Soloists for our Interactive Workshop on Cantata 105, March 13, 2021

February 28, 2021 Wieneke Gorter

Victoria Fraser, soprano

Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, soprano Victoria Fraser holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of Notre Dame, and University of Limerick in Ireland. Victoria has performed as a soloist and chorister in Europe and North America, notably with Il Coro del Duomo in Florence, Italy; the Vocalensemble Frankfurt Dom, in Frankfurt, Germany; Vox Humana in Texas; True Concord in Arizona; the Berwick Chamber Chorus at the Oregon Bach Festival; and the Bachkantaten-Akademie in Thuringia, Germany.

She has sung under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, Helmut Rilling, Matthew Halls, John Nelson, and Jeffrey Thomas. Passionate about interdisciplinary performance, Victoria produces and performs concerts which re-contextualize classical music through visual art, dance, and technology. Also a composer, Victoria’s compositions were featured at last year’s Hot Air Music Festival, at the San Francisco Conservatory. Born to a mountaineer father, Victoria loves to ski, rock climb, mountain bike, hike, SCUBA dive, and row.

Paul Flight, artistic director and countertenor

Artistic director Dr. Paul Flight — a noted choral conductor, teacher, and singer — is in his fifteenth season (2020-2021) with the California Bach Society. A former member of such distinguished ensembles as the Waverly Consort, Theatre of Voices, Pomerium Musices, and the New York Collegium, he brings a wealth of expertise to CBS.

For nine years Dr. Flight was principal conductor of the Madison Early Music Festival, where he directed masterworks by Bach, Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Purcell, Dufay, and Guerrero. He has twice been a visiting professor of music at the University of California at Berkeley, directing the music department's top choral ensembles. As a visiting professor at Mills College, he has lectured on opera, and music history and form. He conducted an operatic double-bill production of Gustav Holst's Savitri and Darius Milhaud's Les malheurs d'Orphée for Mills College.

A renowned countertenor, Dr. Flight has performed works by John Adams, Leonard Bernstein, and Unsuk Chin with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony, the Cincinnati May Festival and the Norwegian State Opera. In 2003 he sang the title role in Philip Glass's Akhnaten for Oakland Opera Theater. He made his debut at the Kennedy Center in 2008, singing the first countertenor role in Adams's El Niño, and in August, 2010 he made his debut at the Edinburgh International Festival singing the third countertenor role.

Dr. Flight received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he studied conducting with Robert Porco. His research focused on the Venetian composer Giovanni Croce (1557-1609). He has recorded a program featuring the music of Croce for Harmonia, a nationally syndicated radio show, and has appeared several times as a guest on KALW radio's performing arts programs My Favorite Things and Open Air.

Mark Bonney, tenor

British-American tenor Mark Bonney performs internationally. He is in Glasgow this 2020-2021 season, where he is completing the Advanced Opera Course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

In addition to his work as a soloist, Mark has performed in the chorus at Opera Holland Park, Wexford Festival Opera, Bury Court Opera, Iford Arts, with the Monteverdi Choir, and with Barbara Hannigan at the Aldeburgh Festival. He is often invited to perform with leading ensembles including the Gabrieli Consort, Britten Sinfonia and Le Concert d’Astrée.

Mark grew up in San Francisco. Before embarking on his career as a classical singer, Mark worked in socio-economic development in Egypt—before, during, and after the Arab Spring. In addition to a masters in music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University. He also studied at the Berlin Opera Academy, the Franz Schubert Institute and the American Institute of Musical Studies.

Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

Boston-based bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton has enjoyed an active career in opera, oratorio, and chamber music, performing and recording throughout North America, Europe, China, and Korea. His interpretations of the Bach Passions in particular have been acclaimed for their strength and sensitivity. He recently recorded Nicolaus Bruhns’s solo cantatas for bass for the BIS label, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic as part of their first-ever Bach Festival.

Further highlights from recent seasons include Haydn’s Paukenmesse with the Yale Camerata, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Oregon Bach Festival, Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum at Carnegie Hall, Street Singer in Bernstein’s Mass with the Austin Symphony & Austin Opera, and Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Göteborg Baroque in Sweden.

Mr. Tipton is a soloist on the triple-Grammy-winning recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence & of Experience (Naxos, 2004), sang the role of Judas in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under Helmuth Rilling at Carnegie Hall in 2007, and has sung Schaunard with the New York Opera Society while on tour in Toulouse. Other repertoire has included Britten’s War Requiem, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Haydn’s Salve Regina in G minor with Nicholas McGegan, and all of Bach’s Motets with Bach Collegium Japan. He appears on several recordings with Seraphic Fire, including as a soloist in Brahms’s Requiem, Op. 45 (Seraphic Fire Media, 2012), and has performed with the symphonies of San Antonio, Grand Rapids, Lincoln, Stamford, CT, and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Mr. Tipton trained on full fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor, and is a graduate of the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music in Oratorio & Early Music. He was made a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music in 2012.

J.S. Bach’s Cantata 45 within his “Meininger” cantatas from 1726

February 3, 2021 Wieneke Gorter

The Saint Thomas School and Church in Leipzig, 1723

We often say that Bach composed a new cantata every week when he worked in Leipzig. However, Bach seems to have done this only during the two years between Trinity 1723 and Trinity 1725. After that, he didn’t always write for consecutive Sundays and Holidays. And if there ever was a requirement that the music for the Leipzig churches needed to be composed by Bach himself, it must have been lifted after Trinity 1725.

