A S T R A C O N C E R T S 2 0 1 8

5 pm, Sunday 10 June CARMELITE CHURCH Middle Park, Melbourne

FOR ALL SEASONS

Charles Ives FAR O’ER YON HORIZON Keith Humble THUS SAITH THE LORD John J. Becker OUR MOUTH… Robert Carl SWEEPING EAGLE, BLITHE SWAN, BRANCHING OAK WINDING STREAM, DRIFTING CLOUDS COURSING SUN, IT IS THE LAW John J. Becker I TOUCH YOU, YOU QUIVER, KYRIE, SANCTUS Keith Humble FOUR ALL SEASONS

Donald Martino I GO WHERE I DO KNOW INFINITIE TO DWELL

String Quartet Natasha Conrau, Zachary Johnston, Phoebe Green, Alister Barker

The Astra Choir with soloists and instrumental ensemble

Natasha Conroy violin, Zachary Johnston violin, Phoebe Green viola, Alister Barker cello Nic Synot double bass, Kim Bastin organ, piano, Calvin Bowman organ

vocal soloists Catrina Seiffert, Leonie Thomson, Louisa Billeter Spencer Chapman, Ben Owen, Steven Hodgson, Tim Matthews-Staindl

The Astra Choir soprano Julie Melbourne, Irene McGinnigle, Catrina Seiffert, Kim Tan, Leonie Thomson, Jenny Barnes, Louisa Billeter, Jean Evans, Maree Macmillan, Susannah Provan alto Emily Bennett, Gloria Gamboz, Anna Gifford, Katie Richardson, Florence Thomson, Beverley Bencina, Jane Cousens, Joy Lee, Joan Pollock, Aline Scott-Maxwell tenor Spencer Chapman, Stephen Creese, Ben Owen, Richard Webb, Greg Deakin, Simon Johnson, Dylan Nicholson bass Peter Dumsday, Robert Franzke, Steven Hodgson, Tim Matthews-Staindl, Chris Smith, John Terrell, John Mark Williams

John McCaughey conductor

In Australia as in other countries, a generation of composers born in the 1920s rose to prominence in the 1960s as the voice of post-war music, joined by younger arrivals in generating the musical heritage of the late century. Of this group, Keith Humble (1927–1995) was the most international in outlook, with a musical life played out between Australia, France and the USA. In both the latter countries he celebrated the diversity of artistic and cultural impulses, rather than the more singular influences that are common among composers. Astra’s first concert of the 2018 season placed his ‘Opus One’, the String Trio of 1953 – a product of his teaching in Paris by the Schoenberg disciple René Leibowitz – in a European context of the related Germanic chamber-music tradition, but also alongside the music-theatre of Mauricio Kagel, typifying the post-Dadaist atmosphere also current in that mid-century era, another influence on the constant gesture and play in Humble’s music.

Today’s concert moves 36 years forward, to Humble’s string quartet Four All Seasons of 1989. Here the program context is all-American, but again with varied impulses from that cultural environment. In this quartet and its precursor work for choir, A.C.C.J. from 1979, the discursive fabric of chamber-music, the art of changing phrases and configurations, is replaced by a single ‘thing’, a continuous entity, sub-titled ‘mouvement’ in both cases. The idea of a sustained moment, whether static or with a sense of ceaseless motion, emerged from American composers in the experimental tradition, such as Humble’s colleagues at U.C. San Diego, Robert Erickson and Pauline Oliveros. Their explorations of drones as fundamental musical states have roots in various traditions of world music, including Australia’s Aboriginal culture. A second factor, however, comes from the other American coast, the exploration of 12-tone music beyond the mechanistic notion of the “tone-row”. Contemporaneous with these Humble compositions, George Perle’s book Twelve- Tone Tonality laid out the geometries of continuous interval cycles that Alban Berg had explored as early as Wozzeck – and which are also found, consciously or not, in the advanced compositions of . Music may be specially placed among the arts to express intimations of the eternal, but there are parallels with the infinite geometric variations expressed in, for example, the paintings of Robert Hunter currently on display at the NGV at Federation Square.

