International Tour program Final

directed by Douglas Lawrence AM

INTERNATIONAL

TOUR PROGRAM

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DUNKELD

MIDDLE PARK

MELBOURNE

KOKSIJDE

BONN

BRAUNSCHWEIG

BERLIN

NÖRDLINGEN

8 June at 3 pm

Sterling Place Community Centre

14 Sterling St, Dunkeld, VIC,

Australia

16 June at 3 pm

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

210 Richardson St, Middle Park,

VIC, Australia

1 July at 8 pm Our Lady of the Dunes

Church, Flanders International

Summer Organ Festival

Kerkplein 2, Koksijde, Belgium

4 July at 8 pm Bonn Cathedral

(Münster)

Münsterplatz, Bonn, Germany

5 July at 7 pm St-Andreas-Kirche

An d.Andreaskirche 1,

Braunschweig, Germany

7 July at 10 am Berlin Cathedral. The

ACC is the guest choir at the

Sunday morning service.

Am Lustgarten, Berlin, Germany

9 July at 7 pm Georgskirche

Marktplatz, 86720 Nördlingen,

Germany

2

SOLLN

11 July at 7:30 PM Apostelkirche

MUNICH Konrad-Witz-Straße 17,

Munich-Solln, Germany

VILLACH

VENICE

VENICE

CASLANO

LUGANO

DARMSTADT

MACEDON

ON ACCess from

12 July at 8 PM St Jakob, Oberer

Kirchplatz 9, Villach, Austria

13 July at 5.45 PM San Marco

The ACC is the guest choir at the

Service of Evening Prayer

Basilica di San Marco,

Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy

16 July Palazzo Pisani (private event)

San Marco, Venice, Italy

17 July at 8:30 PM

Chiesa di San Cristoforo, Caslano

Ceresio Summer

Via Chiesa 4, 6987 Caslano,

Switzerland

20 July at 8 PM Pauluskirche

International Summer Organ

Festival

Paulusplatz, Niebergallweg,

Darmstadt, Germany

17 August at 3 PM Church of the

Resurrection, cnr Mt Macedon Rd

& Honour Av, Macedon, VIC,

Australia

17 August at 3 PM

3

Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian Chamber Choir rehearses in Melbourne,

on the land of the Kulin nation. We acknowledge the

Wurundjeri people as the traditional custodians of this

land. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander peoples and to their Elders past, present

and emerging.

A definition of ‘Australian’

Broadly standardising the

responses in relation to ancestry

from Australia’s 2021 census,

Australian residents identify their

origins as 57.2% Anglo-European,

33.7% Australian (including 3.8%

Indigenous), 17.4% Asian, and 5.9%

other peoples. (Some residents

identify with two ancestry

groups.)

Cornelis De Jode Map (c.1593),

recognised as the first map of

Australia

This program is selected from

the repertoire for the Australian

Chamber Choir’s 2024

international tour (described on

pages 2 and 3). The program

could be seen as reflecting Australian society, in that it

demonstrates a melting pot of cultural influences:

European, Asian and Indigenous.

4

PROGRAM

TWO RENAISSANCE MOTETS

GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA (1566–1613)

Tu es Petrus

GIOVANNI GABRIELI (1554–1612)

Jubilate Deo

THREE WORKS OF OUR TIME

CHRISTINE MCCOMBE (born 1967)

Power in Stillness

ROBIN ESTRADA (born 1970)

Aire de Nocturno – I am afraid of the dead leaves

GORDON KERRY (born 1961)

Alchemy: A setting of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXXIII

CHARLES VILLIERS STANFORD (1852–1924)

Magnificat for double chorus, op.164

FRANK MARTIN (1890–1974)

Songs of Ariel, nos. 1-3

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225

5

Thank you to

our donors!

We are immensely

grateful to our donors

(listed on pages 30 to

34) for the important

part that they continue

to play in the success

story that is the

Australian Chamber

Choir.

The ACC provides a

Kieran Macfarlane and Amelia Jones.

Image: Emma Phillips

DONATE

rigorous training ground for young professional singers.

