Sunday Playlist - 5/16/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1O7dWwQOThWxtfoW2LZ_Roz

Mahmoud Darwish was, in essence, the Palestinian National Poet. His work speaks to the experiences of the occupation and resonates with the tragic events of the past week. I do not, unfortunately, read Arabic, but I've included a recitation in both Arabic and English of one of his most famous poems, "Identity Card." Palestinians are required to carry such a card, and it determines where they are allowed to travel in their own homeland--including whether they can enter Jerusalem. Even without a knowledge of Arabic, I believe that we hear something of the meaning of the poem in this speaker's impassioned voice. After she reads in Arabic, she reads again in English.

The Psalm that follows is meant to carry forward the theme, and is answered by the riveting solo by Geoffrey Golden. Next, Shaheen and Khcheich perform a traditional Arabic love tune, and we end with my beloved Hildegard, in an antiphon on "divine wisdom" Here are the lyrics, as provided by the Hildegard Society website:

O virtus Sapientie,
que circuiens circuisti,
comprehendendo omnia
in una via que habet vitam,
tres alas habens,
quarum una in altum volat
et altera de terra sudat
et tercia undique volat.
Laus tibi sit, sicut te decet, O Sapientia.
O Wisdom’s energy!
Whirling, you encircle
and everything embrace
in the single way of life.
Three wings you have:
one soars above into the heights,
one from the earth exudes,
and all about now flies the third.
Praise be to you, as is your due, O Wisdom.

Sunday Playlist - 5/9/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OI3tYMVyiYYHeWTpAsw5Uj

Very early on Friday morning, I had the opportunity to teach a poetry seminar online to a small group of college students from Afghanistan. In their course at the American University of Central Asia, they had been reading about the history of slavery in the Atlantic world, so I chose poetry accordingly. We listened to Paul Robeson sing "Go Down, Moses," a spiritual that I've also included as the first song on the playlist this week. Understandably, this history and culture were unfamiliar to the students, but their interest and engagement were impressive. And they brought a unique perspective to it. Near the end of our conversation, one of the students wrote in the Zoom chat that she felt a connection to some of the poetry because as an Afghani, she is often troubled that everyone in the world seems to think of her and her people as "terrorists." How might we work to change that narrative? Perhaps we begin by seeking to know others at least as well as they attempt to know us. Americans are notoriously culturally self-centered. We might also keep in front of us at all times one of the beatitudes (also set to music on this week's list): "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."

Sunday Playlist - 5/2/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OhporMRjeL2CPQ8tLS1xcE

This week's playlist begins with a question--several questions, actually, but all with a common thread. Listen to John Lennon's "How?" I suspect many of us have asked similar questions over the past year, and may be doing so now as the virus begins to rage in India and continues to cause pain and suffering in our community. The pieces that follow aren't answers, exactly, but they are responses that could bring solace and point toward hope. We again here the remarkable harmony of the Echoes of Zion virtual choir who declare, "You Are My Hiding Place," followed by a four-part song from Thomas Tallis that begins:

God grant with grace, he us embrace,

In gentle part, bless he our heart;

With loving face shine he in place,

His mercies all on us to fall.

That piece led me to the Detroit Mass Choir singing, "God Is." Watch the faces of the choir as they become more and more involved in the promise of that gospel song. Finally, in a different mode and mood, Horowitz places the A minor mazurka of Chopin. I think of the composer, one of the most gifted pianists and melodists of 19th century Europe, chronically ill with tuberculosis. How could he go forward into something he wasn't sure of? He left us something of grace and beauty.

Sunday Playlist - 4/25/2021

From Derek-

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Pph3xDiN3uJv0J4aOVeH-P

This week's list begins with a virtual choir singing "Give Me A Clean Heart." When we are looking back on Covid19 as a horrible thing of the past, artifacts such as this, born out of necessity and a desire to make music with a community, may remind us that people can create beauty against significant odds.

Next we have "How Firm a Foundation" as it might have been heard circa 1800. I've also included a second version of that favorite hymn, performed bluegrass-style by a family group. That style and group put me in mind of the Carter Family, so I have ended the set with one of their most popular hymns, "On The Rock Where Moses Stood."

