Special Christmas Playlist

DEREK'S CHRISTMAS PLAYLIST !!!!!

From Derek:

There's enough here for several days!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1N5PeuPPq-p4xBOorWLTRj8

Here are 25 pieces to carry us through the days around Christmas. I’ve programmed many of the familiar carols, though sometimes in unusual arrangements—for example, Dave Brubeck’s solo piano version of “Greensleeves” and Roland Kirk’s “We Free Kings.” I’ve also included a handful of pieces that may be less familiar to some of us, but that I hope will brighten our Christmas in isolation—for instance, the rollicking “Riu Riu Chiu,” and one of my absolute favorites, “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.” As we come to Christmas at the end of such a difficult year, that piece includes a verse worth remembering: 

I'm weary with my former toil - 
Here I will sit and rest awhile,

I'm weary with my former toil - 
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Sunday Playlist - 12/20/2020

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1N8jZ0srejRABz8FQYr1HGR

I finished the playlist before hearing the news of the shooting of a child in the neighborhood of our church. The sorrow of these pieces takes on a different resonance now. Suffice it to say that, in the words of Isaiah so often applied to Jesus, he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

The list for the final Sunday of Advent sprang from the first piece, a contemporary setting of a poem by William Blake, “The Lamb.” In the voice of a child speaking to a lamb, it’s spoken with innocent assurance. But with dissonance and modal harmonies, Tavener points to the somber subtext of the poem, for the lamb’s destiny is sorrowful.

That sorrow is tangible in Jessye Norman’s a cappella performance of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” an African American spiritual. The speaker understands being ostracized and misunderstood, and laments the suffering that awaits the “sweet little holy child.”

If there are angelic choirs in a paradise, I imagine that they sound like the next work, Morton Lauridsen’s “O Magnum Mysterium.” Lauridsen’s version of the Latin nativity song is sublime—how can we not use that term for such a piece? One of the many aspects that I love is the line “ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,” that animals should see the newborn Lord. Please listen closely at around 4:50, as the chorus returns to this line. I think that Lauridsen wants us to marvel at the mystery in this story. Animals—our fellow creatures that humans so often mistreat and destroy (think of that lamb’s destiny, for example)—bed down quietly beside the incarnation.

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen is our familiar “Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,” probably dating from the Middle Ages. The melody was harmonized by Michael Praetorius in 1609, but while the version by VOCES8 essentially follows that harmony, it is like none other I’ve heard. It has the quality of contemplative prayer.

Finally, we return to the image of the lamb, but now we are the lambs, and Christ the shepherd. “He shall feed his flock” is from Handel’s Messiah, performed here by members of the English ensemble, The Sixteen

Sunday Playlist - 12/13/2020

From Derek:

Sending this tonight, because music keeps me grounded. It also helps me locate something greater even than the beautiful earth we walk on.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MblI6mBCbn8s6gzyGIobWO

This week, I’ve put together a selection of works about the annunciation and Mary—more than my usual five. Believe it or not, I did delete several pieces in hopes of leaving everyone wanting more.

We begin with the carol, “Gabriel’s Message.” Much as I’m trying to postpone Christmas carols for at least another week, this one is on message. Translated from a Basque carol by the Victorian Anglican priest Sabine Baring-Gould, it has the spectacular line, “His wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame.” I’ve followed it with a setting of Mary’s song from the gospel of Luke, the Magnificat, by an Estonian composer who will be familiar to anyone who has been following these lists since the beginning of the pandemic. Although Bach’s setting is greater, Pärt’s is my favorite. Mark the volume and force of “suscepit Israel…”

Next is an instrumental version of one of Hildegard’s many hymns to Mary, “Ave generosa,” performed on viola da gamba by Jordi Savall and his early music ensemble. And again this week, we have work from the Boston Camerata album. In the liner notes, Cohen tells us that the carols are English, while the tune is from an early American hymnal, Wyeth’s Repository.