Payment to all singers for their work as Australian

performing and recording artists is an important

affirmation of their standing as professionals. With this

training behind them, singers like Amelia Jones (pictured

above), Erika Tandiono and Jacob Lawrence can pursue

careers singing with UK and European ensembles.

Income from the Support Fund is used to commission

new works; to subsidise concerts for which income from

ticket sales does not cover costs, such as for some

regional concerts; and to provide a financial base to

support the payment of our singers for the long term.

We would love to welcome you into our lively group of

supporters, the lifeblood of our organisation.

6

PROGRAM NOTES

TWO RENAISSANCE MOTETS

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, TU ES PETRUS

Born in Palestrina (near Rome), between 3 February 1525

and 2 February 1526; died in Rome, 2 February 1594

The text of this Motet by Palestrina includes the line, as

reported by Matthew (16:19) in which Jesus says to Peter,

‘I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven’. This

same text was the inspiration for Pietro Perugino’s

painting Delivery of the Keys (shown on the cover of the

ACC’s new CD, below), painted on the northern wall of

the newly completed Sistine Chapel in 1481. Giovanni

Pierluigi da Palestrina was appointed Master of the

Capella Giulia (then the choir of the Sistine Chapel) in 1551.

He was, no doubt, inspired by Perugino’s fresco when he

composed this motet.

7

NEW CD Keys to Heaven

Palestrina’s Tu es Petrus,

from today’s program

Agatha’s Cantata – the

first recording of music by

an orphan of Venice’s

Ospedale della Pietà

Allegri’s Miserere and

Christus resurgens

Browse CDs

PALESTRINA

EXPLORE 2024 PROGRAMS

‘There are days when something of heaven seems to

touch the earth,’ said presenter Stefan Wegener of the

ACC’s first performance at Berlin’s Kaiser-Wilhelm-

Gedächtniskirche in 2007. Perhaps the rapturous

concord of Palestrina’s musical offerings acts as an ideal

conduit between earthly and heavenly spheres. Indeed,

one might enlist the words ‘purity’, ‘clarity’, and ‘ringing’

to describe Palestrina’s sonic excess in the hands of

capable musicians. Equal in popularity to the Missa Papae

Marcelli and motet Sicut cervus, Palestrina’s Tu es Petrus

exhibits stylistic hallmarks of the ‘Palestrina style’,

characterised by forward momentum, scalic motion,

alternating ensemble entries, and singable phrase

lengths. The intelligibility of text is central to this music:

natural word stresses, a steady pace of declamation, and

interlinking poetic fragments serve to emphasise a

central message rather than muddy the soundscape. In

the motet, listen for clearly defined ascending lines to

the text ‘and I will give you the keys to heaven’ (et tibi

dabo claves regni caelorum), perhaps pictorialising the

pursuit of heaven. Yet, this master’s textual efficacy

manifests not only in surface-level text expression, but

equally through the thoughtful organisation of structural

elements. Consider, for example, the symbolism of the

Holy Trinity through three iterations of a stanza, three

overarching structural divisions, and three-part vocal

sonorities. These intertwining three-voice clusters

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PALESTRINA

9


ultimately yield to a thicker six-voice texture in the

closing phrases to represent heaven in all its splendour.

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc

petram aedificabo

ecclesiam meam,

et portae inferi

non praevalebunt

adversus eam:

et tibi dabo

claves regni

caelorum.

Quodcumque ligaveris

super terram,

erit ligatum et in caelis.

Et quodcumque solveris

super terram,

erit solutum et in caelis.

Et tibi dabo

claves regni

caelorum.

© Leighton HG Triplow, 2019

Thou art Peter, and upon

this rock I will build

my church;

and the gates of hell

shall not prevail

against it:

and I will give unto thee

the keys of the kingdom of

heaven.

And whatsoever thou shalt

bind on earth,

shall be bound in heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt

loose on earth

shall be loosed in heaven.

And I will give unto thee

the keys of the kingdom of

heaven.

