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Rosalind Rees SOPRANO The story of the wide-eyed lad from Kansas City The first five brief works range from among the earliest in the Thomson choral canon—De Profundis, (Kansas City, MISSOURI, thank you; as Virgil put it (1920/revised 1951), O My Deir Hert (1921/revised 1978), and Tribulationes Civitatum (1922)—to “You did not speak of Kansas City, Kansas often… two later efforts, Welcome to the New Year (1941) and The Holly and the Ivy (solo version 1955/choral or go there unless you had business”), who became version 1963). the toast of Paris via Harvard, one of America’s most Thomson had been exposed to the classics of Medieval and Renaissance counterpoint at influential music critics from his decades’ long perch Harvard—his early setting of De Profundis reveals just how strongly he took to the style—but it was at the New York Herald Tribune and a truly unique only after coming under the influence of Mademoiselle in Paris that this earlier introduction began to and productive composer, is almost hackneyed bear real fruit. The purity of line and careful attention to counterpoint in Tribulationes Civitatum, now, but still bears that “only in America” cachet. written at the end of his first year in Paris (August 1922), is witness enough of immediate impact: Drenched in the secular and sacred vernacular strangely enough, the quintessentially Gallic union of emotion and rationality that typified much of music of his environment, Virgil Thomson was Boulanger’s teaching is not entirely unrelated to the straightforward address of the composer who was exposed to a whole new world in the Harvard of the to create the Symphony on a Hymn Tune or The Mother of Us All. O my deir hert dates from 1921, the late teens and early twenties (he didn’t get to year Thomson began studying with Boulanger. The text is attributed to Luther, and Thomson uses a Harvard until he was twenty-three). Among the charming sixteenth century translation (the same century is the source of The Holly and the Ivy), but important mentors he met there were the famous for all we know, it may be the work of an anonymous English poet of the period. Archibald Davison, choir director since 1912, and Even Thomson acknowledged the importance of the deep concern Boulanger took with fledgling his faculty adviser, Edward Burlingame Hill. composers’ works: “Suddenly [the student] sees that which has caused him pain, struggle and much But Thomson’s real adventure began some two years after his arrival in Cambridge, when he uncertainty unveiled before him, without malice or invidious comparisons, as a being to which he has joined the Harvard Glee Club on a European tour. He had just been awarded a Paine Fellowship, and given birth. Naturally he is grateful. His work has been taken seriously, has received the supreme planned to stay on for a year in Paris after the tour ended in the late summer. There he studied with Nadia compliment of having its existence admitted to be real.” In his pre-Boulanger De Profundis, written at Boulanger (the Glee Club had attended the official opening of her American Conservatory in Fontainebleau Harvard in 1920, and revised in 1951, we see the promise; in Tribulationes, we begin to see the on June 26. 1921) and developed his life-long attachment for the City of Lights. And while his later fulfillment. Much more, and greater, music was to follow. And much of the greatness of that music was claim to have spent the fifteen years before 1940 in Paris is not technically true—Thomson actually helped into life by the midwife of the Rue Ballu. spent just over half of the 1930’s in New York—he always considered himself a citizen of the three It was only the arrival of the German Army in Paris in the spring of 1940 that forced Thomson cities that most influenced his life and his music: Kansas City, Paris and New York. —and twelve suitcases—to abandon his second spiritual home and return to New York for good. He It was as a long-term resident of the Chelsea Hotel in New York that Gregg Smith and his Singers had taken up a friend’s offer to rusticate in a village in the Pyrenees as the Nazis took his beloved Paris, got to know the redoubtable Virgil, in the later decades of his long life (born in 1896, he died at the age and in July, on trains “running again, with German officers now manning the stations,” he made his way of 92 in 1989.) The present CD is an offering of gratitude for Virgil’s support and friendship, as well as to Biarritz, where he met up with his friend Man Ray, also fleeing “war-torn Europe.” They reached New a concise overview of his work in the choral field—along with a brief excursion into his solo output. York together via Lisbon (shades of Casablanca!), and almost immediately Thomson was approached by Geoffrey Parsons “the editorial-page editor and overseer of all things cultural” at the New York Herald Tribune about taking on the vacant position of music critic. He was hired by that fall and remained at choreography, and its sophisticated John Houseman direction, Virgil’s opera had a well-deserved succès the paper until 1954. Composing, of necessity, took a back seat during his first years at the Trib, until d’estime. A New York run followed, after which the composer, in Houseman’s words, “sailed away to report he got his New York “sea-legs,” and only shorter works emerged during the next few years. to Miss Stein in Paris.” Welcome to the New Year dates from September 1941. That fall Thomson composed three brief Sensational it may well have been, but afterwards none of its principals could find steady work. children’s choruses, The Bugle Song to a text of Tennyson, the Surrey Apple-Howler’s Song with a Houseman’s ever-fertile mind had lighted upon the idea of a not-for-profit theatre company to be traditional text, and Welcome, a setting of a poem by Eleanor Farjeon. The three were not apparently named after the mythical Phoenix, ever rising from its own ashes: more of which anon. But that published until the 1960’s. Farjeon was a well-known English