Third Sunday Series for 2024–25 Announced

Portrait of Palestrina holding his “Missa Papae Marcelli” (artist and date unknown, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Last night Dr. Paul Ellison, Director of Music for the Church of the Advent of Christ the King, announced plans for the second season of Third Sunday Choral Masses. Readers familiar with this venue probably already know that these are not concerts. Rather, they are High Mass services for which music is provided. One of the earliest sources of that music will be Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who is now considered to be the leading composer of late sixteenth-century Europe. However, the composers contributing to this series cover a wide band of music history. For this season, the most recent of those composers will be Harold Darke, who died in 1976.

The schedule for the works to be performed over the course of the season is as follows:

• November 17: Josef Rheinberger, “Missa Brevis,” Opus 83
• December 15: William Byrd: “Mass for five voices”
• January 19: Cristóbal de Morales, “Missa Caça”
• February 16: John Ireland, “Communion service in C”
• March 16: Harold Darke, “Communion Service in A minor”
• May 18: Palestrina, “Missa Aeterna Christi munera”
• June 15: Charles Villiers Stanford, “Service in B-flat major,” Opus 10
• June 19 (Thursday evening): Palestrina, “Missa Papae Marcelli”
• August 15 (Friday evening): Palestrina, “Missa Assumpta est Maria”

The Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center. This is an inclusive parish of the Episcopal Church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. Those wishing further information may call 415-431-0454. For those planning to drive, free parking will be available in the gravel lot behind the church on Hickory Street.

Boult Ill Served by LPO “Musical Legacy” Album

courtesy of PIAS

At the end of last year, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) released a five-CD boxed set of historical recordings conducted by Adrian Boult. In the preceding months the individual albums had been released digitally. The project had been timed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Boult’s appointment as the LPO’s Principal Conductor.

The story behind that appointment has been nicely summarized on Boult Wikipedia page as follows:

Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of president. Although in the latter part of his career he worked with other orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and his former orchestra, the BBC Symphony, it was the LPO with which he was primarily associated, conducting it in concerts and recordings until 1978, in what was widely called his "Indian Summer".

Boult’s career was extensive and diverse. One of his earliest commitments involved conducting for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and he also conducted opera and ballet performances at the Royal Opera House in London. By the time he came to the LPO, he commanded an extensive and diverse repertoire, meaning that a collection of five CD’s can barely scratch the surface of that repertoire.

Thus the very first CD presents two symphonies that amount of “previews” of more extensive projects. The first of these is Edward Elgar’s Opus 55 (first) symphony in A-flat major, which, as far as I am concerned, is better appreciated in 19-CD box set of the complete EMI recordings of Boult conducting Elgar’s music. Similarly, the second offering is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ sixth symphony in E minor, which has its own complete EMI recordings release of thirteen CDs. (Out of fairness I should point out that, back in the days before CDs, I had the vinyl versions of both of these Boult collections.)

The title of the second CD is Beethoven and Beyond. Beethoven is represented only by his Opus 55 (“Eroica”) symphony in E-flat major. The “beyond” is a rather odd pairing of Max Bruch (the Opus 47 “Kol Nidrei”) and Ernst von Dohnányi’s Opus 25 “Variations on a Nursery Tune.” Any reflections on Beethoven are purely coincidental; but most listeners know that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already composed a set of keyboard variations (K. 265) on the theme Dohnányi had selected.

The third CD is entitled Music from the Ballet, and it probably offers a relatively satisfying profile of Boult’s approaches to working with both Diaghilev and the Royal Opera House. There is considerable focus on Léo Delibes with excerpts from his most familiar ballet scores for Sylvia and Coppélia. This is also the only CD offering music by Igor Stravinsky, but the music has nothing to do with the composer’s Ballets Russes period. Rather, the “Circus Polka” was composed in 1942 for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Balanchine had been approached to create a ballet that was performed by fifty elephants and fifty ballerinas; and the full title of Stravinsky’s score was “Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant.”

