Voices of Estonia
Arvo Pärt, a composer of contemporary classical music, was born on September 11, 1935, in Estonia, which was annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabula (the impression of ringing bells), a compositional technique he invented. Pärt’s music is also inspired by Gregorian chant.
Pärt was severely criticized in 1962 for employing serialism in one of his compositions, which exhibited his “susceptibility to foreign influences.” But nine months later Pärt won first prize in a competition of 1,200 works, awarded by the Union of Soviet Composers, indicating the Soviet regime’s inability to agree on what was permissible. His first overtly sacred piece, Credo (1968), was a turning point in his career and life: on a personal level he had reached a creative crisis that led him to renounce the techniques and means of expression used so far; on a social level the religious nature of this piece resulted in him being unofficially censured and his music disappearing from concert halls. For the next eight years he composed very little, focusing instead on the study of medieval and Renaissance music to find his new musical language. In 1972 he converted from Lutheranism to Orthodox Christianity. He reemerged as a composer in 1976 with music in his new composi- tional style and technique, “tintinnabula.”
Bogoroditse Devo (Rejoice, O Virgin Mary) is a setting of the well-known Orthodox version of the Hail Mary, and was commissioned in 1990 by the King’s College Choir, Cambridge, for their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. It alternates lightweight, chant-like, and transparent writing with sturdy, full-bodied choral writing in traditional Orthodox style.
Cantate Domino, for choir or soloists with organ, was composed in 1977 (revised in 1996). Based on Psalm 96 (95), one could easily say that it is one of the most joyful works in Pärt’s tintinnabula music. Two pairs of voices, soprano/alto and tenor/bass, move throughout almost the entire composition step by step in opposite directions, while the organ plays the notes of a B-flat major triad, creating various combinations with the vocal parts. There is much emphasis on word rhythm, creating some interesting syncopations.
The Woman with the Alabaster Box is set for a capella mixed choir. It was composed for the 350th anniversary of the Karlstad Episcopacy in Sweden and premiered by the Eric Westberg Vocal Ensemble. This text from the Gospel of Matthew is shaped as music, but with much attention to word rhythm and slowly changing harmonies. Female voices dominate the story of the woman who poured precious ointment on Jesus’s head. The displeasure of the disciples is expressed via a duet of male voices. Jesus’s reply is communicated in the bass voices, through a rising and falling line anchored by a static note. The prediction of his death is expressed by the full choir, with a quiet acknowledgment at the end.
Veljo Tormis (7 August 1930–21 January 2017) is regarded as one of the great contemporary choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most of them a cappella. The great majority of these pieces are based—either textually, melodically, or merely stylistically—on traditional Estonian folksongs. His work demonstrates the conviction that traditional Estonian and other Balto-Finnic music represents a treasure which must be guarded and nourished, and that culture may be kept alive through the medium of song.
Autumn Landscapes is a set of seven pieces for mixed chorus that invite us to contemplate the changing seasons, the fleeting beauty of nature, and the emotions stirred by transitions. We are performing the first two movements and the final movement.
The opening movement uses placid harmonies to describe the late summer sun casting shadows on the landscape, hinting at the approaching autumn. The second movement is a vivid musical description of clouds racing across the sky, driven by a chilly wind. The final movement describes the brilliant autumn sun illuminating the landscape, with building excitement.
Urmas Sisask (9 September 1960–17 December 2022) was an Estonian composer who was deeply fas- cinated by the interplay between astronomy, nature, and music.
Building on the calculation of the trajectories of the planets in the Solar System, he created a “planetary scale,” a mode consisting of the pitches C#, D, F#, G#, and A. Later, he discovered to his surprise that this was exactly the same as the Japanese Kumajoshi mode, which is also known as the Japanese pentatonic scale.
Many of his compositions are built around this scale and various harmonic permutations of this scale.
Te gratias ago, Creator Universi! is the final movement from a set of twenty-four sacred songs, “in tones of exoplanets.” The set of songs is constructed using only the five pitches of his “planetary scale.” They feature hypnotic repetition, strong rhythms, and abrupt dynamic changes.
