Though it might be hard to believe, spring is just around the corner! From the warmth and safety of your home, join the Saskatoon Chamber Singers in a celebration of the new season. Enjoy live recorded highlights from our previous spring concerts!
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February
Amor de mi Alma (You Are the Love of My Soul)
Music by Z. Randall Stroope (b. 1953)
Text by Garcilaso de la Vega (c. 1501-1536)
Translation by Keith Beckman (reproduced by permission of Walton Music)
The American composer Z. Randall Stroope chose Spanish Renaissance poet Garcilaso de la Vega’s Soneto V to set to music. The poet wrote only 38 sonnets and a few songs and odes before he died of wounds received in military combat at the age of 33. This is a poem of great love and Stroope has painted the words and the emotions of the poet into an absolutely beautiful piece to sing and to listen to. Although Stroope’s translation does not accurately mirror the Spanish text, the profoundness of his music does. Amor di me alma (You are the love of my soul) begins and ends with much the same musical ideas that frame a section in the middle for sopranos and altos while the tenors and basses sustain a G-sharp throughout. This piece can be sung either a cappella or with piano accompaniment.
Recorded March 2018
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TEXT AND TRANSLATIONS
March - Canadian Stories
The Cremation of Sam McGee
Kenneth Nichols (b.1936)
Text: Robert Service (1874-1958)
The Saskatchewan Music Educators Association commissioned Kenneth Nichols to compose a piece for the Saskatchewan Honour Choir. Nichols chose as his text Robert Service’s poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. The work turned out to be too long for the honour choir, so the executive director of the SMEA asked the Saskatoon Chamber Singers if they would premiere the work. On October 15, 1991, under the direction of Patricia Jamison, The Cremation of Sam McGee was performed for the first time at the SMEA’s annual convention. Nichols describes the work as follows: “ [It] is shaped into a big rondo, as Service’s poetic lines and meter are consistent, making the mapping of previously written music onto succeeding verses easy to do. The use of the brake drum tries to approximate the sound of an old cast iron boiler heating up during the cremation scene, and the bongos add to the crazy atmosphere of the poem.” The piano is also a key player in setting the mood and helping to tell the story. Our March 2020 concert featured the first performance of the revised SATB version of the score, with a few previously omitted verses restored. Nichols use all four voices (sometimes together, sometimes alternating, sometimes singly) as well as several solo voices to communicate the text of Service’s poem. Indeed, it is a romp!
Recorded March 2020
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Text and translations
The Lost Lagoon
Allan Bevan (b. 1951)
Text: Emily Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)
Allan Bevan’s The Lost Lagoon won first prize in 2011 at the “Vancouver 125” Choral Composition Competition. Bevan chose a poem by Emily Pauline Johnson for his text. Pauline Johnson, the famous Mohawk poet lived the last four years of her life in Vancouver, and she was often seen paddling her canoe in the Lost Lagoon which was located within the confines of Stanley Park. Although the lagoon is now a freshwater lake, Johnson was buried in the park and there is a monument to her memory there. This piece is tranquil and languid and recalls the beauty, peace and stillness that inhabits the Lost Lagoon as dusk approaches the space is lit by “the curve of the golden moon.”