In the summer of 1725 Bach had already performed a series of four cantatas by his friend and colleague (and Godfather of his son Carl Philipp Emmanuel) Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767). But in 1726 he took it much further: between February and September of that year, he performed no less than 20 cantatas by his third cousin Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731).

Johann Ludwig Bach was Kapellmeister at the court of Meinigen, a town just south of Eisenach, where Bach was born, and about 115 miles (185 kilometers) from Leipzig. (See here where Johann Ludwig Bach fits in the Bach family tree).

Why Bach performed so many cantatas by someone else that year, we do not know. There are many theories of course. The most plausible explanation seems to be that he had started working on his St. Matthew Passion with librettist Picander, which he initially likely meant to have finished by Good Friday 1726, and that he needed to create time in his calendar to finish that project. When his ambitions for the St. Matthew Passion grew and he realized he would not finish it until 1727, he just kept performing J.L. Bach’s cantatas.

Duke Ernst Ludwig I of Sachsen-Meiningen (1672-1724)

The texts of those cantatas by Johann Ludwig Bach were all based on a published volume of poetry from 1704, likely written by Johann Ludwig’s employer at Meiningen, Duke Ernst Ludwig I of Sachsen-Meiningen (1672-1724).

Whether J.S. Bach became enamored by this volume of poetry, or perhaps thought “I could do a much better job setting these texts!,” we will never know. But fact is that he started writing a series of cantatas based on these same texts, while he was at times also still performing his J.L. Bach’s cantatas.

This means that between May 30 and September 22, 1726, the Leipzig congregations got to hear either a JLB cantata or a JSB cantata, but almost always* set to text from the same “Meininger” volume of poetry. We wonder if they would have been able to hear the difference. (An example of a J.L. Bach opening chorus can be found here).

A standard feature of the “Meininger” texts is that the cantata is in two parts (to be performed before and after the sermon), with a focus on a text from the Old Testament in the first part, and a text from the New Testament in the second part. We see this too in Cantata 45 Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist (You have been told, mankind, what is good).

The most spectacular movement in Part I of Cantata 45 is the sparkling and energetic opening chorus, based on a dogma from the Book of Micah:

Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist

und was der Herr von dir fordert,

nämlich: Gottes Wort

halten und Liebe üben

und demütig sein vor deinem Gott.

You have been told, mankind,

what is good and what the Lord requires of you, namely:

to keep God's word and to live in love and be humble before your God.

The most striking movement in Part II is the bass aria, featuring the last part of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.” Because the bass functions here as the so-called “Vox Christi” (the voice of Jesus), Bach’s respect for the Bible makes him call this an “arioso,” even though it has all the elements of an aria:

Es werden viele zu mir sagen an jenem Tage:

Herr, Herr, haben wir nicht in deinem Namen geweissaget,

haben wir nicht in deinem Namen Teufel ausgetrieben,

haben wir nicht in deinem Namen viel Taten getan?

Denn werde ich ihnen bekennen:

Ich habe euch noch nie erkannt, weichet alle von mir, ihr Übeltäter!

Many will say to me on that day:

Lord, have we not prophesied in your name,

have we not driven out devils in your name,

have we not done many deeds in your name?

Then I shall declare to them:

I have never known you,

all of you go away from me, you evil doers!

*there are only two exceptions to this: Two solo cantatas for alto, based on texts by Georg Christian Lehms: Cantata BWV 170 Vergnügte Ruh', beliebte Seelenlust and Cantata BWV 35 Geist und Seele wird verwirret.

Soloists for our Interactive Workshop on Cantata 45, February 13, 2021

February 3, 2021 Wieneke Gorter

Paul Flight, artistic director and countertenor

Mark Bonney, tenor

British-American tenor Mark Bonney performs internationally. He is in Glasgow this 2020-2021 season, where he is completing the Advanced Opera Course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

The background of J.S. Bach’s Cantata 62, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

November 23, 2020 Wieneke Gorter

Bach wrote Cantata 62, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Come now, Savior of the Gentiles), in Leipzig in 1724 for the first Sunday in Advent. This cantata will be the subject of our interactive cantata workshop on Saturday, December 5, 2020.

There are several special stories to tell about this cantata. Paul Flight will go into more detail during the workshop, but we would like to highlight three interesting aspects:

The First Sunday of Advent marked an important feast day in Leipzig.
This Cantata was part of Bach’s 1724/1725 cycle of chorale cantatas, a stunning collection of cantatas that were considered the most important part of his cantata legacy directly after his death in 1750.
The ancient chorale this cantata is based on (as well as the motet by Samuel Scheidt we’re also singing during our December 5 workshop)

The First Sunday of Advent in Leipzig

In Weimar (between 1714 and 1716) Bach had written cantatas for all four Sundays of Advent. In the religiously much stricter town of Leipzig, no “fancy" music was allowed in the churches in the four weeks between the first Sunday of Advent and Christmas Day, only the singing of hymns. This is why Bach only wrote cantatas for the first Sunday of Advent during his Leipzig period, not for the three remaining Sundays.

This first Sunday of Advent thus marked two occasions at the same time: the celebration of the imminent coming of the Messiah, but also the start of a sober period of introspection. Thus the opening chorus of Cantata 62 definitely sounds festive, but in a measured way. Bach on purpose didn’t include trumpets or timpani in the orchestration. It wasn’t Christmas yet.

