THE BANKS OF GREEN WILLOW
George Butterworth

Quick Facts
Born: 1885, Paddington, London
Died: 1916, Pozieres, France
Composed: 1913
Length: 7 minutes

It is hard to read the biography of English composer George Butterworth without imagining what might have been.

A close friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Butterworth traveled England's "green and pleasant land," collecting more than 450 folk songs. Butterworth's music was influenced by these songs, and by the land itself.

Butterworth signed up for military service enthusiastically at the outbreak of the First World War. Before leaving home, he took inventory of his catalogue, destroying works that he considered to be unworthy. In 1916, at the age of 31, the Butterworth's life was cut short in the trenches of Pozières, France as a result of a sniper shot. He had attained the rank of second lieutenant, and was posthumously awarded the Military Cross "for conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy’s trenches.”

Composed in 1913, The Banks of Green Willow is a brief, shimmering "Idyll" for small orchestra. It is based on two English folk songs which Butterworth collected in 1907: The Banks of Green Willow and Green Bushes. Beginning with the plaintive voice of the solo clarinet, the music is serene and pastoral. Embellished fragments of the melody drift among the flute, solo violin, oboe, and horn.

The composer described the work as "a musical illustration to the ballad of the same name." The ballad tells the story of a farmer's daughter who falls in love with a young sea captain, becomes pregnant, runs away with him to sea, and ultimately drowns. The captain sings a lament to his true love who "shall be buried on 'The Banks of Green Willow'."

PRAYER FOR UKRAINE
Valentin Silvestrov

Quick Facts:
Born: 1937, Kiev, Ukraine
Composed: 2014
Length: 6 minutes

In the 1960s, Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov was a leading figure in the former Soviet Union's avant-garde. He came to reject the thorny music of his youth, in favor of a post-modern musical style which is often influenced by Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox liturgical music. "I do not write new music," Silvestrov has said. "My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists.”

Prayer for Ukraine, a work for a cappella chorus, was written in 2014 in response to the Euromaidan protests. As a result of the protests, the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was removed from office and fled the country. Prayer for Ukraine is part of a collection of choral works by Silvestrov titled, Maiden Cycle of Cycles. The text translates as, "Lord, protect the Ukraine. Give us power, faith, and hope. Our Father." The performance this evening is a rendition of this beautiful work for chamber orchestra.

Selections from THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM
Randall Thompson
Born: April 21, 1899
Died: July 9, 1984
Composed: 1936

“The Peaceable Kingdom” (1936) is a linked sequence of eight ‘sacred choruses’ to texts from the book of Isaiah, commissioned by the League of Composers for the combined Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society. In March of 1934 the Worcester, Massachusetts Art Museum had acquired a copy of the painting The Peaceable Kingdom by the Quaker artist and preacher Edward Hicks. Thompson was inspired by the painting and the passage from Isaiah 11:6-9 which it portrayed. The composer read all 60 chapters of Isaiah, copying out passages that especially appealed to him. Musically he was inspired by madrigal sequences by composers such as Monteverdi and Vecchi, and also the early American Sacred Harp or “shaped note” singing tradition, which he’d been introduced to in the early 1930s.

The first chorus contrasts the reward of those who do good with that of those who do evil. Choruses two through five elaborate on the lot of the wicked, in sometimes horrific imagery. Choruses six through eight elaborate on the righteous, using the image of singing for joy. The final chorus, the 8-part “Ye Shall Have a Song,” is a summary of Thompson’s own deeply held convictions, in which singing and gladness of heart are manifestations of a righteous spirit.

The Peaceable Kingdom program notes by Pat Anderson

ALLELUIA
George Thompson

Quick Facts
Born: April 21, 1899
Died: July 9, 1984
Composed: 1940

Alleluia was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky and the trustees of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the spring of 1940 for the opening exercises of the new Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in a new anthem to symbolize the center's mission: the performance of music.

The date for the opening was July 8. Thompson had been preoccupied with another commission, but from July 1 to July 5 he was able to turn to Koussevitsky's request. The large chorus was ready to rehearse, but opening day approached and no music arrived. On July 8, with 45 minutes to go, it appeared.  The conductor got his first look at the score and reassured his charges, "Well, text at least is one thing we won't have to worry about." The performance successfully launched a tradition: to this day “Alleluia” is performed each summer at the center's opening.

The anthem's tempo mark of lento was very important to the composer. France had just fallen to the Nazis, and Thompson later explained, "The music in my particular Alleluia cannot be made to sound joyous...here it is comparable to the Book of Job, where it is written, 'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

Thompson’s personal philosophy might well describe the power of music in our current times as well: “I think that in all good music, all good art, the best things transcend tears and express something that is built out of sadness, but rises through spiritual elevation to truth, beauty, and love.”

Alleluia program notes by Pat Anderson

MASS IN C MAJOR ("Mass in Time of War")
Franz Joseph Haydn

Quick Facts:
Born: 1732, Rohrau, Austria
Died: 1809, Vienna, Austria
Composed: August, 1796
Length: 40 minutes

A revolutionary current runs through Franz Joseph Haydn's Mass in Time of War (Mass No. 10 in C Major). It approaches the liturgy with a new sense of tumultuous drama, with military fanfares ringing out in the closing movement. The rumbling artillery of its timpani rolls earned the work the nickname, Paukenmesse ("Kettledrum Mass"). In a way which foreshadows Beethoven's Missa solemnis, the instrumental lines take on new dramatic prominence, rather than simply doubling vocal lines.

While Haydn was writing this music in August of 1796, Napoleon's army was defeating Austrian forces in battles throughout Italy. France and Austria had been at war, more or less, since the end of the French Revolution, and now there was fear that Vienna itself could soon be under siege. It was Haydn who gave the autograph manuscript the title, "Missa in tempore belli." A private performance may have been given for Haydn's employers, the Esterhazy family, on September 13, 1796. The first public performance took place on December 26 of the same year at Vienna's Piarist Church of Maria Treu.

The Kyrie begins like a symphony, with a slow introduction preceding the main theme. The opening bars are filled with a sense of foreboding. Emphasizing musical form over strict adherence to the text, Haydn repeats Kyrie Eleison ("Lord have Mercy"), and provides only four measures for the following text, Christe Eleison.

The Gloria unfolds in three parts which mirror the traditional symphony: Allegro-Adagio-Allegro. Throughout the middle section, the solo cello joins the bass in a lamenting, extended duet which accompanies the words, Qui tollis peccata mundi ("Who takes away the sins of the world”).

The opening of the Credo erupts with joyful counterpoint, and shifts to a solemn triple meter for the Crucifixus. The movement concludes with a truncated fugue which is interrupted by an elaborate, celebratory coda.

The Sanctus takes a sudden, stormy turn on the words, pleni sunt coeli, and finds a joyful resolution with Hosanna in Excelsis.

The Benedictus is filled with anxiety, with sudden jarring forte accents. With military drumrolls and bugle calls, the liturgy coexists with the ominous sounds of the battlefield.

Haydn said that a soft, persistent drumroll in Agnes Dei "should sound as if one heard the enemy approaching in the distance." The final line, Dona nobis pacem erupts as a triple meter dance, accompanied by trumpet fanfares and timpani. This is peace achieved at great cost through triumphant military victory.

Haydn program notes by Timothy Judd, thelistenersclub.com