SUNDAY MARCH 1ST

Bloch, Avodath Hakodesh, Foss, Song of Songs, Ben-Haim, Sweet Psalmist of Israel The penitential season of Lent begins this year on February 26th, "Ash Wednesday" in the traditional Christian calendar. Across much of Europe in the olden days, especially in Catholic countries, the opera houses were closed until Easter. I observe that custom in presenting, over the upcoming Lenten Sundays, liturgical or religious music for the human voice drawn from the broad spectrum of the Judeo-Christian heritage. On this first Sunday in Lent I focus on the Judaic heritage with the broadcast of Ernest Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh or "Sacred Service" (1930-33) for baritone solo, mixed chorus and large orchestra. The baritone takes the role of cantor in Bloch's oratorio-style rendering of the Hebrew liturgical texts. Robert Merrill is the cantorial baritone heard in an historic recording of the "Sacred Service" taped in 1960 with Leonard Bernstein directing the New York Philharmonic, the Choir of the Metropolitan Synagogue and the Choir of the Community Church of New York. Sony Classical came out with a series of jewel case CD sets of their enormous audiotape holdings documenting Bernstein's recorded legacy as a conductor. The Bloch "Sacred Service" together with Bernstein's interpretations of the Song of Songs by Lucas Foss and Sweet Psalmist of Israel by Paul Ben-Haim are contained in issue number eighteen in the series. I last gave this same program of choral works led by Bernstein on Sunday, April 12, 2009.

SUNDAY MARCH 8TH

Handel, Solomon "To my mind Solomon is probably the most magnificent...of all the Handel oratorios," so wrote conductor John Eliot Gardiner about his historically-informed recorded interpretation of the oratorio for the Philips label. I broadcast his period instrument Solomon on vinyl discs way back on Sunday, May 4, 1986. You get to hear it again today in its 2006 compact disc reissue in the Philips "Digital Classics" line. The original recording was made in London following Gardiner's performances of Solomon at the 1984 Gottingen Festival of baroque music in Germany. Gardiner leads the period instrument ensemble he founded, the English Baroque Soloists, with the Monteverdi Choir and a lineup of vocal soloists that included mezzo Carolyn Watkinson as the Hebrew king Solomon, soprano Nancy Argenta as Solomon's Queen and tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson as Zadok the Priest. Handel's orchestral scoring for Solomon is more colorful than that for Messiah. In fact, Messiah lacks the sharp delineation of character to be found in the vocal parts for the Queen of Sheba and the two Harlots, so typical of Handel's Italian operas. The dramatic situation of the quarrel over the infant, with the king's surprising judgement, was irresistible to Handel's operatic imagination. Beyond that, the overall effect of the oratorio is that of a celebration in music of Hanoverian England, also known as the Augustan Age of the mid eighteenth century. (Solomon premiered at Covent Garden in 1749.) I value historical authenticity, yet on Sunday, April 2, 1989 I broadcast a set of early stereo Angel LP's of Sir Thomas Beecham's modernized reorchestration of Solomon,with Beecham leading his own Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Beecham Choral Society. Many of Handel's oratorios premiered during Lent, so on the second Sunday of Lent, 2020 I thought it appropriate to return to the Gardiner recording of Solomon in its CD rerelease. I last made use of those two Philips CD's on Sunday, April 7, 2013.

 

SUNDAY MARCH 22ND

Krouse, Armenian Requiem, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Beethoven's Last NightFrom Haydn and eighteenth century classicism we bound forward into the twenty first century to audition music for a solemn commemoration. The Armenian Requiem by American composer Ian Krouse (b. 1956) was written to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide of 1915. Armenia is an Orthodox Christian country; there is no tradition there of a structured Latin Requiem Aeternam as there is in Western Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, Krouse constructed this commemorative work employing elements reminiscent of a Mass for the Dead with Armenian liturgical chants and settings of verse by Armenian poets (eg. the Prelude, "I Want to Die Singing" by Siamanto) and the folk melodies of Komitas. The overall effect is like that of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (1960). Royce Hall in Los Angeles is a splendid venue in which to record a large-scale sacred composition such as the Armenian Requiem. It was there that the world premiere recording was made in 2015 for release in 2019 through the Naxos label on two compact discs in the "American Classics" series. The performing resources required were considerable: the UCLA Philharmonic, the Lark Master Singers chorus, the Tatzian Children's Choir, the VEM String Quartet, four vocal soloists and a duduk player, the duduk being a Middle Eastern reed instrument. Neal Stulberg leads the entire musical assemblage.

   We pause momentarily in the Lenten musical proceedings for a different sort of quasi-operatic piece which is, like Krouse's requiem, also a product of the twenty first century. This is also something of a rock musical, a gothic-style crossover work a la Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. That monumental musical genius Ludwig van Beethoven died in the month of March: March 27,1827 to be exact. Paul O'Neill and Robert Kinkel of the Trans Siberian Orchestra conceived a fantasy of what Beethoven's last night was like. It involves a series of phantoms, who play out the story against the backdrop of a thunderstorm. It seems Beethoven has composed a complete tenth symphony, greater than the ninth, which will be his final artistic offering to the world. He gets caught up in a Faustian bargain for his soul and for the manuscript of that never-heard masterpiece. The phantom of his Immortal Beloved pleads on his behalf. Even the ghost of Mozart makes an appearance. There is a singing cast of nine characters, with backup adult vocalists and a children's choir. Kinkel plays keyboards and O'Neill is heard on guitars, with traditional string players augmenting the electrified instruments and the rock drum kit rhythm section. Trans Siberian Orchestra: Beethoven's Last Night was released in the year 2000 by Atlantic Records on a single silver disc.