Bach’s 1724/1725 series of chorale cantatas

For nine and a half months, starting on June 11, 1724, Bach wrote a new cantata for each Sunday and holiday, each time according to the same template: the opening movement is a chorale fantasia on the first stanza of an existing Lutheran hymn or chorale, with the tune appearing as a cantus firmus in one of the voice parts in the chorus (almost always the soprano). The text is used verbatim. The text of the last movement is the last stanza of the same hymn, in a four-part harmonization of the tune, with the text also used verbatim. The text of the solo inner movements was paraphrased, but still based on the inner stanzas of the same hymn.

Most scholars now think that Bach intended this cycle of cantatas as an important part of his legacy. If any gaps had occurred in the 1724/1725 season, he filled them in later years by writing cantatas according to his chorale cantata format, for exactly those Sundays or holidays he had missed. It would become the cycle of cantatas most valued by his contemporaries directly after his death in 1750.

Both Cantata 78, Jesu der du meine Seele (the subject of our October workshop), and Cantata 62, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (the subject of our workshop on December 5, 2020), are part of this series of chorale cantatas.

Through his intent to write an entire series of cantatas according to a new format, Bach made a huge commitment to himself: he would now have to write a brand-new cantata for every Sunday and holiday. During his first year in Leipzig (the 1723/1724 cycle), he had written many new cantatas, but also regularly “recycled” music from his years in Köthen and Weimar. For the Christmas season of 1724/1725, this meant he would have to write seven new cantatas for the period from December 25 through January 7. (And he did: find the list here). So the four weeks of introspection in Leipzig were not “time off” for Bach: he must have been extremely busy writing music and conducting choir rehearsals.

Nobody knows if besides creating a legacy, Bach might perhaps have had other motives for writing an entire series of chorale cantatas. There are however a few speculations:

One theory is that Bach lost his soprano soloist sometime in the spring of 1724 and was having trouble training a new one because, as he had found out over this first year of working in Leipzig, the boy sopranos weren’t as good as he had hoped. With this new concept of the chorale cantata, Bach limited the rehearsal strain on the choirboys. In many of these cantatas, the boys only had to sing the chorale melody in the opening chorus, and there was no soprano recitative or aria at all among the inner movements (solos in this cantata cycle usually went to the male voices of countertenor, tenor, and bass, which would all have been sung by trained adults). If in later cantatas in this series the boys were assigned something a bit more complicated, it was still based on the chorale melody they already knew by heart, so it required much less rehearsal time for them.

Another theory is that Bach’s first Leipzig cycle of cantatas had proven too difficult to understand for his audience—the Lutheran congregations in Leipzig. It is possible that Bach had either received feedback to this end from the church elders, or that he himself felt that he had been unsuccessful in “educating his neighbor,” i.e. teaching theological lessons to the congregations by way of his music, something he arguably saw as his life’s work. By basing each cantata on a familiar chorale, he possibly lowered the threshold for them in the understanding of his compositions.

**The origins of the Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland chorale**

In the 4th century, Ambrosius created the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium. Then, in 1524, Luther turned that hymn into Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (it sounds like this), which has been known to Lutherans from the 16th century to this day. When you attend our workshop, you will also get to sing Samuel Scheidt’s setting of this chorale from the first half of the 17th century, and you will thus get a better idea of how this melody was used in different ways over time, within the same German tradition.

Bach used this same chorale in movements of the two other cantatas he wrote for the First Sunday of Advent. In Cantata 61, which he wrote in Weimar in 1714 and performed again in Leipzig in 1723, it appears in the opening chorus. (Consequently, but very confusingly nonetheless, both cantatas 61 and 62 have the same title.) In Cantata 36, Schwingt freudig euch empor, which he wrote in Leipzig in 1731, the chorale appears in the soprano-alto duet, the second tenor aria, and the closing chorale.

Soloists for our Interactive Workshop on Cantata 62, December 5, 2020

November 20, 2020 Wieneke Gorter

Sumner Thompson, baritone

Described as possessing “power and passion,” and “stylish elegance,” baritone Sumner Thompson is in high demand on the concert and opera stage across North America and Europe. He has appeared as a soloist with many leading ensembles and orchestras, including the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, The Handel and Haydn Society, Tafelmusik, and Gli Angeli Genève.

Recent engagements include a repeat performance of Handel’s Messiah with Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society (hear an excerpt here) and performances of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers with the critically acclaimed Green Mountain Project, Britten’s War Requiem with the Boston Philharmonic, Bach’s St. John Passion at the National Cathedral, the title role in Britten’s Saint Nicolas with Philadelphia Choral Arts, and a Venetian Christmas Program for Early Music Vancouver at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Mr. Thompson can be heard on the Boston Early Music Festival’s Grammy-nominated recording of Lully’s Psyché on the CPO label, with the Handel and Haydn Society on their recording of Handel’s Messiah on the Coro label, and also with Les Voix Baroques on “Canticum Canticorum,” “Carissimi Oratorios,” and “Humori,” all on the ATMA label.

