Prayers of Kierkegaard, Op. 30 In a long program note written for the Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Boston premiere of Prayers of Kierkegaard, Barber quoted these words of W. H. Auden: Composed: 1953-1954. First performance: December 3, 1954, Symphony Hall, Boston; "The world has changed greatly since Boston Symphony Orchestra, soloists Leontyne Kierkegaard’s time, and all too many of Price, Jean Kraft and Edward Munro, Cecilia Soci his pathetic insights have come to pass. ety Chorus, Charles Munch conducting. Perform The smug bourgeois Christendom he ing forces: soprano solo (with incidental alto and denounced has crumbled, and what is left tenor solos), four-part mixed chorus (with brief is an amorphous despairing mass of dis subdivisions into double and triple choruses); two placed persons and paralyzed Hamlets. flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clar Though his writings are often brilliantly inets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three poetic and often deeply philosophic, trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion Kierkegaard was neither a poet nor a (including xylophone and whip, but without tim philosopher, but a preacher, an expounder pani), harp, piano, and strings. Previous ASO per and defender of Christian doctrine and formances: February 1985, Master Season; Christian conduct.” soloists Jeanne Brown, Martha Scott and Oliver Sueing, ASO Chorus, Robert Shaw conducting. Barber’s setting is a single-movement can tata, cast in the Romantic musical language (The text of this work appears on page 29.) spiced with modem dissonance of which he was a master. “Grave and remote,” the men’s chorus One of America’s most distinguished com begins with a free evocation of Gregorian chant, posers, Barber was bom in West Chester, Penn in unaccompanied unison. On a consideration of sylvania, the nephew of Metropolitan Opera “infinite Love,” the orchestra takes up the petition contralto Louise Homer. Perhaps in part because (moderato), building to a climax at which the full of the early influence of his famous aunt, he chorus enters with the last two lines of the prayer. showed a life-long affinity for the voice and An expressive choral section follows, treating the vocal music. He had a fine baritone voice and at text contrapuntally, as though various individuals one point considered a career as a singer. were repeating the prayer at their own pace. His opera Vanessa was staged by the Met Again reaching the climax, the music ropolitan Opera and also became the first Amer begins to speed up, becoming andante, con ican opera to be presented at the prestigious moto tranquillo for the second of the prayers. Salzburg Festival. It won for Barber his first With unhurried wonder, the solo soprano sings Pulitzer Prize in 1958. (The second came four of God’s patience with the sinner. Oboe and years later for his Piano Concerto.) Another horn solos highlight the calm accompaniment. Barber opera, Antony and Cleopatra, was cho As the soprano repeats her salutation, the music sen to open the new Metropolitan Opera House fades to make way for the third prayer. in 1966. Singing softly and homophonically (un Other noted vocal works by Barber include poco mosso), punctuated by rhythmic string Andromache’s Farewell and Knoxville: Summer chords, the chorus sings of renewal. Tenor, alto o f 1915, both for soprano and orchestra, Dover and soprano solos enter with pleas for steadfast Beach, for mezzo-soprano or baritone and string ness, as the music gradually increases in inten quartet, and The Lovers, for chorus, baritone and sity. The chorus takes up the prayer, dividing to orchestra. become a double chorus and chanting in alter Prayers of Kierkegaard was com m issioned nation. At the climax, the voices re-unite and by the Koussevitzky Foundation and is dedi make their final entreaty together. cated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Kous The orchestra interrupts with a wild, ecsta sevitzky. Though the commission was given in tic dance (allegro molto), reminiscent of Bar 1942, Barber did not begin composition until ber’s Medea’s Dance of Vengeance. The chorus 1953, and the work was completed in January of joins the frenzied rhythms, calling upon the 1954. He chose four prayers by Spren Father. Calming and diminishing, the din gives Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the influential Danish way to a solemn procession for triple chorus and theologian and philosopher regarded as the bells, marked “Quietly” and once again invoking founder of Existential philosophy. The prayers the “Father in Heaven.” The final prayer is pre were found in Kierkegaard’s journals and in two sented as a 20th-century chorale, with irregular books, The Unchangeableness of God and meter and untraditional harmonies, a forebear of Christian Discourses. They are most concerned similar chorales in Benjamin Britten’s War with God’s love and redemption, but they also Requiem and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. The reflect the basic credo of Kierkegaard’s writ work ends with a great swelling and subsiding of ings, individual responsibility in choosing chorus and full orchestra, as Kierkegaard’s among the various alternatives life offers. words remind of God’s saving grace.
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