author of children’s books, whose first same summer of 1934 Thomson was lucky enough to snag a commission for a Mass from the New- effort, Nursery Rhymes of London Town, dated from 1916, when she was thirty-five. She won several York-based League of Composers. awards in the mid-1950’s, and died in 1965. (In her entry in Who’s Who she listed as her recreations The Adesdi Chorus of the Dessoff Choirs, the group designated to premiere the Mass, was an all- “cooking and cats.”) women’s group, and the Mass was conceived for women’s voices, although the composer permits tenors The Holly and the Ivy began its life as a solo song written for the great American soprano Phyllis to join the sopranos and basses the altos, a suggestion the Singers take up in this recording. Thomson Curtin in 1955. With the composer at the piano, she premiered it on August 25 that year at the Carnegie once commented that “women’s voices in choral singing inherently do not give as sharp and clean an Recital Hall. Eight years later, Thomson recast the work as an SATB chorus. Thomson has created a attack as do men’s voices.” Perhaps one reason he calls for the percussion that makes the Mass so completely new setting for the familiar sixteenth century text, first published by Joshua Sylvester in 1861. memorable was to help its intended singers in this regard. When he returned to composing in the late 1940’s, Thomson did not focus solely on choral or dra- Thomson turned his face away from much of his Four Saints style here, actively seeking out— matic genres. The Songs from William Blake and Four Songs to Poems of Thomas Campion, for in John Cage’s words—“an evocation of ancient times, rich in poetic ambiguity, architectural symmetry instance, both dating from 1951, show his devotion to composition for a solo voice, albeit with varying and rugged strength.” This “almost medieval austerity of mood” is relieved by the eerie presence of accompaniments—in the Blake songs, a full orchestra, in the Campion, the interesting grouping of the percussion: snare drum, bass drum, tom-tom and cymbal, played with an array of different sticks, harp, clarinet and viola. at the precise direction of the composer. Paul Bowles was at the premiere on April 10, 1935, and came Campion, trained as a lawyer and a doctor, was, first and foremost, one of the great lyric-writers away fairly impressed. He found the Mass “serviceable and quasi-streamlined; it is better and more of the late Elizabethan age—and no mean composer in his own right. (All the texts Thomson sets, save personal music than Four Saints.” The percussion gave the work “real punch,” although Bowles felt it “Rose-Cheek’d Laura,” were originally published with Campion’s own tunes.) The twentieth century was used at times simply because it was there. He felt it “clipped off as much as possible the tiny, but settings, full of Thomson’s clear and purposeful prosody, skillfully use their piquant instrumental annoying loose ends of sound left over between words by the singers.” Describing it as a “matter-of-fact, forces to draw out Campion’s textual intricacies. The Four Songs were premiered by Herta Glatz, to hard boiled piece,” Bowles declared “it is no more devout than any group of nuns tidying up the chapel whom they are dedicated. A prominent Austrian-born mezzo of Jewish descent, as luck would have it and looking forward to some rolls and coffee.” she found herself touring the United States at the time of the 1938 Anschluss. Remaining in America, The Mass is pervaded by modal harmonies, and uses them, and carefully applied dissonance, to she made her debut as Amneris at the Met in 1942. After her retirement from the stage in 1955 she make its points. Scrupulously avoiding thirds, Thomson relies on open fourths and fifths to close all had an extensive teaching career in New York and Los Angeles, dying in 2008 at the age of 98. but one of the movements. In the Kyrie, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, the lower voice is given ostinato Four Saints in Three Acts, perhaps Thomson’s most famous work, received its notorious stag- patterns (the octave being particularly prominent), and careful attention is given to textual meanings: ing in Hartford, Connecticut in February 1934. With its conundrum-laced Gertrude Stein libretto, its while the percussion falls away at the “Et Incarnatus” of the Creed, its return at the “Crucifixus” takes all-African-American cast, its Florine Stettheimer cellophane-draped set, its cutting-edge Frederick Ashton on the quality of a Dead-March. Another technique that varies what could have been a monochromatic work is the careful modulation of tempi and of volume markings: the simple Benedictus ranges from Two years after he composed the Mass and the Seven Choruses, Thomson was approached by p through fff and back to a ppp in its brief fifteen measures. As it seemingly evaporates before one’s the documentarian Pare Lorentz to provide a score for The Plow That Broke the Plains, his half-hour- eyes, the Mass appears deceptively simple: not so (ask the Singers and the percussionist!); it, as so long “history of the Great Plains, from the days of the first cattle drives to the punishing drought” of much else in Thomson’s oeuvre, hides more than it shows, and well repays the repeat listening. the 1930’s. The resulting music, which he had composed in just two weeks, was a sui generis pastiche In the same year Thomson was dealing with the League of Composers’ commission, Houseman’s of familiar popular songs, hymns and dances, all brilliantly refracted through Thomson’s own unmis- first Phoenix Theatre project was taking shape: a staging of Euripides’ Medea in a new translation by takable aesthetic, and won rave reviews, especially from Lorentz himself, who actually recut his film the Harlem Renaissance poet, Countee Cullen. The body of the play was to be in prose, but most of its to accommodate it. choruses were cast as poetry, and Houseman wanted Thomson to provide the music. Inspired by the Thus it was no surprise that Lorentz should again turn to