A year ago this column was dedicated to a survey of the great Stabat Maters composed over a period of 400 years. For my own Lenten edification, I most often return to two 20th century Stabat Maters, very different in character but equally affecting—those by Francis Poulenc and Arvo Part. Here I offer a number of other suggestions for Lenten listening from a broad range of mostly 20th century composers.
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was pretty much lost in the shadow of Edward Elgar, an inimitably English genius whose works eclipsed the German-influenced compositions of Stanford, Elgar’s slightly older British compatriot. Now, two premiere recordings of major Stanford choral works have appeared: the Requiem from Marco Polo, and the Stabat Mater from Chandos. This year marks the centennial of the premiere of Stanford’s Requiem. It is a puzzle that such a work can have been completely neglected until now. The Requiem is a touching composition that fully communicates Stanford’s deep love for his friend, the British painter Lord Leighton, in whose memory he wrote it. For one so influenced by Brahms, Stanford exhibits in this heartfelt work an unexpected lightness of touch. Within its large-scale structure of almost one and a half hour’s duration, the Requiem preserves a sense of intimacy and warmth. Listen, for example, to the exquisite tenderness of the Gradual, the gently rippling Sanctus, or to the poignant use of silence throughout the piece. The Requiem has its big moments but, unlike some Requiems of the period, there is no fist-shaking in this gorgeous music. One is left with an abiding impression of sweetness, light, and love. This is a major addition to the repertory for which Marco Polo has to be congratulated. The two CD set is filled out with excerpts from Stanford’s opera, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
Stanford’s Stabat Mater, from 1907, is subtitled Symphonic Cantata, and begins with an unusual nine-minute orchestral prelude that leaves the mellow world of the Requiem far behind. This is a full-blooded, tumultuous work. It is quite an impressive piece and is perhaps more tightly constructed than the Requiem, though I confess the Requiem moves me more. One could hardly imagine a better performance than the one on Chandos, which also features Stanford’s Te Deum and Bible Songs.
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was close to cursed by the success of The Planets, the musical Star Wars of its time. It overshadowed his many minor masterpieces. Anyone disposed to dismiss Holst as a brilliant but shallow showman should explore his moving settings of medieval religious love poetry. His Four Songs for Voice and Violin, Op. 35, and the partsong for unaccompanied voices, This Have I Done For My True Love, Op. 34, deal in a simple and unadorned way with deep and passionate Christian experiences and truths. The antithesis of the sonic blockbuster, these gentle songs have a heartrending beauty. Inexplicably, the Four Songs is not currently available, but This Have I Done is the title composition in a wonderful Hyperion collection of Holst partsongs that includes other gems such as Jesu, Thou the Virgin-born, Terly Terlow and Lullay My Liking. The text to the title song has Christ speaking to us in the first person of his coming crucifixion: “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.” Christ refers to each of his sufferings as attempts “to call my true love [man] to the dance.” I defy anyone to read this text, much less hear it sung in Holst’s incomparable setting, and not be moved to tears by it. A second Hyperion CD features Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, more partsongs and the Six Choruses, Op. 53 (which includes Good Friday).
Holst’s student, Edmund Rubbra, wrote his a capella Missa in Honorem Sancti Dominici, Op. 66, to celebrate his conversion to Catholicism in 1948. This work, along with his Tenebrae, Op. 72, and other sacred works, are offered on a new Gloriae Dei Cantores CD. This is devotional music, written for liturgical use. The nine Tenebrae motets are settings of the nine reponsories to be sung on Holy Thursday. Though restrained, they are as touching as the Mass is lovely. This beautiful disc helps fill out the picture of a major composer, one whose symphonic music has been featured in this column several times.