Mark Bonney, tenor

British-American tenor Mark Bonney performs internationally. He is in Glasgow this 2020-2021 season, where he is completing the Advanced Opera Course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Nalini Ghuman, soprano, and Paul Flight, countertenor

Our artistic director Dr. Paul Flight and his wife, Dr. Nalini Ghuman, will be joining from their home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to leading the workshop and supporting the “practice” sessions with expert live piano accompaniment, Paul and Nalini will delight us with the soprano-alto duet, sung live from their home. As many of our patrons know, Paul Flight is an accomplished countertenor. Find his biography here.

Nalini Ghuman is a professor of music at Mills College, as well as a highly regarded pianist, accompanist, and soprano. Nalini was a choral scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and sang on the choir’s first, critically acclaimed, CD recording of the music of Howells and Leighton. She has also sung and performed solos with The Oxford Chamber Choir, the UC Berkeley Chamber Choir (Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien), the University Chorus at UC Berkeley (Kodály’s Missa Brevis), and Schola Cantorum San Francisco. With California Bach Society, she appeared in performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Schütz’s Symphoniae Sacrae, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, and Rosenmüller’s Weihnachtshistorie. Nalini holds an MMus in Historical Musicology from King's College, London, an MA in Music from Queen’s College, Oxford, and a PhD in History and Literature of Music, and Ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley. Since the birth of their son, Nalini feels most comfortable singing lullabies and folk songs in her native Welsh language, but is happy to step up!

Nalini and Paul met making music together at UC Berkeley when Paul was directing the top choral ensembles and Nalini was the accompanist and conducting assistant. On any given day they can be heard singing canons, improvised domestic ditties, and children’s songs together with their young son.

Soloists for our Interactive Workshop on Cantata 78, October 3, 2020

September 30, 2020 Wieneke Gorter

Mark Bonney, tenor

British-American tenor Mark Bonney performs internationally. He is in Glasgow this 2020-2021 season, where he completes the Advanced Opera Course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Recent roles have included Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Berlin Opera Academy), Count Barigoule in Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (Wexford Opera Festival), Jonathan in Handel’s Saul with Laurence Cummings (Dartington International Festival), the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion (Amsterdam), the title role in Handel’s Jephtha (Iford Arts & Bath Choral Society) and Paolino in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto (Pop-up Opera).

In addition to his work as a soloist, Mark has performed in the chorus at Opera Holland Park, Wexford Festival Opera, Bury Court Opera, Iford Arts, with the Monteverdi Choir, and with Barbara Hannigan at the Aldeburgh Festival. He is often invited to perform with leading ensembles including the Gabrieli Consort, Britten Sinfonia and Le Concert d’Astrée.

Mark grew up in San Francisco. Before embarking on his career as a classical singer, Mark worked in socio-economic development in Egypt, before, during and after the Arab Spring. In addition to a Masters in Music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Stanford University. He also studied at the Berlin Opera Academy, the Franz Schubert Institute and the American Institute of Musical Studies.

Sepp Hammer, bass

Critics have described Sepp Hammer’s voice as “powerful” (BostonEdge) and as showing “warm baritone gravity” (The Boston Globe).

An experienced concert artist, Sepp made his role debut as Jesus in St. Matthew Passion with California Bach Society in fall 2016, singing with “smoothness, private and sepulchral, with enough low grit to embody the inner strife and luminance of a prophet” (Berkeley Times). He has been a frequent soloist with California Bach Society, appearing in Zelenka’s Missa Votiva, Charpentier’s Messe des Morts, various Bach cantatas, and in Carissimi’s Jonas, in which he portrayed the voice of God “with booming authority” (San Francisco Classical Voice). His concert engagements have included Rutter’s Mass of the Children with Solano Symphony, Zelenka’s Gloria with Chora Nova, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs with Contra Costa Chorale, and, with various ensembles, Schütz’s Symphoniae Sacrae, Bach’s Magnificat, Bach’s B Minor Mass, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Brahms’ Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, and Duruflé’s Requiem.

Sepp holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from New England Conservatory and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. His operatic training includes the young artist programs of the Central City Opera and Opera New Jersey.

Nalini Ghuman, soprano & Paul Flight, countertenor

Our artistic director Dr. Paul Flight and his wife, Dr. Nalini Ghuman, will be joining from their home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to leading the workshop and supporting the “Practice” sessions with expert live piano accompaniment, Paul and Nalini will delight us with the soprano-alto duet, sung live from their home. As many of our patrons know, Paul Flight is an accomplished countertenor. Find his biography here.

Nalini Ghuman is a Professor of Music at Mills College, as well as a highly regarded pianist, accompanist, and soprano. Nalini was a choral scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford and sang on the choir’s first, critically acclaimed, CD recording of the music of Howells and Leighton. She has also sung and performed solos with The Oxford Chamber Choir, the UC Berkeley Chamber Choir (Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien), the University Chorus at UC Berkeley (Kodály’s Missa Brevis), and Schola Cantorum San Francisco. With California Bach Society, she appeared in performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Schütz’s Symphoniae Sacrae, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, and Rosenmüller’s Weihnachtshistorie. Nalini holds an MMus in Historical Musicology from King's College, London, an MA in Music from Queen’s College, Oxford, and a PhD in History and Literature of Music, and Ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley. Since the birth of their son, Nalini feels most comfortable singing lullabies and folk songs in her native Welsh language, but is happy to step up!