Thomson when he was looking for a all-black Four Saints cast, Houseman envisaged a black Medea (to be portrayed by the great Rose composer for his next project, a similar paean to the history and tribulations of the Mississippi, The McClendon), a white Jason, and mixed-race children. Cullen’s translation was the product of a classi- River. The movie was essentially ready in early 1937, but extensive flooding that winter led to another cally inclined mind: he bitterly disliked the idea that a black poet could only write on black subjects. round of filming, even as Thomson was preparing his score. After a good deal of research into the “I am a rank conservative,” he wrote, ”loving the measured line and the skillful rhyme.” This was not “white spirituals” that were just then being studied for the first time, mainly by George Pullen Jackson, a recipe for success in the feverishly progressive ’30’s, but it certainly would appeal to the highly he incorporated many examples into the score, but, as his biographer Anthony Tommasini puts it, “for intellectualized mind of Virgil Thomson, writing his quintessentially American music under the all Thomson’s hard research, most of the tunes that wound up in the score were familiar from his pervasive influence of the French world in which he lived. [Kansas City] youth, including…My Shepherd Will Supply My Need…” The River opened in late 1937, The Medea production, for a variety of reasons, never got off the ground, but Cullen’s translation and so it is not surprising that it was that Fall that Thomson arranged My Shepherd for chorus. He was published in 1935 as were Thomson’s choruses, conceived, appropriately enough, for SSAA: later made versions for men’s chorus, women’s chorus, and, in 1959, for soloist and keyboard. Euripides, after all, assigns them to the women of Corinth. Premiered in 1942 by the Saint Cecilia Club Following the text’s strophic pattern in his arrangement, Thomson is extremely careful to vary each under the direction of Hugh Ross in the ballroom of the Plaza, of all places, they were published that stanza’s tempo, dynamics, and expressive markings. same year. It was Daniel Pinkham who arranged the Seven Choruses for SATB. This version, heard on The three Hymns from the Old South bear a similar close relationship to a film score. As noted the Singers’ recording, debuted at the Gardner Museum in Boston on June 13, 1967, sung by the King’s above, Thomson’s post-1940 Herald Tribune responsibilities had initially limited his composing to Chapel Choir under Pinkham’s direction. Appropriate choir indeed, for Thomson had been King’s Chapel shorter works; his first major premiere, The Mother of Us All, his second opera to a Gertrude Stein libret- organist and choirmaster back in the early ’20’s as he awaited his return to Paris. to, finally took place in May 1947. After a vacation in Europe that summer, he took up the composition Thomson has successfully summoned up the “remoteness and austerity” that Euripides’ words of the score of Robert Flaherty’s Louisiana Story. This was a documentary of sorts, depicting the arrival require, and his “deceptively simple” style (words of a reviewer of the 1940’s publication) eerily projects of “progress,” under the guise of Big Oil, in the bayous of Cajun Louisiana, and Thomson was to pro- the sentiments of the observant women of Creon’s city. “Love, Like a Leaf” shows the care Thomson vide a score laced with the music of the Acadian diaspora as well as the more familiar popular music takes with his prosody, and the faux good cheer of “Happy Were Our Fathers” fits the text like a glove. that had been bone of his bone from his earliest days. The movie was actually—and secretly—fund- The forceful hammer-strokes of “Go Down, O Sun” and the striking fifth and octave leaps of “Behold, ed by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, but both Flaherty and Thomson ignored that little prob- O Earth” set the stage for the majestic final chorus—listen as the tenor and soprano rise up even as lem and turned in memorable work. In Tommasini’s words, Virgil’s “nearly sixty minutes of music [was] the bass inexorably descends in its opening measures, a fit setting of Euripides’ final meditation on except for his operas, [his] longest composition,” and he was “not about to let [it] remain forever the tragedy he has laid out for us. attached to a movie.” The result? He created two orchestral suites from the score, Acadian Songs and Dances, and Suite from ‘Louisiana Story,’ the latter of which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Music, to TEXTS of spirit have fallen over us and our children… date the only film music to have ever achieved that honor. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Louisiana Story was released in September 1948, and it was no doubt in conjunction with his De Profundis (1920/1951) work on the music for that film that Thomson reacquainted himself with the “hymns from the old South” Text: Psalm 130 O my deir hert (1921/1978) that inspired his 1949 choral settings. Indeed, the slow movement of his Cello Concerto, on which he 1. Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord. Text: attributed to Martin Luther (1483-1546), worked from 1946 till 1949, was a set of “muted yet fetchingly colored variations on a tender hymn 2. Lord, hear my voice: O let Thine ear consider anonymous translation tune, Death, ’Tis a Melancholy Day.” The three Hymns were published in 1949; it seems to have been well the voice of my complaint. O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit, a publisher’s brainstorm to subsequently link them with the 1937 My Shepherd Will Supply My Need 3. If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is Prepare Thy credil in my spreit, to create a set of four. done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? And I sall rock Thee in my hert, All three Hymns are strophic, but with fewer variations in tempo, coloration, etc., than in the 4. For there is mercy with Thee: therefore shalt And never mair from Thee depart. earlier My Shepherd. None of the tunes are as familiar to us as that of the earlier work, and Thomson Thou be feared. describes all three as “traditional hymn-tunes from the southern part of the U.S.A.” But I sall praise thee ever mair, 5. I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for Him. With sanges sweit unto thy gloir; The text of “The Morning Star” is anonymous, but both My Shepherd and “Death, ’Tis a Melancholy In His word is my trust. Day” are from the pen of the great eighteenth century English Nonconformist poet and theologian, The knees of my hert sall I bow, 6. My soul fleeth after the Lord before the morning And sing that richt Balulalow. Isaac Watts. “Death” comes from his 1707 Hymns and Spiritual Songs, while the 1719 The Psalms of watch, I say before the morning watch. David, a collection of rhyming paraphrases of the Psalms, is the source of My Shepherd. 