Timeless Inspirations
While the earliest composition in our holiday concert dates from less than 40 years ago, nearly all of them present texts that go back centuries, all the way to medieval ballads, the early Church Fathers, and the Bible itself. The ancient texts have inspired composers to find unexpected rhythms and harmonies, even as the music reveals new aspects of these older words. Together, they offer us new treasures for the holiday season.
Despite its timeless feel, “Totus Tuus” (Totally Yours) actually has a relatively new text. Recent Polish writer Maria Boguslawska based it on an 18th-century prayer by St. Louis de Montfort that had deeply influenced the young Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, who chose its opening words of complete devotion to the Virgin Mary as his motto as Pope. Polish composer Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) began his career as a leader of Poland’s musical avant-garde in the 1950s, but by the 1970s he had moved to a meditative style, similar to that of Arvo Pärt, often termed Holy Minimalism. After protesting the government’s refusal in 1979 to invite the new Polish Pope to Katowice University where he taught, Górecki composed “Totus Tuus” to celebrate the Pope’s later visit to Poland in 1987. Drawing on his national heritage and Catholic faith, Górecki based it on themes in a medieval hymn, Poland’s oldest, titled “Bogurodzica,” which honors Mary.
Born in Oslo, Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978) moved to the United States in 2001 to study composition at Juilliard and film music at the University of Southern California; after many years in New York, where Dreamweaverhad its premiere in 2014, he now lives in Southern California. With brilliant new lyrics by American poet, teacher, and medieval scholar Charles Anthony Silvestri (b. 1965), Gjeilo based Dreamweaver on a medieval Norwegian folk ballad titled “Draumkvedet” or Dream Poem, which was passed down in various versions by oral tradition until around 1840. The poem resembles other visionary works from different cultures, including Dante’s Divine Comedy. In many, the protagonist undergoes otherworldly experiences—danger, death, hell, paradise, and redemption. Dreamweaver’s first and last movements, which mirror each other, frame the thirteen-day dream of Olav Åsteson, from Christmas Eve until Epiphany. In between, Gjeilo almost cinematically depicts the afterlife. The dream begins calmly enough but soon leads Åsteson across a perilous bridge, filled with threatening creatures and suffering humans, to a blissful place, where he is greeted by a gentle female spirit, almost like Beatrice in Dante’s Paradiso. Like the rest of sinful humanity, he appears for judgment before Christ, only to find himself unconditionally loved and saved. Gjeilo repurposed the last movement as “Chorale,” which we performed with him in 2015 in a full concert of his music. Both pieces envision a world of people living without hope, trapped by sin, grief, and regret, until Christ comes to free souls from their guilt with his love.
The words for “Alleluia” (2020) by Dr. Elaine Hagenberg (b. 1979) date back even further, to The City of God by St. Augustine of Hippo early in the 5th century. Hagenberg chose a remarkable short passage that envisions how, as we grow in insight and love, we come to understand that our worldly end is but part of Divine Providence. An accomplished pianist and singer who formerly composed at home in Iowa while her children were young, Hagenberg has become a prominent choral composer in the past decade, with many of her works focusing on religious themes. This joyful piece treats the word “alleluia” with excitement in 7/8 meter and the deep assurance of being part of God’s plan in an energetic 4/4 meter.
A Southern California native, with a doctorate in music from the University of Southern California. Zanaida Stewart Robles not only composes music that draws on gospel, rock, and classical influences, but also teaches, conducts her own ensemble, directs a church choir, and performs as a soprano soloist in live performances as well as in films and on television. She composed her setting of “Veni Sancte Spiritu” in 2012 while working at USC with choral master Morten Lauridsen, who had set the same text as a movement of his Lux Aeterna. Alternating between Latin and English phrases, Robles built her setting around an original love song she had written in 2001, titled “End of Time.” The text comes from a medieval sequence hymn prescribed for Pentecost Sunday and probably dates back to the 13th century; it has inspired settings by composers as diverse as Palestrina, William Byrd, Mozart, and Arvo Pärt.
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) features Robert Frost’s famous text, which he wrote in 1923, and seems to be a very new piece of music, published only last May. In actuality, Whitacre composed this setting of the beloved poem in 2000, on commission from vocalist Julia Armstrong as a memorial for her parents. After two performances, he learned that the poem was still under copyright and that the Frost estate would not allow his song’s publication or any future performances. Whitacre then asked his friend and frequent collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri if he could write new words for it, using the same rhyme scheme. This produced one of their most popular works, “Sleep,” which Whitacre used for his Virtual Choir, whereby recordings by singers around the world were edited together into a single performance. Such long-distance virtual collaborations became common during the Covid pandemic, but it felt very innovative in 2011, when more than 2000 singers from 58 countries sang this work together. In the intervening years, the poem emerged from copyright and we can at last present this setting as Whitacre had always intended.
Illuminare by Elaine Hagenberg has special significance for many of our musicians because David De Lyser and the University of Portland Singers participated in a consortium of choruses that commissioned this, her first extended work, and presented its regional premiere in 2021. In her invitation letter, she envisioned drawing on “lesser known hymn texts from centuries ago” to produce “an inspirational work relevant to our generation and current culture.” As she explored the theme of light revealing the glory of God’s creation, even through times of “distress and turmoil,” she found her inspiration in some of the oldest texts in this concert.
St. Ambrose (340-397), an early Church Father often credited with the conversion of St. Augustine (whose words we sang earlier in Hagenberg’s “Alleluia”), wrote the words for “Splendor” as a hymn, like his many others, to encourage the use of music in worship. The tender “Caritas” is by Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a German Benedictine abbess and mystic, who not only directed her religious order, but also did pioneering work in natural history, medicine, philosophy, and poetry, as well as composing original music. Born in Roman Spain, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348-413) wrote both secular and religious poetry, and some of his translated hymns are still sung today. Tellingly, Hagenberg prefaces her setting of his dark text, “Nox,” with the opening words of the Catholic Mass, Kyrie eleison, begging for divine mercy. St. Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I, 540-604), author of “Munera Pacis,” revised much of early church liturgy, especially in the use of plainchant in worship, known even today as Gregorian chant. This movement concludes, in English, with reassuring words from the Gospel of John, which connects to the last movement with the Canticle of Zechariah from the Gospel of Luke, in the radiant “Illuminare.”
Our two featured works, Illuminare and Dreamweaver, resemble each other. In addition to their use of a string orchestra, they both take listeners on musical journeys, beginning in a familiar, even gentle world, through central movements full of terrifying sights and feelings, and arriving at last in a place of redemption, wholeness, peace, and light. We hope our concert will bring these gifts to you, now and in the new year.
Susan Wladaver-Morgan