Program - Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

madrigal developed in Italy and quickly spread north
through Europe to England. In France, madrigals
were known as chansons. Claudin de Sermisy, an
early 16th-century French composer, was recognized
both for his chansons and for his religious music, as
he held positions with the French court under several
kings as well as at La Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
Sermisy was strongly influenced by the Italian frottola
style of composition with its harmonic simplicity,
homophonic texture, and attention to the text. This
style is evident in Tant que vivray, as Sermisy uses a
simple harmonic language and subtle text-painting
to tell a beautiful love story. Clément Janequin also
composed in France in the early 16th century. Unlike
Sermisy, Janequin never held a position at a
cathedral or a court, and he focused almost
exclusively on chansons. His chansons are most
famous for their programmatic qualities and use of
onomatopoeic effects to imitate natural sounds.
Toutes les nuits, however, does not follow this
pattern. Instead, it expresses in simple tones the
frustration of a lover who can find his beloved only in
dreams. Claude Le Jeune was one of the most
prolific composers of the second half of the 16th
century. Le Jeune was a member of the Académie de
Poésie et de Musique, which was interested, among
other things, in setting strophic French verses in
ancient classical meters. It is not surprising that this
practice, displayed in the rigid meters and florid
rhythms of Revoici venir du printemps, was very
short-lived. Le Jeune’s recurring meters and rhythms
are occasionally ornamented to create a joyous
celebration of spring and love.
Richard Strauss
Born June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany
Died September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
Germany
Drei Männerchöre, Op. 45
Richard Strauss is best remembered today as the
composer of strikingly original orchestral tone poems
and operas that continued and extended the
groundbreaking changes to harmonic language and
musical structure made by Richard Wagner. Strauss
also wrote little-known works for the male singing
societies of Germany, including Drei Männerchöre,
composed for the Kölner Männergesangverein in
1935. Though written after the height of his prowess
as an operatic and symphonic composer, these
pieces exemplify Strauss’ masterful command of his
musical language and his great sensitivity in setting
the poetry of the German Romantic poet Friedrich
Rückert (1788-1866).
Von den Türen (At the Gates) is a metaphorical
journey through the life of one man—from his early
struggle for wealth and love to his final resting place.
Traumlicht (Dreamlight) paints an almost
impressionistic vision of light and dreams, while
Fröhlich im Maien (Joyous in May) is a strophic romp,
treating the listener to a number of unexpected
harmonic detours and calling on everyone to “dance
. . . joyous in May.”
Steven Sametz
Born in 1954 in Westport, Connecticut
Not an End of Loving
To celebrate 25 years of making music, the members
of the Lehigh University Choral Union commissioned a
set of pieces from their director, Steven Sametz, to be
performed by Chanticleer. The pieces were premiered
at Lehigh University in April 2010. Sametz has had a
close relationship with Chanticleer, writing many works
for the group and conducting it on Claudio
Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. In regard to this
collaboration, Sametz shared the following remarks:
Chanticleer represents the highest levels of
professional choral singing, just as we strive to
achieve the highest levels of amateur choral art. At
the heart of this—the love of singing, and doing
it to our utmost—we have everything in common.
I am deeply honored that the Choral Union has
chosen this means of showing its pride in what we
have accomplished over the years; creating new
music shows us that there is no end of loving (as
the title indicates), especially the love that brings
us together as singers.
The three pieces of Not an End of Loving are
analogous to another work of Sametz’s in
Chanticleer’s repertoire: in time of, recorded on the
Grammy Award-winning CD Colors of Love. Both
works track the passage of time. Not an End of
Loving follows a relationship from its intense
romantic beginnings (Where I Become You) to its
fulfillment of intimacy (We Two Boys Together
Clinging) to the culmination and release into an
eternal bond (Not an End of Loving).
Eric Whitacre
Born January 2, 1970, in Reno, Nevada
This Marriage
An accomplished composer, conductor, and lecturer,
Eric Whitacre has received composition awards from
ASCAP, the Barlow Endowment for Music
Composition, the American Choral Directors
Association, and the American Composers Forum. In
2001, he became the youngest recipient ever
awarded the coveted Raymond W. Brock Memorial
Commission by the American Choral Directors
Association. Commercially, he has worked with such
luminaries as Barbra Streisand and Marvin Hamlisch.
In the last 10 years, he has conducted concerts of his
choral and symphonic music in Japan, Australia,
China, Singapore, and much of Europe, as well as at
dozens of American universities and colleges, where
he regularly conducts seminars and gives lectures for
young musicians. He received his MM in composition
from the Juilliard School, where he studied with
Pulitzer Prize winner John Corigliano. This Marriage,
which sets a beautiful love poem by the 13th-century
Persian poet Mevlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi, was
composed in 2005 as a gift to Whitacre’s wife,
celebrated soprano Hila Plitmann, on their seventh
wedding anniversary.
Sir John Tavener
Born January 28, 1944, in London, England
A Village Wedding
English composer John Tavener showed his musical
talents at a young age, becoming remarkably
proficient at organ and piano. He soon turned his
attention to composition and attended the Royal
Academy of Music, where he won many major prizes
and awards. In 1965, Tavener’s dramatic cantata The
Whale took the London audience by storm at its
premiere, given at the debut concert of the London
Sinfonietta. Since that time, he has been
commissioned by most of the major organizations in
England and the United States. Choral music makes
up the largest part of Tavener’s works, ranging from
simple carols to large-scale works with orchestral
accompaniment.
Tavener joined the Russian Orthodox Church in
1977, and its spirituality, liturgy, and music have had
an impact on many of his compositions. Tavener
notes, “A Village Wedding is a series of musical and
verbal images, describing a village wedding in
Greece. My insertion of Isaiah’s Dance (the moment
in the Orthodox marriage ceremony when the
couple is solemnly led three times around the Holy
Table by the celebrant), and the whole tone of
[Angelos] Sikelianos’ poetry, however, show that
everything in the natural and visible world, when
rightly perceived, is an expression of a supernatural
and invisible order of reality.”
A Village Wedding was composed in 1992 for the
Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music, where it was
premiered by the Hilliard Ensemble. Chanticleer
gave the US premiere in 1995 and recorded it for its
Grammy Award-winning album Colors of Love.
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