Essential to both these Humble scores is that they do not exist as one finite form, but lay out infinite choices for performance versions. The title A.C.C.J. spells in French the notes of its underlying drone, but also means ‘A Choral Chance for John’ – a continuous invitation to the Astra Choir and me to realize it in different ways, from charts of diverging and converging chromatic lines, which follow many possible routes and combinations to merge with the drone at the close. Four All Seasons can be realized by multiple string quartets or even string orchestras. Its spiralling ‘stretches’ of music exploit for the first time the “Humble transform” – his own invented cyclical system in the universe of 12 tones, with which he planned many new works at the time of his death a few years later, at the age of 67. The continuously shifting harmonies of the chorus and quartet represent different states of expression – more charged in the case of the string quartet, whose score is marked to be played softly but with ‘an extreme intensity’.

Charles Ives (1874–1954) was a founding figure of the spirit of adventure in modern American music, independent of European models. He helped to re-define the nature of musical ‘occurrence’, with overlaid ‘musics’ that seem to place human activity within the expanse of Nature and eternity.

[NOTES CONTINUED ON BACK COVER… ] 2

PROGRAM

John J. Becker Nunc Sancte nobis Spritus (undated fragment) 4-part choir text by St Ambrose, 4th C

Keith Humble A. C. C. J. Mouvement for choir (1979) multiple choral groups

Charles Ives The Celestial Country (1899) Cantata for soloists, choir, string quintet & organ text by Henry Alford, 1865

I N T E R V A L

Robert Carl Sullivan Songs (1983/93) soloists and choir texts by Louis Sullivan, 1918

I. The Lake II. The City III. The Law

John J. Becker The Pool (1924) women’s chorus & piano poem by H.D., 1915

Missa symphonica (1933) male chorus

I. Kyrie IV. Sanctus V. Agnus Dei

Keith Humble Four All Seasons, Mouvement perpétuel (1989) string quartet

Donald Martino Pious Pieces (1971) choir with piano poems by Robert Herrick, 1647

I. To the ever-loving God II. Mercy and Love III. The Soule IV. Teares – To Death – Welcome what comes V. Eternitie

3

John J. Becker NUNC SANCTE NOBIS SPRITUS (undated fragment)

Nunc, Sancte nobis Spiritus, Now for us Holy Spirit, Unum Patri cum Filio, one with the Father and the Son Dignare promptus ingeri deign to be poured swiftly Nostro refusus pectori. into our hearts with holiness.

Os… Our mouth…

– attr. St Ambrose of Milan (4th C.)

Keith Humble A. C. C. J. Mouvement for choir (1979)

Thus saith the Lord our God

Charles Ives THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY (1899)

Introduction before No.1 (organ)

No. 1. Prelude, Trio and Chorus

Far o'er yon horizon rise city towers Where our God abideth; that fair home is ours: Flash the streets with jasper, shine the gates with gold; Flows the gladd'ning river shedding joys untold. Thither, onward, thither, in the spirit's might; Pilgrims to your country, forward into light!

Into God's high temple onward as we press Beauty spreads around us born of holiness. Arch and vault and carving, (lights of varied tone), Softened words and holy, prayer and praise alone. Every thought upraising to our city bright, Where the tribes assemble round the throne of light.

Thither, onward, thither, in the spirit's might; Pilgrims to your country, forward into light!

Prelude before No.2 (organ)

No. 2. Aria (unison voices)

Naught that country needeth of these aisles of stone; Where the Godhead dwelleth, temple there is none; All the saints that ever in these courts have stood, Are but babes, and feeding on children's food. On through sign and token, stars amidst the night, On through darkness, forward into light.

On through sign and token, stars amidst the night.

No. 3. Quartet accompanied (choir)

Seek the things before us, not a look behind; Burns the fiery pillar at our army's head; Who shall dream of shrinking by our Captain led?

Forward through the desert, through the toil and fight; Jordan flows before us; Zion beams with light.

4

Forward when in childhood buds the infant mind; All through youth and manhood, not a thought behind. Speed through realms of nature, climb the paths of grace; Faint not, till in glory gleams our Father's face. Forward all through lifetime, climb from height to height, Till the head be hoary, till the eve be light.

Forward through the desert, through the toil and fight; Jordan flows before us; Zion beams with light. On through youth and manhood, till our Father’s face in glory gleams.

Seek the things before us, not a look behind; Burns the fiery pillar at our army's head; Seek the paths of grace, till the eve be light.