Matthew 16:18–19 (King James)

Giovanni Gabrieli, JUBILATE DEO

Born in Venice, circa 1557; died in Venice, 12 August 1612

‘Ye immortal gods, what a man!’ raved Heinrich Schütz,

remembering his former teacher, Giovanni Gabrieli. He

GABRIELI

built on the musical

foundations which

his uncle and fellow

Venetian Andrea

had left, with aweinspiring

results.

Unlike Monteverdi

(and indeed, unlike

Schuẗz), he was not

wholly forgotten

before 1900.

Printed editions of

his choral and

instrumental works

first emerged from

German outlets as

early as the midnineteenth

century.

Yet it took the

advent of

10


stereophonic recorded sound during the late 1950s and

early 1960s for the average music-lover to discern the

inventiveness which Giovanni Gabrieli showed in

cultivating and refining polychoral techniques.

©Robert James Stove

Jubilate Deo

omnis terra,

quia sic benedicetur homo

Giovanni Gabrieli, Il Sivello, engraving, Agostino

Caracci, 1599, Art Gallery of NSW

O be joyful in the Lord

all ye lands,

for so shall he be blessed

GABRIELI

qui timet Dominum.

Jubilate Deo

omnis terra.

Deus Israel conjungat

vos et ipse sit vobiscum.

Mittat vobis auxilium

de sancto,

et de Sion

tueatur vos.

Jubilate Deo

omnis terra.

Benedicat vobis Dominus

ex Sion, qui fecit

caelum et terram.

Jubilate Deo

omnis terra.

Servite Domino

in laetitia.


that fears the Lord.


all ye lands.

May the God of Israel unite

you and be with you.

May He send thee help

from the sanctuary,

and strengthen thee

out of Sion.


all ye lands.

The Lord who made

heaven and earth give thee

blessing out of Sion.


all ye lands.

Serve the Lord

with gladness.

THREE WORKS OF OUR TIME

Christine McCombe, POWER IN STILLNESS

Born in Rosebud, Victoria, 3 April 1967

Christine McCombe studied at the University of

Melbourne, during which time she sang in the Choir of

Ormond College under the direction of Douglas

Lawrence.

11

McCOMBE


After studies with James McMillan at the Royal Scottish

Academy of Music and Drama, she went on to complete a

PhD in composition at the University of Edinburgh.

Composition prizes and awards include the Dorian Le

Gallienne Composition Award, the Lyrebird Music

Society Composition Prize, a Keith and Elisabeth

Murdoch Fellowship, a Centre Acanthes (France) Bursary,

a Bundanoon Artists Trust Residency and, most recently,

the 2018 Pythia Prize. Her compositions have been

performed by ensembles including the BBC Scottish

Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Piano Trio, Topology

Ensemble, Australia Ensemble and the Australian

Chamber Choir. Recent performances of her works have

taken place in the Resonant Bodies Festival (New York),

the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne

Recital Centre. A CD of her chamber music, entitled

Three kinds of silence, was released on the Tall Poppies

label in 2018.

Power in Stillness was commissioned by the ACC in 2020

with support from Modest Expectations. The work was to

be performed by the ACC as part of their 2021 European

tour, which was cancelled due to COVID restrictions.

McCombe explains the origins of her new work (for

which, in August 2020, she wrote the text) as follows:

I composed Power in Stillness during the COVID

lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, while navigating the

reality of having two teenagers at home attempting

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McCOMBE

13


school and a husband in the next room attempting to

teach high school English remotely. I remember

feeling that time itself had taken on a strange quality.

There were long pauses, a lot of waiting, a lot of time

to sit and think and just be. As a family we spent a lot

of time together in the same place, and daily ‘mental

health walks’ became a necessity. We live near a

hidden gem of a creek – Edgars Creek – that snakes

quietly through some of Melbourne’s northern

suburbs, the land of the Wurundjeri / Woi Wurrung

people. Many of my walks would be along this creek,

through the quiet groves of eucalypts, past rocky

escarpments, listening to the quiet, the waters gently

passing over mossy rocks, the native birds, particularly

the kookaburras. It was time to breathe, to listen, to

feel the ground under my feet, to spend time with

trees and the feeling of slowness they evoke, the

sense of connection to the land and the land’s history

reaching back before European voices were heard

here. I loved these walks: the connection with stillness

and the land, listening with my whole body. The

concept of listening to the land, ‘Deep Listening’, is as

old as the land itself. It reminds me of the immense

wisdom and knowledge of First Nations peoples, it

reminds me to be humble and grateful. In composing

Power in Stillness, I sought to evoke these qualities of

stillness, of listening to the ‘spaces between’, and also

reflect on the concepts of isolation and

McCOMBE

14


connectedness that the various lockdowns seemed to

bring into focus.