Soloists for the British Masters concert

February 24, 2020 Margaret Wootton

Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, soprano Victoria Fraser holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, University of Notre Dame, and University of Limerick in Ireland. Victoria has performed as a soloist and chorister in Europe and North America, notably with Il Coro del Duomo in Florence, Italy; the Vocalensemble Frankfurt Dom, in Frankfurt, Germany; Vox Humana in Texas; True Concord in Arizona; the Berwick Chamber Chorus at the Oregon Bach Festival; and the Bachkantaten-Akademie in Thuringia, Germany.

She has sung under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, Helmut Rilling, Matthew Halls, John Nelson, and Jeffrey Thomas. Passionate about interdisciplinary performance, Victoria produces and performs concerts which re-contextualize classical music through visual art, dance, and technology. Also a composer, Victoria’s compositions will be heard at this year’s Hot Air Music Festival, at the San Francisco Conservatory. Born to a mountaineer father, Victoria loves to ski, rock climb, mountain bike, hike, SCUBA dive, and row.

Jose Barbasa, countertenor, is a Hawaii native who has called San Francisco home for the last seven years. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Voice from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and later attended San Francisco State University, where he received his Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance. It was during his time at State that he discovered his passion for early music. Moreover, with the guidance of his voice teacher, Nikolas Nackley, he successfully completed a graduate recital in his new countertenor voice with works that ranged from Bach to Debussy. He also performed the role of Pane from Cavalli’s La Calisto, after only having sung as a countertenor for seven months. He is thrilled to be in his first season with California Bach Society and thankful to Paul for giving him this opportunity.

Julian Kusnadi, tenor, has performed in and directed a variety of Bay Area artistic projects since 2007, including choral ensembles (Volti, Endersnight, Convivium, Stanford Chamber Chorale), church music programs (Cathedral of Christ the Light, St. Mary the Virgin), theater productions (TheatreWorks New Works Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, Ram's Head Society), a cappella groups (Stanford Fleet Street Singers), barbershop quartets (Brannigan, international top-10 Artistic License), and the truly eclectic (Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, a Super Bowl commercial with Seal...). Along the way, he's been fortunate to collaborate with the likes of Clerestory, ODC, Kronos Quartet, and many active composers/arrangers. In 2015, Julian co-founded the Fog City Singers, a non-profit San Francisco-based men's ensemble that achieved top-10 finishes in each of its appearances at the International Barbershop Chorus Contest, was featured at the 2019 California Choral Directors Association state conference, and will present a movement+voice collaboration with professional ballet in San Francisco's Z Space this April.

Julian earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Stanford University in 2012. After initial forays into social welfare and law, he presently spends his days at mission-driven startups, previously in education technology and now with Forward, working to build the first healthcare system at scale.

Clayton Moser, bass, was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew up in a rich choral music environment. He is actively involved with multiple choirs on both coasts including Gaude, Cappella SF, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, The Byrd Ensemble in Seattle, Washington, and the Taylor Festival Choir in Charleston, South Carolina. Clayton came to California to pursue a master’s degree in composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Dan Becker. Clayton believes music has a great restorative power for the human psyche and is an active sound healer. He holds a certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

20th C. British Masters: Howells, Vaughan Williams, and Holst

February 15, 2020 Margaret Wootton

Program Notes

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) wrote operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces, and orchestral compositions, including nine symphonies. Strongly influenced by music of the Tudor Period (1485–1603) and English folk song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social outlook. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties. His studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from German influences.

Mass in G Minor

The Mass in G Minor was written in 1921. The composer dedicated the piece to Gustav Holst and the Whitsuntide Singers at Thaxted in north Essex, but it was first performed by the City of Birmingham Choir on 6 December 1922. Though the first performance was in a concert venue Vaughan Williams intended the Mass to be used in a liturgical setting

In the late nineteenth century, England had been dominated by the German-influenced composers Parry, Stanford, and Elgar, with the maverick Delius lurking on the sidelines. It was only really with Vaughan Williams that music began to speak with a radically different, quintessentially English voice, something which modern ears now take for granted. It could be argued that Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor was the first substantial, unaccompanied setting to be written with a distinctly English voice since the time of William Byrd in the sixteenth century.

Richard Terry, the consummate musician-liturgist of his generation, was delighted with the new setting: “I’m quite sincere when I say that it is the work one has all along been waiting for. In your individual and modern idiom you have really captured the old liturgical spirit and atmosphere.”

This duality between the “modern idiom” and the “old liturgical spirit” lies at the heart of the composition’s success. It takes as its starting point the sound world of the sixteenth century with its modal writing and subtle imitation, a style which Vaughan Williams had already utilized in his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The Mass seems to reach back to a long-forgotten world, yet it is not some atavistic exercise but new music, colored by Vaughan Williams’s love of rich harmonies and made more dramatic by the juxtaposition of sinuous Gregorian-like lines with blazing choral antiphony. These effects are achieved by a scoring very similar to the “Tallis Fantasia,’” which had so gripped concert-goers at the Three Choirs Festival over a decade earlier in 1910. Two four-part SATB choirs (string orchestras in the “Fantasia”) work in dialogue with a solo SATB quartet (solo strings) who provide more personal, impassioned comment.

Herbert Howells (1892–1983) was most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. He was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, where his father played the organ at the local Baptist church. Howells showed early musical promise, first deputizing for his father and then moving at the age of eleven to the local Anglican parish church as choirboy and unofficial deputy organist.

