The World Beloved – a bluegrass mass and other American music
The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass
Mass A word of warning: If you are anticipating a country-and-western take on traditional high-church service music, you may be doubly surprised: First, the “bluegrass” aspect of the subtitle does describe the instrumental accompaniment to this composition, but the music itself is, in many respects, quite contemporary. This is 21st-century music (2006): There are occasional dissonances, and it also contains some elements that lean toward musical minimalism. In the second place, some liturgical aspects of this work are atypical: While its divisions are named and ordered as in traditional Masses– and many sections do employ traditional language (including Greek and Latin, in the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei)– it departs significantly from those liturgical forms in its overall structure and content. For example, the Credo (movement VI), which ordinarily would recite a formal statement of belief (such as the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed), in fact proclaims only a single belief: That “a place awaits us…across the Jordan”. The Mass structure is further embellished with five inserted “ballads”, including one at the beginning and a restatement at the end (interestingly, the first of these uses male pronouns, and the Conclusion female pronouns, for the Deity). Some parts of these ballads do enunciate beliefs that were omitted from the Credo, such as God’s presence among us. The instrumental interlude in Movement X is not really a departure from traditional Mass practice: Organ or instrumental movements are included in many published Masses, and interludes are sometimes inserted ad lib. during a service, especially if a delay needs to be accommodated.
The composer, Carol Barnett, is a University of Minnesota graduate, and currently teaches at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. She has composed for the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Dale Warland Singers (where she was composer-in-residence from 1992 to 2001)– all organizations which are, or have been, Twin Cities-based. In addition, she has had commissions from elsewhere (e.g., the Harvard Glee Club). This particular work was commissioned for Vocal Essence, a Twin Cities professional ensemble directed by Philip Brunelle. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians says that Ms. Barnett’s “harmonic idiom is flexibly chromatic and freely dissonant… [She] tends to work with small striking musical ideas, implanting them within various textures and timbres…”. Ms. Barnett herself says of this commission:
To bring the solemnity of the classical-based Mass together with the down-home sparkle of bluegrass—now there’s an assignment… Composing the music for The World Beloved has given me the chance to write cheery sacred music—all too rare in a medium rife with staid and even lugubrious settings…
And we think you will ultimately agree that she has accomplished a mostly ‘cheery’ presentation of a religious theme, albeit one that follows contemporary trends in both its musical and its spiritual dimensions.
Songs from The Tender Land – Aaron Copland
The Tender Land , one of only two operas by American composer Aaron Copland, was intended for television, in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the League of Composers (and was commissioned in 1952 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein for that purpose). Unfortunately, NBC turned down the proferred opera, and it was instead produced first by the New York City Opera, on April 1, 1954; revised slightly, it was presented again at Tanglewood on August 2 of that year, and, with much additional revision, on May 20, 1955, at Oberlin College. It has seen only rare performances since, but Copland constructed an orchestral suite from its music in 1958, which has had much more exposure. Three numbers exist outside that suite, but are often performed along with it: One is “Laurie’s Song”, a soprano aria; the others are the two choral numbers presented here: “Stomp Your Foot!” which is subtitled “Choral Square Dance”, and “The Promise of Living”, described as a “Thanksgiving song”.
Cindy
This familiar folk song, sometimes referred to as a “frolic” tune (which may imply that it was used in a game, reel, or square dance), is of unknown origin. John Lomax, one of the earliest musicologists to devote his energies to American folk tunes, was of the belief that it originated in North Carolina. The painter Thomas Hart Benton-a Missourian by birth but a student of the American southwest– is known to have played it at folk gatherings in his home during the 1930’s. It exists in many different versions and has a lengthy roster of stanzas; this version captures some of the most-used ones. The first recordings date from the late 1930’s, although Lomax dates the song’s origin to approximately 1844.
Colorado Trail
The eponymous cattle trail of this song linked southern Oklahoma with Colorado. The song was included in a 1939 collection by Carl Sandburg— himself one of America’s early folk song collectors, along with Burl Ives and the father-and-son team of John and Alan Lomax. Sandburg obtained the song from a Dr. Chapman, who had heard it from a cowboy patient in Duluth MN. The Chorus’ version was arranged by Norman Luboff, whose chorale recorded it around 1970.
Lambscapes
Strange as it seems, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was inspired by a real incident: Mary Sawyer, of Sterling MA, who had the pet lamb, published the poem in 1830, although she credited one John Roulstone, who was visiting the school at the time of the incident. The great hymn-writer, Lowell Mason, composed the simple musical setting later that decade, apparently intending it for primary school use. Tonight’s version is an ‘inside joke’, created by contemporary composer Eric Lane Barnes for the Turtle Creek Chorale, a men’s chorus based in Dallas. The music and the poem— or fragments thereof, with Latin, German, and Italian translations or insertions— appear in four different classical styles, imitating Gregorian chant (circa 800 A.D. into the Middle Ages), and three famous composers– George Frideric Handel (1685- 1759), with clear reference to that composer’s “Hallelujah Chorus”; Franz Schubert (1797-1828), suggesting Schubert’s tragic “Erlkönig”; and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), incorporating laughter, which foresees tragic consequences in some of Verdi’s operas. Barnes has composed for many other groups, among them the Windy City Gay Chorus (now the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus) and his own Seattle-based group, Captain Smartypants.
A Read, Read Rose
Scottish native Robert Burns (1759-1796) is revered by his countrymen, but his tastes for wine and women undoubtedly contributed to his short life. This 1794 poem of admiration and commitment was set by James Mulholland, professor at Butler University, as part of a group of four ballads, of which at least one other celebrates one of Burns’ lovers. Some correspondence indicates that this poem may have been based on a folk song that Burns heard: During his last decade he collected and/or emended a large number of poems and songs from traditional or other sources.
Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye
Cole Porter’s song, written for “Seven Lively Arts”, a 1944 Billy Rose revue, demonstrates his superb skills as both lyricist and composer. For instance, in the penultimate line, he says, “There’s no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor”, using the assonance of “change” and “strange” to good effect, and musically shifting from E-flat major to A-flat minor across that phrase. Porter, an Indiana native, lived with constant pain after a 1937 accident; Despite that, he remained productive during the early ‘40’s, but this song is one of very few memorable Porter tunes from the war years; his real comeback to his 1930’s stature began with “Kiss Me Kate” in 1948 and lasted until 1958. Porter died at age 73 in 1964. This arrangement is by Mac Huff, an Indiana native and University of Wisconsin alumnus who has worked exclusively for Hal Leonard Music for over 25 years.
-Jim Fancher – 2015