7. O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with Him there is Praise be to God eternally, The text of “Green Fields” is by an equally renowned eighteenth century English hymn-writer, the mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. Whilk gave his only Son for me, former slave-ship sea captain John Newton. Newton and his friend William Cowper published their col- 8. And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins. The angel's joy as for to hear, lection Olney Hymns in 1779. We all know Newton’s splendid “Amazing Grace,” but the collection is full Amen. The gracious gift of this New Year. of other gems. “Green Fields,” #46 in the Olney Hymns, is inspired by Psalm 73, verse 25b: “None upon earth I desire besides Thee.” Many of the Olney hymns are filled with “the sense of the withdrawal of God’s Tribulationes Civitatum (1922) Welcome to the New Year (1941) face, coincident with the never-failing conviction of acceptance in The Beloved,” a feeling deeply rooted Text: liturgical responsory, based on the book Text: Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) in Newton’s pre-redemption life: “Green Fields” certainly fits that description. It is equally imbued with of Judith Hey, my lad, ho, my lad! Here’s a new broom its author’s “rich acquaintance with Scripture, knowledge of the heart, directness and force, [along Heaven’s your housetop, and Earth is your room. with] a certain sailor imagination,” certainly apt for a man with Newton’s dicey nautical background. Tribulationes civitatum audivimus quae passae Tuck up your shirtsleeves, there’s plenty to do, In the bad old days of “main-line” church hymnody, tunes like the ones Thomson has arranged sunt, et defecimus…Timor et hebetudo mentis Look at the muddle that’s waiting for you! here were frowned upon or, at best, smoothed out and given more “suitable” texts. We can all be grateful cecidit super nos et super liberos nostros… Dust in the corners and dirt on the floor, that such stupid prejudices have gone the way of the bustle and the hoop skirt. And we can all be glad Domine, miserere. Domine, miserere. Cobwebs still clinging to window and door. that such stupid prejudices never bothered that proud scion of the Show Me State, Virgil Thomson. We have heard what tribulations have occurred in Hey, my lad! Ho, my lad! Nimble and keen, —Watson Bosler the cities, and we are faint…Fear and dullness Here’s your new broom, my lad! See you sweep clean. The Holly and the Ivy (1955/1963) The holly bears a bark There Cherries grow, which none may buy But still moves delight, Text: anonymous, ca. 1557 As bitter as any gall, Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry. Like clear springs renew’d by flowing, The holly and the ivy And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ Those Cherries fairly do enclose Ever perfect, ever in them- Now both are full well grown. For to redeem us all. Of Orient Pearl a double row, selves eternal. Of all the trees that are in the wood, Chorus Which when her lovely laughter shows, The holly bears the crown. Follow Thy Fair Sun Four Songs on Poems of Thomas Campion (1951) They look like Rose-buds filled with snow. Chorus: Text: Thomas Campion (1567-1620) Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow: O, the rising of the sun, Yet them nor Peer nor Prince can buy Though thou be black as night, The running of the deer, Follow Your Saint Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry. And she made all of light, The playing of the merry organ, Follow your Saint, follow with accents sweet, Her Eyes like Angels watch them still; Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow. Sweet singing in the choir. Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet: Her Brows like bended bows do stand, There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move, Follow her whose light thy light depriveth: The holly bears a blossom Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill Though here thou liv’st disgrac’d, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love. All that attempt with eye or hand As white as lily flow’r, But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, And she in heav’n is plac’d, And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ Those sacred Cherries to come nigh Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth. Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry. To be our sweet Saviour. return again. Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth, Chorus Rose-Cheek’d Laura, Come All that I sang still to her praise did tend, That so have scorched thee, The holly bears a berry Still she was first, still she my songs did end. Rose-cheek’d Laura, come, As thou still black must be, As red as any blood, Yet she my love and Music both did fly, Sing thou sweetly with thy beauty’s Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth. And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ The Music that her Echo is, and beauty’s sympathy; Silent music, either other Follow her while yet her glory shineth: To do poor sinners good. Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight: Sweetly gracing. There comes a luckless night, Chorus It shalI suffice that they were breath’d and died, Lovely forms do flow That will dim all her light; The holly bears a prickle for her delight. From consent divinely framed; And this the black unhappy shade divineth. As sharp as any thorn, There is a Garden in Her Face Heav’n is music, and thy beauty’s Follow still since so thy fates ordained: And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ Birth is heav’nly. There is a Garden in her face, The sun must have its shade, On Christmas Day in the morn. These dull notes we sing Till both at once do fade, Chorus Where roses and white lilies grow; A heav’nly paradise is that place, Discords need for helps to grace them; The sun still proud, the shadow still disdained. Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow. Only beauty purely loving Knows no discord: Mass for two-part chorus and percussion (1934) We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory. Pilato passus et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia on the right hand of the Father, whence He shall Text: liturgical; translation by the composer O Lord God, heavenly King, die, secundum Scripturas. Et ascendit in come again to judge in glory both the quick and Kyrie God the Father almighty, coelum: sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. Kyrie eleison. O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, venturus est cum gloria, judicare vivos et And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver Christe eleison. O Lord God, mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis. of life who proceedeth from the Father and the Kyrie eleison. Lamb of God, Son of the Father, who takest Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem: Son who with the Father and the Son is worshiped Lord have mercy on us. away the sins of the world, have mercy upon qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et and glorified, who spake by the prophets. Christ have mercy on us. us; who takest away the sins of the world, Filio simul adoratur, et congorificatur: qui locutus And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Lord have mercy on us. have mercy upon us. [sic] est per Prophetas. Et unam sanctam, catholicam Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the Thou that sittest at the right of the Father, Gloria et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma remission of sin. And I look for the resurrection have mercy upon us. in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resur- of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Gloria in excelsis Deo. For Thou only art holy. Thou only art the Lord. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. rectionem mortuorum. Et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen Thou only, O Jesus Christ, with the Holy Ghost Amen Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. art most high in the glory of God the Father. Sanctus Glorificamus te. Amen I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. of heaven and earth and of all things visible Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Domine Deus, Rex coelestis, Credo and invisible. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Deus Pater omnipotens, And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Hosanna in excelsis. Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe, Domine Deus, factorem coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds. Holy, holy, holy Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata God of God, light of light, very God of very God Lord God of hosts. mundi, miserere nobis. Qui tollis peccata Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium begotten, not made, being of one substance Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. Dei unigenitum. Et ex Patre natum ante omnia with the Father by whom all things were made, Hosanna in the highest. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. saecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum Who for us men and for our salvation came Benedictus Quoniam tu solus sanctus. Tu solus Dominus. verum de Deo vero. Genitum, non factum, down from heaven; and was incarnate by the Tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christe. Cum Sancto consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary, and was made Hosanna in excelsis. Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nos- man. He was crucified also for us under Pontius Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, tram salutem descendit de coelis. Et incarnatus Pilate, He suffered and was buried. And on the Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. good will toward men. est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine: et homo third day He rose again according to the Hosanna in the highest. We praise Thee. We bless Thee, we worship Thee. factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sitteth We glorify Thee. Agnus Dei O gentle heart, O noble heart, Love like a leaf before the wind, shall these sacred waters ferry thee, or gentle Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis; O heart of gold and fire, Lust of the flesh, consuming fire, breezes waft thee home? Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis; On us, dread archer, never bend By all thou holdest dear, thou wild one hear! Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis What destiny could keep that heart The arrows of desire! How wilt thou steel thy hand to do the murderous pacem. From finding its desire? That love in which an equal part deed? How wilt thou turn thy heart to stone? O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the The raging sea, the mighty tide True woman holds with honest man, IV world, have mercy upon us. Were crossed for Jason's sake; Boon of the mind, as of the heart, Medea: Please, Jason, don’t refuse me this. Do O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the Rejected now and cast aside, Grant us, O Cyprian! we not tempt even the high gods with offers of world, have mercy upon us. For Jason let it break! We know thy sorrow, homeless one, gold and blood? The sight of these shining gifts O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the Ye who seek virtue here, pass by; Whom shalt thou call? Or whither flee? may turn the scale in our favor. She is fortunate. world, grant us Thy peace. Greece has forgotten virtue's name. What haven under heav’n, So young, and a queen! And you love her! (English translation by the composer) Here only grief, the stony lie, O exile, waits for thee? But I must think of my sons and the exile that stares them in the face. I would buy their happi- Are found, and lust and shame. III Seven Choruses from the Medea of Euripides ness with my life’s last drop of blood. Go on, my And here wails one A Woman: You must not do this deed! You cannot children. Go to the palace. Bow low and speak (1934/1967) Who has no home murder you own babies. Text: as translated by Countee Cullen (1903-1946) sweetly to the princess, and beg her to let you In earth or air Medea: It is my way to murder Jason. stay in Corinth. And see to it that you give these I. O gentle heart Or anywhere. A Woman: But the agon will be yours. You will be gifts to the princess only. Mind you, no other II. Love, like a leaf II the most wretched woman in all the world. hand must receive them but hers. Then come III. O, happy were our fathers Jason: Now I call on the gods to witness that I Medea: I am that already. So let it come. (She quickly back bringing me the news I long to IV. Weep for the little lambs have tried my best to help this damned woman claps her hands and Nurse comes out of the hear! (Jason and the Children go) V. Go down, O Sun house) Go tell your master I want to speak to and her children. But nothing can change her Weep for the little lambs that die, VI. Behold, O Earth savage heart. Like a viper she must sting him again, that I beg him to come and hear me. VII. Immortal Zeus controls the fate of Man I have no one to trust but you. (The Nurse goes) Weep for the early-slain, herself to death! Weep for the bride so soon to lie Medea: Will you let these Corinthians laugh at Medea: Go leave me, Jason. Even now your Oh, happy were our fathers when, to mighty In golden robes of pain, you, O Daughter of the Sun? No man or woman cheeks are hot and your eyes are wild from Gods in olden days akin, Greece bore the Muses Weep for Medea; weep for her can wrong Medea and live! Ah, they shall pay wanting that other one. Quick, run to the palace. nine. Oh, happy land that Venus smiled upon, Who wields the flashing knife; for their first sleep together and my long nights Go fornicate with her! Enjoy her while you can! thrice happy land breathed on by love! Thrice Weep that a mother's hand should stir alone! I know a bride that will soon take her place! happy land of Arcady! To take her baby's life. (Jason goes out) But thou that wouldst destroy thine own, how V alone and unhappy without them. (She goes into I weep for my dead and call down the vengeance Thy hand, in sight of all my foes, Messenger: At length he could bear the pain of the house) of the Gods on you Medea, the slayer of my children, Doth still my table spread; it no more, and lay down to gasp his life away Behold, O Earth, and thou bright sun, turn not away! who will not even so much as let me touch them My cup with blessings overflows, cheek to cheek with the reeking thing that once Phoebus Apollo, hear or bury them. I curse the day that ever I thrust into Thine oil anoints my head. was princess of Corinth. And there they lie, the Thy children's cry. Behold whose hand would slay! your vile body the seed from which they came! The sure provisions of my God old king and his daughter, a sight to look upon Almighty flame, they bleed (Only Medea’s mocking laughter answers him) Attend me all my days; with tears. Ah, mistress, if you saw them now Who call thee sire. Immortal Zeus controls the fate of man, decrees Oh may thy house be my abode, even you might weep… Rain down thy fire him love or grief; our days the echo of his will, And all my work be praise! As for you who have done this thing, surely there Before this deed be done. resound in fury or pass in nothingness away. There would I find a settled rest, is a weight upon your soul, and you must throw No mortal arm it off in your own way. But now I know for certain The italicized words are Thomson’s changes (While others go and come) Should dare to harm from the original Cullen text. No more a stranger nor a guest, what I have often thought, that man is but a The children of the sun. shadow here, and those the envious hold wise But like a child at home. These are thine own, maternal one, thine own My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (1937) and happy are the thinnest shadows of us all. Heart's breath, thy blood, thy seed. There never was a happy man. One man sees Text: Psalm 23, as versified by Isaac Watts HYMNS FROM THE OLD SOUTH (1949) Shall all thy love, that harvest sown (1674-1748) 1. Morning Star brighter days than another, but never yet was In blood and tears, go feed there one happy man.(The Messenger leaves) My shepherd will supply my need, 2. Death, ’tis a Melancholy Day This wild desire? 