A formative experience for the young Howells was the premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. Howells liked to relate in later years how Vaughan Williams sat next to him for the remainder of the concert and shared his score of Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. Both Vaughan Williams and Tudor composers, including Thomas Tallis, profoundly influenced Howells's later work.

Requiem

In 1935 Howells’s son Michael died at the age of nine, a tragedy that inevitably cast an immense shadow over the composer’s life. Until quite recently it was thought that the Requiem was composed in response to Michael’s death, but we now know that Howells composed it in 1932 or 1933, originally intending it for the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. For some reason the music was never sent to King’s, and its existence remained unknown until its eventual publication in 1980, only three years before the composer’s own death. After the tragic events of 1935, Howells increasingly associated the Requiem with his lost son, so much so that a few years later, when he was composing Hymnus Paradisi, a work specifically intended as Michael’s memorial, he used substantial parts of the earlier Requiem, re-scoring it for soloists, large chorus, and orchestra.

One of the earliest and most fundamental influences on Howells was Gloucester Cathedral, with its immense, vaulted spaces and glorious east window. Howells wrote of it as “a pillar of fire in my imagination.” He consciously set out to mirror these essentially architectural elements of spaciousness and luminosity in his music, and these characteristics can clearly be heard in the Requiem. Significantly, the main climax of the work occurs at the words “et lux perpetua luceat eis” (let light perpetual shine upon them)—a symbol of hope and comfort, confirmed in the closing pages by the final release of tension and the gradual transition to a simple, peaceful D major.

Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing

On November 22, 1963, forty-six year old John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the United States thirty-fifth President, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The first music performed in his memory may well have been at Boston’s Symphony Hall. People who were at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Friday afternoon concert were given the shattering news by Erich Leinsdorf, who then conducted an impromptu performance of the Funeral March from Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.

And not long after Kennedy's death, Herbert Howells was asked to write a piece for a joint Canadian-American Memorial Service. The piece, “Take Him Earth for Cherishing,” was completed the following spring and was first performed November 22, 1964—the first anniversary of Kennedy’s death—by the Choir of the Cathedral of St. George from Kingston, Ontario, in Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery.

Howells himself described his work:

“I was asked to compose an a cappella work for the commemoration [of Kennedy]. The text was mine to choose, Biblical or other. Choice was settled when I recalled a poem by Prudentius (AD 348–413). I had already set it in its medieval Latin, years earlier, as a study for Hymnus Paradisi. But now I used none of that unpublished setting. Instead I turned to Helen Waddell’s faultless translation. . . Here was the perfect text—the Prudentius ‘Hymnus Circa Exsequias Defuncti’. The motet is sung here as intended—wholly for unaccompanied voices. Formally it is roughly A-B-A; in texture variably 4- to 8-part. Tonality anchors (first and last) on B, but admits chromatic phases. . . . Finally, a near-funeral march tethered again to B, but in the more consoling major mode.”

Take Him Earth for Cherishing would then be performed at Howells’s own memorial service in St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge in May of 1983, nearly twenty years after it was first performed in memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Gustav Theodore Holst (1874–1934) was an English composer, arranger, and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed many other works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, Wagner and Richard Strauss being most crucial early in his development. The subsequent inspiration of the English folk-song revival of the early 20th century and the example of composers such as Maurice Ravel, led Holst to develop and refine an individual style.

There were professional musicians in the previous three generations of Holst's family, and it was clear from his early years that he would follow the same calling. Unable to support himself by his compositions, he played the trombone professionally and later became a teacher—a great one, according to his colleague Ralph Vaughan Williams. Among other activities, he built up a strong tradition of performance at Morley College in London, where he served as musical director from 1907 until 1924. He pioneered music education for women at St Paul's Girls' School, where he taught from 1905 until his death in 1934.

Nunc Dimittis

This work was composed at the request of the then director of music at Westminster Cathedral, Richard Terry. It was first performed on Easter Sunday in 1915 and then promptly forgotten. According to Imogen Holst (his daughter, who was a talented composer herself), the original manuscript had been lost; however, there was a part-autograph score that enabled her to reconstruct the work. It was given its first modern performance by the BBC Northern Singers under Stephen Wilkinson in 1974 during the Aldeburgh Festival. Edward Greenfield, reviewing this concert in the Musical Times (August 1974), considered it “a reaction against The Planets (which was occupying him at the time).” He continued, “Holst's inspiration was sweetly Elizabethan, with an exhilarating bell-like Gloria.” The work was published by Novello in 1979.

The words of this liturgical piece are in Latin rather than the well-known Thomas Cranmer translation from the Book of Common Prayer. This reflects its use for the late-night service Compline in the Roman Catholic Book of Hours.

—Patricia Jennerjohn

Acknowledgements:

Wikipedia

John Bawden

Program Notes for Christmas in the Americas

December 5, 2019 Margaret Wootton

North American Christmas music (music from the United States and Canada) is representative of multiple influences: folk songs, the rough and ready works of the “primitive” composers known as the First New England School, Appalachian shape-note music (embodied in the Southern Harmony collection), a look back at European musical traditions, and imaginative settings by contemporary American composers and arrangers.

William Billings is regarded as the first American choral composer; although he had some minor formal musical education, he was mostly self-taught. His work fell into obscurity shortly after his death, but in the latter part of the twentieth century a Billings revival occurred, and a sumptuous, complete scholarly edition of his works was published. His works are now commonly sung by American choral groups, particularly performers of early music. In addition, the recent spread of Sacred Harp music has acquainted many more people with Billings's music: several of his compositions are among the more frequently sung works of the Sacred Harp canon.

