Rejoice in the Lamb Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) This 'Festival Cantata
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Rejoice in the Lamb Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) This 'Festival Cantata' for soloists, choir and organ, written in 1943 for the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of St. Matthew's Church, Northampton, was the first in a celebrated series of commissions by the Rev. Walter Hussey for the church's annual patronal festivals; the series later included, in music, Finzi's Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice and, in other fields of the arts, works by Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and W.H.Auden. At the 1943 celebrations Britten himself conducted the church choir in his new work, sharing the limelight with the Band of the Northamptonshire Regiment performing another festival commission by Michael Tippett. The cantata is a setting of lines selected by Britten from a long poem, Jubilate Agno (over 1200 lines long, in fact – and unfinished) by the ultimately tragic figure of Christopher ('Kitty') Smart (1722-1771), who also wrote as 'Mrs. Midnight' and 'Ebenezer Pentweazle', and was a deeply religious man but, as Hussey himself puts it, "of a strange and unbalanced mind". The poem was in fact written while Smart was confined in an asylum for alleged 'religious mania', and has been seen on the one hand as a vast hymn of praise to God and all his works, and on the other as no more than the ravings of a madman. Published only in 1939, with the subtitle A Song from Bedlam, it was brought to Britten's attention by W.H.Auden. Such a choice of text might seem odd for a jubilee, but there is in the product of such a mind a kind of childlike innocence which in the poet Peter Porter's words "shows the rest of us that heaven does indeed lie about us". Through the simplicity of his musical language Britten captures this brilliantly from the outset, not least with the unison middle C to which almost all of the "measured and mysterious" opening section is sung. Hussey's own account of the work underlines that "the main theme of the poem, and that of the Cantata, is the worship of God, by all created beings and things, each in its own way" – namely, a succession of Old Testament personalities each appearing in partnership with a living creature, then Smart's cat, mice, flowers, letters of the alphabet and musical instruments. References to the poet's own suffering, his hope of deliverance through Christ and music, and the eventual calming of his tortured mind are exquisitely handled, as is the "quiet and ecstatic" 'Hallelujah' section, reflecting Britten's keen interest in the music of Purcell, which is heard twice, once early on in the work and once more at the end. Rejoice in the Lamb was orchestrated, at Britten's request, by his long-time assistant, Gustav Holst's daughter Imogen, for a concert at the 1952 Aldeburgh Festival. In this version it is scored for a small orchestra of strings, single woodwind and percussion. The publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, notes that "it realises orchestral colours latent in the more familiar organ version with great skill and imagination". Five Negro Spirituals from 'A Child of our Time' Michael Tippett (1905-1998) The oratorio A Child of our Time, composed in the early years of World War II, was Tippett's response to the grim events of November 1938 when Herschel Grynspan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew whose family had been arrested by the Gestapo, shot and killed a minor official at the German Legation in Paris in protest, precipitating the infamous 'Kristallnacht' pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria. As well as reflecting these events in his work, Tippett wished to provide a kind of popular commentary on the theme, in much the same way as Bach had done, using congregational Lutheran chorales, in his Passions. After the chance hearing of a radio broadcast, he finally settled on Negro spirituals as being of most universal appeal, and chose five which "exactly suited certain emotional situations in my text". In the oratorio they are performed by the full forces - soloists, choir and orchestra - but Tippett later re-wrote them as a concert work in their own right for unaccompanied chorus. In doing so he kept the solo or 'leader' parts and added some of the orchestral lines as well, thereby creating a complex choral texture that is divided at times into as many as eleven parts. The directly related 'emotional situations' may be summarised as follows: Steal away: a plea for release from persecution Nobody knows: the boy's despair at his separation from his family Go down, Moses: an angry response to oppression By and by: the anguish of the boy's mother upon his arrest Deep river: " … no final grieving, but an abiding hope" Magnificat John Rutter (born 1945) Rutter's setting of the Magnificat was composed early in 1990 and was first performed in Carnegie Hall, New York later the same year by a choir of 350 singers from all over the USA with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra under the direction of the composer. In the years since the première it has been heard the world over and alongside Rutter's earlier Requiem it has become one of the most popular and most frequently performed of his large-scale choral works. Ever the pragmatist, Rutter has made it available in two performing versions, one with full orchestra and one with chamber ensemble; it is the latter that will be heard tonight. The composer writes: "The passage from St. Luke (chapter 1, verses 46-55) known as the Magnificat – a poetic outpouring of praise, joy and trust in God, ascribed by Luke to the Virgin Mary on learning that she was to give birth to Christ – has always been one of the most familiar and well-loved of scriptural texts, not least because of its inclusion as a canticle in the Catholic office of Vespers and in Anglican Evensong. Musical settings of it abound, though surprisingly few of them since J.S.Bach's give the text extended treatment. "I had long wished to write an extended Magnificat, but was not sure how to approach it until I found my starting point in the association of the text with the Virgin Mary. In countries such as Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico, feast days of the Virgin are joyous opportunities for people to take to the streets and celebrate with singing, dancing and processions. These images of outdoor celebration were, I think, somewhere in my mind as I wrote, though I was not fully conscious of the fact until afterwards. "I was conscious of following Bach's example in adding to the liturgical text – with the lovely old English poem Of a Rose and the prayer Sancta Maria, both of which strengthen the Marian connection, and with the interpolated Sanctus (to the Gregorian chant of the Missa cum jubilo) in the third movement, which seems to grow out of the immediately preceding thought et sanctum nomen eius." (Programme Note by John Rutter provided by the Programme Note Bank of Making Music – the National Federation of Music Societies) .