Finally, I’ve included three settings of the Middle English lyric, “I Sing of a Maiden.” You can find the poem and a modernization here: http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/i-sing-of-a-maiden/

Note how different each interpretation is from the other—the Hadley is so quiet and contemplative, and the Britten (from his Ceremony of Carols) is jubilant. The Bax is the perfect early-20th-century English anthem, with adventurous harmonies (notice the second verse) that always return to the tonic and give us peace.

Sunday Playlist - 12/6/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1NVVX6ErDOtmSP4FHWdTdt8

At Clinton Avenue, we have a tradition of singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” during the Sundays of Advent, adding a verse each week until Christmas Eve. Sadly we cannot do that in the year of COVID19. Of the dozens of recordings on YouTube, I kept being pulled back by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and its cast of thousands. We never sounded quite like that, but I dare say we sang with as much spirit.

In contrast, the second piece is a solo flute version of the American folk song, “Wayfaring Stranger.” Even shorn of the lyrics, this lonely melody in a minor key is a meditation on the melancholic aspect of life's journey. At about the one-minute mark, listen for the single grace note in Jesse Lepkoff’s performance. It’s perfect.

I learned of “Slow Traveler” from the Boston Camerata album. In the song, a soul notices that others are passing him by, happy and quick. But the soul neither envies them nor wishes to be faster. Instead he sings: 

God give you strength that you may run,

And keep your footsteps right;

Tho’ fast you go, and I so slow,

You are not out of sight.

By grace, he suggests, all arrive in the same place.

Next is another traditional American song, the spiritual “I Wonder As I Wander,” similar thematically and in mood to “Wayfaring Stranger,” here sung by Jessye Norman. And we round out the list with another quiet, solo instrumental. Winston gives the tune lots of space and allows the piano to ring. I first heard this album as a teenager, and it probably still affects my playing.

Sunday Playlist - 11/29/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MJLJhG6Gf9kcHVon4axAZc

Playlist for the First Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2020

The seasons of Advent and Christmas are too short for all of the music that I’m eager to share. I’ve always had a weakness for the season’s music—high brow, low brow, and every brow between—so to help me make decisions, I’ve decided to focus principally on my favorite compilations and (sorry purists) to start Christmas during Advent (though not this Sunday!) In 1993, Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata compiled a remarkable album, An American Christmas, in which they brought to light many hymns from the colonial and early Republic eras. It’s been a staple for me each year since, and I’ll include a few of my favorite tracks in the Sundays ahead, including the two for this week, Kingsbridge and Bozrah. Less well-known, the Gregorian Singers, directed by Monte Mason, perform my two favorites from this week’s list: a setting of “Softly and Tenderly,” and the Advent hymn, “Ah, Think Not The Lord Delayeth.” The second verse of that piece is worth quoting:

Not for us to find the reasons,

Or to know the times and seasons,

Comes the Lord when strikes the hour.

Ours to bear the faithful witness

Which can shape the world to fitness;

Thine, O God, to give the power.

We cannot fully understand the year we’ve experienced. I cannot accept that, as some would have it, there is a larger purpose to such misery, that it’s part of a grand design. Rather, I’m persuaded by the message in those final lines. What we can do in the midst of such times, perhaps what we must do, is bear witness to acts of love and care that will “shape the world to fitness.”

I round out this week’s list with an up-tempo rendering of Bach’s “Sleeper’s Awake,” performed by the legendary Dutch organist and conductor, Ton Koopman.

Sunday Playlist - 11/22/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MPrmY_GlkrbSDD9ECAVvxR

For Nov. 22, an array of gratitude songs. We begin with Marie Knight, who had her start with Sister Rosetta Tharpe and has a similar blues, pre-rock-and-roll sound, and we end with a soul classic by Sly and the Family Stone--not exactly religious, but a song of thanks nonetheless. Between, I've included a hammered dulcimer solo of the tune "Ash Grove," which we most often use in the hymn "Let All Things Now Living"; a "lock down" recording of another Thanksgiving hymn classic, "We Gather Together"; and "Jubilate Deo" in Gregorian Chant.