There is a power

In stillness

In silence

In waiting

Looking up to the sky

Feeling the earth below

Standing in awe

And silence

Listening

There is a power…

Listening

To the spaces between trees

As we stand

And breathe

Finding the quiet within

There is a power…

Remembering

That we can stand alone

And still be connected

Like the quiet language of trees

Beneath the surface

Their roots entwined

Reaching out and holding strong

There is a power…

Robin Estrada, AIRE DE NOCTURNO

Born in Manila, 1970


Robin Estrada’s works have been described as bold and

innovative, melding Western forms with Southeast Asian

music traditions and accentuating the finesse and fire of

the region’s cultural diversity.

A Quimson Fellow of the Asian Cultural Council and a

Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts

(NAMCYA) scholarship grant awardee, Estrada also

received the Hoefer Commissioning Prize as well as

the Choral Composition Contest First Prize for Aire de

Nocturno from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,

the Nicola di Lorenzo Prize and the Concurso Coral

de Ateneo Musica Nova Award.

Estrada received degrees from the University of

California–Berkeley (PhD, MA), San Francisco

Conservatory of Music (MM), University of the

Philippines (BMus.), and Ateneo de Manila (AB); working

with composers Cindy Cox, Ed Campion, Dan Becker,

David Conte, Josefino Toledo, and Philippine National

Artists José Maceda and Ramon P. Santos. Commissions

and performances include those by notable ensembles

including Volti, International Orange Chorale, Piedmont

East Bay Children's Choir, San Francisco Choral Artists,

Empyrean Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, UP

15

ESTRADA


Symphony Orchestra, Kuwerdas Filipinos Symphonic

Rondalla, Ateneo Chamber Singers, Aleron, Philippine

Madrigal Singers, AUIT Chamber Vocal Ensemble and the

Australian Chamber Choir.

The present piece, originally intended for the San

Francisco Conservatory Chorus and its conductor David

Conte, uses the opening lines – both in the original and in

an English translation – of a much-anthologised verse by

Spain’s best-known twentieth-century writer: poet and

dramatist Federico García Lorca, who was executed in

1936 due to his stand against Franco.

© Robert James Stove, 2015

Tengo mucho miedo de las

hojas muertas, miedo de los

prados llenos de rocío.

Yo voy a dormirme;

si no me despiertas,

dejaré a tu lado mi corazón

frío. Translation © Catherine Brown

I am afraid of

dead leaves, of

the fields filled with dew.

I will sleep now,

and if you don’t wake me,

I will leave my cold heart

by your side.

Gordon Kerry, ALCHEMY

Born in Melbourne, 1961

Gordon Kerry studied at the University of Melbourne,

during which time he sang in the Choir of Ormond College

under the direction of Douglas Lawrence. Kerry carries

out not one but two important functions in recent

Australian music: as a composer of it, and as a historian of

16

KERRY

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it. In the latter role, his 2009 volume New Classical Music:

Composing Australia would of itself have sufficed to

leave his mark on antipodean culture. In the former role –

which has included employment as composer-inresidence

for Musica Viva – he has been exceptionally

prolific and much performed. He has to his credit, inter

alia, a clarinet concerto, a violin concerto, a viola

concerto, a flute concerto, two piano sonatas, and

several stage works (notably the operas Medea and The

Snow Queen). On a smaller scale than these pieces is

Christchurch Monody, written in mourning for the 2019

New Zealand terrorist attack’s victims, and recently

recorded for Melbourne’s Move label by the Marais

Project.