In the middle is a famous orchestral piece by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although it snowed in the mid-Hudson valley on Thursday, I am determined to declare that spring has arrived, and the violin solo that opens "The Lark Ascending" is a declaration.

Sunday Playlist 4/18/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MGv9utzO_-IQy9EBhZ6pHA

"Please ask yourself, 'What nourishes joy in me? What nourishes joy in others? Do I nourish joy in myself and others enough?'"--Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.--Julian of Norwich

Sunday Playlist - 4/11/21

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1NvokfyVl309cl1cIW2O5IZ

"And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, it seemed, and it was as round as any ball. I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and I thought, 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus: 'It is all that is made.' I wondered how it could last, for I thought it might suddenly fall to nothing for little cause. And I was answered in my understanding: 'It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it; and so everything has its beginning by the love of God.' In this little thing I saw three properties; the first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God keeps it."--Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

This week's list began with that passage from Julian. Several pieces swirled around it before I settled on the handful you'll hear. For me, the newest discovery was Neville Peter, whose bluesy version of "Near The Cross" seemed just right for the week after Easter. I've also included a duet by two artists we've heard before, Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabate, an exceptional example of improvisation on a pair of instruments (kamancheh and kora) not often set side by side. 

Holy Saturday Playlist 4/3/21

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1NdEpn11K-u8ksx3NjHJj9e

"Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?" (Stabat mater dolorosa v.6, trans. Edward Caswall)

"And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments..." (Luke 23: 55-56a)

Sunday Playlist - 3/28/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1PZkWDlNj-dnSdvvA-wstmp

We have come full circle. It's Palm Sunday, more than a year into the pandemic, and we cannot gather to sing "All Glory Laud and Honor." Instead we'll listen to it performed by King's College. That may not be a disadvantage, just a difference. Listening surely connects us across time and space, and it can open our imaginations and hearts to something greater than the brokenness we've witnessed too often over the past year. That, at least, has been the rationale of these playlists, now over a year old.

Palm Sunday expresses joy before the inevitable darkness, and I sense that joy in the second piece, a traditional Klezmer tune played by the Andy Statman Trio.

This is followed by a gospel number, "We Need You Right Now, Lord." Donny Hathaway sang with Roberta Flack and had a few hits in the 70s. He suffered from mental illness, and I imagine that he must have sung that lyric in earnest.

The fourth piece is from Bach's cantata for Palm Sunday. It features another version of woodwind virtuosity to echo the Statman Trio. The lyrics invite listeners to lay themselves and their hearts before Jesus like the palm leaves.

Finally, Statman returns to introduce a Bill Monroe tune played by Ricky Skaggs. It's a love song, but also a kind of prayer, as you'll notice, and the Statman solo is mesmerizing.

Sunday Playlist - 3/21/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MFbBO1C7aN4IzS7GybuvVX

In one of the early sutras, a goddess asks the Buddha how he came through a flood. He replies that he crossed by neither halting nor straining. The goddess is puzzled and asks how that could be. The Buddha's reply is that when he stopped, he sank, but when he struggled, he was swept away. So he neither stopped nor struggled.

In a hymn that I've posted before--and have done so again today--Mahalia Jackson asks herself how she got over. How did your soul get over the floods of life? Like the Buddha, or Jesus for that matter, she doesn't answer directly. Instead, she points to her faith practice and implies that's how she got over.

At either end of this week's list are two women who blended gospel and a guitar style that would come to be associated with rock-and-roll: Elizabeth Cotten and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. If you don't know them, treat yourself to their work over the next week.

I've also included a pair of instrumentals that, to my ear, complement each other: Gevorg Dabaghyan (on duduk) and Eric Dolphy (on clarinet, with Mal Waldron's group).

