To Be Certain Of The Music
We're back in the recording studio this week, (actually, that's not entirely accurate - we make our recordings on the stage of Orchestra Hall, with our production team squirreled away with all their equipment in a backstage rehearsal room,) but the project we're working on couldn't be more different than the Beethoven symphony cycle that we've spent the last five seasons completing. This week, we're teamed up with a massive choir of adults and children, four vocal soloists, and an authentic Jewish cantor to record Stephen Paulus's gripping oratorio, To Be Certain of the Dawn.
Stephen is a well-known composer around these parts, and he's developed quite a reputation nationally, as well. (I've actually spent a large number of mornings this season playing another piece of his, written for the orchestra's Kinder Konzerts series, aimed at pre-school and kindergarten students.) This particular project had its genesis more than three years ago, when the rector of Minneapolis's Basilica of St. Mary commissioned Stephen and poet Michael Dennis Browne to create a new oratorio on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps in which millions of Jews lost their lives. The oratorio was to be a gift from the Catholic Church to Minneapolis's Temple Israel (the city's largest synagogue) and the Jewish community of the Twin Cities. We premiered it at the Basilica in 2005, with Temple Israel's outstanding cantor, Barry Abelson, intoning the opening and closing blessings, to packed houses and a positive critical reaction.
The piece is unusual in several respects. First, while it does not lack for chilling moments and angry climaxes, as you would expect from an oratorio focused on the Holocaust, the overall effect of the music and poetry is quite uplifting. To this end, Browne and Paulus took as inspiration a set of photographs of European Jews just going through the motions of daily life in the 1930s, before their world was turned upside down by the Nazi government. (The photos are projected on screens during the performance.) One photo shows two little girls shyly posing for the camera; another shows a young boy standing under a tree, while a much older man with a long beard leans back against the trunk.
From these photos, Browne created lyrics for the soloists that imagined the lives and thoughts of the people in the photos. The lyrics are simple and descriptive, and the music that goes along with them is light and airy. But somewhere in the middle of each of these snapshots of ordinary life, the chorus breaks in with vicious murmuring declarations: "Jews may not keep animals. Jews may not attend school. Jews may not imagine. Jews may not dream." It's a startling effect. There is no overt suggestion of violence in these lines, but there is that unmistakable quality of menace that every Jew living in Germany must have felt for years before it became fully clear just what exactly their government had in mind. Juxtaposed against the innocent imaginings of the lives of the ordinary people in the photos, these lines are devastating to listen to.
If the chorus is occasionally called upon to represent the evils of genocide and bigotry, the children's choir, which plays a major role in the oratorio, represents the opposite: simple human hope and goodness. Four times, the children sing a traditional Hebrew blessing, each repetition more forceful and determined than the last. Late in the piece, after the adult choir has sung of the terror of Kristallnacht, the children and adults join together with the soprano soloist to sing a Hymn to the Eternal Flame: "Every breath is in you / every cry / Every longing in you / every singing / Every hope, every healing / Woven into fire." And at the tail end of the piece, the final gut punch comes from the voice of a Holocaust survivor, as the mezzo-soprano soloist sings, "I have lived in a world with no children. I would never live in a world of no children again." As she finishes the line, and the combined choruses implore the audience in Hebrew to "love your neighbor as yourself," one final photo is projected onto the screen: a sea of children, staring innocently into the lens.
I'm not terribly well-connected to the world of modern composers, but I know enough to be fairly certain that there are composers and musicians who would consider Paulus's oratorio to be something less than serious music. His works tend to be accessible to anyone who hears them, and from what I've played and heard of his stuff, it seems clear that he is far more interested in connecting with audiences than in impressing colleagues with how smart he is. There are no tone rows, no endless cycling of minimalist progressions, just clean, simple lines and undeniably provocative harmonies.
For much of the last century, this approach has been a great way to get yourself shunned by the new music cognoscenti, as the avant-garde seized and held control of the internal taste mechanisms of the industry. But lately, composers who value such old-fashioned ideas as melody and emotional impact have been making a major comeback, and the exclusionary worldview of the modernists has finally started to lose its grip on performers and audiences. To my mind, this is a positive development, and as I watched countless members of the audience at last night's concert tear up as the final chorus swelled in Paulus's oratorio, I was as certain as I've ever been that this is what music is supposed to be.