The remaining two CDs are both highly varied assortments. The title of the fourth is The Versatile Conductor, beginning with the familiar trumpet voluntary from Jeremiah Clarke’s suite in D major and concluding with George Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture.” The one composition of extended duration is Béla Bartók’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.” The final CD is entitled “Champion of British Music,” surveying selections by Charles Villiers Stanford, Malcolm Arnold, George Butterworth, and Arnold Bax. The collection then concludes, as it began, with Elgar, his Opus 50 concert overture “In the South (Alassio).” Unfortunately, this final track consists only of roughly the second half of the composition. It almost seems as if the original had been on a set of 78s, one of which had been overlooked during the remastering process!

The bottom line is that Boult’s legacy has been much better served by the extensive catalog of recordings he made for EMI. To the best of my knowledge, there has yet to be a “complete edition” of these recordings similar to the one that Warner Classics released for John Barbirolli. However, the Amazon Web pages for the two aforementioned EMI anthologies include hyperlinks to the Warner Classics releases of other Boult collections, any of which are likely to do far greater justice to the Boult legacy than can be found in the LPO’s own production efforts.

SOMM’s Ferrier Album of 20th-Century Song

courtesy of Naxos of America

The last album of remastered archival recordings of the English contralto Kathleen Ferrier, entitled Kathleen Ferrier in New York, was released by SOMM Recordings at the very beginning of 2020. Almost exactly a year later, SOMM released its latest Ferrier offering, 20th Century British Treasures. Once again, Amazon.com has decided to release the content only as an MP3 album. Last year there was considerable delay between the MP3 release and the appearance of a Web page for the physical recording. This year, given that SOMM is based in Surrey in England, delivery of the physical version is likely to take considerable time, due to continuing pandemic conditions.

The three tracks of songs by Roger Quilter were recorded in the Decca studios in London on December 10 and 11, 1951. All of the other recordings were either taken from BBC broadcasts or BBC recital performances. The composers represented on these tracks are (in order of appearance) Hubert Parry, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Villiers Stanford, Frank Bridge, Peter Warlock, Maurice Jacobson, Edmund Rubbra, William Wordsworth, Howard Ferguson, Benjamin Britten, and Lennox Berkeley. Like the Decca tracks, almost all of these selections were included among the fourteen CDs in the Decca Centenary Edition box, which was released in January of 2012. Nevertheless, the final selection on the 20th Century British Treasures CD, Berkeley’s Opus 27 setting for contralto and orchestra of four poems (translated into English) by Teresa of Ávila, has been publicly released for the first time.

Those (like myself) with an obsessive desire to account for “all things Ferrier” will therefore value this new release only for the concluding Berkeley selection, given that we already spend a fair amount of time listening to the Decca anthology. However, in that richer context, many of us may have observed that music, which may have been “treasured” during the twentieth century (perhaps due to Ferrier’s interpretations), has lost much of its impact in the current century, particularly among listeners not based in England. In that context I would suggest that, for those just becoming acquainted with the Ferrier legacy, 20th Century British Treasures is not a particularly good place to start.

As a result, I would recommend that the Centenary Edition is still the best resource for those wishing to listen to the finest audio documents of Ferrier interpretations. Indeed, given that Amazon has options for used copies of this release at reduced prices, the price of this abundant collection has become more reasonable than it was when the album first appeared. The fact is that the best way fo get hooked on Ferrier is to listen to her recordings with conductor Bruno Walter, and the best of those recordings was made in May of 1952 in Vienna with tenor Julius Patzak and Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

Evensong at Church of the Advent

The next Evensong service to be held at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King will take place on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany in conjunction with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Music will be provided, as usual, by Schola Adventus, the church’s resident choir directed by Paul Ellison. Selections will include settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis canticles from Herbert Howells’ Collegium Regale collection. The music of Charles Villiers Stanford will also be included with the third of his Opus 38 collection of three Latin motets, “Beati quorum via” (blessed are those whose way). Finally, the choir will sing Anton Bruckner’s setting of the “Tantum ergo” (therefore so great) verses. The music for the Preces versicles and responses will be by William Smith; and Ellison will provide processional and recessional organ music by Hubert Parry and Stanford.

The Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center. This is an inclusive parish of the Episcopal Church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. The service will begin at 4 p.m. this coming Sunday, February 16. Those wishing further information may call 415-431-0454.

