sharper keys with Choir I, and the three trumpets are always in the same tonality as Choir II. The strings and continuo instruments play in both tonal worlds. The challenges of this tonal structure make the Sorel organization's partnership with Voices of Ascension a marvelous gift, since all the musicians are top-notch, and the singers can make sounds of phenomenal clarity, so I had the freedom to write chords that were beautiful or ugly (or both at once) with the certainty that what I wrote would be what the listeners will hear.

Psalm 127 (126 in the Vulgate): 1-5

1. Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it will labor in vain.

2. Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem, frustra vigilat qui custodit eam. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman will guard it in vain.

3. Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere: surgite postquam sederitis, qui manducatis panem doloris. Cum dederit dilectis suis somnum. In vain you rise before first light and rise after you sit down, you who eat the bread of sorrow; for he gives sleep to those he delights in.

4. Ecce hæreditas Domini filii: merces, fructus ventris. Behold, sons are a heritage from the Lord; children, the harvest of the womb.

5. Sicut sagittæ in manu potentis: ita filii excussorum. Like arrows in the hand of a strong man: thus are the sons of those who have been oppressed.

(translation of psalm by Martha Sullivan, following the Vulgate as closely as possible)