3. Green Fields Go down, O sun, in blood, and hide from us the Beware the fire Jehovah is his name; cloud of woes that breaks on Jason's head! For Of them that rule on high. In pastures fresh he makes me feed, Beside the living stream. The Morning Star Creon's daughter let fall our tears, for one so Forbear! Forbear! Text: anonymous young and beautiful and dead. The Gods give ear He brings my wandering spirit back, To innocents that die. When I forsake his ways; How splendid shines the morning star, VI God’s gracious light from darkness far, Medea: These are not my children. I never kissed VII He leads me, for his mercy’s sake, In paths of truth and grace. The root of Jesse blessèd. them, nor held them to my heart. They were never (Medea and her children’s bodies are disappearing, Thou David’s son of Jacob’s stem, dear to me. I never bore them! Believe these borne into the heavens by a miraculous chariot.) When I walk through the shades of death, My bridegroom, king and wondrous Lamb, lies, today, my heart. Tomorrow you may break. Jason: I call upon you, all-seeing Gods of the Thy presence is my stay; Thou hast my heart possessèd. No, though I must murder them, I still know that earth and sky, to witness how she will not pity One word of thy supporting breath Sweetly, friendly, they are my own, my very own, and dearer than me. Behold what I suffer at the hands of this Drives all my fears away. O thou handsome precious ransom, all the world to me, and that I must forever live murderess. Yet with what little strength I have, Set and kept in heav’nly places! Death, ’tis a Melancholy Day His name yields the richest perfume, Text: Isaac Watts And sweeter than music His voice; Death, ’tis a melancholy day His presence disperses my gloom, To those who have no God, And makes all within me rejoice; When the poor soul is forced away I should were He always thus nigh, To seek her last abode. Have nothing to wish or to fear; No mortal so happy as I, In vain to heav’n she lifts her eyes, My summer would last all the year. For guilt, a wearing chain, Still drags her downward from the skies Content with beholding His face, To darkness, fire and pain. My all to His pleasure resign’d; No changes of season or place, Awake and mourn, ye heirs of hell, Would make any change in my mind; Let stubborn sinners fear; While bless’d with a sense of his love, You must be driven from earth and dwell A palace of joy would appear; Alone forever there. And prisons would palaces prove, If Jesus would dwell with me there. Green Fields Text: John Newton (1725-1807) Dear Lord, if indeed I am Thine, If Thou art my Sun and my Song; How tedious and tasteless the hours Say, why do I languish and pine, When Jesus no longer I see; And why are my winters so long? Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flow’rs, O, drive these dark clouds from my sky, Have all lost their sweetness to me. Thy soul-cheering presence restore; The mid-summer sun shines but dim, Or take me unto Thee on high, The fields strive in vain to look gay; Where winter and clouds are no more. But when I am happy in Him, December’s as pleasant as May. The italicized words are Thomson’s variants from Newton’s original text. Gregg Smith Singers Gregg Smith founded the Singers in 1955, when he was a graduate teaching Robert Shaw are the only choral conductors to receive the Alice M. Ditson Conductor’s Award. In 1988, assistant in the music department of UCLA. In 1958 the group took its first the Singers were presented with the Berliavsky Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts step toward international recognition with a European tour that included an and Letters for the group’s tremendous support of American music. In 1992 and 1996, the ASCAP Chorus appearance at the Brussels World’s Fair. America Award was presented to the Singers “for adventuresome programming of contemporary music.” Soon after, the Singers came to the attention of Igor Stravinsky, and In 2001, Chorus America awarded Gregg Smith and the Singers the prestigious Margaret Hillis Award in 1959 they began a 12-year association that ended with Gregg Smith for choral excellence and in November 2003, the American Composers Alliance gave Gregg Smith their traveling to Venice, at the family’s request, to prepare the chorus and orchestra Laurel Leaf Award for distinguished achievement in fostering and encouraging American music. At the for Mr. Stravinsky’s funeral. Chorus America National Convention in June 2004, Gregg Smith was chosen to receive the Louis Botto The Singers made a second European tour in 1961 that culminated in a spectacular concert at award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, presented “for a lifetime of devotion to choral music and unflagging the Edinburgh Festival and a subsequent Time magazine article. A national touring contract followed, and creativity in finding ways to bring it to a broader public, through outstanding performances, recordings in all, the Singers have made 38 national tours, plus a dozen European tours, three tours of the Far East, and the preservation and dissemination of choral manuscripts.” and a trip to Mexico to perform and record contemporary choral music of Mexico. The Singers’ commitment to performing works of living composers and contemporary music can be seen in the following achievements. In 1973, the Gregg Smith Singers initiated both its New Rosalind Rees York City concert series and the Adirondack Festival of American Music (AFAM) in Saranac Lake, New York. Known and admired by musicians for her wide range of repertoire, Rosalind Rees is considered a “com- Both programs have continued annually and provide the major sources for development of the Singers’ poser’s singer” with over 100 premieres, and dedications from such luminaries as William Schuman, American repertoire. Elliott Carter, Louise Talma, Ned Rorem, and husband Gregg Smith. She has also been a Gregg Smith The Singers have received recognition throughout their existence, including three Grammy Singer since 1968 and remembers singing the two Latin motets on this CD in Virgil Thomson’s living awards, two Montreux awards and the Stereo Review 1966 Record of the Year award for their Columbia room at the Chelsea when GSS went there for a coaching! Later she learned the Campion songs for a recording of the music of the Revolutionary American composer, William Billings. Other awards specifi- concert celebrating his 90th birthday. cally honor Gregg Smith’s dedication to contemporary American music. For example, Gregg Smith and PUBLISHERS: De Profundis; Tribulationes Civitatum: Weintraub Music O my deir hert; Welcome to the New Year: Virgil Thomson Foundation The Holly and the Ivy; Seven Choruses from Medea: G Schirmer, Inc. Four Songs on Poems of Thomas Campion: Southern Music Mass for Two-Part Chorus and Percussion: MCA Music My Shepherd Will Supply My Need; Hymns from the Old South: H.W. Gray Publications