Daniel Read was an American composer of the First New England School and one of the primary figures in early American classical music. Many of his works were fuguing tunes: they begin with all voices singing together (with a melody usually based on a Protestant hymn), come to a stop, and continue with each voice entering one at a time.

1781_PsalmSingersAmusement_byWilliamBillings_Boston.jpg

The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion is a shape-note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The roots of Southern Harmony singing, like the Sacred Harp, are found in the American colonial era, when singing schools convened to provide instruction in choral singing, especially for use in church services. This practice remained popular with Baptists in the South long after it fell from use in other regions.

In the mid nineteenth century, music was often upheld as a harmonizing influence in the growing and polyglot cities of American. Choral singing was promoted as a form of music accessible to amateurs from all walks of life. Glees were a popular style sung in that era; they feature texts that were convivial, fraternal, idyllic, tender, philosophical, or even occasionally dramatic.

“The Huron Carol” is derived from the Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf's original song and text, which utilizes Huron religious concepts. In the English version, Jesus is born in a "lodge of broken bark" and wrapped in a "robe of rabbit skin." He is surrounded by hunters instead of shepherds, and the Magi are portrayed as "chiefs from afar," who bring him "fox and beaver pelts" instead of the more familiar gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The English translation also uses a traditional Algonquian name, Gitchi Manitou, for God.

Healy Willan was an Anglo-Canadian organist and composer. He is represented by his “Hodie” which marries a unique and beautiful combination of styles: both an homage to the sacred music of five centuries ago and a reflection of the innovations of the Romantic/post-Romantic period in which he lived.

Our own Paul Flight has made a number of arrangements of carols from various sources. We present here his settings of “People Look East,” “Away in a Manger,” and “In Dulci Jubilo.”

William Cutter is Director of Choral Programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is conductor of the M.I.T. Concert Choir and the Chamber Chorus. “Little Lamb” is his setting of the well-known William Blake poem.

We are especially pleased to present “The Christ Child Lay in Mary’s Lap” (poem by G. K. Chesterton), written especially for the California Bach Society by N. Lincoln Hanks, who currently directs the composition program at Pepperdine University in Malibu. He also directs the Pickford Ensemble, Pepperdine's premiere new music ensemble.

The most unique and characteristic Christmas musical form from Latin America is the lively and earthy villancico. The composers who wrote villancicos also composed stately, traditional cathedral music in Latin (they were well-trained in the European traditions of their time). However, villancicos are in the vernacular and were generally used during the afternoon service of Matins. We see great variety in the handling of texts, which are in Spanish, in pseudo-African and Amerindian dialects, and occasionally in Portuguese. Villancicos incorporate lively and vigorous dance rhythms.

Juan de Araujo was born in Villafranca, Spain. By 1670 he was nominated maestro di cappella of Lima Cathedral in Peru. In the following years he travelled to Panama and most probably to Guatemala. On his return to Peru, he was hired as maestro de capilla of Cuzco Cathedral, and in 1680 of Sucre Cathedral in Upper Peru (now Bolivia), where he stayed until his death. During his long tenure (1680- 1712) as chapelmaster at Sucre Cathedral, Juan de Araujo wrote a Jácara a 8 for Ignatius of Loyola.

Gaspar Fernandes was a Portuguese-Mexican composer and organist active in the cathedrals of Santiago de Guatemala (present-day Antigua, Guatemala) and Puebla de los Ángeles, New Spain (present-day Puebla, Mexico).

During his Puebla tenure, rather than focusing on the composition of liturgical music in Latin, he contributed a sizable amount of vernacular villancicos for Matins. One of these villancicos, "Xicochi," is notable for its use of Nahuatl, the language of the indigenous Nahua people. The music departs from 16th century counterpoint and reflects the new Baroque search for textual expression.

Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla was a Spanish-Mexican composer of the Renaissance period. He was born in Málaga, Spain, but moved to Puebla, Mexico, in 1620. At that time New Spain was a viceroyalty of Spain, which included present-day Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines, and other parts of Central America and the Caribbean. Padilla was appointed maestro de capilla of Puebla Cathedral in 1628. Puebla de Los Ángeles, Mexico, was then a bigger religious center than Mexico City itself. The majority of his vast output (over 700 pieces survive) include sacred motets, often for double choir, in the Renaissance style or stile antico, as well as sacred villancicos.

Juan García de Zéspedes was a Mexican composer, singer, viol player, and teacher. He is thought to have been born in Puebla, Mexico. As a boy he was a soprano in the choir at Puebla Cathedral in 1630 under Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla. In 1664 he succeeded maestro Padilla in an interim capacity. The position became permanent in 1670. Although censured by the cathedral chapter more than once over disagreements as to his duties, he had a long career ended by his paralysis late in life. He died in Puebla.

- Patricia Jennerjohn

Jan Dismas Zelenka at the Dresden Court

September 30, 2019 Wieneke Gorter

The Historisches Grünes Gewölbe (Historic Green Vault) almost makes you dizzy. This was exactly the effect that August II the Strong intended when, between 1723 and 1730, with his Dresden palace, he realized his vision to showcase his wealth and pow… — The *Historisches Grünes Gewölbe* (Historic Green Vault) almost makes you dizzy. This was exactly the effect that August II the Strong intended when, between 1723 and 1730, with his Dresden palace, he realized his vision to showcase his wealth and power, in order to rival the Baroque splendor of Versailles.