Sunday Playlist - 3/14/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MZcPpsUOBkzuaXeNByRhOa

Pastor Joy reminds us that on the one-year anniversary of phone church, we have reason to be joyful despite the hardships. So this week's playlist is an ode to joy.
We begin with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. I didn't know about this duet until I began research for this week's list, but isn't it perfect? The funk beat rocks with happiness, and the lyrics will make you smile--"who snatched ol' man Jonah/ from the belly of a whale?"
Next up is a Clinton Avenue favorite, "Every Time I Feel the Spirit." Of the many versions I listened to, I was most smitten with this one. Hang on till the final minute, when this vocalist takes the spirit to the next level.
Even in a joyful mode, I cannot put together a list without a contemplative moment. John Coltrane's "Naima" was introduced to me many years ago now by our former CAUMC bassist/flautist/trumpet player (what couldn't he play?), Karl. Some of you will remember him--a brilliant musician.
The series of jigs performed by the Bothy Band may seem an odd addition to a church playlist. But soon it's St Patrick's Day, so perhaps there's an oblique ecclesiastical connection. If you're not sure that this music is joyful, notice the expression on Donal Lunny's face at around 3:47. He's the one playing the bouzouki (a similar instrument to the baglama we heard from Turkey last week). He may be smiling because they've just picked the tempo up a notch. I ran a metronome: 150 beats per minute. It's remarkable that their hands didn't catch fire.

We end with a unique version of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Maybe it was exhaustion and sentimentality--I was pulled right into this orchestrated flash mob, and I will confess that as I watched it, I became all verklempt. Consider the mind that conceived the melody--one among many that he gave us. Sometimes, when nothing else can do it, music offers hope that we're more than bodies that suffer and groan and fight each other. A person, with all his failings and brokenness, thought of this melody, the harmonies and orchestration, and set it down for the ages. Amen.

Sunday Playlist - 3/7/21

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MmHYD9_4jsXWLZR2Wz1xmp

In searching for a setting of “Wade in the Water” to include on this week’s list, I had the good fortune to come across a video by a group of young men from Albany State University. They sing an a cappella medley of spirituals, and their arrangement and harmony are magnificent. 

Next we have more harmony, this time in the form of a part song by English composer Charles Villiers Stanford. “The Blue Bird” is a setting of a poem by Mary Coleridge, great grandniece of Samuel Taylor (if you don’t know her work, see also her haunting “The Other Side of a Mirror”). Here is the lyric to follow as you listen:

The lake lay blue below the hill,

O’er it, as I looked, there flew

Across the waters, cold and still,

A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,

The sky beneath me blue in blue,

A moment, ere the bird had passed,

It caught his image as he flew.

Harmonically, this setting bears some resemblance to the Pärt that we heard on Wednesday evening. The resonance of the soprano line and the lack of resolution in the final measures bring out the sense of something fleeting and beautiful that Coleridge’s poem offers.

In the piece by Selda Bagcan,“Walking on Thorns,” we hear the baglama, a long-necked lute of various names found in many Mediterranean and Central Asian cultures. I haven’t located a reliable translation of the lyrics, but the plaintive mood of the piece comes through in the voices and instruments.

In contrast, we next have the adagio from Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata. For years, this melody served as the introduction to a public radio show called “Adventures in Good Music,” hosted by Karl Haas. Listening to that show on a transistor radio is how I first became acquainted with classical music, so this adagio has a particular place in my heart.

Finally, we close with “People Get Ready” performed by Curtis Mayfield, who wrote the song. You may be more familiar with other performances, but it’s a treat to hear it from Mayfield himself

Sunday Playlist - 2/28/21

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MChFqGsvCdfyIB0moSMdWi
We begin this week with a recitation of a Langston Hughes poem and the gospel number, "I Don't Feel Noways Tired." We've heard that one before by a different artist (from James Cleveland several months ago). Back then (my, we've been a long time in this pandemic...), we also heard a different rendering of "You Know My Name," the second song on the list. Both speak address healing--the energy of the first song, the assurances of the second.

We move then into a meditative space. "Haru no umi" is a piece for shakuhachi and koto by Michio Miyagi. The title means "The Sea In Spring." With the sun finally breaking through in the northeast, maybe we can begin to envision such landscapes.

Finally, we have an instrumental and an antiphonal version of the French hymn, "Oui, je me lèverai et j'irai vers mon père," (Yes, I will arise and go to my Father.") The refrain is from the story of the prodigal son, and the text is drawn in part from Psalm 51, a song of penitence traditional for Lent.

Sunday Playlist 2/21/21

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Mb0LOi2HcO-BaQGD-AdB2s

On Ash Wednesday, I happened on the online service of Middle Collegiate Church, a social justice space that rivals our own at CAUMC. As you may know, their building was heavily damaged by fire in December 2020, adding more pain to the suffering of the pandemic. Like us, they are gathering in a virtual space now (theirs online, ours on the phone) from different places, but it was clear that they are still one in the cause of love and justice. We begin with a recording from 2019, a performance at Middle Collegiate of “For Every Mountain."