AUDIO PRODUCTION NOTE: The rarely heard and infrequently performed music on this wonderful Compact Disc was gathered from recording sessions that took place in both the analog and digital eras. In order to make the recorded material as listenable as possible, some modest measures were taken, during the mastering of this disc, to minimize some of the non-musical sounds that usually accompany the recording process. As a result, the music can now be enjoyed in all of its melodic glory.

RECORDING ENGINEERS: Steve Epstein and David Hancock

Audio Restoration and Compact Disc Mastering by Marty Bronson This recording is funded with grants from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Alice M. Ditson Fund, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Ltd. and the National Endowment for the Arts.

PHOTO CREDITS: Photograph of Virgil Thomson in 1940 by the New York Tribune by Margaret Carson; Photograph of Virgil Thomson ca. late 1940s. MSS29A Virgil Thomson Papers #107; #223 (Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University)

C H

Mass for Two-Part Chorus O R 6 6 and Percussion (1934) [9:37] A 1 L 1

Y 10 Kyrie [1:08] M O U R 11 Gloria [2:06] T S

12 Credo [4:05] I

GREGG SMITH SINGERS C 13 Sanctus [0:30] Gregg Smith CONDUCTOR O

14 Benedictus [0:26] F Rosalind Rees SOPRANO 15 Agnus Dei [1:01] V I Thomas Mulvaney, percussion R G I

Seven Choruses from L s r T e 1 De Profundis (1920/1951) [3:17] the Medea of Euripides (1934/1967) [10:47] g H n i 2 Tribulationes Civitatum (1922) [2:33] 16 I O gentle heart [2:09] O S M h t

17 II Love, like a leaf [1:55] S i 3 O my deir hert (1921/1978) [1:39] O m

S 18 III O, happy were our fathers [1:43] Rosalind Rees, soprano N g

g 19 IV Weep for the little lambs [1:20] e r 4 Welcome to the New Year (1941) [0:45] 20 V Go down, O Sun [0:35] G Steven Vosatka, piano 21 VI Behold, O Earth [2:45] 5 The Holly and the Ivy (1955/1963) [4:07] Solo trio: Georgette Hutchins Steven Vosatka, piano Gregory Davidson | Pedro d’Aquino G

22 VII Immortal Zeus controls the fate of Man [1:35] r Four Songs on Poems e g of Thomas Campion (1951) [7:56] Michael Osrowitz, percussion g N S m O 6 I Follow Your Saint [1:57] 23 My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (1937) [3:44] i S t h

M 7 II There is a Garden in her Face [2:00] Hymns from the Old South (1949) [5:49] S O i n

H 8 III Rose-Cheek’d Laura, Come [2:12] 24 Morning Star [1:08] g e T

9 IV Follow Thy Fair Sun [1:34] r s

L 25 Death, ‘tis a melancholy day [2:10]

I Rosalind Rees, soprano | Katherine Greene, viola

G 26 Green Fields [2:18]

R Steven Hartman, clarinet | Susan Jolles, harp I Total Time = 52:50 V F O C

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