Dear Friend of Sacred and Profane,
The phrase “time flies” is definitely overused, but has it really been twenty years since I began conducting Sacred and Profane? How did that happen? The experiences I’ve had over these twenty years have been among the happiest and most transportive of my life, and I’ve formed many of my closest friendships with the intelligent, sensitive, and witty people that make up the S&P community. We have sung music from history’s verified geniuses like Mozart and Bach and presented US premieres and several commissions; we’ve collaborated with chamber orchestras, a Venezuelan instrumental ensemble, and a Haitian percussionist; we’ve celebrated music from local composers and sung lots of music by Swedish composers. We’ve experienced joys and losses together and grown closer along the way.
In selecting repertoire for my upcoming twentieth anniversary concert, I wanted to choose the works and the composers that I love most – my “desert island music.” The first piece was easy – we will welcome the audience with the opening kulning, or herding call, of Karin Rehnqvist’s uplifting arrangement of the Swedish hymn i Himmelen. I had just met Karin when she composed this piece in 1998 for Bo Johansson’s girl’s choir at Stockholm’s advanced music school, Adolf Fredriks Musikklasser. She invited me to join her at her first rehearsal of the piece with the choir, and I feel that I witnessed the making of history, as i Himmelen has become her best known choral work. I remain as enraptured of the piece now as I was then, and following two performances of the piece with S&P over the years in its original version for treble choir, I’m excited to present our first performance of Karin’s arrangement for mixed choir in these concerts. The piece always brings me a feeling of tremendous joy and I know it will for you as well.
There are many geniuses among the composers of the late sixteenth-century, the High Renaissance. But of them, William Byrd is probably my favorite, and chief among his works the Mass for Four Voices. It is one of the most poignant and heart-wrenching works I know, full of sublime melodies and a deep sense of longing. A piece like this requires the intimacy of only a few voices, and we will be performing it with a small group. They are singing so beautifully that I feel like I’m hearing one of England’s elite chamber ensembles dedicated to sixteenth-century music.
I first worked with the Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir in a summer conducting course I took with the Swedish master conductor Eric Ericson in the summer of 1998. I brought the pieceto Sacred and Profane, who performed it early in my tenure, way back in May 2006. The group was smaller back then, and while that experience was lovely, it’s been remarkable to return to this masterpiece of choral writing with the larger ensemble that we have now – we’re better able to make the rich sonorities resonate and the glorious melodies shine. This challenging piece takes me to almost every emotional corner with its exquisite writing that seems to contain all things – simplicity and complexity, joy and sorrow, and absolute beauty.
In that same 1998 conducting workshop, Maestro Ericsson assigned to me Samuel Barber’s miniature gem “The Coolin” from his cycle Reincarnations – so the sole American conductor got to conduct the sole American composer’s work in the final concert. I’ve been in love with this piece ever since, so much so that I asked the chamber choir who sang at my wedding with Pete two years ago to sing this perfect expression of devotion and commitment.
For those that may not be aware, Sacred and Profane takes our name from Benjamin Britten’s final work for choir – Sacred and Profane, “Eight Medieval Lyrics,” Op. 91. We performed that complete cycle in our 40th anniversary concert in May 2018. For many choral nerds, Britten is the composer. His music is fun, lyrical, and somehow perfect. I am not alone in naming his Hymn to St. Cecilia as one of my favorites – I love how W.H. Auden egged Britten on to embrace his sensuality and sense of playfulness in the piece, and while it is said that Britten resented Auden’s goading, he complied and gave us one of his greatest choral masterpieces. It is such a blast to sing and I can see in the singers faces that they are having as wonderful a time singing the piece as I am hearing them.
Caroline Shaw, the composer of the final work on our program, is the only one that I haven’t conducted before, but I was eager to include a work by this composer who has become one of my favorites. I regularly listen to her Partita for 8 Voices, which she wrote for Roomful of Teeth, the avant garde vocal ensemble that she sings with. Partita won the Pulitzer Prize for Composition in 2013, making her the youngest composer to receive that award. and the Swallow feels like a perfect place to end the concert (well… almost… there may be an encore!) – it is reflective, poignant, complex and yet simple – like a meditation.
While I programmed this music selfishly – it is the music I love most in the world – I hope and believe that you will be similarly transported. The choir couldn’t be singing more beautifully – I can’t believe I get to work with such a fantastic group of musicians. I hope to see you there!
Warmly,
Rebecca