Sunday Playlist - 11/15/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1NZRMlUDpb1lwUWNy9OXkw_

Basant is a Hindustani raga associated with spring. This short performance is taken from a compilation, The Raga Guide. I’ve found this guide helpful as a westerner with minimal knowledge of the music of India. Notice that, as in all ragas, the ascending and descending scale that forms the base melody subsequently goes through many variations. To me, the piece is buoyant and signals hope.

“How I Got Over” is most often associated with Mahalia Jackson, who sang it at the march on Washington. Here it is performed by Joshua Nelson, who teaches Hebrew and sings in the African American gospel tradition.

Next is Renaissance polyphony from Portuguese composer Duarte Lobo, “Audivi vocem,” I heard a voice, based on the text that Pastor Clinton spoke about last Sunday.

Audivi vocem de caelo venientem: venite omnes virgines sapientissime;
oleum recondite in vasis vestris dum sponsus advenerit.
Media nocte clamor factus est: ecce sponsus venit.

I heard a voice coming from heaven: come all wisest virgins;
fill your vessels with oil, for the bridegroom is coming.
In the middle of the night there was a cry: behold the bridegroom comes.

(Text and translation from Wikimedia)

I’ve included another Sacred Harp piece, this one with thematic connections to the Audivi vocem:

Sacred Harp 26 “Samaria”

My spirit looks to God alone,
My rock and refuge is His throne;
In all my fears, in all my straits,
My soul on His salvation waits.
Trust Him ye saints in all your ways,
Pour out your hearts before His face;
When helpers fail, and foes invade,
God is our all-sufficient aid.

Make not increasing gold your trust,
Nor set your hearts on glitt’ring dust;
Why will you grasp the fleeting smoke,
And not believe what God hath spoke?
For sov’reign pow’r reign not alone,
Grace is the partner of the throne;
Thy grace and justice mighty Lord,
Shall well divide our last reward.

 (Text from Sacred Harp Bremen)

Finally, the beat poet, Lawrence Ferlenghetti, reads “The World Is A Beautiful Place.” Beyond “I love this reading,” I’ll say no more.

Update from Derek: Oops. I just realized that I included the wrong lyrics to the Duarte Lobo piece. The correct lyrics are in the video itself and are based on the Latin version of Revelation 14:13. For a setting of the lyrics that I posted in my notes, here is a bonus by John Taverner: https://youtu.be/5QmczRTXVTk

Sunday Playlist - 11/8/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1NCk6WszfG8qf6y9Fp_Bozr

We have had too much noise this week. So the playlist offers peace, space, and silence.

For a translation of the Allegri lyrics, see Psalm 51, which begins:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

For additional wisdom, see the following from the Taoteching, as translated by Red Pine:

Sages have no mind of their own

their mind is the mind of the people

to the good they are good

to the bad they are good

until they become good

to the true they are true

to the false they are true

until they become true

in the world sages are withdrawn

with the world they merge their mind

people open their ears and eyes

sages cover theirs up

Sunday Playlist - 11/1/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OwZ6YkcXnXhn_5EYlw0qXv

A friend of mine who lived in the former Soviet Union claims that at the time, there was a saying, "A pessimist is an optimist who is well-informed."

I like to believe that I'm well-informed, and that there is nonetheless reason to be optimistic that in a few days, we will see that democracy has not died, that the people are not in favor of hate, that they are not against science and evidence, that the US, despite its many sins and shortcomings, still has promise. At least, I pray that's the outcome.

So the playlist this week includes some rousing songs of optimistic protest. Let us hope that the times they are a changin', and that the people united around inclusion and care will not be defeated by the few united around exclusion and indifference.

From Anonymous 4, we have another Southern Harmony piece that seems appropriate for All Saint's Day.

Finally the lyrics to the chant by Hildegard also seem appropriate to both the election and All Saints. (The translation is by Nathaniel Campbell, Hildegard Society):

O Pastor animarum et O prima vox
per quam omnes creati sumus,
nunc tibi, tibi placeat ut digneris nos
liberare de miseriis
et languoribus nostris.

