PROGRAM NOTES

Jesu, meine Freude, the longest and most elaborately constructed of Johann Sebastian Bach’s six extant independent motets, may have begun as a considerably shorter work to which the composer added other pre-existing music. If this theory is true, there is yet more reason to be astounded by his limitless craft and creativity, for in joining older compositions to what may have been a two movement composition, “Es ist nun nichts Verdammliches” and “Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich,” Bach created an intense, powerful and dramatic work that marks the high point in his–or anyone’s–motet compositions.

This motet, alternating seven successive verses of the chorale text of Johann Franck on a melody by Johann Crüger, Jesu, meine Freude, with verses from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, progresses with inexorable fervor from its beginning to the close. However, a larger symmetrical design, in which the identity of the first and last three words, Jesu, meine Freude, seems an inspiring spark, points to the Pauline message that lies in the center of the motet: “you are not of the flesh, but rather of the spirit.” This heart of the motet is a spacious fugue–the only music unambiguously in the major mode–that seems to levitate, unencumbered by gravity. Stretching outward in either direction from this center lie movements that reach over it and toward each other in pairs. The connection of pairs becomes increasingly obvious toward the extremities: the two trios relate through their three-part voicing, the two stile antico movements use the same musical material, and, ultimately, the two identical, straightforward four-voice harmonizations of the chorale melody that weaves its way through the entire work anchor the arch spanning the whole.

Despite the musical and spiritual light at the center of Jesu, meine Freude, the motet’s prevailing gritty, steel-grey tone is inescapable. The pair of elegant trios and the blissful “Gute Nacht” offer welcome respite, but their quieting influence is not enough to soften Bach’s multi-faceted response to the idea of Jesus as “my beginning, my end,” and to the struggles that lie within.

To some musicologists, the authorship of the motet Lobet den Herrn may be in doubt. Their questions, however, never arise from observations about the actual music, nor does anyone offer a candidate who could have written music of such contrapuntal sophistication, ease, and expression other than Bach himself. This, the most succinct of his free-standing motets (there are numerous single-movement motets within the cantatas), pours forth as if propelled by one unstoppable, elated breath. The elegant and increasingly excited interweaving of the four parts illuminates the generosity and breadth of the 117th Psalm, words that embrace all nations, all peoples, all eternity.

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Like Bach’s music, Heinrich Schütz’s motets have served as rich inspiration for John Harbison’s work, especially his sacred choral music. Technical assurance, contrapuntal discipline, and imaginative responsiveness to the texts are important marks of all three composers. Much of Harbison’s But Mary Stood, especially the two unaccompanied movements, suggests the reserved, beneath-the-surface complexity and attraction to systematic thinking that characterize Schütz’s Geistliche Chormusik 1648, a collection of motets largely for unaccompanied voices. But the Prelude and the instrumentally illuminated, character-motivated third movement of Harbison’s Sacred Symphony suggest Schütz’s group of twenty-one highly expressive and colorful motets for mixed ensembles of soloists, chorus, and obbligato instruments, the Sinfoniae sacrae III of 1650.

Each composition in Schütz’s mature and forward-looking collection defines its own rich character, many motivated by texts that are biblical stories or parables. From the festive nobility juxtaposed with madrigal-like exclamations that lift “Come, Holy Spirit, Lord and God,” to the imploringly human scene between the twelve-year old Jesus and the lovingly reproachful Mary and Joseph, to the splendid sinking lines in “Behold, this Child is Set for the Fall,” the three motets on this program offer a small sample of the wealth of the Sinfoniae sacrae III. Freer in spirit and more mobile in compositional style than Geistliche Chormusik, these abundantly imaginative works laid a colorful path for the next 100 years of German music, especially the cantatas of J.S. Bach. And their influence can still be observed today.

– David Hoose

Program Note: John Harbison
But Mary Stood

         But Mary Stood (2005) was commissioned by the Cantata Singers in honor of David Rockefeller, Jr.
        It begins with a Prelude for string orchestra, actually composed last.  It is a summary of many of the musical questions posed in the other movements.
        Next come two choral motets, both resulting from requests from important women in my life: my mother-in-law and my mother.  These women were both political activists and religious seekers.  They asked me (many years ago) to memorialize them with settings of their favorite scriptural passages.
        The word “Charity” frames the text from Corinthians and is set as a symmetrical musical emblem, held by forces from above and below.  More ambiguous harmonies describe various states of incomplete knowledge.
        In Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled the aural picture contrasts the idea of the Consoled, remaining behind, with Christ in His upward journey.
        Much of this music was composed while working with the Cantata Singers on Bach’s St. John Passion.  There, at the moment of Jesus’ death, the two Marys move to the center of the stage.  Jesus’ words to John, “Behold your mother,” ignited the power of the anima in the prayers and iconography of early Christianity. 
        Mary Magdalene, her presence both contrasting and complementary to Jesus’ mother, is the first to see that the tomb is empty, the first to meet the risen Christ, the first to report it.  (“Do not touch me,” says Christ in the King James version. “Cease clinging to me, “ is the 1976 translation by the Catholic Council.) John, the last gospel writer, responds to the longing for the Eternal Feminine: compassion, approachability, and sensuality.
        My concluding movement, But Mary Stood, for soprano, double choir, and string orchestra, proposes the soloist as both Narrator and Mary, the double choir as Jesus.  These three characters each have their own vocabulary, family related.  The setting envisions a Mary Magdalene who was the true intimate of Jesus, who understood, intellectually and intuitively, his purpose on earth.
        In composing a piece to honor longtime Cantata Singers leader and colleague David Rockefeller I resolved to make something that would live close to the center of the themes typically associated with the Cantata Singers.  All of us who have been involved with this organization have been grateful for the places the subject matter has taken us.  This was at the heart of David’s devotion to the group, and I feel privileged to be able to add to our common legacy.
        

First performance: Sunday, March 19, 2006; Cantata Singers, David Hoose, conductor, Boston.