Interlude before No.4 (cello and organ)

No. 4. Intermezzo for string quartet

Interlude after No.4 (cello and organ)

No. 5. Double Quartet, a cappella (Solo quartet and choir)

Glories on glories hath our Lord prepared, By the souls that love him one day to be shared; Eye hath not beheld them, ear hath never heard; Nor of these hath uttered thought or speech a word;

Glories on glories hath our Lord prepared.

Forward marching eastward, where the heav'n is bright, Till the veil be lifted, till our faith be sight.

No. 6. Aria for Tenor

Forward, flock of Jesus, salt of all the earth, Till each yearning purpose spring to glorious birth; Sick, they ask for healing, blind, they grope for day; Pour upon the nations wisdom's loving ray.

Forward out of error, leave behind the night; Forward out of darkness, forward into light.

Forward when in childhood buds the infant mind; All through youth and manhood,(not a thought behind.) Forward till the veil be lifted climb height to height. Forward out of darkness, On! on! ever onward climbing, till our faith be sight.

Introduction to No.7 (organ)

No. 7. Chorale and Finale

To the eternal Father loudest anthems raise; To the Son and Spirit echo songs of praise; To the Lord of Glory, blessed three in one, Be by men and angels endless honour done. Weak are earthly praises; dull the songs of night; Forward into triumph, forward into light!

– Henry Alford (1865)

I N T E R V A L

5

Robert Carl SULLIVAN SONGS (1983/93)

1. The Lake is a wonderful body of water – changeable as the days. I have watched it for many a year, and never has it been the same on any two days.

2. The City is but a screen, and behind that screen are the people who suffer it to be. It is their image. The Big City Dreams.

3. It is the Law: be it sweeping eagle or blithe swan (The lake is waiting) be it branching oak or winding stream (The ever fertile prairie is waiting) be it drifting clouds or coursing sun (and the sky is above, awaiting.) And as one, all are dreaming some prophetic dream. Form follows function. It is the Law.

– Louis Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats (1918)

John J. Becker THE POOL (1924)

Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea-fish. I cover you with my net. What are you – banded one?

– H.D. Poetry Magazine (1915)

John J. Becker MISSA SYMPHONICA (1933)

I. Kyrie eleison, Christe elesion, Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

IV. Sanctus, Domine Deus Sabaoth, pleni sunt coeli e terra gloria tua, Osanna in excelsis. Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory Hosanna in the highest. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini Osanna in excelsis. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

V. Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, dona nobis pacem. Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world, have mercy, grant us peace.

Keith Humble FOUR ALL SEASONS, Mouvement perpétuel for 1, 2 or 3 string quartets (1989)

‘Hommage au TANGO d’Erik Satie, et bien sûr Béla Bartók’

6

Donald Martino PIOUS PIECES (1971)

I.

TO THE EVER-LOVING GOD Thou bidst me come; I cannot come; for why, Thou dwel’st aloft, and I want wings to flie. To mount my Soule, she must have pineons given; For, ‘tis no easie way from Earth to Heaven.

II.

MERCY AND LOVE God hath two wings which He doth ever move; The one is mercy and the next is love: Under the first the sinners ever trust; And with the last He still directs the just.

III

THE SOULE When once the Soule has lost her way, O then, how restlesse do's she stray! And having not her God for light, How do's she erre in endlesse night! IV.

TEARES Our presente Teares here (not our present laughter) Are but the handsells of our joys hereafter.

TO DEATH Thou bidst me come away, And I'll no longer stay, Than for to shed some teares For faults of former yeares; And to repent some crimes, Done in the present times: And next, to take a bit Of bread, and wine with it: To d’on my robes of love, Fit for the place above; To gird my loynes about With charity throughout; And so to travaile hence With feet of innocence: These done, I'll onely crie, God mercy; and so die.

WELCOME WHAT COMES Whatever comes, let’s be content withal! Among God’s blessings, there is no one small. V.

