Back in July, when I planned tonight’s program, it seemed as though the pandemic might finally have waned. As we know, however, that is not the case; it is still an ever-evolving situation. Things are enough better, however, to make my selections not totally incongruent. Jake Runestad’s Let my love be heard acknowledges the grief that so many of us have suffered through the loss of loved ones. Frank Ticheli’s Earth Song celebrates perseverance during times of hardship through music, singing, and surviving. And James Furman’s Hehlehlooyuh, with its one-word text, raucously gives praise for our more optimistic circumstances. Meanwhile, Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem honors those whose lives have been lost, many of them needlessly, to this pandemic.

Our opening piece, Let my love be heard, reflects vocal music’s origins, since the melody Runestad uses to set his text has striking similarities to plainchant with its lack of melismas* and its rhythmic fluctuations between triplets and duplets to maintain the rhythms of speech inherent to the text. After two expressions of the melody, Runestad takes his first phrase and sets it homophonically* among the bass and tenor parts, repeating it with more intensity by means of a rising dynamic and tessitura*. These supplications are accompanied by overlapping triplet vocalises* among the treble parts in representation of the grief rising to heaven and thereby dissipating.

James Furman, a prolific African-American composer, grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. He did doctoral work at Harvard under another wonderful choral composer, Irving Fine, and spent most of his professional life in the New England area. Furman’s Hehlehlooyuh, with its ever-changing rhythmic patterns, its fluctuation between harmony and dissonance, and its lightning-fast tempo, creates an ecstatic frenzy of such magnitude that the listener might feel they are witnessing an Evangelical possession of exultation. As such it is the ultimate musical expression of the word Hallelujah.

Those of you used to hearing sacred music in a liturgical setting have probably heard of Maurice Duruflé and have maybe even heard his Requiem. Written between 1941 and its debut in 1947, the opus exists in three scorings: for full orchestra, chamber orchestra with organ, and organ only; we present the latter this evening. Duruflé modeled his work somewhat on that of the 19th-century composer Gabriel Fauré, ordering his movements similarly with a central solo for the Pie Jesu, albeit for mezzo-soprano rather than Fauré’s soprano. Interestingly, French settings, even those of the Renaissance, usually set this final phrase from the Dies irae as its own movement, with that of Berlioz being a notable exception, something the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi do not do. Duruflé also alludes to Fauré’s work by placing a severely truncated version of the Dies irae near the end of the piece for dramatic effect. Unlike Fauré’s Requiem, however, Duruflé bases his work liberally on literal quotations of the chants used in the Mass for the Dead from the Liber usualis*. So, the lower voices you will hear in the Introit quote the chant just as it appears in that book. In the Kyrie, Duruflé goes one step further, using the chant as a fugal subject quoted at the fifth among the choral voices, while having it appear in elongated note values in the organ accompaniment. That the listener would not necessarily be aware of that as they luxuriate in sublimely beautiful music attests to Duruflé’s mastery of composition.

In the Domine Jesu Christe, Duruflé introduces the choral part of the movement in the same way he does in the opening Introit: with the chant quoted verbatim by a solo vocal part. However, after the first line, Duruflé moves to a chantlike melody of his own creation. As such, the opening section sounds like a prayer by the supplicant for those departed. It turns much more personal, however, when the text turns to asking for delivery from the mouth of the lion, Hell, and darkness. Duruflé’s use of all the parts in a forte dynamic* and fast tempo while repeating the phrase three times indicates to me that the supplicant is now begging for their own delivery. As the text turns to the assurance that God promised salvation, the setting turns once again to a freely composed chant in parallel thirds by the treble voices to represent the timidity of the supplicant, perhaps in acknowledgement that they may have overstepped their bounds in their prior demand. Then a very strange accompaniment filled with melodic intervals of augmented seconds accompanies the final bass entreaty. Is the supplicant now in doubt of salvation? The literal reiteration of Quam olim Abrahae, this time a whole step higher, to end the movement might be a final meek plea or an assurance of delivery from above.

