Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church presents Thomas Lloyd’s Bonhoeffer Sunday, March 17, 2019 4:00 p.m. Sanctuary Welcome Welcome to this afternoon’s performance of Thomas Lloyd’sBonhoeffer . On behalf of the choir, I thank you for attending and hope you will return for our upcoming events - Daryl Robinson’s organ recital on March 31 and our performance of Bach’s St. Mark Passion on April 19. These past ten weeks of rehearsals have been intense, challenging, ear-opening, and ultimately, inspiring. Living, as we have, with the remarkable story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, intertwined as it was with his fellow theologians and his beloved fiancée, Maria, has taken us on a journey that has profoundly touched each of us. How does one wrap one’s mind around the life of a peace-loving theologian who ultimately participates in a plot to murder Adolf Hitler? Bonhoeffer’s story has challenged us to ponder what is right and wrong, matters of living the faith in challenging times, and how to be courageous. I am deeply grateful to Tom Lloyd for having the courage to tackle the composition of Bonhoeffer. Tom has succeeded in getting inside Dietrich and Maria’s minds and hearts. You hear their struggles. You are moved by a love that ultimately was thwarted by Bonhoeffer’s death at the hands of the Nazi’s. For me personally, the setting of Bonhoeffer’s favorite biblical passage, the Beatitudes, is simply brilliant. Through masterful use of rhythm and bi-tonality, Tom depicts the challenge of living these words. Framed as they are by recordings that Bonhoeffer would have known - first Paul Robeson’s Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child and later a recording of the Hall Johnson Choir singing Walk together Children, you feel Bonhoeffer’s struggle as he tries to sort out what to do to stop the tide of evil. My greatest gratitude goes to the men of the Bryn Mawr Chamber Singers and our staff singers, Elizabeth Weigle, Corinn Altomare, and Misoon Ghim. They have invested a breathtaking amount of time and commitment into this project. To be associated with them is my greatest privilege. Bonhoeffer is a remarkable story, one that has inspired us and one that will inspire future generations. We pray that your journey with us through Bonhoeffer helps you in your spiritual path. –Jeffrey Brillhart, Director of Music and Fine Arts Bonhoeffer is, by far, the most challenging piece of music I have ever sung. It is also the most emotionally significant. Tracing Bonhoeffer’s journey during the war years and ultimately to his death, the piece beautifully joins music and text. The most meaningful part for me is the last line of the final movement, which affirms Bonhoeffer’s certainty that we are all God’s children, when he states Who ever I am, thou knowest oh God, I am thine. –Bill Adelhelm, baritone Bonhoeffer is an incredibly complex work. I am most challenged by the text. From the opening statement of faith by abandoning any attempt to make something of oneself and trusting fully on God through the depiction of the Church as a voice for the voiceless, to the final declaration of being God’s, Bonhoeffer’s words continually force me to question my life and if I am living it as I should. After all, obedience to God’s will should take precedence. With words that trigger such a huge range of emotions, the intricate harmonies provide incredible text painting and capture so much feeling. I cannot imagine music that would better fit the text. I hope that in hearing it, you will be changed as I continue to be changed in singing this magnificent work. –Rob Mygatt, baritone Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life experiences elicited a complex mixture of love, passion, anger, doubt, sadness, and beauty to name just a few. For me, the music in Tom Lloyd’s oratorio exquisitly captures and reflects all of these feelings and the ambiguity surrounding them. –Bill Bosch, baritone Page 2 Program Please silence electronic devices. No flash photography or recordings are allowed. This program is approximately 75 minutes in duration. I. Meditation - I Discovered Later Colin Doyle, soloist I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a ...sinner, ...a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one... In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world – watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is ....metanoia;... - [Letter