ETERNITIE O Yeares! and Age! Farewell: Behold I go, Where I do know Infinitie to dwell. And these mine eyes shall see All times, how they Are lost i’ th’ Sea Of vast Eternitie: – Where never Moone shall sway The Starres; but she, And Night, shall be Drown’d in one endlesse Day. – Robert Herrick (1647) 7

[… NOTES continued from p.2]

Ives’s rarely-heard cantata The Celestial Country was composed at the conclusion of his studies with Horatio Parker at Yale, and first performed at the New York’s First Presbyterian Church where he became organist. Despite the robustly American Protestant character that Ives injects into the words, they originated from the English writer Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, who wrote them as a processional hymn, to be sung by massed choirs processing in the aisles of his cathedral for a choral festival. Ives re-shapes the scenario of the hymn by entering at its mysterious mid-stanza where the heavenly towers are glimpsed on the horizon, and reordering the other five double-stanzas to his own plan. In effect he creates a procession through an eclectic landscape of musical styles and formations with choir, solo singers, string quartet and organ. In addition to this heterogeneity, there are glimpses of many of his later radical techniques: the tiny organ interludes whose veiled harmonies suggest a vast celestial space; the ‘wrong’ organ notes and displaced rhythmic coordinations between singers and instruments, which he enjoyed hearing in church performances in his native New England.

John J. Becker (1886–1961) was closely befriended with Ives, who entrusted to him the orchestration of his enormous visionary song, General William Booth Enters into Heaven. He belongs to the ‘American Five’ of early modernism – with Ives, , Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger – but his music has remained the least known, even in the USA. To Ives’s Connecticut Protestantism Becker counterposes Midwest Catholicism, which underlies the adventures in modal displacement of the short choruses of this concert. The male-chorus Mass is written in a rich and original harmony, but without barlines, aspiring to a chant-like improvisatory freedom. Such pieces emerged from his years teaching at Barat College on Lake Michigan, near Louis Sullivan’s Chicago.

Robert Carl (b.1954) is also closely associated with the New England of Charles Ives, as longstanding head of composition at the Hartt School, in Connecticut, and as a composer who embraces the Ives tradition of multiple musics and Transcendentalism. Among his teachers was , Stefan Wolpe’s student who became an important figure in Chicago. Carl’s early Sullivan Songs have their base in that city, through the words of Louis Sullivan, the early-century Chicago architect and mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright. Sullivan’s visionary statements on the natural environment and human dwelling are adapted by the composer for three differing vocal-spatial designs, culminating in his famous utterance: “Form follows function”. Originally composed in 1983 for the 12-voice Oriana Singers in Chicago, with a revision of the third song in 1993, the songs were taken up and remodelled as a work for full choir by the Astra Choir in 2015, leading to the cycle’s first complete performance in Melbourne, over 30 years after its composition. Robert Carl’s more recent work includes collaborations in the environmental art installations of his wife, the sculptor Karen McCoy.

Donald Martino (1931–2005), a friend and contemporary of Keith Humble, headed composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston and spent his last decade as professor at Harvard. Yet he comes from another East Coast tradition, through his teacher Milton Babbitt, of post-Schoenberg formalism. Martino reportedly cringed at being called a “twelve-tone composer” (as did Schoenberg himself), and his music is always crafted around the expressive world of playing. He composed the Seven Pious Pieces on successive Sundays, each in a single day, as works to be accessible for choirs. They are “serial, 12-tone”, but their tone-row is divided into two diatonic 6-note groups, leading to a rich tonal fabric, with suggestive links to the tonal past. The very contemporary precision of dynamics and articulation bestows a special intensity on each phrase of the Robert Herrick poems.

Donald Martino attended an earlier Astra Choir performance of these pieces at the Old Customs House in 1988. For todays’ concert, we take pleasure in welcoming Robert Carl and Karen McCoy on their first Melbourne visit.

– JMcC

AVAILABLE AT THIS CONCERT 2018 CD Release, New World Records, New York:

THE ASTRA CHOIR “ We, like Salangan Swallows…” A choral Gallery of and Contemporaries Morton Feldman, Will Ogdon, Earle Brown, Pauline Oliveros, Warren Burt, Robert Carl

Concert Manager: Margaret Lloyd Astra Manager: Gabrielle Baker Recording engineer: Michael Hewes Front of House: George Baker-Holland

Thanks to: Shane Harrison, James Mendes, Philomena Mendes, Parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel;

Astra concerts receive support in 2018 from: Private donors; The Robert Salzer Foundation; The William Angliss Trust; Diana Gibson.

 ASTRA CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY President: John Terrell Manager: Gabrielle Baker Musical Director: John McCaughey PO Box 365, North Melbourne, Victoria 3051, Australia ABN 41 255 197 577 Tel: +61 (3) 9326 5424 email: [email protected] web: www.astramusic.org.au 8