Composers Announced for Third Sunday Event

Announcement for this Sunday’s event (courtesy of Paul Ellison)

This coming Sunday will be the third Sunday in November. That means that Sunday afternoon will see the next Third Sunday event at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King. Resident choir Schola Adventus, led by Music Director Paul Ellison, will provide the music for the Pentecost XXIII service, which will be officiated by Father Paul Allick. Specific compositions have not yet been announced; but the composers whose music will be performed will be Edward Elgar, Herbert Howells, Charles V. Stanford, and William Smith (all of whom had been included on the program for the October event).

This event will begin at 4 p.m. this coming Sunday, November 17. No admission will be charged; but this is an event that takes place outside the scope of the regular worship offerings. Thus, all who attend are invited to support the Third Sunday series with donations. All donations are tax-deductible and will be acknowledged, with names of the donors published in every Church bulletin. The goal for the Third Sunday series is $3500, and $750 has been raised to date. While donations are welcome at the door, the Church has created a Web page with options for online donations. All donations may be designated; and the designation for these events is “Evensong Series.” In addition, checks may be made payable to “Church of the Advent” and sent by mail to Dr. Paul Ellison, Church of the Advent of Christ the King, 162 Hickory Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. The entrance to the Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center.

Music Memorial Sunday at Church of the Advent

The members of Schola Adventus (from their Twitter Web site)

This Sunday will be the next Music Memorial Sunday service at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King. This will be the service for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, and it will include the celebration of a High Mass. The musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass will be by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, his Missa Aeterna Christi munera, a setting for four voices. The anthem will be the motet “Tu solus qui facis mirabilia” by Josquin des Prez. There will also be a solemn Te Deum sung to the music of Charles Villiers Stanford. As always, these choral selections will be performed by resident choir Schola Adventus. Music Director Paul Ellison will lead the ensemble and will also provide organ prelude and postlude music, both of which will be chorale preludes by Johann Sebastian Bach.

This service will begin at 11 a.m. this coming Sunday, November 25. Since this will be a service, rather than a concert, no admission will be charged; but a collection will be taken. The Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center.

Lacuna Arts Chorale Begins its Eleventh Season with Memorial Music by British Composers

Last night the Lacuna Arts Chorale, led by its Artistic Director Sven Edward Olbash, began its 2016–2017 season at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Cow Hollow, where the group serves as Artists-in-Residence. The full title of the program was A Voice from Heaven: music of Howells, Stanford, Parry, and Elgar; but the theme was a memorial one, anticipating the attention to those who have died through occasions such as Halloween and the Day of the Dead. The major work on the program was a piece that Herbert Howells called Requiem, which departed from the liturgical text from the Mass for the Dead, just as Johannes Brahms had done when he composed A German Requiem.

Howells composed his Requiem in 1932 for unaccompanied double choir and soloists in each of the four vocal ranges. The “Requiem aeternam” text appears twice (in Latin) in the third and fifth movements. The other movements are sung in English, taking their texts from psalms and antiphons. This piece received little attention until 1935, when Howells reworked it as a large-scale composition, entitled Hymnus Paradisi, for chorus and orchestra after the death of his son Michael in 1935. The a cappella version was not published until 1980, a few years before Howells’ own death.

Lacuna Arts specializes in double choir work, and last night Olbash divided them accordingly. The sanctuary space in which the performance took place consisted primarily of exposed wood. This created relatively dry acoustic conditions through which one could readily appreciate the many intricate elements of Howells’ polyphonic writing, as well as the spatial interplay of the two choirs. With the exception of several of the verses from Psalm 23 set for soprano (Winnie Nieh), the use of solo voices was extremely spare, primarily serving to highlight particular phrases from the text. Nevertheless, Howells seemed to be going for a particularly transcendent rhetoric in his solo soprano lines; and Nieh definitely rose (without trying to avoid the pun) to the occasion. Olbash’s overall interpretation gave the music the sense of a highly personal meditation, a rhetorical stance that was well served by the intimacy of the acoustic setting.