to Bethge from Tegel – July 21, 1944 (day after failure of Stauffenberg plot (LPP p 369-70/486))]. Musical reference: Franz Schubert, “Gute Ruh” (final lied of Die Schöne Müllerin - Bonhoeffer wrote a piano trio arrangement of this song as a teenager, and often performed piano trios with his brother Klaus and cousin Rüdiger Schleicher among others) II. Scene - Flossenbürg Andrew Burgmayer, Colin Doyle, Jeffrey Wilber, and Cody Müller, soloists (final worship service before Bonhoeffer’s execution) [texts for the day used in an unplanned worship service at the prison, as reported in several biographies] Bonhoeffer leading the congregation in worship: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; he bore the punishment that made us whole, and by his stripes we are healed. [Isaiah 53:5] Nun ruhen alle Wälder, [Now rest all the woods, Vieh, Menschen, Städt und Felder, Cattle, people, city, and field, Es schläft die ganze Welt; The whole world slumbers; Ihr aber, meine Sinnen, But you, my senses, Auf ,auf, ihr sollt beginnen, Up! Up! You shall begin Was eurem Schöpfer wohlgefällt. What your Creator has set before you.] - Gerhardt; (Isaac/Bach) “Through God’s mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” [1 Peter 1:3] Two prison guards: “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready and come with us!” [EB 927] Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this unusually lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. ...In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” [H. Fischer-Hüllstrung, “A Report from Flossenbürg,” IKDB, 232 (EB 927)] Page 3 III. Meditation - Life, What Have You Done to Me? Life, what have you done to me? Why did you come? Why did you go? Past, when you flee from me, Are you not still my past, my own? (from the poem, “The Past” – LPP 321/419) IV. Scene - Letters Elizabeth Weigle, Corinn Altomare, Misoon Ghim, Colin Doyle, Andrew Burgmayer, and Jeffrey Wilber, soloists Maria: His frequent visits at the hospital with my Grandmother surprised me, and I was impressed by his devotion. We often had long talks together at this time… Being still deeply affected by my father’s death, I needed his help. [(Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 331)] Bonhoeffer: …only from a heart that is tranquil, unconstrained and healed can something good and right emerge; …and I consequently pray – forgive me for putting it like this – that God will bring us together again soon, very soon. Can you understand that? Do you feel just as I do? I hope so – indeed, I can’t conceive of any other possibility... [Letters from Cell Block 92, 334-5] Maria: The innermost reality still stands, even though I don’t love him…I know that I will love him...Mother says he’s an idealist and hasn’t given it careful thought. I don’t believe that… [Letters from Cell Block 92, 337 - 12/19/42] Bonhoeffer: Don’t say anything about the “false picture” I may have of you. I don’t want a “picture,” I want you; just as I beg you with all my heart to want me, not a picture of me. [Letters from Cell Block 92, [1/17/43] 340] [Drum motive and organ return] Maria: I can’t go on like this. I have to know – are you really in danger? What am I doing? Forgive my weakness. I must call you. I must hear from your own lips what is going on. Why don’t you keep me posted? I don’t understand you. [Letters from Cell Block 92, [3/8/43] 343] Musical references: - Schütz, “O süsser, O freundlicher,” SWV285 - Beethoven, Piano Sonata, Op. 111, 2nd movement V. Meditation -In This Particular Case Colin Doyle, soloist In this particular case it really is now or never. “Too late” means “never.” …if there are none who are “violent in order to take the kingdom of heaven by force”* then [we] are no longer the church, but a useless association in which fine speeches are made.” [letter to Henry Louis Henriod (Swiss theologian and ecumenical World Alliance leader) (original in English) – vol 12, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, 219] * a reference to Matthew 11:12 as interpreted by Bonhoeffer. Page 4 VI. Scene - Church Capitulation Rev. Franklyn C. Pottorff, with Jeffrey Wilber and Cody Müller, soloists [confrontation with Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller EB322] organ begins scene with the a prelude interweaving Bach’s “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (Awake, cries out the voice), and the Nazi anthem “Deutschland Erwaken” (Germany, Awake!).