Recorded March 2020
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Text and translations
Three Canadian Landscapes
James Wright (b. 1959)
Text - Charlotte Hillary Orzel (age 9), Rebecca Fisher (age 9), Lauren Pageau (age 11)
Three Canadian Landscapes by James Wright came about as a result of a poetry competition for young Canadians. These young authors were asked to submit poetic responses to the works of the Group of Seven, Tom Thomson, and Emily Carr. The goal of the competition was to provide vibrant and new texts for the composition of A Gallery of Song: Spirit of the Land and to bring young Canadians into contact with some of the richest and most enduring images of Canada ever captured on canvas. From the over two hundred submissions, nine winning poems were selected and artfully set to music by Mr. Wright, of which three are presented in this set. The first, Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky (Emily Carr) depicts a tree that has been passed over by loggers because it has no commercial value. Nine year old poet Charlotte Hillary Orzel wrote, “My attention was drawn by the lonely tree reaching its branches toward the sky. The swirling clouds that seemed to be embracing the tree also caught my eye and gave me the feeling that it was secure. The painting is full of life and hope.” Wright’s music for this poem is very simple and straightforward with an easily hummable tune. The second piece is Bright Land (Arthur Lismer) and is a jazzy and syncopated response to the colours of the rugged Canadian landscape captured in this painting. Poet Rebecca Fisher, age nine, wrote, ‘Bright Land’ stood out from the other pictures. It was bright and wild. It looked so free; it didn’t really care what it looked like. The lake in the middle was very startling. I felt like the mood of the picture and knew at once that I wanted to make a poem of it.” The piece begins with the choir whispering the words “Pink igneous rock!” The last piece in this set, Snow (Lawren Harris) was written by eleven year old poet Lauren Pageau. She wrote, “’Snow’ caught my attention because its focus is on a little clump of trees that are weighed down by very crisp-looking snow. It made me feel safe, comfortable and secure.” Here the music is gentle and languorous, first sung by a soprano solo and then by the entire choir before ending once again with a soprano solo.
Recorded March 2019
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Text and translations
A Canadian Rhapsody
Peter Berring (b. 1954)
A Canadian Rhapsody, a medley of Canadian folk songs by Peter Berring, was commissioned by the Brock House Music Makers of Vancouver in 1993. At times bittersweet, it is for the most part a rollicking romp for the singers. The folk songs included are Vive la Canadienne, Un Canadien Errant, Where the Ice-Worms Nest Again, Salish Song of Longing, She’s Like the Swallow, and En Roulant Ma Boule. Throughout there are sections for soloists, and the whole thing is accompanied by an orchestra of sound from the piano (Rod Epp).
Recorded March 2017
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Text and translations
April - Prayer and Praise
Inscriptions from the Catacombs
Norman Lockwood (1906-2002)
Inscriptions from the Catacombs was performed by the Saskatoon Chamber Singers at our May 2019 concert “Inscriptions: The Indelible Impact of Choral Music.” Director James Hawn wrote at the time: “Many years ago when I was still a student, I heard the Greystone Singers, under the direction of Robert Solem, perform a piece called Inscriptions from the Catacombs. It has stuck with me all these years and now, more than fifty years later, I have finally programmed it on one of our concerts.”
Normand Lockwood was a prolific American composer, but yet one who remains in relative obscurity. Of his more than five hundred works, half of them are choral. He studied composition in Rome with Ottorino Respighi and then piano with Nadia Boulanger before returning to the States and spending time at various universities throughout the country. He composed Inscriptions from the Catacombs in 1965 and dedicated it to Olaf C. Christiansen, an American composer in the Lutheran tradition and conductor of the St. Olaf Choir for twenty-seven years. The piece begins and ends exuberantly on the words “Vivas in Deo” (You live in God), but the five sections in between are quite tranquil and tender. Movements two and three are written for double choir but the dynamic level rarely goes above piano. Movement two is tranquil and prayer-like as the words “cum sanctis” are sung by four of the eight voices at a time. It is not until the last four measures that all eight parts sing together. In movement three, choir one keeps repeating the words while choir two, with the same words, serves more as a sustained ostinato underneath them. The fourth movement begins with a solo soprano and solo tenor voice in unison before being joined by the sopranos and altos. The harmonized tune then moves to the tenors and basses before being joined by the sopranos and altos. A solo alto voice reiterates the theme and then it moves back and forth between the male and female voices. Movement five features the bass section in a cello-like melody throughout with the other sections repeating the same words over the basses as they sustain the note that ends each phrase. Movement six has a solo line for each section before returning to the words and mood of the opening.
Recorded May 2019
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Text and translations
Ave Verum Corpus
W.A. Mozart (1756-1971)
Text: 13th century Eucharistic chant, attributed to Pope Innocent
Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, a motel in D Major, is a perfect gem - a masterpiece in its composition and emotional impact - and has become part of the repertoire of most professional, amateur and church choirs. It dates from the last year of Mozart's short life, which is also when he composed his Requiem. Alfred Einstein said of it that its popularity may have blinded us to the "mastery with which it is fashioned" - so simple in its statement but so rewarding to both singer and listener. It is only 46 bars long but has the emotional impact of works much, much longer. It can be performed a cappella or with organ/piano accompaniment. The pianist Artur Schnael said of the piece that "it is too simple for children and too difficult for adults."