Next on the playlist, we have Ara Dinkjian playing the oud with the Istanbul Strings on an album that commemorates the Armenian genocide. This piece, which according to the liner notes is part of the Armenian sacred repertoire, is called, “Lord, Have Mercy.”

Mahalia Jackson sings a hymn that in my youth, I played perhaps more than a hundred times for altar calls in the Baptist church. There would be meetings when the preacher was so certain that someone was being called to the altar that he’d tell me just to keep playing. That’s one way to learn how to improvise on a hymn melody.

For our playlists, I’ve often turned to archival recordings from the Lomax collection, and this week, we hear again from the Sensational Friendly Brothers, “Where Shall I Be When The First Trumpet Sounds.”  I am moved by the joy of this performance, the sheer enthusiasm and talent, and I’m grateful that it was caught on record.

Finally, to go out in a contemplative mood, I’ve included the sarabande from the Bach Partita in A minor for solo flute.

Sunday Playlist - 2/14/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1O1rMxBJmndFfcvw5Sp99vv

We begin this week with a contemporary version of the Golden Gate Quartet performing "Go Down Moses." Those of you who have been at Clinton Avenue for a few years might remember how much the kids loved singing this. It's followed by an English anthem, a setting of John 3:16.

At the center of this week's list is the melody "Beech Spring." You might recognize it as the tune for several Protestant hymns. Here we have it first on solo mandola, then as the basis of the Sacred Harp song "Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy," and finally from a family trio playing dulcimers and guitar.

Listeners were enthusiastic about the duet from The Pearl Fishers that found its way on the list a few weeks ago. So I've rounded off this week with an aria from that opera, performed by Lawrence Brownlee.

Sunday Playlist - 2/7/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OEofDeLkrT0Y_OxHpnajzt

Music models the way that different sounds, even dissonant voices, can become something strange and beautiful when they work in relation to each other. We have too little harmony in the nation right now, but it's the gift of all the works on this week's playlist. You'll notice that each is in four voices or parts, and while there is a great variety of styles, all tend toward harmony and resolution.

"O vos omnes" by Tomas Luis de Victoria is a setting of verses from Lamentations that seem particularly appropriate for these dark days, "behold and see if there be any sorrow, like my sorrow..." The Dry Branch Fire Squad harmonizes around a gospel classic about the healing that follows touching the hem of Jesus' garment. "Saint's Delight" is another Sacred Harp work from the Southern Harmony, and in "God Told Nicodemus" we get four-part joy from The Golden Gate Quartet. In the jazz piece that closes the list, we hear from pianist John Esposito (who is at Bard College) and the legendary Pharaoh Sanders on sax.

Sunday Playlist - 1/31/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Ov1O-GTNAK12PO8Ju7Sssp

Last week we heard Will Liveright in a duet from a Bizet opera. This week, he sings one of Clinton Avenue’s favorites. His blues-inflected rendering of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” has given me new ideas in just the way that Iris Dementhe’s version did.

I have been prepping a poetry syllabus over the past week, which includes a section on death and the elegiac mode. Struggling with the fact of mortality, Keats wrote his “Ode to a Nightingale” not long after he witnessed his brother’s slow death to tuberculosis. The poet himself would eventually succumb to the disease. In the poem, Keats first longs for oblivion, but then he changes his mode of confronting his pain from wine to song. As Stephen Fry reads, note the reference to Ruth, when Keats imagines that the biblical heroine in her sorrow was touched by the same song as he.

The lyrics of the motet for six voices by Alonso Lobo are taken from the Book of Job—“My harp turns to grieving, and my flute to the voice of those who weep.” Listen to the highest soprano voice around 4:30, while all of the voices converge on the Latin for “for my days are as nothing.”

Again this week, we swerve to a bluegrass classic. “Drifting Too Far From the Shore” has many, many recordings, but this one wins for simplicity and sincerity. Ricky Skaggs plays mandolin and sings lead, John Starling play guitar and harmonizes. If you like it, let me know, and I’ll include other versions in the future.

