PROGRAM NOTES
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Nunc aperuit nobis, (from the Riesencodex, 1180-1185), arr. A Far Cry
From the age of five, Hildegard von Bingen experienced gloriously vivid visions. Born into a noble family, Hildegard’s parents promised her to the church, whose service she would enter at a Benedictine monastery in Disibodenburg (a little over an hour southwest of modern-day Frankfurt, Germany) when she turned fourteen. It was the beginning of an extraordinary life of contemplation, research, and creativity.
By her early forties, she sought to establish her own convent, which she did, just outside of the town of Bingen. She also began documenting in writing her visions and channeling their ecstatic energy into music. The monastic life builds its daily rhythm around the Divine Offices; services taking place at designated hours throughout both day and night. These, in addition to observances of the mass and feasts, all require various types of music. Nunc aperuit nobis (“today was opened unto us”) is a short antiphon for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary during Advent in December. The lines of musical poetry by Hildegard contain multiple layers of meaning and imagery for the womb, the Garden of Eden, and the Virgin Mary. Its beautifully sinuous vocal lines have been arranged for strings by A Far Cry.
Meredith Monk (b. 1942)
Nightfall for Mixed Voices (1995), trans. Caitlin Lynch
As a child, Meredith Monk was enrolled in Dalcroze Eurhythmics classes, in part to help her spatial coordination impacted by strabismus, a condition that affects ocular alignment. Dalcroze method uses full body movement as a pathway for learning the fundamentals of music. The lessons for Monk, however, were slightly different as she came from a musical family: “They were learning music through their bodies and I was learning my body through music. I came into the classes feeling confident about music and rhythm.” The idea of embodied musical expression became, and remains, the bedrock of Monk’s artistry. Perhaps this is most acutely displayed in her vocal works, where the creative energy of sound vibration both utilizes and passes through the medium of the body to be communicated to the world outside. Often Monk’s works include theater, or chorography, and feel both ancient and modern simultaneously.
Nightfall, written in 1995, is a serene meditation on the close of day built on a repeating baseline. In her own program note for the vocal work (here, arranged for strings by A Far Cry), Monk shares:
”Nightfall should be sung without vibrato so that the vocal colors and their translucent quality remain pure and clear. Recalling Baroque passacaglia procedure, the bass line underpins the entire work. Nightfall is an incantatory piece inspired by how light changes at the end of a day: the adding and subtracting of color and shadow; the slowly building and diminishing dynamics; the shifting texture as the sun intensifies and then disappears over the horizon.” -Meredith Monk
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
Strum for String Orchestra (2012)
Jessie Montgomery was born into the thriving arts scene of 1980s Lower East Side, Manhattan to parents who were both artists (her mother in avant-garde theater, her father in jazz and film) and activists. She studied at the Juilliard School, and NYU, and has been associated with the Sphinx Organization in a variety of capacities since 1999. She is a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and a dedicated chamber musician. Montgomery was previously a member of both the PUBLIQuartet and Catalyst Quartet.
Montgomery’s note for her earliest work, Strum, is re-printed below:
“Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.
Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.” -Jessie Montgomery
Reena Esmail (b. 1983)
Teen Murti (2013)
Reena Esmail is an Indian-America composer whose music spans and merges the traditions of each culture. While studying Hindustani music in India as a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, she began to recognize specific audience reactions to the intonation of a given raag (or raga, depending on northern or southern Indian terminology). This building block of Indian classical music is akin to Western modes in the sense that a raag is a prescribed set of notes. It is far more sophisticated in the way it carries emotional content, however, through techniques like denoting emphasis on certain pitches for effect, moods associated with times of day, etc.
An excerpt from Esmail’s program note for Teen Murti (written in 2013), follows:
“Most Indians will immediately recognize Teen Murti as name of the New Delhi residence of the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The residence, which now serves as an incredible cultural resource (library, museum, and planetarium) is named for the sculpture that stands in front of it. ‘Teen Murti’ means three statues, figures, or representations in Hindi. Though not directly based on the sculptures, this work shares their title as it is centered around three large musical ‘figures’ that are adjoined by short interludes – similar to the idea behind Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. It lays out three tableaux: each is rooted in a specific raag and its Hindustani melodic tradition, and those melodies are interwoven using a more Western technique.
At the many concerts of Hindustani musicians I attended while I was in India, I noticed a curious thing that would happen before each performance. The artist would announce the raag to be sung or played that evening, and immediately, many of the cognoscenti in the audience would begin humming the characteristic phrases or ‘pakads’ of that raag quietly to themselves, intoning with the drone that was already sounding on stage. It had a magical feeling – as if that raag was present in the air, and tiny wisps of it were already starting to precipitate into the audible world in anticipation of the performance. I wanted to open this piece in that way, and continue to return to that idea in the interludes.” -Reena Esmail
Teresa Carreño (1853-1917)
Serenade for Strings in E-flat Major (1895)
The past is full of the stories of women who were famous performers, many of whom also composed multiple works for a variety of instrumental groups. Within this category, the individual who probably comes to mind first is Clara Schuman. There was also Lucy Anderson, Louise Ferrenc, Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf, and hundreds of others—including Teresa Carreño.
Known as the “Valkyrie of the Piano” for giving powerful performances, Carreño’s international career began in her early childhood. She was born into a musical family, both her grandfather and father were accomplished musicians, but it was her father’s profession in the Venezuelan government that forced the family to relocate to New York City in 1862 due to political unrest at home. The move provided a bright side, however, of broader opportunities to nurture Carreño’s young talent. Louis Moreau Gottschalk became her mentor, and she quickly made her public concert debut in the city. Another highlight was performing for President Lincoln in the White House (ultimately, she would perform for two presidents during her lifetime, the other being Woodrow Wilson). Within a few years the family decided to relocate again to Europe where Carreño could continue to mature as a musician, and where more performance opportunities could be cultivated. A review of a concert she gave in Paris at age twelve describes her as “A little wonder, a real prodigy…plays the piano in a manner that would surprise Liszt himself. It is incredible.” (It is said that Liszt did actually offer her piano lessons while she was on tour, but she declined.)
Her star continued to climb into adulthood. As a performer, she worked with the likes of Gustav Mahler and Theodor Thomas, and countless others. At one point she decided to take up singing, turning to Gioachino Rossini for instruction. Her tours around the world included stops in Europe, Australia, Africa, and the Americas. She maintained a teaching studio (which included Edward MacDowell), and composed around 80 works. The Serenade for Strings is her primary work for large ensemble and was written around 1895 while she was spending a summer in the Tyrol region of Austria. Written in four movements, the Serenade’s moods move from effervesce to lyrical expansiveness, to splendid pomp.
Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.