Recorded May 2019
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Text and translations
Factus est Repente (Suddenly There Came a Sound from Heaven)
Gregor Aichinger (1561-1628)
Text: Communion for Mass for Pentecost from Acts 2:2,4
Gregor Aichinger was organist to the Fugger family in Augsburg. He studied in Rome and also took his holy orders there. He composed during the transition period from the late Renaissance to the Baroque. His Factus est Repente (Suddenly There Came a Sound from Heaven) is a motet that begins with a musical motif that passes from one voice to the next in canonic fashion and then continues to be tossed from voice to voice throughout the rest of the piece.
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Text and translations
An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts 🍁
Healey Willan (1880-1968)
Text compiled from Eastern Liturgies by Rev. H.G. Hiscocks and Dixon P. Wagner, and a verse from a hymn by Athelstan Riley
One of the earliest recognized Canadian composers was Healey Willan. Although born in England, he spent the last 54 years of his life in Canada and the last 47 years of his life as the organist and choirmaster at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Toronto and it was for that choir that he composed many of his choral works. As one critic wrote, “Willan’s music has an audience, and…his music for the church can engage and touch a listener who may never set foot in church.” An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts, an a cappella sacred concert piece for double choir, was commissioned in 1921 by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The work not only calls for eight-part double choir but also for two small “mystic” choirs, that should be slightly removed from the main choir. The mystical text was compiled from eastern liturgies by Dixon P. Wegner and Fr. H. G. Hiscocks, rectors of St. Mary Magdalene. It was performed for the not-yet-crowned Queen Elizabeth in the new Royal Festival Hall in 1952 and earned Willan an invitation to compose an anthem for the coronation.
The work is divided into four parts, each concluding with an “amen.” Following is a summary of University of Toronto professor and Willan biographer, Dr. F. R. C. Clarke’s assessment of this work.
Section 1 is perhaps the most mystical sounding and is reminiscent of Russian choral music that Willan very much admired. Section 2 is the shortest. In it the tonality begins to shift around more quickly and concludes on the mediant of the home key with both mystic choirs singing “amens.” Section 3 remains in E-flat major for a time and then suddenly another cadence on the mediant followed by a series of tonality changes. In Section 4, the great climax, Willan introduces the well-known hymn Ye watchers and ye holy ones. The first four lines of the hymn are quite straight-forward but lines five and six are treated canonically between the two choirs. The “alleluias” follow and are treated “freely and expansively.” The tempo increases and the tonality changes, and leads to a great climax “con exaltazione.” One might think Willan would have ended the piece here, but instead he added twenty-two bars during which the music gradually winds down to pianissimo to recreate the mystical atmosphere of the opening.
Recorded May 2017: recorded during a joint concert between the Saskatoon Chamber Singers and the University of Saskatchewan Greystone Singers; conducted by Dr. Jennifer Lang
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Text and translations
Requiem, Op. 9
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Text: Mass for the Dead
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) wrote his Requiem, Op. 9 in 1947, although it was not published until a year later. The work had been commissioned earlier under the collaborationist Vichy regime, but Duruflé was still working on it when the regime collapsed. It was at that time that the composer dedicated his Requiem to his father.
Duruflé made his living primarily as an organist and teacher. Known mostly for his organ compositions, it is the Requiem that garnered him a reputation outside of France. Duruflé was the organist for over fifty years at the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris. He also taught at the Conservatory from 1943 until 1969. He was also organist for the orchestra associated with the Conservatory and was the soloist for the premiere of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto.
At the same time Duruflé was working on the Requiem, he was also working on a suite for organ solo that was based on the Gregorian chants of the Mass for the Dead. Taking this, he expanded these themes into his Requiem. “Hence, it is natural that many of the Requiem’s melodies are directly based on these ancient plainsongs and their associated modal scales. They appear throughout, complete or fragmentary, in vocal parts and accompaniments, at the original pitch or transposed.” (Taken from the program notes of the Robert Shaw CD.)
