The text for Adon Olam dates back at least to the 15th century, when it became part of the Shabbat liturgy, although some scholars place its composition even earlier. The melody you hear tonight, popular with arrangers, comes from the isle of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia; this arrangement is by Yehezkel Braun, an Israeli composer whose parents moved from Germany in 1924 when he was 2. A professor in music at Tel Aviv University, he was particularly influenced by the melodies of the Eastern Mediterranean. I love the celebratory nature of this melody and its treatment by Braun. He allows the melody to be heard without accompaniment in the opening but sets the verse’s two-part structure as a call and response between the two treble parts. For the next stanza he brings in the tenors to create a three-part texture and then finally brings in the basses for the third stanza. For that verse the altos accompany the melody in the soprano by mimicking it a perfect fifth lower, a definite sacrilege in Western musical composition! The melody then moves to the tenor, with wordless accompaniment by the alto and bass alternating in a keening motif; as such Braun alludes to this stanza, which refers to sleep, being sung at the deathbed. He underscores the celebratory nature of the final verse by stacking the original melody in parallel fifths atop a complementary melody in the lower two voices also in parallel fifths.

When I announced the inclusion of this work on tonight’s program, several of the singers pronounced it one of their favorite pieces. The Scot Sir James MacMillan set the text, from Catholic liturgy for the penitential pre-Christmas season of Advent, largely in homophony*, although within that texture some syllables are melismatic,* which give the work an expansiveness it might otherwise lack. He creates an ABA form by reprising the original music with its text to embrace a duet in the treble voices but adds a series of Amens to end the work.

Margaret Bonds, a composer being rediscovered in this age of racial and gender inclusivity, set this text attributed to the 19th century Quaker missionary Etienne de Grellet. A graduate of Northwestern University, Bonds studied composition at Juilliard; while in New York she became good friends with the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes and set much of his poetry to music. I find it fascinating that she set this humanistic text, for she experienced much prejudice in her time at Northwestern. Her modest setting befits the simple yet profound quotation; the opening line of the text is sung by a single part, and she reprises it in octaves at the end to underscore its importance. She sets most of the text in homophony,* which again emphasizes the simplicity of the desire expressed in the text while also making it much easier to hear. To me the opening and closing line express a wistfulness that refers both to the realization that life is finite and that the desire to show kindness, while simple, is not easy.

This Icelandic text dates to the 13th century and was written by the poet Kolbeinn Tumason, one of the most powerful chieftains in Iceland. I love his metaphor of God as a blacksmith. Although set previously, Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson’s setting, written in 1973, is the most familiar, and popularized in modern culture by the Indie folk group Árstiðir and the television series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

I first wanted to perform this piece when I heard it on the radio 20 years ago, but the name Eliza Gilkyson would turn up nothing in searches. Finally I learned a few years ago that it is her melody but Craig Hella Johnson’s choral arrangement, and I jumped at the chance to include it in tonight’s program for its deeply moving beauty. Gilkyson wrote it in response to the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004, and Johnson, hearing her duet with her daughter, published his version for four-part chorus in 2008. As he writes in the edition:

I wrote this simple choral arrangement hoping to let the song speak clearly and meaningful for itself and to give many people an opportunity to experience its universal themes.

Craig Hella Johnson founded the professional chorus Conspirare and has also composed many works, the best known of them the powerfully moving Considering Matthew Shepard.

I included Hehlehlooyuh in our first live concert after the Covid lockdown and I reprise it tonight for its ebullient and dynamic spirit. Like Randall Thompson’s Alleluia, its sole text is the word, but where Thompson’s setting is reverent, Furman’s is roof-raising with its constantly varying syncopation*, breakneck tempo, and sudden accents in unexpected places. Although he grew up in Louisville and spent his career in the New York suburbs, Furman has a tie to Massachusetts from his studies in composition at both Harvard and Brandeis.

Salamone Rossi, a well-regarded Italian composer of the Baroque era, wrote much instrumental music and church music, but he also composed music with Hebrew sacred texts for Temple/Synagogue that utilized the contemporaneous developments in composition rather than the style then typically used in service. In the past we have performed his Psalm 92, composed with a Latin text for Church service, but for this setting of Psalm 121, Rossi uses Hebrew. While he was one of several composers pioneering the Baroque innovation of monody,* for this piece he resorted to a setting more typical of Renaissance style, although most of the piece is homophonic* and there are few melismas* after the opening line declaring The song of ascent, which, interestingly, Rossi sets to a falling line in four of the five parts.

I could find no personal information about this composer, except that she has been a choral singer and conductor since 2010, a vocation she discovered through her devout Catholic faith. Her composition outlines the beliefs of Mother Theresa, the nun who worked for so many years with the poor in India as part of her mission as a member of the Sisters of Loreto.

Josef Rheinberger may be unknown to symphony goers, but he is well known to organists, having written twenty sonatas as well as two concertos for organ.

Abendlied represents a beautiful example of Rheinberger’s many sacred compositions; the juxtaposition of the trios of treble and male voices creates antiphonal moments that Rheinberger alternates with imitative polyphony*. The sentiment expressed in the lyrics could be said to be universal through time and among faiths. The mood of the homophonic* major final phrase seems to move from desperation to reassurance as the disposition* of voices narrows and the dynamic fortissimo* with which it starts softens to a pianissimo ending.

