11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 1 Sunday Evening, November 20, 2016, at 8:30 Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage Changing Lives through the Power of Performance Iris Derke, Co-Founder and General Director Jonathan Griffith, Co-Founder and Artistic Director presents Eternal Light DISTINGUISHED CONCERTS ORCHESTRA DISTINGUISHED CONCERTS SINGERS INTERNATIONAL MORTEN LAURIDSEN Lux Aeterna I. Introitus II. In Te, Domine, Speravi III. O Nata Lux IV. Veni, Sancte Spiritus V. Agnus Dei – Lux Aeterna BRADLEY ELLINGBOE, Guest Conductor Intermission HOWARD GOODALL Eternal Light: A Requiem (NYC Premiere) I. Requiem: Kyrie: Close now thine eyes II. Revelation: Factum est silentium III. Litany: Belief IV. Hymn: Lead, kindly light V. Lacrymosa: Do not stand at my grave and weep VI. Dies Irae: In Flanders fields VII. Recordare: Drop, drop slow tears VIII. Revelation: Tum angelus tertius clanxit IX. Agnus Dei X. In Paradisum: Lux aeterna JONATHAN GRIFFITH, DCINY Artistic Director and Principal Conductor HOWARD GOODALL, DCINY Composer-in-Residence SARAH JOY MILLER, Soprano SCOTT JOINER, Tenor STEVEN EDDY, Baritone PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. 11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 2 WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Use #ETERNALLIGHT to post your post-concert and intermission photos and comments to @DCINY on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram! DCINY thanks its kind sponsors in education: Artist Travel Consultants, VH-1 Save the Music, Education Through Music, High 5, and WQXR. For information about performing on DCINY’s series or about purchasing tickets, e-mail [email protected], call (212) 707-8566, or visit our website at www.DCINY.org. DISTINGUISHED CONCERTS INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK 250 W. 57 STREET, SUITE 1610 NEW YORK, NY 10107 (212) 707-8566 Notes ON THE PROGRAM MORTEN LAURIDSEN (b. 1943) Lux Aeterna Duration: 27 minutes For the complex and moving five des Roses, and O Magnum Mysterium) movement non-liturgical requiem Lux which recur throughout the work in Aeterna, Lauridsen selected and set five various forms. Several new themes in sacred Latin texts, the opening and the Introitus are then introduced by the closing of the Requiem Mass and three chorus, including an extended canon sections of the Te Deum, all of which on “et lux perpetua.” In Te, Domini, contain references to light. In this and Speravi contains, among other work, Lauridsen combines compelling musical elements, the cantus firmus melodies with tonal harmonic structure Herz liebster Jesu and a lengthy invert- and his characteristic use of disso- ed canon on fiat Misericordia. O Nata nance. The accessible Lux Aeterna was Lux and Veni Sancte Spiritus are paired composed for the Los Angeles Music songs, the former a central a cappella Center on April 13, 1997. Lauridsen motet, and the latter a spirited, jubilant commented in the published score: canticle. A quiet setting of the Agnus “The instrumental introduction to the Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, Introitus softly recalls motivic frag- which reprises the opening section of ments from two pieces especially close the Introitus and concludes with a joy- to my heart (my settings of Rilke’s ful Alleluia.” Contre Que, Rose from Les Chansons — Morten Lauridsen 11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 3 HOWARD GOODALL (b. 1958) Eternal Light: A Requiem Duration: 40 minutes The writing of a Requiem is a special the death of loved ones, a loss that is challenge for any composer. The cata- not easily ameliorated with platitudes logue of mighty predecessors is one about the joy awaiting us in the after- thing. Victoria, Mozart, Verdi, Brahms, life. A number of recent events in our Berlioz, Fauré, Dvorˇák, Duruflé, not to collective experience and one or two on mention the Britten, Ligeti and Lloyd a private level has reinforced for me the Webber settings in more recent times. I catastrophic grief that follows the loss, had the additional challenge of con- particularly, of young people. The ceiving a choral piece that would be death of someone before their time danced by the dazzlingly exciting fights nature and those of us who are Rambert Dance Company, choreo- left have few if any ways of coming to graphed by their Artistic Director, terms with it. Musical expression can I Mark Baldwin. hope provide some outlet, some reflec- tion, some transportation, even possi- The Catholic liturgical template from bly some comfort. I discussed this at which all those famous Requiems stem, length with Mark Baldwin and the the Missa Pro Defunctis, takes as its ways in which its resonances might be basic premise the notion that the living interpreted, illuminated and further intercede on behalf of