Stephen is a well-known composer around these parts, and he's developed quite a reputation nationally, as well. (I've actually spent a large number of mornings this season playing another piece of his, written for the orchestra's Kinder Konzerts series, aimed at pre-school and kindergarten students.) This particular project had its genesis more than three years ago, when the rector of Minneapolis's Basilica of St. Mary commissioned Stephen and poet Michael Dennis Browne to create a new oratorio on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps in which millions of Jews lost their lives. The oratorio was to be a gift from the Catholic Church to Minneapolis's Temple Israel (the city's largest synagogue) and the Jewish community of the Twin Cities. We premiered it at the Basilica in 2005, with Temple Israel's outstanding cantor, Barry Abelson, intoning the opening and closing blessings, to packed houses and a positive critical reaction.
The piece is unusual in several respects. First, while it does not lack for chilling moments and angry climaxes, as you would expect from an oratorio focused on the Holocaust, the overall effect of the music and poetry is quite uplifting. To this end, Browne and Paulus took as inspiration a set of photographs of European Jews just going through the motions of daily life in the 1930s, before their world was turned upside down by the Nazi government. (The photos are projected on screens during the performance.) One photo shows two little girls shyly posing for the camera; another shows a young boy standing under a tree, while a much older man with a long beard leans back against the trunk.
From these photos, Browne created lyrics for the soloists that imagined the lives and thoughts of the people in the photos. The lyrics are simple and descriptive, and the music that goes along with them is light and airy. But somewhere in the middle of each of these snapshots of ordinary life, the chorus breaks in with vicious murmuring declarations: "Jews may not keep animals. Jews may not attend school. Jews may not imagine. Jews may not dream." It's a startling effect. There is no overt suggestion of violence in these lines, but there is that unmistakable quality of menace that every Jew living in Germany must have felt for years before it became fully clear just what exactly their government had in mind. Juxtaposed against the innocent imaginings of the lives of the ordinary people in the photos, these lines are devastating to listen to.
If the chorus is occasionally called upon to represent the evils of genocide and bigotry, the children's choir, which plays a major role in the oratorio, represents the opposite: simple human hope and goodness. Four times, the children sing a traditional Hebrew blessing, each repetition more forceful and determined than the last. Late in the piece, after the adult choir has sung of the terror of Kristallnacht, the children and adults join together with the soprano soloist to sing a Hymn to the Eternal Flame: "Every breath is in you / every cry / Every longing in you / every singing / Every hope, every healing / Woven into fire." And at the tail end of the piece, the final gut punch comes from the voice of a Holocaust survivor, as the mezzo-soprano soloist sings, "I have lived in a world with no children. I would never live in a world of no children again." As she finishes the line, and the combined choruses implore the audience in Hebrew to "love your neighbor as yourself," one final photo is projected onto the screen: a sea of children, staring innocently into the lens.
I'm not terribly well-connected to the world of modern composers, but I know enough to be fairly certain that there are composers and musicians who would consider Paulus's oratorio to be something less than serious music. His works tend to be accessible to anyone who hears them, and from what I've played and heard of his stuff, it seems clear that he is far more interested in connecting with audiences than in impressing colleagues with how smart he is. There are no tone rows, no endless cycling of minimalist progressions, just clean, simple lines and undeniably provocative harmonies.
For much of the last century, this approach has been a great way to get yourself shunned by the new music cognoscenti, as the avant-garde seized and held control of the internal taste mechanisms of the industry. But lately, composers who value such old-fashioned ideas as melody and emotional impact have been making a major comeback, and the exclusionary worldview of the modernists has finally started to lose its grip on performers and audiences. To my mind, this is a positive development, and as I watched countless members of the audience at last night's concert tear up as the final chorus swelled in Paulus's oratorio, I was as certain as I've ever been that this is what music is supposed to be.
Labels: composers, inside the orchestra, new music
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