"The Little Church Around the Corner"
One East 29th Street, New York
MUSIC NOTES:
Easter II - April 22, 2001
An interesting and rather unusual aspect of today's choral and organ music is that all of the composers are still alive. Throughout the ages, there has been a tendency within the Church to idealize the sacred music of past centuries, and to regard contemporary compositions as unsuitable, as somehow having missed the mark. There is much evidence that even composers such as Palestrina and Bach endured strenuous opposition to their music during their lifetime; it was branded too modern, too secular, too complex, and many other complaints familiar to the ears of composers. To accept this mindset is often to miss out on the opportunity to enter into the prayer of the present world, as it continues its ever-changing, yet ever the same, quest for God.
Peter Aston (b. 1938), composer of today's Mass setting, is a fine example of the English composer's approach. England tends to avoid radical departures from the past, and prefers to work towards methodical change which builds upon what came before. (It is noteworthy that the avant-garde English composer John Tavener claims an ancestral link with his distinguished near namesake of the 16th century, John Taverner.)
After graduating from the Birmingham School of Music, Aston went on to graduate study at the University of York, where he was later appointed as a lecturer in music. During his time at York, he was deeply impressed with the musical life of the cathedral, and in 1972 published a book entitled The Music of York Minster. Composed in 1988, the Mass for All Saints is a mature work, reflecting the composer's lifelong interest in the music of Monteverdi, and an ability to apply baroque-inspired techniques to a modern idiom. The title of an article he wrote in honor of his teacher George Jeffreys is telling: Tradition and Experiment in the Devotional Music of George Jeffreys.
Ned Rorem (b. 1923) has had an extraordinary life, and the vastness of his cultural experience is reflected in the astonishing diversity of his music. His early education took him to all the major cultural centers of the US. From 1949 to 1958 he lived in France, where his often outrageous behavior and his precocious ability led him into the milieu of some of the leading artistic figures of post-war Europe, much of which is chronicled in his colorful diaries of this period. Ever a lover of prose, Rorem is at his best in choral and vocal compositions, where he invariably weaves text and music together into an inextricable and elegant fabric. Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love is a hymn-like composition, with a homophonic and one-note-per-syllable texture, gentle harmonic nuances and a noble melodic line suggestive of Vaughan Williams. The piece was written in 1955 for Paul Calloway of the Washington National Cathedral, the first person to conduct any of Rorem's choral music. Mr. Rorem presently lives in New York City (when not in Nantucket), and hosts a popular lecture series on art and culture at Columbia University.
Dan Locklair (b. 1949) composed the works which frame today's service as the organ prelude and postlude. A graduate of the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary here in New York, Locklair also earned a DMA from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. He is a prolific composer in numerous genres of art music, and has made a major contribution to the organ repertory. The two selections heard today are jubilant and harmonically tense pieces, and are part of a larger work entitled Rubrics. Mr. Locklair is presently Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Peter Aston (b. 1938), composer of today's Mass setting, is a fine example of the English composer's approach. England tends to avoid radical departures from the past, and prefers to work towards methodical change which builds upon what came before. (It is noteworthy that the avant-garde English composer John Tavener claims an ancestral link with his distinguished near namesake of the 16th century, John Taverner.)
After graduating from the Birmingham School of Music, Aston went on to graduate study at the University of York, where he was later appointed as a lecturer in music. During his time at York, he was deeply impressed with the musical life of the cathedral, and in 1972 published a book entitled The Music of York Minster. Composed in 1988, the Mass for All Saints is a mature work, reflecting the composer's lifelong interest in the music of Monteverdi, and an ability to apply baroque-inspired techniques to a modern idiom. The title of an article he wrote in honor of his teacher George Jeffreys is telling: Tradition and Experiment in the Devotional Music of George Jeffreys.
Ned Rorem (b. 1923) has had an extraordinary life, and the vastness of his cultural experience is reflected in the astonishing diversity of his music. His early education took him to all the major cultural centers of the US. From 1949 to 1958 he lived in France, where his often outrageous behavior and his precocious ability led him into the milieu of some of the leading artistic figures of post-war Europe, much of which is chronicled in his colorful diaries of this period. Ever a lover of prose, Rorem is at his best in choral and vocal compositions, where he invariably weaves text and music together into an inextricable and elegant fabric. Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love is a hymn-like composition, with a homophonic and one-note-per-syllable texture, gentle harmonic nuances and a noble melodic line suggestive of Vaughan Williams. The piece was written in 1955 for Paul Calloway of the Washington National Cathedral, the first person to conduct any of Rorem's choral music. Mr. Rorem presently lives in New York City (when not in Nantucket), and hosts a popular lecture series on art and culture at Columbia University.
Dan Locklair (b. 1949) composed the works which frame today's service as the organ prelude and postlude. A graduate of the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary here in New York, Locklair also earned a DMA from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. He is a prolific composer in numerous genres of art music, and has made a major contribution to the organ repertory. The two selections heard today are jubilant and harmonically tense pieces, and are part of a larger work entitled Rubrics. Mr. Locklair is presently Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