This final movement is a song of thanks to the Creator of the Universe at the end of the singer’s life “in this Land.”
Voices of Ukraine
Mykola Dyletsky was a music theorist and composer born in Kyiv and active in Russia. He was widely influential in late 17th-century Russia with his treatise on musical composition, A Musical Grammar, of which the earliest surviving version dates from 1677. Dyletsky’s followers included the Russian composer Vasily Titov.
Tsariu nebesny (O Heavenly King) is a sacred concerto meant to be performed during a service, but it is not a part of the regular liturgy. It is sweetly and simply set for four vocal parts.
Slava/Pryjdite, Liudiye (Come, O People) is a setting of the Troparion (liturgical hymn) sung after the second antiphon of the traditional Orthodox Christian liturgy, for eight-part unaccompanied choir. The text is clarified by varying the texture of the setting, with full eight-part choruses alternating with duets, trios, and quartets sung by various solo voices. The result is a fusion of European Baroque musical writing with a distinctive Slavic musical coloration.
Hanna Havrylets was born in 1958 and died suddenly on February 27, 2022, of unknown causes. A student of Myroslav Skoryk, she was one of the brightest representatives of the Lviv school of composition. Her works are regularly performed at concerts and festivals in Ukraine, Europe, United States, and Canada. She was born in Ternopil, Ukraine, and graduated from the Lviv Conservatory. She continued her studies at the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kyiv, where she became professor of composition. She was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize in 1999 and became an Honoured Artist of Ukraine in 2005.
Molytva (Prayer to the Virgin) is a setting of a prayer from the Orthodox Prayer Service to the Mother of God. Solo voices introduce the first line, first over a drone in the bass, then over the gently hummed harmony, then with the full chorus. The dynamic level is not intense, but the harmonic progression lends urgency to the prayer, then becoming quieter, with a whispered request at the very end.
Songs
Oi u vyshnevomu sadu (Oh, in the Cherry Orchard) is a folksong telling the story of a young woman’s bitter- sweet encounter with her lover in the spring.
Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyj (The Mighty Dnipro Roars is a favorite chorus (and can be found in many different arrangements). It is a setting of a poem by the renowned Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko. This original setting has the character of a sturdy folk hymn.
Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko (22 March 1842 – 6 November 1912) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor, and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic period. In his time he was the central figure of Ukrainian music. He is often credited with founding a national music tradition during the Ukrainian national revival, in the vein of contemporaries such as Grieg in Norway, The Five in Russia, as well as Smetana and Dvořák in what is now the Czech Republic. By studying and drawing from Ukrainian folk music, promoting the use of the Ukrainian language, and separating himself from Russian culture, his com- positions form what many consider the quintessential essence of Ukrainian music.
Molytva za Ukrainu (Prayer for Ukraine) is Lysenko’s arrangement of a poem by Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, a revered Ukrainian poet, writer, and public figure, whose literary heritage is regarded as the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and the modern Ukrainian language. This beloved composition is essentially the unofficial Ukrainian national anthem.
Thanks
Thanks to Yevgeniya Ignatenko for her help in producing performing editions of the two motets by Mykola Dyletsky that we are performing for this set—very likely the first time this music has been performed in the United States. Yevgeniya Ignatenko is a notable figure in the field of Ukrainian and Belarusian church music. She teaches at the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kyiv, one of the oldest and the most prestigious higher music education institutions in the country. We would also like to thank Ivetta Irkha, a Ukranian musician and pianist residing in Stockholm, Sweden, for providing her father’s arrangement of The mighty Dnipro roars. And finally, thanks to Gary Graden, an American conductor who is currently the Director of Music at the Stockholm Cathedral, who provided the other scores for our Ukrainian selections.
Acknowledgements:
Music of the Spheres: Astronomy and Shamanism in the Music of Urmas Sisak, David Michael Edmonds, B.M., M.M., Doctoral Dissertation, August 2012, University of North Texas.
Wikipedia
Paul Hillier Ensemble, liner notes from their re- cording of music by Arvo Pärt
—Patricia Jennerjohn