O Shepherd of our souls, O primal voice,
whose call created all of us:
Now hear our plea to thee, to thee, and deign
to free us from our miseries
and feebleness.

Sunday Playlist - 10/25/2020

The playlist for this week: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1N3JEudnWDNKtcdirCsQ2I-

More American folk and bluegrass than usual rose to the surface as I put this list together, and the theme is probably evident enough without my explanation. In the center is a poem that many of us may have first encountered in high school, but the mordant humor and underlying seriousness seemed appropriate to our moment. It contrasts with most of the songs, which encourage hope in an attitude of prayer down by the riverside.

At the risk of ending in solemnity, we return for the last piece to a Gregorian Chant of Psalm 130, De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. Out of the depths, I cried to Thee, O Lord.

Sunday Playlist - 10/18/2020

Here is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Nb1_XA_Oak8mR99jE7w4Ok

As we witness increasing numbers of COVID19 cases across the nation, and even in our own state, which has tried so hard to keep them down, I was drawn this week first to a passage about suffering from Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart (1958). Born in colonized Nigeria, Achebe was one of the greatest novelists and thinkers of the 20th century, and that novel was his first and remains his most influential. I’ve taught it numerous times, and if you haven’t read it, I urge you to do so! In the video included in this playlist, Achebe reads the passage and then reflects on two letters from readers who found solace in it. Notice how he strikes a balance and finds a way of understanding, or at least accepting, suffering.

The music in this week’s list swirled out from this inspired work of literature. On either end of the list are remarkable, live performances of gospel tunes about prayer and healing. However we respond to the literal message, the spirit is clearly alive in these congregations, and faith offers solace. In the middle is a meditative solo passacaglia from Hans Franz von Biber’s series of pieces called The Rosary Sonatas. The panorama of Amsterdam and two guys at a table is distracting, but watch the violinist’s hands and listen to what they’re able to produce.

Sunday Playlist - 10/11/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Nwl_MX3NaNTTQQk0LKPDBb

We begin with another recording from the Lomax archive and the St. James Missionary Baptist Church of Canton, singing “Wade In The Water.” Notice the children singing in the background. Where are they now?

I imagine the Arvo Pärt setting of the Beatitudes and the Coptic chant of the Psalms as a pair—quiet beside exuberance, dissonance and resolution next to bright modal unison.

Louse Glück won the Nobel Prize in literature this week. I’ve included the title poem from her collection, “The Wild Iris,” a mysterious book that sometimes seems like a conversation between a soul and God. Below, I’ve included a transcription of the poem, read in the recording by the poet. 

I had to end with Nina Simone’s performance of the Billy Taylor tune, “I wish I knew how it would feel to be free,” because it’s impossible to follow. Notice that at 3:38, she says, “The Spirit’s moving now…”

The Wild Iris

Louise Glück

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater. 

Sunday Playlist - 10/4/2020

Here is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1O2_b2dBGK8dFq7jzLE4yoO

What shall we say about these days? Increasingly, it seems wise to say less.

In one of my courses this week, we finished Shakespeare’s The Tempest. “We are such stuff/ As dreams are made on, and our little life/ Is rounded with a sleep.”

And in prepping for an advisory, I came again to this tanka by the Zen master Saigyo,

Raindrops, I first thought

as I lay awake in my bed—

but what I heard

was the unbroken patter

of leaves giving in to storms.

(trans. Stephen Carter)

A few notes on the music:

Listen for the “ooh” in the first chorus of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Perfect ornamentation because (I want to believe) spontaneous.

When Jimmie Strothers says, “children!”, something similar happens. Likewise, when Paul Foster of the Soul Stirrers begins to say “yes!” around 2:06.

“The Peacocks” and “Bring Us, O Lord God” are meditative pieces, the first with a young Branford Marsalis alongside the legendary Herbie Hancock and Buster Williams, the second rendered by an a cappella ensemble I’ve often featured, VOCES8.

