Warland conducts Pärt, Duruflé

This week NPR.org posted a broadcast (embedded below) of conductor Dale Warland leading the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chorale in a performance of two of my all-time favorite works, Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem. (By the way, and not that it actually matters, I prefer Durufle’s Requiem over Faure’s—no hard feelings, I’ve yet to hear anything written by Faure that I didn’t like.) I was first introduced to Part’s Te Deum in college (thanks, Dr. Kastner!). My first encounter with Durufle’s Requiem took place several years before that, though the piece didn’t claim a spot on my favorites list until more recently. Anyway, neither of these widely celebrated works needs me to put in a good word on their behalf. However, I will take this opportunity to spotlight SDG’s connection with Arvo Pärt as we’re co-sponsoring the most extensive celebration in Great Britain of the composer’s 75th birthday this year. Read all about it here.

August 13, 2010 | Filed Under Recommendations | Leave a Comment 

Sandström Messiah on CD

One of the great artists SDG will have the privilege of working with in the coming season is Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström, who is creating for us a choral setting of Psalm 67. Meeting and interviewing Mr. Sandström was a highlight for me last summer during a brief visit to the Oregon Bach Festival, where the composer’s new Messiah oratorio premiered. Of course, attending the premiere itself was also a delight, and I want to take the opportunity here to again credit conductor Helmuth Rilling and his colleagues at OBF and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart for their vision in commissioning the piece.

I discovered today that Sandström’s Messiah is now available on CD, conducted by Maestro Rilling—who, incidentally, is the newest member of SDG’s Advisory Board of Directors. You can purchase the recording on CD at Amazon.com for $54.49, or, if you don’t mind doing without the artwork and liner notes (the entire oratorio is in English, by the way, a fresh setting of exactly the same biblical texts Handel addressed in his most famous work), you can download it for $17.98. Sample tracks are available here.

The historical precedent now is for Messiah oratorios to be freshly written every 250 years (give or take), so whether you’re into new music or not, I’d suggest Sandström’s Messiah is definitely worth getting to know. Now, if someone would just record Sandström’s ecstatic Magnificat, I’d be doubly glad!

July 23, 2010 | Filed Under Sandström: Messiah, Recommendations | Leave a Comment 

A moving, modern work

The onset of Holy Week provides good opportunity for me to spotlight one of my absolute favorite works of sacred music, James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from The Cross (perhaps significantly not titled simply “The Seven Last Words”). It’s a matter of personal taste, of course, but this cantata for string orchestra and choir thoroughly satisfies my own thirst for something spiritually meaningful, aesthetically rich and varied, original and technically engaging. In short, it touches me deeply. For me, this is where poetic talk about the power of sacred music really takes on flesh. Here’s a clip from one of my favorite parts of the piece, a setting of the words, “Verily, I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”

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Could there be a more moving promise of release from the pain of life in this world? That these words were spoken to one whose life was ending in torture and mockery makes them all the more poignant, and MacMillan’s approach to the text begins, appropriately, in an almost despairing mood that prepares the listener for powerful musical contrasts ushered in before the words of Christ—which arrive only at the very end of the movement, in a soprano duet. The text preceding Christ’s words in this movement are taken from a versicle for Good Friday: “Ecce Lignum Crucis in quo salus mundi dependit: Venite adoremus” – “Behold the Wood of the Cross on which the Saviour of the world was hung: Come let us adore him.” MacMillan explains a bit about the cantata’s origin and inspiration in the video below.

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I’m thrilled that SDG is now working with MacMillan on a major new commission. It will be exciting to hear what he produces. We’ll announce details of the project soon.

April 1, 2010 | Filed Under Recommendations, Videos | Leave a Comment 

Recommending Joby Talbot’s ‘Path of Miracles’

I’ve just made an addition to my list of recommended musical works (to the right). Composer Joby Talbot’s choral piece Path of Miracles (2005) is hauntingly beautiful. Definitely worth checking out.

June 11, 2008 | Filed Under Recommendations, New Music | Leave a Comment 

Funeral music

I read an interesting article today on the subject of funeral music - here’s the link: http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2282432,00.html

I haven’t thought much about what music I would want played at my own funeral. In fact, I’ve not thought much about the service in general. But there’s definitely something to be gained in doing so. Brings to mind a passage from the Psalter, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

May 29, 2008 | Filed Under Recommendations | Leave a Comment 

Sibelius Five and Inspiration

Conductor Delta David Gier, SDG’s Associate Artistic Director, recently lead the South Dakota Symphony in performances of one of my favorite orchestral works, Jean Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony. While I was nowhere near Sioux Falls when the concerts were given a week or two ago, I did enjoy a bit of video interview that Maestro Gier gave in connection with the performances (I’ve included links below).

Jean Sibelius in 1939In particular, an anecdote Gier shared from Sibelius’ diary (in video #5) was especially interesting and has come to mind several times since. The concluding movement of the composer’s fifth symphony is marked by a glorious melody. This I knew and appreciated already, but what was previously unknown to me was the inspiration behind the theme. As Gier relays, the music is tied to a moment of awe in which Sibelius was struck by the beauty of a flock of swans seen near his home at Lake Tuusula in Finland. Wrote Sibelius:

“…Today at ten to eleven I saw 16 swans. One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, what beauty! … Their call, the same woodwind type as that of cranes, but without tremolo. The swan-call closer to the trumpet … A low-pitched refrain reminiscent of a small child crying. Nature mysticism and life’s Angst! The Fifth Symphony’s finale-theme: legato in the trumpets!”

What a profound interplay of expression, human and Divine. Sibelius’ words revel in an impulse that, to me, is inspiring - to perceive and receive mystery and beauty, signatures of the Divine, in the natural world around us and to find in one’s own soul a deep resonance and response. Could there be anything more noble to stir the composer’s creative spirit? Of all music’s many layers, uses and reasons, to me the sensitivity to move in imitative re-creation, however finite, to God the First Creator, is the most endearing of all.

Interestingly, Delta Gier recently remarked that to him, Sibelius’ spiritual orientation is not entirely evident. This thought, too, I find intriguing - that a God-given perception of beauty can be so intuitively and perhaps independently hardwired to its source. As far as labels go, Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is not a work one might properly call “sacred music”, but at its core it it is spiritual and oriented toward the sacred. At least that’s how I’m inclined to receive it, having glimpsed this seminal exchange between composer, Creator and creation.

The videos below are part of a series of interviews by David Xenakis, a member of the South Dakota Symphony’s board of directors. Other music addressed in the series include Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, Loel Libermann’s Piano Concerto and Puccini’s Tosca. Video links are posted on the South Dakota Symphony’ s website, and they are worth checking out.

1) Sibelius and his style of composition
2) The influence and view of the work of Sibelius
3) The Sibelius search for musical unity in light of modern composition styles and the development of the 5th symphony.
4) The melodic structure of Sibelius Symphony #5
5) Sibelius Symphony #5 from the conductor’s point of view

I poked around elsewhere and found a video (below) that captures a great performance of the fifth symphony’s final movement. Finnish conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen directs the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Enjoy.

January 30, 2008 | Filed Under Recommendations, Videos | 4 Comments 

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