Peter Tchaikovsky
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VOCAL ENSEMBLE 26th Annual Season October 2017 Tchaikovsky: All-Night Vigil October 2017 CR Presents: The Byrd Ensemble November 2017 Arctic Light II: Northern Exposure December 2017 Peter Tchaikovsky: A Byzantine Christmas January 2018 Selections from The 12 Days of Christmas in the East February 2018 All-Night Vigil Machaut Mass with Marcel Pérès op. 52 March 2018 Nine Sacred Pieces CR Presents: The Tudor Choir March 2018 Ivan Moody: The Akáthistos Hymn April 2018 Venice in the East Benedict Sheehan Guest Director “like jeweled light flooding the space” “наполнение пространства хрустальным светом” —LOS ANGELES TIMES 1 This choir is a proud member of the Access the rich variety of excellent performances available in our online calendar at www.seattlesings.org or scan the image below. presents THE BYRD ENSEMBLE returns to Portland MARKDAVIN OBENZA director Sunday 29 October 2017, 3:00pm St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, Portland PROGRAM William BYRD: Magnificat BYRD: Domine quis habitabit BYRD: Ad Dominum cum tribularer Western motets by Renaissance greats Byrd, Palestrina, and Arvo PÄRT: Tribute to Caesar Gibbons complemented by the Eastern style of Tavener, Stravinksy, John TAVENER: Funeral Ikos and Pärt. Written over the span of 500 years, each one of these Igor STRAVINSKY: Our Father PALESTRINA: Magnificat masterpieces reflects a profound spirituality. Includes Barber’s Orlando GIBBONS: Hosanna to the son Agnus Dei, the Adagio for Strings adapted for a cappella ensemble. of David Samuel BARBER: Agnus Dei cappellaromana.org 503.236.8202 2 Peter Tchaikovsky Selections from All-Night Vigil op. 52 & Nine Sacred Pieces Friday, 20 October 2017 at 8:00 pm St. James Cathedral, Seattle, Washington Alexander Lingas Cappella Romana is a 2017-18 Guest Choral Artist at St. James Cathedral Music Director and Founder Saturday, 21 October 2017 at 8:00 pm Benedict Sheehan St. Mary’s Cathedral, Portland, Oregon Guest Director Sunday, 22 October 2017 at 2:00pm St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, Hillsboro, Oregon Part of the St. Matthew Fall Festival soprano Photini Downie Robinson Jessica Israels Program Vakare Petroliunaite Catherine van der Salm From Nine Sacred Pieces Peter Tchaikovsky / Пётр Чайкoвский (1840-1893) alto Kristen Buhler Let my Prayer Arise Susan Hale Now the Powers of Heaven Emily Lau Cherubic Hymn No. 3 Jo Routh We Praise You It is Truly Right tenor Our Father Daniel Burnett Blessed Are They Leslie Green Intermission David Hendrix JC Smith From All-Night Vigil,. op. 52 Tchaikovsky / Чайкoвский bass Opening Psalm (103) Gustave Blazek First Kathisma, “Blessed is the Man” John Michael Boyer O Joyful Light Erik Hundtoft Virgin Mother of God Ben Kinkley The Lord is God & Resurrectional Troparion, Mode 1 David Krueger Polyeleos David Stutz The Resurrectional Evlogitaria, Mode 5 Having Seen the Resurrection Holy is the Lord our God You Are Most Blessed The Great Doxology Seattle patrons are kindly requested to To You My Champion meet the artists in the side chapel, on the south side of St. James Cathedral, rather than in the nave of the main cathedral. Thank you. Thank you for attending today! Learn about this season’s concerts at cappellaromana.org Please ensure all electronic devices are switched off. Kindly return any extra concert programs to be used at the next concerts, or for recycling. 3 together with his publisher Peter Jurgenson, won the case in 1880, and thus the way was cleared not only for the Liturgy to be published, but, in effect, About Tchaikovsky’s Nine Sacred Pieces for an entire generation of Russian composers who had been officially banned from publishing liturgical Nearing the end of more than six years of wandering music to begin offering their talents to the Church. and soul-searching, Tchaikovsky began composing the first three of what would become known as Over the course of the next several decades the face the Nine Sacred Pieces in November of 1884, as of Russian church music would change dramatically. he traveled to Davos by way of Berlin. Already For nearly two centuries Russia’s musical sensibilities well established in the public mind as arguably the had been shaped largely by the prevailing artistic greatest living Russian composer—and perhaps trends of first Italy and then Germany. Many ties of all time—Tchaikovsky, ever diffident, still felt to the past were severed and forgotten in Russia’s compelled to submit his new works of sacred music pursuit of Westernization, and Russia’s indigenous to his friend and colleague Mily Balakirev (1837- znamenny chants and folk melodies fell into disuse. 