Clarifying his compositional process, Duruflé said, “At times the text is paramount, and therefore the [instrumentation] intervenes only to sustain or comment. At other times an original musical fabric inspired by the text takes over completely…In general, I have attempted to penetrate the essence of Gregorian style and have tried to reconcile, as far as possible, the very flexible Gregorian rhythms as established by the Benedictines of Solesmes with the exigencies of modern notation.”
The work is divided into nine sections:
Introit (Requiem Aeternam)
Kyrie
Offertory
Sanctus and Benedictus
Pie Jesu
Agnus Dei
Communion (Lux aeterna)
Libera me
In Paradisum
It was Duruflé’s intent that the solo portions of his Requiem be sung by the full section of the choir. There are various recordings with various combinations. We have the alto section sing movement 5, but have the baritone sections (movements 3 and 8) sung by a soloist (Matt Pauls). Janet Wilson is again at the organ. Although this Requiem is so reminiscent of Fauré’s, Duruflé was not averse to writing loud music when he deemed it necessary, as for instance in the “Hosannas” in movement 4. These moments become even more effective because he uses them so sparingly. Aside from his four motets on Gregorian themes, this is Duruflé’s best known work.
Recorded May 2018
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Text and translations
May - And Spring is Here Again: Choral Verse
Smile, O Voluptuous, Cool Breath’d Earth 🍁
Music: Imant Raminsh (b. 1943)*
Text: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Imant Raminsh came to Canada from Latvia as a young child. He has been composing choral (at one point he studied with Elmer Iseler) and instrumental music for over fifty years. In 1986 to celebrate the Da Camera Singers 25th anniversary Raminsh chose part of a text from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. The piece is entitled Smile, O Voluptuous, Cool-Breathed Earth! Primarily chordal throughout, it is a lush expression of the many wonders the earth has to offer. It is not until the end of the piece that there is resolution as to why the earth should smile. The final lines are “For your lover comes!” There is evocative use of the piano throughout the piece.
I Turn to You is also by Raminsh. The main musical theme passes back and forth between the three upper voices but often the tenors and basses provide a rich underscoring of the interplay between the soprano and alto voices. As it says in the score, Raminsh’s music “is often characterized by a sense of urgency, and is propelled by a strong lyricism and moving spiritual depth.”
Recorded March 2018
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Text and translations
You Are the New Day
Music and text: John David (b. 1946)
Arr. Peter Knight (1917-1985)
One of the most beautiful arrangements done for the King’s Singers is Peter Knight’s arrangement of John David’s You Are the New Day. As the words say “Hope is my philosophy” and “Love of life means hope for me,” this piece brims over with optimism and lyricism. At a time when the world seems closer and closer to being destroyed by man’s indifference, hatred and fear, this piece tries to reassure us that love of someone and the world is always the chance of a new day.
Recorded March 2018
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Text and translations
Parlez-moi 🍁
France Levasseur-Oimet, arr. Allan Bevan (b. 1951)
Text: France Levasseur-Oimet
Parlez-moi is a composition by Edmonton songwriter France Levasseur-Quimet who studied and then taught at Saint-Jean’s Ēcole de pédagogie. She has over the years worked tirelessly for Alberta’s francophone community. Her song has been arranged by Allan Bevan, whom SCS commissioned to write All Suddenly the Wind, also featured in our virtual spring concert. Parlez-moi was commissioned by Les petits chanteurs de Saint-Marc, of Lyon, France, for their tour of Asia in 2010. The speaker in the poem says: “Speak to me of the sea. Tell me its story so that I may become a sailor. Speak to me of the prairies. Tell me their story so that I may be able to see beyond the horizon. Speak to me of the earth. Tell me its story so that I may become its guardian.”
Recorded March 2016
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Text and translations
All Suddenly the Wind 🍁
Music: Allan Bevan (b. 1951)*
Text: Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
At Podium 2014, the Saskatoon Chamber Singers purchased a commission by Canadian composer Allan Bevan. It received its premiere at the November 2015 concert. Entitled All Suddenly the Wind, on a text by World War I poet Rupert Brook, Bevan has written a simple but beautiful piece with a very moving vocal line. Here winter is seen not necessarily as a bad thing, because it has frozen the heart and numbed it, but with the return of spring “my heart puts forth its pain.”