Sunday Playlist - 9/27/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1P6s9TyfrtznbVM9Fo82zRF

This week, deaths in the US from COVID19 passed 200,000. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a voice of reason and compassion on the Supreme Court, died. An investigation into the murder of Breonna Taylor reached a predictable, insupportable conclusion.

I’ve begun this week’s list with a reprise of our favorite hymn at Clinton Avenue, sung by my favorite gospel voice, Mahalia Jackson.

I’ve then assembled three mourning pieces. The first is Maurice Ravel’s instrumental setting of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead. The second will be challenging listening, but it is so powerful that I felt called to include it: Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.” This particular video animates the musical score and includes a performance directed  by the composer himself. While I do believe that watching the animation can help a listener discern what is happening in the orchestra, I would again recommend simply listening to the piece with eyes closed. I’ve ended the list with John Taverner’s “Song of Athene.” The lyrics include lines spoken by Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, when the prince dies at the end of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” 

Sunday Playlist - August 23rd

For 48 hours this week, I went offline and into the woods. Sammy and I camped at the Devil’s Tombstone, where we encountered no demons dead or alive. But we did hear owls and warblers and the waterfall at Plattekill. That waterfall is featured in the first short video on this week’s playlist. As we watched and listened, I remembered this stanza from W.S. Merwin’s poem “Hearing,” in which he and a companion climb to a falls and dip a tin cup into it:  

I could feel it move
I could feel it ring in my foot in my skin
everywhere
in my ears in my hair
I could feel it in my tongue and in the hand
holding the cup
as long as I stood there it went on
without changing

There is resonance between the sensation he describes and the feeling in the lyrics from another tune in this week’s list:

I stepped in the water one day
I stepped in the water
And the water was cold
It chilled my body, but not my soul
I stepped in the water one day.

The performance of the Heavenly Gospel Singers, as much as the lyrics themselves, communicates the power of this simple metaphor. I feel similarly about the descants in the two English anthems included in the list, though I could find no substantive information about either arrangement or recording. Ralph Vaughan Williams named the first tune Kingfold when he collected it near a town by that name. The melody may be hundreds of years old. “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” is Wesleyan, and the rendering here is straightforward until we reach the final, stunning measures. Wait for it…

Almost 200 years separate the two instrumentals, from Bach to Satie. But they share a contemplative spaciousness, melancholy, and unease. In the Satie, this mood is created by the frequent modulations, and in the Bach, by the minor key, though note the final resolution in the major. Again, a remarkable ending, but this time, in peace rather than astonishment.

Sunday Playlist - August 16

We begin and end  this week’s selections with hymns for communion. The first will be known by everyone at Clinton Avenue, and among the dozens of recordings on YouTube, I was taken by the bass choir director from Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The last is a setting of O Sacrum Convivium by Olivier Messiaen. In the challenging key of F sharp major, Messiaen’s piece offers a wondrous interplay of dissonance and harmony. Note two moments in particular: at the third “sacrum” around 1:35, how it melts back into the major; then the breathtaking “alleluia” that begins around 2:38. Here are the lyrics (trans. from Wikipedia): 

O sacrum convivium!
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passionis eius:
mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.
Alleluia. 

O sacred banquet!
in which Christ is received,
the memory of his Passion is renewed,
the mind is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
Alleluia.

In the middle is an archival recording made by Alan Lomax. Boyd and Ruth May Rivers recorded several gospel tunes for Lomax, and in this first of the set, they talk about their relationship to each other and music. Then Iris Dement, along with an all-star cast of folk musicians, gives us a traditional hymn that includes the story of the Good Samaritan and the words of promise, “he reached down and touched my pain.” Third in the center set is an intercultural ensemble featuring Kayhan Kalhor, an Iranian virtuoso on the kamanche, or spiked fiddle. Elsewhere, Kalhor describes the nature of his improvisatory style. He says that he gives himself over to the spirit of the music, and he never truly knows where it will take him. I recommend listening to some of his solo improvisations for a study of inspiration.

Listen Here.