Herbert Fromm studied music in his native country of Germany with, among others, Paul Hindemith and assumed consecutive positions as conductor in German Opera Houses. However, in 1933 the Nazi party prohibited Jews from participating in German cultural life, so he became an active composer and conductor in the Jüdischer Kulturbund in Deutschland, the only sanctioned possibility for him in Germany; it was there that he started integrating Jewish texts and musical motifs into his compositions. He was able to emigrate to America in 1937 and soon after assumed the position of organist and choirmaster at Temple Beth El in Boston until his retirement in 1972. Sukkot is one of the Six Madrigals he composed for various times of the Jewish calendar year for the festival of the same name, which follows Yom Kippur and celebrates the harvest as well as God’s protection of the Israelites in their journey out of Egypt. Fromm creates a symmetric composition by bookending the beginning thematic fugal material with a middle section with different musical thematic material. The outer sections’ subject is robust and celebratory befitting the text it sets; the tenors and basses have a stentorian basso ostinato* to accompany the treble fugal iteration, while the middle section’s slower tempo and softer dynamic musically represent God’s mercy. At the reintroduction of the original subject, Fromm interweaves the thematic material from the middle part, as well as stating that original subject in augmentation* in the bass voice.

John Tavener’s choral style has characteristics that identify a piece as his at first hearing. At least that was the case for me when I heard this piece sung at the funeral of Princess Diana of Britain in 1997. Originally composed in memory of Athene Hariades, who had a similarly tragic death in 1993, the work uses a large number of divided voices in a wide disposition that characterizes much of his works for choir. Tavener also uses chantlike melodies and drones*, as he does in this work; in this instance he alternates between chant and homophonic* chords and unites them with the drone* of a constant low F in the basses. His compositional style reflects the tonal style of the Greek Orthodox Church, which heavily influenced his writing at the time.

I love the contemplative nature of Bobby McFerrin’s setting of Psalm 23; it sounds like a lullaby. Interestingly, he dedicates it to his mother, so that sense of soothing and calming may be something he remembered from her singing to him as a child. The fact that he praises God as a female in the Doxology* underscores his reference to her maternal nature. The free-flowing rhythm of the homophony* mimics the relaxed nature of a recitation of the poem and alludes to the style of the canticles sung in the Anglican Morning Service.

This Yemenite tune was popularized by Ofra Haza, a pop singer during the 1980s. I quote Elana Messer, a former member of the group, in describing this piece:

The text delves into the unfathomable nature of Heaven. Paul Ben-Haim, born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, emigrated to Palestine in 1933 where he changed his name. In Europe he was trained as a classical musician—among other positions, he was assistant to Bruno Walther for the Munich Opera in the early 1920s. In Israel, however, his work as an accompanist and arranger for folk groups influenced his compositional style, leading him to synthesize elements of Middle Eastern music with the Western classical tradition. His arrangement of this piece, with its spare accompaniment, accentuates the modality* of the Yemenite melody.

I was inspired to include this piece by the profundity of the text in its humanistic belief. The higher power actually resides within us and is carried forward through the generations. The music illustrates the text by moving from a solo voice to a duet, to a trio and finally to a quartet. In the last iteration of its second half, all four voices sing in homophony* as a testament to the power of song and faith in humanity. Samih Choukeir is a Syrian singer and composer who has long dedicated himself to human rights issues in his home country and around the world. Among other things, his musical talents fostered support for the Arab spring.

When Musica Sacra performed Ad genua in October of 2022, it was because Paul Ogilbvy had recommended this piece by Thorvaldsdottir to me, having sung it in a concert he had performed with a group in California. Olaf á Söndum penned the Icelandic psalm in the 16th or early 17th century, and Thorvaldsdottir creates a somber setting with the low-lying tessitura* of each of the voices, its slow tempo, and its D minor tonality*, Despite these attributes, the piece is hauntingly beautiful, as though the hope of salvation provides light and warmth in the dark Icelandic winter.

Anyone who loves the voice of Ella Fitzgerald or the era of big band Jazz knows that Duke Ellington wrote many fabulous secular music during the 20th century; what might be less familiar to them, though, is his sacred oeuvre. Edward Kennedy Ellington wrote Come Sunday as part of his jazz suite Black, Brown, and Beige, composed over 10 years in the ’30s and ’40s. Originally composed for Alto Sax, Ellington later wrote the words for a recording to be sung by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in 1958, which gave it widespread recognition. Ellington’s harmony is replete with the jazz intervals of 7ths and 9ths, both major and minor, and other intervals not part of a major or minor triad*.

Moses Hogan is probably the best known and most loved of choral arrangers of Spirituals of our times, even though his life was cut tragically short by a brain tumor. He started arranging Spirituals and hymns in the 1980s when he founded the New World Ensemble, having focused primarily on piano study prior to that time. The arrangement that closes tonight’s performance would be right at home in a revival meeting or gospel performance due to its fast tempo and many manifestations and iterations of call and response between the treble and lower voices. ▣

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