We end with a plaintive melody for duduk, a double-reed wind instrument. Over a steady drone that serves as a ground, the Armenian master, Gevorg Dabagian, plays “A cool breeze is blowing.”

Sunday Playlist -1/24/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1Nl0PNxL9Uq71CBlcTMPdPv

This week’s list is more eclectic than usual. But each piece and performance has a story, and perhaps the eclecticism will mean that something will touch you, whatever your state of heart.

Morton Feldman composed the work from which the first piece is taken as a commission for an octagonal chapel in Houston where 14 Rothko paintings are installed—the final works before his tragic death. The chapel is named for him, and this mysterious piece from Feldman’s suite is for viola, vibraphone, and voices.

When Pastor Joy told me that she would be reflecting on the passages where the disciples are called to be fishers of people, I began hearing the duet from The Pearl Fishers. Now, Bizet’s opera has nothing to do with the gospel story, but the duet does concern a spiritual experience, in which two friends recall seeing a goddess in a temple as the town was called to prayer. Notice, in particular, when the main musical theme returns at the end of the duet. This is a gorgeous performance.

The melody to “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” is Kingsfold, a folk tune claimed by both the English and Irish and given its name by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who lived near the village of Kingsfold and used the melody in several of his works. Like the return of the melody in “Au fond du temple saint,” the descant in the final verse of this hymn will transport you. 

Next we swerve to something completely different, though still harmonious. The bluegrass supergroup, Hot Rize, is young in this recording, and decked out in their 70s best. They perform “Prayer Bells of Heaven.” Then, continuing in the mode of tent revival favorites, we end with Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “The Old Rugged Cross,” a favorite among his fans (my grandfather having been one of the biggest). 

Sunday Playlist - 1/17/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1M8ICS6xDHpaq0ii-mSEzNQ

When I listen to Mavis Staples sing “Precious Lord” or “Sit Down Servant,” or when I hear Lucille Clifton read one of her poems, I am persuaded that there is something greater than we can understand or adequately name moving through their art. Consider the Heavenly Gospel Singers. They could not have imagined that their inspired performance, 40 years later, could cause a soul in New York to tremble and smile with joy. In the midst of a pandemic, with people who profess to be both Christian and patriotic attacking the Capitol and threatening the republic itself, I’m grateful beyond words for that recording, made by a group of men who actually had reason to be angry at the country that treated them as second-class, men who had good reason to be skeptical of the promises of their faith, but who sang about being so inspired that they couldn’t sit down.

And we end with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who, unlike those who violated the capitol building, had cause to protest and invoke freedom of speech, a man whose witness and courage should humble all of us into action.

Sunday Playlist - 1/10/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OAFfSGUZeFfPVCLXfYtuap

The theme in this week's playlist follows from the harrowing week we've experienced--a week in which the events in Washington were so severe as to overshadow the tragic escalation of the pandemic. The three traditional pieces--by Ethel Waters, Roma Wilson, and the Carter Family--testify to an insistent hope against hope. As the Carters sing it,

When this world's all on fire

Let thy bosom be my pillow

Hide me over, Rock of Ages,

Cleft for me

The instrumental pieces, all in A minor, say what words can't.

Sunday Playlist - 1/3/2021

Here is the playlist for the first Sunday of 2021: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MKXo_4RyZt_2TDsAJdNlhi

We begin with a raga for the early morning--Bhairav--somber and contemplative. I've then stumbled on a treasure--a video of George Harrison and Paul Simon singing "Here Comes The Sun" in their best 70s outfits. The video contains a bonus that the title doesn't announce. I'll let that be a pleasant surprise.

We continue this trend toward the sunny and uplifting as the Mississippi Mass Choir performs, "When I Rose This Morning," followed by the harmonica pyrotechnics of Roma Wilson on "I Got Just What I Wanted."

Herbert's "The Flower" is a 17th century metaphysical piece that might be more properly a spring poem. But the metaphor of renewal--"in age I bud again/After so many deaths I live and write..."--suits our moment. At least, we can hope that a spiritual spring is upon us and our nation, and that by the actual spring, the virus will be increasingly under control.

We end again in contemplation: Henryk Gorecki's "Amen." Note his brilliant use of semitones. I did name one of my books after that tiny, dissonant interval, so I'm partial to it.