In his Sanctus Duruflé opts to forego the majesty characterizing many settings of this text in favor of a musical line connoting a vision of Heaven as a welcoming place of peace and calm. He achieves this by setting the text for treble voices quoting the stepwise chant in parallel triads of second inversion*. His subsequent setting of all voices in a fortissimo* dynamic* to sing Hosanna in excelsis therefore achieves a much more dramatic grandeur in its maximal contrast. He quotes the chant directly with the same harmony he used to open the Sanctus for the Benedictus, combining what composers usually treat as two movements into one. The serene music to set this text suggests to me the composer’s wish to represent Jesus as the member of the Trinity* responsible for that celestial peace and calm.

The four-note descending scale that sets each iteration of the text Pie Jesu reveals Duruflé’s intent to underscore the merciful nature of Jesus. His reiteration of the phrase three times—each in a higher tessitura*, louder dynamic, and more dissonant harmony—represent the supplicant’s increasingly desperate desire to have their wish granted. He ends the movement with the accompaniment limning the original melodic line while the soloist sings requiem sempiternam on a single note, the lowest note of the solo; her low tessitura* and melodic stasis mirror the literal meaning of eternal rest.

Duruflé’s Agnus Dei describes musically a church nave in which people enter on their own to offer their personal prayers to the Lord. The one line of text is iterated separately by the altos and then the tenors. Then a duet of sopranos and altos sing it together twice in canon*, suggesting two distinct entities offering the same prayer to themselves. Only then do the four voices sing in concert, thereby adding emphasis to the plea. A final iteration by a solo voice, this time that of the basses, precedes the four voices homophonically* singing a single chord. As with the prior movement, the stasis, this time harmonic as well as melodic, symbolizes the concept of eternal rest.

The opening of the Libera me, with its hesitant off-the beat rhythm, might be an homage to the accompaniment used by Fauré at the beginning of his Libera me. It might also represent the formal step used by those carrying a casket, where one foot steps forward, the other goes to meet it, there is a pause, and then the cycle starts again. Whatever Duruflé’s motive, the effect is one of foreboding and fear. As the text moves to the description of the fire awaiting those judged wanting, Duruflé increases the tempo to signify the abject terror instilled in the speaker by their possible fate. He uses this faster tempo for the description of the day of judgment, first sung in a bass solo and then by the chorus; the first iteration seems to represent God’s authoritative voice from on high, while the choral repetition is the Christian’s reaction to the horrors of that day. Duruflé unites these sections with variants of the opening music reprised as a choral refrain. The mood then totally shifts as the sopranos, in their high register with triple meter* and major tonality*, sing the request for eternal rest and perpetual light for the departed. As such Duruflé uses the setting to provide an image of God’s assurance from Heaven above. He ends the movement with the music that opened it, although this time there are pulsing eighth notes to accompany the singers. With his tempo indication of 66 quarter notes per minute, he references the pulse of the human heart, which accompanies us throughout our life.

Duruflé employs many musical markers to illustrate the tranquility and peace of paradise: the major tonality*, slower tempo, slow-moving accompaniment, and direct quote of the chant by the high tessitura* of the soprano section. The chorus takes over the text to musically depict the chorus of angels, and as they sing may they have eternal rest, there is a lovely melody in triple meter soaring above in the accompaniment. As with prior movements, Duruflé musically describes eternal rest with a melody of a single note, but whereas in earlier instances the accompaniment was also harmonically static, here the voices move by stepwise motion to open up the harmony as well as the disposition* of voices. Then, in the final three chords of the work, he makes a surprising turn of harmony, ending on a dominant seventh chord with a ninth joining it as the last note we hear. I hear the strong influence of jazz in the final chord, and in that startling chordal progression I also hear a musical reference to a verse from Corinthians used by Brahms in his Requiem: Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the blink of an eye.

We end tonight’s program with Frank Ticheli’s music set to a poem of his own creation. To me it represents resolve, fortitude, and determination to celebrate the gifts of life in even the worst of times, attributes that we should all aspire to in these days. We hope that you leave this concert bathed in music that assuages your grief, brings you comfort, and provides you with hope.

© 2021 Mary Beekman. All rights reserved. No portion of this document may be quoted or reproduced without the author’s permission.