Premiered November 2015; performed again in March 2016. This revised version was recorded in January 2017 in preparation for its publication by Cypress Choral Music.
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Text and translations
Poulenc Sept Chansons (selections)
Music: Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Text: Paul Éluard (1895-1952)
In 1936, French composer Francis Poulenc wrote Sept Chansons (Seven Songs) based on the poems of Apollinaire and Eluard. The varieties of texture Poulenc achieves are quite astonishing, and are always fitted to the sense of the words. Surrealism in Poulenc’s hands did not need the twelve-tone technique or armies of percussion instruments for its implementation. We performed two movements on our concert “Voices of Earth” in March 2019. The fifth chanson is entitled Belle et ressemblante (Beautiful and Resembling) and is a gentle depiction of “that sweet face at the end of day” with all its calmness and serenity. The seventh and last chanson of the set is entitled Luire (To Dawn). This piece opens with a three octave unison declaration that proclaims the brilliance of “Earth so cultivated now in perfection/Sweet daybreak, sunlight in flower.” This is followed by typical Poulenc phrases that are delicate and transparent. As always the combination of notes and words expresses exactly the sentiments of the poem. The work ends as it began with the voices covering a three octave span (but with thirds added this time to produce an A minor chord) and once again announcing in a very declamatory fashion, the brilliance of the rising sun. These seven chansons show Poulenc at the best of his choral craftsmanship.
Recorded March 2019
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Text and translations
Au Clair de la Lune 🍁
Music: Paul Aitken (b. 1970)*
Text: French folk song, 18th century
Paul A. Aitkin is a Canadian composer living in Boise, Idaho where he is Director of Music and Worship at the Cathedral of the Rockies. Although the text he uses is a traditional French poem, the piece itself is only a few years old. Under a beautiful piano accompaniment, Aitken creates the calm and stillness of a beautiful moonlit night with his Au Clair de la Lune. Beginning with the sopranos and tenors, the main theme of the piece is passed contrapuntally from voice to voice. The dynamics are for the most part quiet, but the fifteen bars of the middle section set to the words “Ouvrez la porte pour le Dieu d’amour!” are suddenly very loud and dramatic. There is a feeling of mysticism and fantasy throughout the piece as though one were in a dream world.
Recorded May 2019
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Text and translations
Miles to Go Before I Sleep 🍁
Music: Larry Nickel (b. 1952)*
Text: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Larry Nickel has taken Robert Frost’s famous poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and written a very evocative choral work that he has called Miles to Go Before I Sleep. Choral audiences are likely familiar with the Randall Thompson version from his set Frostiana. Although there is some resemblance, Nickel’s piece is for SATB choir instead of male choir. In many ways the accompaniments of both are meant to suggest the gentle falling of snow and invoke the quiet nature in which the man and his horse find themselves.
Recorded March 2019
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Text and translations
Choose Something Like a Star
Music: Randall Thompson (1899-1984)
Text: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Amherst, Massachusetts was celebrating its 200th anniversary in 1959. To commemorate the occasion, Randall Thompson was commissioned to write Frostiana, a set of seven country songs for men’s, women’s and mixed voices with piano accompaniment, all set to texts by the American poet Robert Frost, who was living in Amherst at the time. Probably the two most popular pieces are the opening The Road Not Taken and the closing Choose Something Like a Star. For the opening of Choose Something Like a Star, Frost has the sopranos hold a high D while the rest of the voices continue with the text. As one musicologist put it, “this D held for several measures…creates the musical image of a distant star that reassures mankind.” This piece has characteristics that one has come to expect in Thompson’s music – homophonic settings with great attention to how the notes are to be sung, and endings that are very soft and scored so that all voices are in their lowest range. Frost was so impressed with Thompson’s musical interpretations of his poetry, that for years he forbade any other composers from setting any of his texts to music.
Recorded March 2018
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Text and translations