Singing Praise – Psalms and Canticles. Program notes for Fall 2023
/On Sunday, December 3 at 3:00 PM, we will be performing our Fall Concert at the Church of the Holy Apostles, 296 9th Ave (at 28th St). Tickets are $30, available online at at the door. Following the concert, join us for a Holiday Benefit. Benefit admission is $20.
Worship texts take many forms, but it seems every culture has some means of expressing them in music. From the simplest intonation on a single tone to choral chant, from free-standing tunes to complex polyphony, the universal impulse to learn and communicate the texts finds music as its most effective medium.
Two particular types of biblical song have provided a wealth of material for musical settings: psalms and canticles. The collection of 150 Psalms has proved an immensely rich source, with a vast range of imagery and emotional content. The Hebrew name, Tehillim, means songs of praise; its root is the same from which the word “hallelujah” comes. The Canticles, on the other hand, are scattered throughout the Bible, between the Old (from the Psalms and elsewhere) and New Testament; the root there is in the Latin canticum – song.
Psalm 109 (110): Dixit Dominus, HWV 232 G.F. Handel (1685–1759)
George Frideric Handel was only 23 when he set Dixit Dominus, Psalm 109 (110 in the English Psalter). Like many young composers before and after him (including a teenage Mozart), Handel went to Italy to study and where he produced a remarkable series of sophisticated works that seemed to blossom out of nowhere. Three Psalms setting were probably composed for a grand Vespers service celebrating a major feast of the Carmelite order, Dixit Dominus among them. Perhaps composed not just for that liturgical use, but also as a display piece to show off the young Handel’s command of compositional techniques and musical imagery, the vocal writing is challenging throughout, from the ranges to the highly elaborate lines that even choristers must navigate, not just soloists.
The first movement, rich in skillful imitative writing, sets the scene with a perfectly chosen declamatory setting for the opening word Dixit. The composer later added a cantus firmus — a plainchant tune in long notes — that works together with and yet stands apart from the surrounding polyphony, a technique that had been perfected by the great Renaissance masters. The first time the chant is in the topmost voice, but Handel cannot settle for the simple superimposition, as he later migrates the chant to the bass voice, where it must function correctly as a harmonic foundation for all the music above it. That is a masterly stroke.
Two splendid solos follow this opening, one for alto, one for soprano. These are true arias, standing apart from the surrounding choruses. Their simple beauty seems to be for the sake of beautiful singing, pointing to Handel’s future as a composer of operas. What follows is in stark contrast: a striking choral invocation at the words juravit Dominus (“the Lord has sworn”), moving to the heart of the work. It builds a highly condensed harmonic bridge, twice interrupted by a response that fades away, as of a receding procession. This makes room for a double fugue — both textual and musical (the name of the priest Melchisedech opposite the declamation “You are a priest forever”) — once again demonstrating the young composer’s superb skills with both words and music.
Handel’s next compositional task was to suffuse the music with almost unrelieved tension in the Dominus a dextris tuis section. Particularly on the words in die irae suae (“on the day of thy wrath”), the voices cross and weave from tension to release — the momentary clash of suspension and resolution. There follows an appropriately strict fugue on the word judicabit (“he shall judge”); but the dramatic tour-de-force occurs on the word conquassabit (“shatters”). The composer, through an oppressive and increasingly heavy vocal hammering effect, paints a vivid picture of being slowly pulverized. The psalmist does not paint a pretty picture, and Handel obliges with music to suit. The word-painting on de torrente, which follows, seems to express the shear weariness after that pounding, yet its serene beauty speaks of the hope implicit in its text.
And then there is the requisite concluding Gloria Patri. The psalmist’s story may be over, but Handel pulled out all the stops and threw every possible challenge at the musicians: long melismas, detached phrasing, counterpoint, strings of suspensions, octave leaps, and stratospheric ranges. The tour de force is complete. When taking into account the entire piece, we see not only a liturgical setting with dramatic imagery; we also see the great operatic dramatist that Handel was to become, a composer who knew how to display the human voice — in solo and choral contexts – with all its potential for drama, virtuosity, and — above all — beauty.
Magnificat Nancy Galbraith (1951– )
Nancy Galbraith, a contemporary American composer, is the chair of the composition department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her catalog shows her to be a composer of great range, at ease with highly diverse musical formats, including full orchestra, wind ensembles, chamber music, piano solo, and choral music. In her setting of the Magnificat (the Canticle of Mary, one of four in the Gospel of Luke), Professor Galbraith shows her command of her art, her depth of understanding of compositional technique that is both sophisticated and expertly used to communicate effectively with her audience.
This piece has the feel of an architectural arch. The opening on Magnificat — the only time Latin is used — and the closing “Glory be to the Father” (the Gloria Patri) plus “Amen” offer immense pillars of sound over a foundation of a bass ostinato on E. Together they support the entire work. Within the pillars the inner movements build the arch proper, plus one movement that seems to stand outside (“As He spake to our forefathers”), summing up, before going on to the closing pillar.
Beyond the architecture, there are several unifying features of this work, which sets verses of great contrast in imagery and emotion. The composer's use of rhythmic flexibility, with its hint of blues, is also reminiscent of Renaissance choral music, which achieves a similar linear freedom, albeit without the barlines and changing metric indicators required by modern music. Adding to that historic feeling is her use of open intervals of the fourth and fifth, moving in parallel, that harkens back to early medieval polyphony; a clear example is in the second movement, where it comes in as an overlay but eventually dominates. In addition, the technique of imitation through canon — voices that follow one another with a given melody (think “Three Blind Mice”), but lacking the extensive development one would find in a fugue — is ever-present but never dull. The canonic subjects are wonderfully varied in character, combinations, and spacing in time.
The composer’s clear understanding of vocal writing adds depth to this architectural and technical framework. She explores the dynamic range of unison chorus, contrasting its full force at the beginning and end with fadeouts, or with soft but intense incantations (“and holy is His name”). Add to that contrasting melodic content of fairly limited range versus the expansive, lovely vocal line of the third movement’s “And His mercy is on them that fear him.” The chorus members as individuals even get to “speak” on pitches in a decidedly contemporary and intensely meaningful ad lib moment, on the words “He hath scattered the proud,” as they chaotically scatter and die away.
Nancy Galbraith’s Magnificat is a worthy addition to the repertoire of settings of this beloved text. Beginning with chant and going on to polyphony, a vast array of major works has been produced over hundreds of years, from Dunstable in the early 1400s to several progeny of J.S. Bach in the early 1700s to Penderecki in the 20th century — to name a few. It is always good to have a fresh, well-crafted interpretation join such notable company.
Miriam S. Michel holds a master’s in Music History & Literature from C.W. Post/LIU and has done further studies at NYU, specializing in medieval and Renaissance notation. A native New Yorker, Ms. Michel is a new member of St. George’s Choral Society. She has enjoyed singing over many years in choruses in Cleveland, Ohio, where she received her bachelor’s degree in music, and in New York City.