Browse CDs

This new CD, Gold, is a

compilation of Australian

choral music, including the

works heard today by

Gordon Kerry and

Christine McCombe. Also

featured are Brenton

Broadstock, Tom Henry,

Alan Holley, Stephen Leek,

Luke Speedy-Hutton and

Malcolm Williamson.

17

KERRY

18


Alchemy was commissioned by the Australian Chamber

Choir and its director, Douglas Lawrence, with the

generous support of Mary-Jane Gething. The work is

dedicated to the ACC’s Manager, Elizabeth Anderson.

Kerry has this to say about the text:

Shakespeare's 33rd Sonnet is, according to some

scholars, addressed to the 'Fair Youth' with whom the

poet seems to have been in love, and depicts the glory of

the young man's presence, the poet's sadness at their

separation, and the realisation – the real alchemy of the

poem – that love abides. Others hold the view that the

'sun' is Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at the age

of eleven (metaphorically 'but one hour') but whose love

abides in the poet's memory. © Robert James Stove, 2022

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace;

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendour on my brow;

But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

KERRY


Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain

when heaven's sun staineth.

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, MAGNIFICAT for double

choir, op. 164

Born in Dublin, 30 September 1852; died in London, 29

March 1924

Stanford was nothing if not versatile. In his teaching, he

often showed considerable ruthlessness but earned

invariable respect. He numbered among his students

Holst, Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Frank Bridge,

Ivor Gurney, John Ireland, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and

almost every other musician of note in England during the

two decades before 1914. (One unfortunate pupil’s

efforts he dismissed, in the Hibernian brogue which he

cultivated to the end, as ‘All Brahms and water, me bhoy!

And more water than Brahms!’) Meanwhile, in his

composing, he contributed to every main genre. His huge

list of works includes eleven operas (none of which

achieved any commercial success), seven symphonies,

concertos for various instruments, eight string quartets,

and quantities of sacred music. In the last-named

category Stanford, like Byrd more than three hundred

years earlier, handled Latin and English texts with equal

assurance. The Latin Magnificat in this concert comes

from late in Stanford’s life. It calls for double choir (eight

19

STANFORD


parts in total) and was intended as a funerary tribute to Sir

Hubert Parry. As a young man, Stanford had been

prominent (as had Parry) in reviving Bach’s choral output;

and even if we did not know as much from his

biographers, this Magnificat would confirm it. He must

have had in mind Bach’s setting of the opening words – in

a similar, moderately paced triple time – when he

produced the initial bars of his own. The whole piece is

ornate and profound, testifying to Stanford’s always

formidable expertise at handling massed voices without

conveying the slightest hint of creative strain. In 1985

Garret FitzGerald, then Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach),

gave permission for Stanford’s portrait to appear on a

postage stamp. © Robert James Stove, 2014

Magnificat anima mea

Dominum;

et exsultavit spiritus meus

in Deo salutari meo,

quia respexit

humilitatem

ancillae suae;

Ecce enim ex

hoc beatam me dicent

omnes generationes.

Quia fecit mihi magna,

qui potens est,

et sanctum nomen eius,

My soul doth magnify the

Lord,

and my spirit hath rejoiced

in God my Saviour.

For He hath regarded the

lowliness

of His handmaiden;

for behold, from

henceforth all generations

shall call me blessed.

For He that is mighty

hath done great things for

me, and holy is His name.

20

STANFORD

Et misericordia a progenie

in progenies

timentibus eum.

Fecit potentiam

in brachio suo;

dispersit

superbos mente

cordis sui.

Deposuit potentes

de sede,

et exaltavit

humiles;

esurientes implevit

bonis

et divites dimisit

inanes.

Suscepit Israel puerum

suum, recordatus

misericordiae suae,

sicut locutus est

ad patres nostros,

Abraham et semini eius

in saecula.

Gloria Patri,

et Filio,

et Spiritui Sancto,

sicut erat in principio,

et nunc, et semper:

21


And His mercy is on them

that fear Him throughout

all generations.

He hath shown strength

with His arm;

He hath scattered the

proud in the imagination of

their hearts.

He hath put down the

mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the

humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry

with good things

and the rich He hath sent

empty away.

Remembering His mercy,

He hath holpen His servant

Israel.

