Ravinia 2021 - Issue 3

The vocal texts often drew from the readings for that particular Sunday in the church year. Of Bach’s surviving church cantatas, only 11 refrain from using hymn tunes. The solo Can- tata No. 107: Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelen- lust (Contented Rest, Beloved Inner Joy) belongs to this small group. A poetic text by Georg Christian Lehms for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (published 1711) provides words of consolation and assurance. Three luscious, introspective arias and two recitatives ac- count for the entire music of this cantata. The aria “Wie jammern mich doch die verkehrten Herzen” stands at the center of the cantata, the third of five movements. It rep- resents the theological crux of the work, hu- mankind’s transgressions and distance from God (“How sorry I feel for those perverted hearts / that against you, my God, are set”). TYSHAWN SOREY (b. 1980) Songs for Death Proclaimed a “musical shapeshifter” (Nation- al Public Radio) and “category-defying” ( Rolling Stone ), the multi-instrumentalist, conductor, creator, and thought-leader Tyshawn Sorey transcends boundaries of mu- sical style and creative process. Born in New- ark, NJ, Sorey entered William Paterson Uni- versity as a classical trombone major but later switched to jazz drums. He completed a Doc- tor of Musical Arts degree in composition from Columbia University in 2017, the same year he received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. His doctoral thesis composition, Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine —a trib- ute to the singer, dancer, and actress Jose- phine Baker—was produced January 16 and 17, 2019, on the steps of the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art by soprano Julia Bullock, Sorey, members of International Contemporary En- semble, and director Peter Sellars. Another recent vocal work, Cycles of My Be- ing , about the reality of life for a Black man in America, was co-commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited. The cycle’s ded- icatee, Lawrence Brownlee, and pianist Myra Tyshawn Sorey Huang gave the first Chicago performance on February 22, 2018, at the DuSable Museum of African American History. The pandemic did not slow Sorey’s creative output, only shifted it to new media. Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times (January 1, 2021) called him “The Busiest Composer of the Bleakest Year.” Sorey recently composed Songs for Death on a com- mission from Vocal Arts DC for bass-bari- tone Davóne Tines. As with many spirituals, the origin of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” remain obscured by the oral tradition of enslaved African Americans. Very likely, it emerged before the Civil War. Its dissemina- tion is equally impossible to chart, although the spiritual must have traveled widely be- cause a close variant (“Have You Heard How They Crucified My Lord?”) has been found within the white spiritual tradition of Tennes- see’s Cumberland Plateau. Although differ- ences between sources exist, the verses typi- cally reference scripture: Matthew 27 and 28 and Luke 23. Coded language within the text alludes to the slave experience. “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?” (not included in this composition) substitutes the word “tree” for “cross” as an apparent com- parison of Christ’s crucifixion to lynchings. “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” was first published in William Eleazar Barton’s Old Plantation Hymns; a Collection of Hitherto Unpublished Melodies of the Slave and the Freedman, with Historical and De- scriptive Notes (1899). “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” is a more modern composition in the spiritual tradition, written by Robert MacGimsey (1898–1979) and first published in 1934. MacGimsey, a white lawyer who grew up in a Louisiana household with African American servants, learned spirituals from his caregiver, Aunt Becky. Considering it a Christmas song for its emphasis on the birth of Jesus, MacGimsey also understood that traditional spirituals often connect- ed Christ’s birth to his eventual crucifixion: “Even when you were dying / Jesus seems we can’t do right / But please forgive us Lord / We didn’t know it was you.” WallisWillis (c.1820–80) was a Choctaw freed- man—former slaves of the Choctaw who were eventually granted citizenship (though not full legal rights) in the Choctaw Nation. Rev. Alexander Reid, headmaster of the Choctaw boarding school for boys, transcribed spir- ituals that Wallis and his wife Minerva sang for the boys and sent the music to the Jubi- lee Singers at Fisk University, who performed them on tour. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (c.1865) was placed in the National Archives by the Library of Congress and identified as one of the “Songs of the Century” by the Na- tional Endowment for the Arts. The phrase “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to car- ry me home” references the story of Elijah’s transportation to heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11) but also likely is coded language for the Underground Railroad, which guided escaping slaves across the Ohio and Missouri Rivers (the Jordan River in the spiritual). JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein” from Saint Matthew Passion , BWV 244 The Passion—the story of Jesus’ betrayal, tri- al, and crucifixion—is part of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels. During the Middle Ages, each of the accounts was given on a different day of Holy Week: St. Matthew on Palm Sunday, St. Mark on Tuesday, St. Luke on Wednesday, and St. John on Good Friday. Several solo performers assumed dif- ferent character roles; another sang the part of Christ; the remaining characters and the crowd, known collectively as the synagoga , were assigned to another singer. As musical settings became more and more complex and dramatic, the synagoga text was given to a choir of voices singing in polyphony, while other parts were sung by solo voices as chant. Lutheran composers during the 16th century adopted this approach to setting the Passion, although they simplified the style so that the Latin, and later German, text could be under- stood. Bach is reported to have composed five Passions during his years in Leipzig. The St. John and St. Matthew are the only two that survive. A third setting, based on the Gospel of St. Mark, was destroyed during World War II. A fourth, based on the text of St. Luke, was attributed to Bach for years, but is now con- sidered the work of another composer. The remaining setting is unknown. The Saint Matthew Passion was intended for Good Friday Vespers in 1725. Bach appar- ently underestimated the amount of time necessary to compose such a monumental work—one of the largest choral compositions of the Baroque era—causing him to substitute the previously composed Saint John Passion . Leipzig records report performances of the Saint Matthew Passion in 1727 and 1729, but the manuscript score and parts have been lost. The earliest surviving sources come from Good Friday Vespers on March 30, 1736. The Gospel account of Christ’s Passion orig- inates in Matthew 26 and 27 with additional contemporary poetry by Christian Friederich Henrici (a.k.a., Picander) and 15 choral move- ments using melodies and texts from the Lu- theran hymnal. “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein” (no. 75; Make Yourself Pure, My Heart) follows the crucifixion, when the wealthy man fromArimathea named Joseph asked for the body of Jesus to prepare him for burial. MOSES HOGAN (1957–2003), arr. “Give Me Jesus” Pianist, composer, conductor, and arrang- er Moses Hogan grew up in New Orleans, joining the first class of students at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where he studied jazz piano with Ellis Marsalis. Later, he attended Oberlin College and pursued graduate studies in classical piano at The Juil- liard School. He won the 28th annual Koscius- ko Foundation Chopin Competition in New York in 1977 while still an undergraduate. After returning to New Orleans, Hogan fo- cused on choral music, founding and con- ducting several choirs (NewWorld Ensemble, Moses Hogan Chorale, and Moses Hogan Singers) and inaugurating a fabled series of spiritual arrangements in 1980. PBS engaged Hogan to compose and performmusic for the documentary The American Promise in 1995. Four years later, he edited the influential The Oxford Book of Spirituals . “Give Me Jesus” is a pre–Civil War spiritual first published in Jacob Knapp’s The Evan- gelical Harp: A New Collection of Hymns and Tunes Designed for Revivals of Religion, and For Family and Social Worship (1845). Three years later, it entered the Methodist hymnal, suggesting to some that its origins might lie, in part, in the white spiritual tradition. Its association with Black spirituals came with Slave Songs of the United States (1867), the first published collection of African Amer- ican music, containing 136 songs. The text alludes to the Last Judgment (Matthew 16): “morning” recalls the salvation that comes on the Day of Resurrection. JULIUS EASTMAN (1940–90) Prelude to ‘The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc’ As a boy growing up in Ithaca, NY, Julius Eastman exhibited an almost obsessive fas- cination with piano, voice, and dance, an obsession that later propelled him into the vanguard of American experimental culture of the 1970s and ’80s. His growing reputation as a pianist and bass-baritone singer, especial- ly as an interpreter of modern music, led to his New York City piano recital debut at Town Hall and an appearance as King Balthazar in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra produc- tion of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitor under composer-conductor Lukas Foss. Moses Hogan RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 49