Andre Caplet (1878-1925) is primarily remembered for orchestrating some of Debussy’s works, such as Children’s Corner and Clair de Lune (as can be heard, along with some of Caplet’s own orchestral works, on Marco Polo 8.223751). Yet Caplet was an original in his own right who drew his inspiration primarily from his deep Catholic faith. His music is highly transparent, utilizes an extraordinary economy of means, and expresses intense purity with a delicate lyricism. The sensibility is typically French in its lightness of touch and its ability to convey profundity without heaviness. Two Accord CDs offer several of Caplet’s religious masterpieces in remarkable performances. Le Miroir de Jesus is a setting of poems by Henri Gheon that offer meditations on each of the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries of the rosary. This work for mezzo-soprano, female chorus, harp, and string quartet reminds me of the finest medieval miniature ivory carvings sculpted for private devotion. Plainchant and impressionism meld seamlessly together in this exquisite creation. Caplet’s Mass for unaccompanied three-part women’s choir is also a tender, highly refined work that incorporates the Medieval into the modern. (Upon hearing it, I immediately thought that Francis Poulenc must have listened carefully to this masterpiece before composing his equally fine Mass in G in 1937.) Caplet’s epigraph for the Mass is a verse from Psalm 19: “In them bath he set a tabernacle for the sun.” Caplet asked that his Mass be performed in May in a chapel flooded with sunlight, and it seems as if this Mass itself is made of light. The CD also contains Caplet’s extremely beautiful settings of a number of prayers, including Panis Angelicus and Pie Jesu.
In his liturgical music, Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988) proved that the great English choral tradition has not been exhausted in our time. A new Chandos CD features his substantial Lenten work, Crucifixus pro nobis, Op. 38, for tenor and chorus, his Mass, Op. 44, and other works. The Crucifixus is a truly harrowing piece that does not make for easy listening. Its beauties are subordinate to the grimness of its subject, which is powerfully and starkly conveyed. The composer’s genius especially shines forth in his Mass, a richly expressive work. This is an original treatment of a traditional form that proves what imagination can do with the supposedly exhausted resources of tonality. This is a living Mass. Particularly impressive are the rhapsodic, ecstatic Gloria and the liltingly lovely, seraphic Sanctus. In the Agnus Dei, the dramatic outburst at “miserere” is notable as a real, urgent cry for mercy. Leighton’s Mass belongs in the exalted company of other great 20th century settings by Caplet, Poulenc, Vaughan Williams, Martin, and the relative newcomer, Swiss composer Carl Rutti.
During a trip to Russia in the last days of the Soviet empire, Fr. Stanley Jaki remarked to me that the Orthodox Church has been saved from apostasy by its extraordinary devotion to Mary. This devotion shines forth in the work of Orthodox convert John Tavener (b. 1944). His compositions contained on a Virgin Classics CD titled Thunder Entered Her are very striking, especially the title piece whose short text, by St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-73), begins “Thunder entered her/And made no sound.” More appropriate to Lent is Tavener’s The Lament of the Mother of God. The ritualized grief of this haunting work is expressed by a soprano voice, representing Mary, and an unaccompanied choir. The beautiful soprano voice floats over the wordless drone of the chorus, and ascends step-wise over the span of an octave with the beginning of each stanza, which each time repeats the opening line, “Woe is me, my child.” At the very end, the choir joins in singing the words, “Rise O God and judge the earth.” This is a very affecting work.
Amaral Vieira (b. 1952) is a contemporary Brazilian composer whose work comes to us courtesy of the Brazilian Society of St. Paul (and Empire Music Group). Two years ago, shock waves rolled through the Sundance Film Festival crowd when it was discovered that the wonderful prize-winning film The Spitfire Grill had been produced with backing by the Paulists. The scandalized “artistic community” felt that its artistic integrity had been threatened by religious taint. But it may have slipped their minds at Sundance that our culture, to the extent it can still be referred to as such, is a byproduct of Christianity in the first place. The unrepentant Society of St. Paul is to be congratulated for now producing Vieira’s Stabat Mater and Missa pro defunctis on a Paulus CD.
Vieira studied in Paris with Olivier Messiaen, but shows no discernable influences from him. What is more evident is that he has heard Poulenc’s Stabat Mater. Vieira sounds like Poulenc without Poulenc’s spice and quirkiness. To say he is less distinctive than that unique genius does not take away from his formidable accomplishment in creating a truly beautiful and very moving work. Poulenc is the right benchmark for the hauntingly beautiful melodies Vieira employs to such great effect. The fact that, stylistically, this work could have been written fifty or even seventy-five years ago does not detract from its merits. If I heard something this fine from an American Catholic composer I would be beside myself with delight. The Paulists must be doing something right in Brazil.