As He promised to our

forefathers,

Abraham and his seed

forever.

Glory be to the Father,

and to the Son,

and to the Holy Ghost:

as it was in the beginning,

is now and ever shall be,

STANFORD

et in saecula saeculorum.

Amen.


world without end.

Amen.

Frank Martin, FIVE ARIEL SONGS, nos. 1-3

with texts from Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Born in Geneva, 15 September 1890; died in Naarden, 21

November 1974

Shakespeare’s The Tempest has proven to be a rich

starting point for many composers, with close to fifty

operas having been based on it, and a huge range of

other orchestral and vocal music. The play includes a

number of songs as well as being lyrical in its spoken

poetry, and many song settings have been commissioned

for use in the theatre. Two of the original settings from

Shakespeare’s day still survive. But it is also the play itself

– the chaos and disorientation into which its shipwrecked

characters are plunged, and the fantastical creatures

who inhabit the desert island on which they wander – that

offers such scope to musical and theatrical imagination.

Drawing on both French and German influences, notably

the serialism of Arnold Schönberg, the Swiss composer

Frank Martin developed his own musical style: highly

expressive and formally abstract at the same time.

© Alma Ryrie-Jones, 2017

The sinuous opening alto and tenor duet of ‘Come unto

these yellow sands’ casts Ariel as sea-nymph, calming

the stormy waters. Yet we are reminded that all is not

well here: the basses, with their low, distant calls of

22

MARTIN

23


‘Bow-wow’, foreshadow the sea-sprites' animalistic

refrain (‘burthen’) to come. There is a brief interlude as all

voices ‘foot it featly’ in a syncopated, dance-like

passage, before the sprites take over, chorusing as if

barking dogs. Solo sopranos crow the high, plaintive

chanticleer's cry, answered gruffly in the lower voices.

© Alex Hedt, 2024

‘Full fathom five’ begins with interweaving lines sung by

the sopranos and altos on an octatonic scale, a scale of

eight notes arranged in alternating tones and semitones.

This creates strange and beautiful harmonies, perfectly

evoking the underwater forest of which the invisible spirit

speaks. At the point of describing a ‘sea-change’, a

phrase still with us today, there is a complete

transformation – the texture of the music becomes

entirely chordal for the first time and the chord changes

are dazzling and unexpected.

Steve Hodgson, an occasional ACC member who has also

conducted the work, says:

I fell in love with this piece. Navigating the octatonic

pitch is difficult – choristers are used to singing in major

and minor keys with seven notes, not eight! And between

the chord changes and the constant swapping of places

in the underlying harmony – it’s a wonderfully challenging

and beautiful piece to sing. © Alma Ryrie-Jones, 2017

In contrast to the slowly-building atmosphere of ‘Full

fathom five’, ‘Before you can say “come” and “go”’

MARTIN


begins with turbulent, virtuosic conversation between

the voices, each echoing the line of text sung by the

previous voice before beginning the next. The watery

theme of Martin’s cycle is again evident in the third line

of this song, where chromaticism in the lower voices

provides mysterious contrast to more sustained notes

and continued conversation in the upper parts. The busyness

of this song serves to dramatically highlight its final

line, where the voices all meet in a startlingly transparent

homophonic texture to quietly ask its ultimate question –

though its answer never comes. © Leighton HG Triplow, 2023

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands;

Curtsied when you have, and kissed,

The wild waves whist:

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Hark, hark! Bow-wow,

The watch dogs bark, bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear,

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry cock a diddle dow.

24

MARTIN


Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them, - ding-dong, bell.

Before you can say, ‘come’ and ‘go’,

And breathe twice, and cry ‘So, so’,

Each one, tripping on his toe,

Will be here with mop and mow.

Do you love me, master? no?

