Percussion & Organ
Michael Capon - organ Richard Moore - percussion
Wednesday, May 30, 6:00-6:30 p.m., Tickets $5
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Latvian Church
383 Jarvis St. (corner of Carlton & Jarvis, 3 blocks east of Yonge)
Print this Program | Print complete Schedule
A rare performance of Black Host for organ, percussion and tape by Pulitzer Prize winning composer William Bolcom. Also on the program, Agapê by French composer Naji Hakim.
Agapê (2002)
1. Lauda Sion salvatorem [Laud, Zion, your saviour]
2. Bone pastor, panis vere [Good Shepherd, true bread]
3. Tantum ergo sacramentum [Therefore we venerate
this sacrament]
William Bolcom (b. 1938)
Black Host
Black Host (1967) is a sonic spectacular for organ, percussion and electronic tape - big, brash, very American, and very late-Sixties. It is dedicated to Bolcom's close friend and collaborator, the late William Albright, who gave the first performance in the summer of 1968.
The title refers to a central heretical symbol of the Black Mass, but while the whole work clearly and powerfully evokes a ritual of some kind, this is of a deliberately ambiguous sort. Albright has written that it is not an exegesis on moral dualism, a dark ray of non-hope, or an uplifting sermon on the virtues of Calvinism (as it has variously been called). Even the Black Host flagrantly juxtaposes several recognizable styles within its time-span and is unified by the ghost of an old hymn-tune from the Genevan Psalter. Neither is it programme music: It is an emotionally based piece, and if it is about anything it would be fear.
The score is inscribed with the rueful words of Lord Russell:
In the daily lives of most men and women, fear plays a greater part than hope: they are more filled with the thought of possessions that others may take from them, than of the joy that they might create in their own lives and in the lives with which they come in contact. It is not so that life should be lived. The drama falls in to three acts, beginning with an organ prelude. The curtain rises with a sequence of seven thunderous chords, separated by long silences. Mysterious scurryings and twitterings alternate with emotional outbursts of big organ sound and dissonant minor-key harmonies, and then an ominous drum-beat introduces a sinister passacaglia, which unfolds over a relentless ostinato on the organ pedals. Eventually, the drum is replaced by tubular bells and the music fades to nothing, leaving only the spacious echo of the bells. Suddenly the organ breaks into a surreal dance, and the final act begins. Taped sound-effects begin to creep in, and they initiate a crescendo into a monstrous collage of sound. It is finally swept away by the dramatic entrance of the Genevan psalm tune Donne Secours Psalm 12; Help me, Lord, for there is not one godly man left. A serene coda, a pianissimo reprise of the seven curtain-raising chords, a big drum roll, a decisive concluding chord from the organ and the rite is over.
Naji Hakim was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1955. He studied organ with Jean Langlais in Paris from 1975 and continued his musical studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, winning many prizes, and going on to win first prizes in the International Organ Competitions at Haarlem, Beauvais, Lyon, Nuremberg, St Albans, Strasbourg and Rennes. As a composer he has won the composition prize of the "Amis de l'orgue" (for his Symphonie en Trois Mouvements, 1984), the first prize in the International Composition Competition for organ, in memory of Anton Heiller (for The Embrace of Fire, Collegedale, Tennessee, 1986) and in 1991 he received the "Prix de Composition Musicale André Caplet", from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He was organist of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, Paris from 1985 until 1993, when he succeeded Olivier Messiaen at the Eglise de la Trinité. A player of exceptional virtuosity, he is much in demand as a recitalist, improviser and teacher, with engagements for concerts and masterclasses taking him all over the world. He broadcasts and records frequently and his compositions have featured on several recent CD releases in performances by himself and others.
Agapê is a liturgical suite of three movements - prelude, communion and postlude - based on gregorian chants for the Feast of Corpus Christi. The opening movement, "Lauda Sion salvatorem", paraphrases the first verse of the Corpus Christi Sequence in a series of symphonic variations. The middle movement, "Bone pastor, panis vere", comments on verses 23 and 24 of the same Sequence in a varied lied-form. The finale, "Tantum ergo sacramentum", is a joyful rondo on the last verse of the hymn Pange lingua.
William Bolcom - Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and three Grammy awards, Bolcom's compositions include six symphonies, an opera A View From The Bridge premiered by the Chicago Lyric Opera in 1999, concerti and works for solo piano. His setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, a three-hour work for soloists, choruses and orchestra has been performed by the Stuttgart Opera and the BBC Symphony among others and the recording (Naxos) was voted Best Classical Album in 2006. With his wife, vocalist Joan Morris, Bolcom has recorded twenty albums, mostly featuring showtunes and popular songs from the early 20th century.