Gloria

In the time since our last major show (with Gary “I’m-gonna-sing” Graden in September 2005), we have been busy beyond recognition.  Among other things – a wedding, Lucia Day celebrations, two chamber concerts, a friendly trip up North – we fought the monster organ in Esplanade’s Pedals and Pipes Series, shared the stage with 2004 Llangollen Eisteddfod Under-16 vocal champ Janani Sridhar, and backed up homegrown starlet Joi Chua with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.  No rest for the wicked, they say.  Musica delenit bestiam feram*, we incant.

Welcome to Gloria.

This evening of sacred music begins with song inspired by the poetic remains of religious persecution and martyrdom, an expression of faith uttered almost two millennia ago.  Those words – special for having been written by private persons – were sung as a morning hymn in the Orient and have since begat five dozen chant melodies.

The Latin Version 21C of the Gloria text can be traced back to the Psalter of Wolfcoz of St Gall (Latin Ver. 9C), Bangor Antiphonary (Latin Ver. 7C) and the Codex Alexandrinus (Greek Ver. 5C).  Augmenting Luke 2:14, this hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity begins with the words sung by angels to the shepherds on Christmas day.  Originally restricted for use by bishops and popes, the lyricism of the Gloria verse continues to feed a multitude of composers with inspiration for choral settings.  Singing three of the most gloriously exhilarating ones, in Seventh Heaven we are.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Glory in the highest to God.

Martin’s Gloria, from his Messe pour Double Choeur, in 1922 and cloistered for forty years.  Due to the beliefs that the public expression of personal faith was taboo and that Bach did it best, Martin did not publish any sacred music until the end of World War Two.  Since its premiere in 1963, this mass has become one of the most treasured a cappella works of the 20th century.

The Gloria is decidedly temperamental, with sections of verse cordoned off by changes in meter.  Singing it is like riding a mega-rollercoaster.  Voice by voice, the choir-train is winched up slowly from a Tenor II platform, stopping midway for breath.  The climb continues at a 60-degree angle from the Bass II station, reaching a vertical height of three octaves.  Then, the ride begins.  Over 120 measures of track, the two choirs drop, twist and turn; looping their way through melismatic melodies that chase each other in corkscrew spins that spiral up, up and away, channelling the Baroque über-Meister.  Briefly, interrupted by a moment of introspective contemplation, the voices resume exalted flight and land safely – using state-of-the-art pneumatic brakes – on the final Amen. 

Whoa.

A shaft of blinding light announces the Devil’s arrival in Margutti’s Gloria.  He bursts in, riding a flurry of Spanish text, consonants aflame in a floating carpet of crackling matter.  He is vanquished by the materialisation of God in the body of Christ, symbolised musically by motivic Monteverdian fragments that insinuate themselves into the Spanish text with belligerent insistence, dissolving the threat, ending in a resoundingly triumphant “Amen”.  This is music for the movies (think Lord of the Rings); with the surreal poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Ode to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar” providing both script and foley for the Bad Guys.

The Missa Lorca provides a portal to the past, a youngster paying homage to his musical ancestor, Monteverdi.  Margutti references Venetian poly-choral tradition in his double-choir settings of both the Gloria and Agnus Dei, and Monteverdi in the seconda prattica principles of text setting – music as Rhetoric (= propaganda):  the drama of contrasting sonorities and textures, unpredictable dissonances and showy leaps making for a more persuasive and theatrical art.

Conversely, the Monteverdi mass quoted by Margutti in both movements, Missa “In illo tempore” (1610), is a paradigm of prima prattica polyphony – model answer (A+) for how to write church music at the turn of that century, dedicated to Pope Paul V in hopes of winning a job at the Vatican.  Uncontested by either demonic or worldly things, Monteverdi’s Sanctus creates a holy arch joining Margutti’s Gloria and Agnus Dei.

Lorca’s World is the stuff of nightmares, populated by dead doves and assassins.  Drawing a weapon from a sack of archaic musical tricks, Margutti teleports Monteverdi’s Agnus Dei whole-note-for-note, dusts it off and stations it as a lighthouse (manned by a sextet of lifeguards) guiding the hunted through dangerous tonal waters:  the B-flat major tonality provides a lifeline for the confusing cross-relations and turbulent harmonies centred on G-minor.

Both musician and audience are trapped for the most part in the crossfire, victims of dissonance-shrapnel created by the conflicting tonalities.  The final major triad brings merciful relief.

A quasi-Byzantine-slash-Korean chant heralds in Woo’s setting, harking back to the Eastern roots of the Gloria verse.  With a visceral energy and a primitive spirit generated by primordial prayer calls, intricate interlocking rhythms and quartal harmonies, she resurrects the text and transports us back two thousand years to that time of religious purging and ethnic cleansing.  In the central movement, a traffic jam of static bumper-to-bumper harmonies, a barrage of anguished outbursts and shouts recreate the agony of the persecuted.  This is embraced by movements built on exuberantly rockin’ riffs, and a religious rapture that culminates in a series of ecstatic “amen’s”.  The people have spoken.

Our concert continues with Body’s carol to saint Stephen, the deconstruction and re-composition of a medieval carol on the martyrdom of Saint Stephen.  Stephen (meaning “crown”) was the first disciple of Jesus to receive the martyr’s crown.  A deacon in the early Christian Church, he spoke with such wisdom and grace that many became followers of Jesus.  This inflamed the hatred of the cavillers of the synagogues, who suborned false witnesses to testify that they had heard Stephen speak against Moses and against God.  Stephen was dragged out of the city of Jerusalem and stoned to death by the enraged mob, with some stones “as much as two men can carry”.

The saint saw the heavens opening up and prayed “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”.  Then he fell to his knees and begged God not to punish his enemies.

Body’s work begins after the medieval carol Eya, martir Stephane has been intoned.  Male voices gather and break into chaotic canon, and the carol mutates into a slow-moving cantus firmus, its relentless course metaphorically dragging the protomartyr to an inexorable end.  Words splinter into shards of sibilance, sharpened and tossed:  Ssss__(s)toned, Ssss__(S)tephane.  The music fragments into repetitive prayer-like chants as Stephen loses strength.  The silences become longer, words more sporadic, before the music dissipates entirely.  A solo soprano sings Stephen’s last work (Acts 7:59-60) Lay not this sin to their charge.

Buchenberg’s Ich bin das Brot des Lebens brings a much-needed sugar break after the electrically-charged Body.  Christ, the original martyr, speaks with deep-voices authority (in modulating tones that tell of his transformative powers) from his heavenly resting place, aka the Planet of Lydian Harmonies.  Thought by 11th century theorists to induce happiness, the Lydian mode is characterised by the raised fourth degree (in solfege-speak:  do-re-mi-fa#-so).  This eternal joy can only be had in an Other-world.

Down to earth, music forms our secret passageway to Narnia:  a Fantasy-land where Good triumph over evil.  (But wait.  Do you hear that?)

Listen for the sequel(s).

Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
And on earth, peace to men of good will.

* Music soothes the savage beast.