1910), director of the Imperial Court Chapel in St. With the rise of nationalism in the second half Petersburg, for criticism and guidance. Balakirev of the 19th century, however, came a renewed offered a few pointed remarks about an “out-of-place interest in old music and a quest to discover and dance rhythm” or two, but concluded that on the articulate those unique characteristics that make whole the works had significant merit and that the up the Russian musical identity. Following currents composer should continue towards publication. Over that were already moving all over Europe, Russian the course of the next several months, Tchaikovsky scholars began delving into ancient chant, and would write six more sacred pieces, finishing the Russian composers began incorporating chant and last in the spring of 1885, not long after his return to folk motifs into their music. Russia. While Tchaikovsky was perhaps less interested The Nine Sacred Pieces were not Tchaikovsky’s first in musical nationalism than some of his foray into church music. His triumphant and much- contemporaries—Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, loved Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Op. 41) Mussorgsky, and the rest of the “Mighty Handful,” had been published in 1879, sparking a fierce legal for example—he nevertheless played a crucial role battle with the then director of the Imperial Court in crafting the nascent Russian musical identity. Chapel Nikolai Bakhmetev and his rigid system of The Nine Sacred Pieces are a prime example of his church music censorship—at the time of the dispute contribution to that effort. While none of the Nine only six names were on the list of approved church Pieces are explicitly based on ancient chant, all of composers (none well-known today). Tchaikovsky, them exhibit the characteristic modal harmonies and For our Seattle Patrons: The Cathedral is also a center for many St. James Cathedral Welcome to St. James Cathedral musical, cultural and ecumenical events, The Most Reverend J. Peter Sartain, and a crossroads where ideas and chal- Archbishop of Seattle St. James is the Cathedral Church for the lenges both old and new are explored in Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle and its the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Very Reverend Michael G. Ryan, Archbishop, the Most Reverend J. Peter The Cathedral is a place where the rich Pastor, St. James Cathedral Sartain. We are also a parish church and ongoing tradition of sacred music Dr. Paul Thornock, Director of Music for a vibrant faith community of 2,500 and art is treasured and expanded. households, with a long history that Joseph Adam, Associate Director of Mu- reaches back to Seattle’s early days. We Above all, St. James Cathedral is a com- sic and Cathedral Organist munity of prayer. are an inner-city parish with an extensive Marjorie Bunday, Administrative Assis- social outreach to the homeless and dis- We welcome you to St. James Cathedral. tant for Music and Concert Manager advantaged of our city. We are a diverse Find out more at www.stjames-cathedral. Corinna Laughlin, Director of Liturgy community that welcomes, accepts, and org. celebrates the differences we all bring. 4 chant-like melodies that were becoming the musical language of the day—much more so, incidentally, than does the Liturgy—along with a creative restraint and understated emotionalism in keeping with the ascetic ethos of Orthodox services. Tonight’s program presents the Nine Pieces, minus two alternate Cherubic Hymns, in liturgical order rather than in the original published order. —Benedict Sheehan Tchaikovsky’s All-Night Vigil By the middle of the 19th century, efforts to remake Russian Orthodox sacred music in the image of its Western European counterparts—a process memorably chronicled in several of Cappella’s earlier programs—had essentially succeeded. Begun informally in the late seventeenth century and elevated to the level of national policy by composers of Italian opera at the court of Catherine the Great, this had led by the late 19th century to what some contemporary observers saw as a state of decadence. Among the country’s nobility and urban elite, Russia’s rich inheritance of native chant was all but forgotten in its original form. Instead, choirs tended to sing either simplified chants harmonized amateurishly by hacks associated with the Imperial Chapel (which had the right to censor all publications of church music) or free compositions in Western European styles that clashed with mystical ethos of Byzantine worship. When he was at the height of his creative powers, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) made a series of decisive interventions in the field of Russian Orthodox music. The first was his Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, op. 41 of 1878, a musically original setting of the Orthodox Eucharist. The Liturgy provoked a notorious lawsuit filed by the head of the Imperial Chapel, who sought to halt the publication of Tchaikovsky’s work. Ultimately, this action had the opposite effect, for Tchaikovsky IN THE HEART OF PORTLAND’S WEST END DISTRICT won the case and the Imperial Chapel’s right of censorship was effectively rescinded, unleashing within the realm of sacred music the creativity of 503.224.3293 | MARKSPENCER.COM an illustrious line of composers: Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Chesnokov and Rachmaninoff (the so- 409 SW 11TH AVENUE, PORTLAND called ‘Vespers’, opus 37 of 1915), to name but a few.