 

SUNDAY MARCH 15TH

Haydn, Il Ritorno di Tobia The genre of oratorio began in Italy in the seventeenth century. Oratorio is the twin sister of the Italian opera. When the opera houses closed oratorio took over as a sacred Lenten musical entertainment. In the eighteenth century oratorio was taken up all over Europe. Everybody knows the two choral masterpieces of Joseph Haydn's old age: The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). There is, however, a third great religious oratorio Haydn wrote earlier in his career while he was still in the service of his superrich patron the Hungarian Prince Eszterhazy. Il Ritorno di Tobia (1775/1784) was calculated to appeal to a Viennese audience. The story, derived from the Old Testament Apocrypha, was popular in Vienna at the time. The Viennese also wanted to hear oratorio in Italian, the language of opera, rather than in their native German tongue. "The Return of Tobias" has only very occasionally been performed or recorded in our time. It was recorded in co-production with Deutschland Radio in 2006 in the broadcast auditorium of Radio Cologne. Andreas Spering directs the period instrument players of the Capella Augustina and the choral forces of the VokalEnsemble Koln. The 2007 Naxos CD release of that Cologne recording was aired on Sunday, February 28, 2010. Il Ritorno di Tobia was given again in a benefit concert as part of the 2013 Salzburg Festival and was recorded live-in-performance in August of that year in the hall of the old Riding School. The aging Nikolaus Harnoncourt was conducting the Zurich-based period instrument Orchestra La Scintilla and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, with five vocal soloists. This triumphal performance was the last hurrah for Harnoncourt, a true pioneer in the historically-informed performance practice movement, since he retired for health reasons in 2015 and died not long thereafter in 2016. Orfeo Records, the record label of ORF Austrian Radio, issued the oratorio on two silver discs in 2018. Harnoncourt made some cuts in Haydn's score for the Salzburg production.

 

SUNDAY MARCH 29TH

Dvorak, Stabat Mater, Fairouz, Poems and Prayers The Dvorak Stabat Mater (1877) is a Lenten perennial. I have presented it at least half a dozen times going at least as far back as 1991 in various recordings. Although it is scored for full orchestra with chorus and vocal soloists, there is a Naïve CD recording making use of the 1876 piano score which I aired on Sunday, March 29, 2009. This choral work established Antonin Dvorak's international reputation. Stabat Mater are the first two words of a medieval Latin devotional poem relating the emotional suffering of the Virgin Mary as she beholds the crucifixion of her Son. In the history of Western art music many other composers have been drawn to it. In terms of length in performance Dvorak's is the longest musical treatment. Affecting in its simplicity, sincerity and heartfelt compassion, the Dvorak Stabat Mater is one of his most beautiful creations. Listen today for a historic recording of Dvorak's Opus 58, taped in monaural sound in 1953 by RIAS Radio Berlin in the Christuskirche. The Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay conducts the RIAS Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus, augmented by the Choir of St. Hedwig's Cathedral of Berlin. There are four vocal soloists. The Swiss Relief label specializes in CD reissues of vintage recordings of European radio broadcasts. This Relief reissue dates from 2009.

   Our programming for Lent now reaches out beyond institutional Christianity and Judaism to embrace , as Beethoven did, the teeming millions of the whole world. There are so many millions out there who are Muslim. New York City-based Mohammed Fairouz (b. 1985) gives us a rare work with universal appeal that has its roots in Islam. Poems and Prayers (2010) is actually Fairouz's Symphony Number Three. It partly uses the Beethoven Ninth as a model. This is a choral symphony in six movements that premiered triumphantly on the West Coast in December of 2013 in UCLA's Royce Hall, where it was recorded live in performance. Neal Stulberg conducted the UCLA Philharmonia, UCLA Chorale and University Chorus, with three vocal soloists. Fairouz prepared his own libretto out of poems and prayers in Arabic and Hebrew. He sets a sacred text to music, the Oseh Shalom or Mourner's Kaddish from the Judaic tradition. The finale of the symphony is a setting of Israeli poet Yehudi Amichai's Seven Laments for the War Dead from 1976, the ''war" here being the long ongoing Arab/Israeli conflict and the Palestinian guerilla resistance fighting. "Night Fantasy" is a small section drawn from State of Siege, the Arabic poem by Mahmoud Darwish about the Israeli siege of Ramallah in 2002. All the poems in Fairouz's choral symphony serve as prayers for peace. The Fairouz Symphony Number Three is indeed a "peace symphony," or in choral terms, a peace cantata of one full hour's length. By the impressive sound of it, it's the composer's sincere and passionate plea. Poems and Prayers was released to the world on a single Sono Luminus compact disc, By the way, there is a Fourth Symphony by Fairouz, titled In the Shadow of No Towers (2012), inspired by the 911 disaster, and an oratorio Zabur (2015), both of these works out on CD courtesy of the Naxos record label.