the souls of the explored in dance. This was to be a departed in the hope they are granted Requiem for the living, a Requiem everlasting life. In this tradition, all focusing on interrupted lives. humans are deemed sinners by virtue simply of being human, never mind Eternal Light: A Requiem was first what else they might have got up to, produced in 2008, the 90th anniversary and are urgently in need of our prayers of the end of World War I, possibly the and supplications. There is an emphasis last such commemoration with any sur- in settings from the Middle Ages to the viving combatants, and though it was Enlightenment on judgement, hellfire not deliberately conceived thus, it is and damnation, an emphasis that powerfully appropriate that the central Berlioz and Verdi hammered home Dies Irae movement takes as its vision with their famously cataclysmic Dies of hell the horror of armed conflict. Irae movements. Alongside the Latin text phrases I have juxtaposed John McCrae’s haunting I took what you might call a Brahmsian war poem In Flanders Fields. McCrae, route. Brahms broke from tradition by a Canadian military doctor of great dis- selecting German-language texts not tinction, died on the Western Front in found in the ancient Latin funeral rite January 1918. His poem is read each and by his intention that the Requiem year at Canadian Remembrance servic- could provide solace to the grieving es. In our creative discussions we who live on, rather than dire warnings agreed that the hideous losses of the of damnation, or pleas for the departed Great War still feel relevant, given that as they linger in purgatory. the soldiers of that conflict were little more than the age of today’s school For me, a modern Requiem is one that children. Poppies, the universally acknowledges the terrible, unbearable poignant symbol of that war, are newly loss and emptiness that accompanies significant now, as Allied troops fight a 11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 4 current campaign amidst opium poppy slow tears. Other texts are drawn from fields in Afghanistan. The technique of Francis Quarles, Mary Elizabeth Frye placing English poetry with fragments and Ann Thorp. of the Latin, often sung simultaneously or antiphonally between soloist and In all these verses there is a common choir, characterizes the whole work. theme of compassion for the bereaved. One section of Latin text comes not The sacred texts offer everlasting light as from the Requiem mass but from the an image of resurrection and survival for Book of Revelation, with its descrip- the departed. I do not seek to contradict tion of the coming of the Angels of the the Judaic-Christian faith in life after Apocalypse. The Recordare movement death, merely to examine it through the combines with Phineas Fletcher’s early- prism of our modern experience. 17th century sacred poem Drop, drop —Howard Goodall 11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 5 Texts and Translations Lux Aeterna Morten Lauridsen I. Introitus Requiem aetemam dona eis, Domine: Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, et and let lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet perpetual light shine upon them. A hymnus hymn Deus in Zion, et tibi redetur votum in befits thee, O God in Zion, and to thee a Jerusalem: exaudi orationem meam, vow shall be fulfilled in Jerusalem: ad te Hear my omnis caro veniet. Requiem aetemam prayer, for unto thee all flesh shall dona come. eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. II. In Te, Domine, Speravi Tu ad liberandum suscepturus To deliver us, you became human, and hominem did non horruisti Virginis uterum. Tu not disdain the Virgin’s womb. Having devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus blunted the sting of death, You regna opened the coelorum. Exortum est in tenebris kingdom of heaven to all believers. A lumen light has rectis. Miserere nostril, Domine, risen in the darkness for the upright. miserere Have nostril. Fiat Misericordia tua, Domine, mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us. super nos quemadmodum speravimus Ley mercy be upon us, O Lord, as we in te. In te Domine, speravi: non have trusted in thee. In thee, O Lord, I confundar have in aetemum. trusted: let me never be confounded. (Please turn the page quietly.) 11-20 DCINY.qxp_CH Rental 11/10/16 4:19 PM Page 6 III. O Nata Lux O nata lux de lumine, Jesu redemptor O born light of light, Jesus, redeemer saeculi, of the dignare Clemens supplicum laudes world, mercifully deem worthy and accept preces que sumere. Qui came quondam the praises and prayers of your supplicants. contegi dignatus es pro perditis. Nos Thou who once deigned to be to be membra clothed in confer effici, tui beati corporis. flesh for the sake of the lost ones, grant us to be made members of your holy body.