The first half of the program was devoted to selections from collections of two of Howells’ predecessors, Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. It began with the first and last of the three motets that Stanford published as his Opus 38, the SATB “Justorum animae” (the souls of the just) and the SSATBB “Beati quorum via” (blessed are the undefiled), the first from the Book of Wisdom and the second from Psalm 119. These were brief texts (two verses in the first, one in the second) sung in Latin; and the second was sung by the reduced Lacuna Arts Ensemble (two sopranos, two mezzos, two altos, two tenors, and three basses). This smaller group also sang the first four of Parry’s six Songs of Farewell with texts by Henry Vaughan (SATB), John Davies (SATB), Thomas Campion (SSATB), and John Gibson Lockhart (SSATBB). Here, again, intimacy was the prevailing rhetorical stance, particularly in the musical interpretations of the poems set by Parry, which transcended the underling text structures for a sake of a better account of the spirit of each of the verbal offerings.

The program concluded with one of Edward Elgar’s last choral compositions, “They are at rest.” This is an SATB setting of a poem by John Henry Newman. In brought a sense of quiet closure to the program, rather in the spirit of how the “In paradisum” text brings closure to the Latin Requiem Mass setting. While the lines of the poem are uneven, Elgar endowed his setting with a serene sense of calm that encouraged those of us in the audience to “go in peace.”

All of this made for a thoroughly memorable choral experience. Those who missed it deserve to know that it will be given a second performance tomorrow (Sunday, October 30), beginning at 4 p.m. The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin is located in Cow Hollow at 2325 Union Street, on the southwest corner of Steiner Street.

Lacuna Arts Chorale Announces Plans for Eleventh Season

Lacuna Arts is a San Francisco-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting excellence in vocal and choral music through performance, education, and community outreach. Artistic director Sven Edward Olbash prepares concert programs for two ensembles. The larger of these is the Chorale, an a cappella chorus of 24–32 balanced voices usually divided into two SATB choirs to take on some of the more demanding eight-part choral literature. Ensemble is a smaller chamber group, which usually assigns only one or two voices to each part.

The eleventh season of the Chorale will get under way at the end of this month with the first of four programs. Details have not yet been finalized for the third of these programs. However, because the first one is upon us; this is a good time to review the specifics that are available at the present time.

1. A Voice from Heaven: music of Howells, Stanford, Parry, and Elgar: The major work on this program will be the Requiem for unaccompanied double choir and soloists by Herbert Howells. Howells composed this piece in 1932, but it was not published until 1980. Following the death of his son Michael in 1935, Howells reworked material from Requiem to compose a large-scale work for chorus and orchestra, Hymnus Paradisi; so neglect of Requiem was his own doing. As is the case with Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem, Howell’s Requiem is not based on the Mass setting for the dead. Like Brahms, Howells compiled his own text, drawing upon the Psalms and antiphons sung in both Latin and English. The Chorale will also sing the similarly-organized Songs of Farewell by Hubert Parry, as well as Edward Elgar’s “They are at rest” and settings of Latin motets by Charles Villiers Stanford. This concert will be given two performances at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin, located at 2325 Union Street in Cow Hollow. They will take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 28, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 30.
2. The Story of Christmas: Distler’s Die Weihnachtsgeschichte: The Chorale will provide one of the Christmas concerts in the Old First Concerts series. The major work will be Hugo Distler’s 1933 setting of The Christmas Story in German, interleaving a narrative based on the Gospels with seven choral variations on the carol “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (lo, how a rose e’er blooming). To introduce Distler’s oratorio, the Chorale will sing Arvo Pärt’s “Which was the son of …,” which enumerates the genealogy leading up to Jesus. Old First Concerts take place at the Old First Church, located at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. The performance will take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, December 9.
3. A Birthday Bachanalia: This concert will celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 332nd birthday and Olbash’s ninth-annual Bach-birthday celebration. The featured composition will be Bach’s BWB 227 motet “Jesu, meine Freude” (Jesus, my joy). An ensemble of period instruments will double the vocal lines for these performances. The program will also include Heinrich Herzogenberg’s setting of Psalm 116, contrapuntal motets by Johannes Brahms, and English canticles by Felix Mendelssohn. A venue has not yet been finalized; but two performances are planned for Friday, March 17, and Saturday, March 18, both at 8 p.m.
4. Madrigals of Passion & Despair by Monteverdi, di Lasso, and Lauridsen: The major work on the program will be Claudio Monteverdi’s five-voice madrigal cycle Pianto della Madonna (the Blessed Virgin’s lament), which incorporates the aria “Lasciatemi morire” (let me die) from the composer’s lost opera L’Arianna (Ariadne). (The aria is sometimes known as “Ariadne’s lament.”) There will also be a performance of the madrigal cycle Standomi un giorno solo a la fenestra (one day, standing alone at my window) by Orlande de Lassus (Orlando di Lasso). The program will conclude with Morten Lauridsen’s cycle Madrigali: Six Fire Songs, scored for eight-part chorus. The San Francisco performance of this concert will take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 19. The venue will be the Concert Hall of the Community Music Center, located in the Mission at 544 Capp Street.