As we wrote on this blog last year, in connection to our performances of Bach's Cantata 198, the originally Protestant Elector of Saxony, August II the Strong, converted to Catholicism in order to become King of Poland.

In 1708 he founded the first Catholic church in Dresden, using a former opera house. In 1712, his son, then age 16, also converted to Catholicism, and in 1719 married Maria Josepha of Austria, thus forming a strong alliance with the Habsburg dynasty.

Maria Josepha of Austria, Crown Princess at the Dresden court at the time Zelenka wrote his Missa Divi Xaverii.

Maria Josepha was a devout Catholic and played an important role in the building of a proper Catholic court church in Dresden. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess wouldn't officially become King and Queen until 1733, but would have been the practical rulers of the Dresden court, as August II the Strong was often at his court in Poland. Maria Josepha attended Mass at least twice a day, eventually even four times a day. Her arrival at court in 1719 meant that more music was required for Catholic church services.

Shortly after Maria Josepha arrived at court, in 1720, a scandal caused the temporary dismantling of the court opera until 1730. In those 10 years, musical life at the Dresden court became focused on church music, and it was mostly Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) who composed it.

Maria Josepha’s devotion to Saint Xavier was widely known. At the end of the year 1729, the Superior of the Dresden Jesuits wrote in his annual report to Rome that the celebration of Saint Xavier’s Saint’s Day had been something quite special that year, and in this report he calls the Princess “Serenissima Nostra Xaveriophila”

It was on that Saint’s Day, December 3, 1729, that Zelenka’s Missa Divi Xaverii, on our program this week, was first performed. To learn more about this Mass, read Patricia Jennerjohn’s program notes on this blog here.

Jan Dismas Zelenka, a well-rounded musician from Bohemia, had trained in Prague, and started working at the court of August II the Strong in 1710 as a double bass player in the orchestra. In 1711 he composed his first Mass. The work must have impressed the court, because his salary was increased to 350 thalers. This placed him among the most highly paid musicians in the Hofkapelle. Three years later, it was raised to 400 thalers. In 1715, he was approved for a travel stipend to accompany the Crown Prince to Venice, but instead opted to go study composition with Fux in Vienna.

In 1723, coincidentally the same year that Bach wrote his first version of the Magnificat, Zelenka wrote an extensive set of Responsories for Holy Week, a work that was venerated by Johann Georg Pisendel (1688-1755), a fellow composer, bosom friend, and the principal violinist at the Dresden court. In 1749, four years after Zelenka's death, Pisendel sent Telemann a copy he had made of parts of the Responsoria, with the following letter:

"At last I have the pleasure of offering you Responsoria by the blessed Mr. Zelenka, with the sincere wish, brother, that you might be granted the delight of tasting the sweet fruits of this almond tree."**

Zelenka wrote over 20 masses, four extensive oratorios and requiems, two Magnificats and Te Deum settings, 13 litanies, many psalms, hymns, and antiphons. The Missa Divi Xaverii we perform this week is one of his most lavishly scored, for choir, vocal soloists, strings, two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, four trumpets, and timpani.

He also wrote a large number of instrumental works: trio sonatas, overtures, symphonies, and concertos.

Johann Georg Pisendel, concertmaster at the Dresden Hofkapelle and bosom friend of Zelenka — Johann Georg Pisendel, concertmaster at the Dresden *Hofkapelle* and bosom friend of Zelenka

According to J.S. Bach's biographer J.N. Forkel, Bach knew Zelenka personally and held the composer in great esteem. Since we have no personal letters by Bach, we don't know how they met, but it most probably happened through Pisendel. Pisendel had been friends with Bach since 1709 and several scholars think that it was for this Italian-trained virtuoso that Bach wrote his most complicated violin music. It is assumed Bach had Pisendel in mind when writing the violin part of the "Laudamus te" of his Mass in B Minor.

Bach visited Dresden several times, and on each occasion the aristocracy there were made aware of his visit, and te press would write about his public performances. August II the Strong and his entourage also visited Leipzig a few times, and musicians from the Dresden court might have been "guest artists" in some of Bach's cantata performances in Leipzig. ***

It is likely that Bach would have met with Pisendel and others from the famous court orchestra on these visits.

-Wieneke Gorter

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** In 1756, one year after Pisendel's death, Telemann tried to gain access to Zelenka's original manuscript of the Responsoria, but was told it was locked away as an "important court possession." At that time it was in a special cabinet in Maria Josepha's rooms in the palace in Dresden. After 1765, Zelenka's manuscripts were hidden away in the Cathedral. Since Zelenka didn't have any heirs, no other efforts were undertaken until Smetana's discovery of Zelenka's music in the 1860s. It is also said that because in largely Lutheran Germany, there was no use for a large collection of Catholic church music, and thus there was no interest in Zelenka's music until the Catholic Czech musicians rediscovered it.

*** Research by Dutch harpsichordist and musicologist Pieter Dirksen shows that it is highly probable that guests from Dresden were visiting Leipzig from at least January 30 to February 2, 1724, and that Bach wrote the violin part of the tenor aria in Cantata 83 (performed on February 2, 1724) specifically for Pisendel.