Johann Sebastian Bach, SINGET DEM HERRN EIN NEUES

LIED for two four-part choirs, BWV 228

Born in Eisenach, Germany, 31 March 1685; died in Leipzig,

28 July 1750

Bach scholars have tentatively attributed this motet to

the 1727 funeral of Christiane Eberhardine, the Lutheran

Electress of Saxony, who – although titular Polish queen –

found Catholic Poland so uncongenial a country that she

refused even to visit it, let alone to live in it. (Her funeral

indubitably elicited from Bach his famous Trauerode,

BWV 198.) Singet dem Herrn incorporates in its outer

movements various lines from Psalms 149 and 150 in the

standard Lutheran Bible. These lines have nothing self-

25

BACH


evidently mournful about them, quite the reverse. By

contrast, the motet’s central movement sets verses from

the sixteenth-century Lutheran poet Johann Grauman,

alias Johannes Poliander; and these words demonstrate a

much more explicitly sorrowful tone, what with their

unmistakable memento mori in such images as mown

grass being dispersed by the wind.

On the thirty-three-year-old Mozart, when he visited

Leipzig in 1789, Singet dem Herrn left a powerful

impression. (He could well have borne its counterpoint in

mind when he came to write the Jupiter Symphony’s

finale.) Despite, or because of, the fact that Mozart had

not hitherto experienced much of Bach’s music in

performance – what little he knew of it had come chiefly

from score-reading – he found the motet revelatory.

Herewith, the eyewitness account of this occasion by

critic Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, in 1789 a Thomasschule

theology student:

Hardly had the choir sung a few measures when Mozart

sat up, startled; a few measures more and he called out:

‘What is this?’ And now his whole soul seemed to be in his

ears. When the singing was finished he cried out, full of

joy: ‘Now, there is something one can learn from!’

© Robert James Stove

26

BACH

Singet dem Herrn ein

neues Lied,

Die Gemeine der Heiligen

sollen ihn loben.

Israel freue sich des,

der ihn gemacht hat.

Die Kinder Zion sei’n

fröhlich über ihrem

Könige; Sie sollen loben

seinen Namen im

Reigen; mit Pauken und

mit Harfen sollen sie ihm

spielen.


Sing ye to the Lord a

new song;

the assembly of saints

should be telling His

praises. Israel, be joyful in

Him who hath made thee.

Let Zion’s children rejoice

in Him who is their mighty

king; let them be praising

His name’s honour in

dances; with timbrels and

with psalteries unto Him

be playing.

Wie sich ein Vater

erbarmet Gott,

nimm dich ferner unser an,

Über seine junge

Kinderlein, so tut der Herr

uns allen, so wir ihn

kindlich fürchten rein.

Er kennt das arm

Gemächte,

Gott weiß, wir sind

nur Staub,

denn ohne dich ist nichts

getan mit allen unsern

Sachen;

As does a father

mercy show

to his own

dear little children,

so doth the Lord to all of

us, if as pure children we

fear Him.

He sees our feeble

powers,

God knows we are

but dust;

for, lacking Thee, nought

shall we gain from all of

our endeavours.

27

BACH

gleichwie das Gras vom

Rechen,

ein Blum und fallend Laub.

Der Wind nur drüber

wehet, so ist es nicht mehr

da, drum sei du unser

Schirm und Licht,

und trügt uns unsre

Hoffnung nicht, so wirst

du’s ferner machen.

Also der Mensch

vergehet,

sein End, das ist ihm nah.

Wohl dem, der sich nur

steif und fest

auf dich und deine Huld

verlässt.

Lobet den Herrn in seinen

Taten, lobet ihn in seiner

grossen Herrlichkeit!

Alles, was Odem hat, lobe

den Herrn,

Halleluja!


Just as the grass in

mowing,

Or bud and falling leaf,

if wind but o’er it bloweth,

it is no longer

there, so be Thou our true

shield and light,

And if our hope betray us

not, Thou wilt thus

henceforth help us.

Even so is man’s

life passing,

His end to him is near.

Blest he whose hope, both

strong and firm,

on Thee and on Thy grace

can rest.

Praise ye the Lord in all His

doings, praise ye Him in all

His might and majesty!

All things which have

breath, praise ye the Lord,

Halleluja!

28

BUY CDs

The ACC’s Motets CD

includes Singet dem Herrn

from today’s program, as

well as other choral works

by JS Bach and Motets by

his relatives, Johann

Michael Bach and Johann

Christoph Bach.

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