Single tickets for all concerts will be $20. A Season Subscription, which does not include the Old First Christmas concert. is still available for $50. That concert is being presented by Old First Concerts, and tickets will be sold through that organizations online event page. All other purchases may be made through a single Web page on the Lacuna Arts Web site.

The Latest Naxos Recording of Charles Villiers Stanford Surveys his Choral Music

Charles Villiers Stanford was born in Dublin on September 30, 1852; but, before the end of the nineteenth century, he had established himself as one of the leading figures in British music. His university education was at Cambridge, where he was appointed organist of Trinity College while still an undergraduate. In 1874 he went to Leipzig and began lessons with Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory. It did not take him long to realize that Reinecke was too pedantic and old-fashioned to suit his own interests in making music. On the recommendation of Joseph Joachim, he moved to Berlin in 1876, where he had a far more productive encounter with Friedrich Kiel.

Stanford has been generously represented on recordings released by Naxos, and this Friday that representation will be extended to an album devoted entirely to his choral music performed by The Bach Choir conducted by David Hill. All three selections are for chorus and orchestra, and the ensemble is the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As usual Amazon.com is currently taking pre-orders for this new recording.

Stanford tends to be better known for his impact as a teacher than for his compositions. Perhaps his experiences with Reinecke disposed him to be a better teacher for the next generation than Reinecke had been for him. He was a Founding Professor at the Royal College of Music and Professor of Music at Cambridge. His Wikipedia page has a delightful mosaic of four of his best known pupils (clockwise from top left), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and John Ireland:

Four of Charles Villiers Stanford's best-know pupils (from Wikipedia, public domain)

These days one would be remiss in excluding Rebecca Clarke from that list.

The three selections on this new recording come from two periods in Stanford’s life. His Opus 5, “The Resurrection,” is a setting of an English translation by Catherine Winkworth of the same poem by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock that Gustav Mahler would set in the final movement of his second (“Resurrection”) symphony. It was written in Leipzig but published in Cambridge. The other two works were written early in the twentieth century. Opus 96 is a setting of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” hymn with an extended orchestral prelude and a shorter intermezzo before the “Eia, Mater” verse. The remaining selection is an orchestration of one of the poems by Walt Whitman (“Song to the Soul”) from the Opus 97 Songs of Faith, originally composed for solo voice and piano.

It goes without saying that Stanford’s setting of Klopstock is a far cry from Mahler’s. There is an air of dutifulness his approach to the words (which may have something to do with Winkworth’s translation) that never conveys why that poem should have had such a profound effect on Mahler. On the other hand the instrumentation oscillates between tub-thumping grandeur and a few moments of intimacy (which include solo strings) near the conclusion that suggest the struggling young composer trying to get out from under Reinecke’s conservatism.

Nevertheless, Stanford’s “escape” from that influence never really comes to fruition in the later selections. In the case of Opus 96, the phrase “dramatic, at times almost operatic and Wagnerian” on the Naxos page for this album does not make a particularly conducive fit to the quiet suffering depicted by the text that we encounter in the much earlier setting by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Far more interesting is the Whitman setting, which leads one to wonder whether Stanford may have been responsible for bringing that poet to the attention of his pupil Vaughan Williams.

Nevertheless, there is definitely one item of historical interest in this recording. The Bach Choir dates all the way back to 1876, when it was founded in London with a focus on performing the choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Along with his academic posts, Stanford was also Musical Director of this ensemble. Thus, in preparing his compositions for performance on this album, Hill was honoring the legacy of the choir he was leading!