A couple of quick hits before we celebrate our last two composers from last October:
- The Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers 2021 Virtual Conference is set for October 23 this year, from 1:00 – 6:00 PM, Eastern Daylight Time. You may access the Call for Scores at http://cfamc.org/conferences. Please let us hear from you by August 1, 2021. Yes, the call is to members of CFAMC, but did you know that a donation of any size (even $1.00) makes you a member? Nobody will be excluded from CFAMC merely because of finances. Please go to http://cfamc.org/members and join us. This will be a more compact conference, because…
- On March 25-26, 2022, we will have an in-person live National Conference at Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, California! Yes, you read that right! In-person! We are still working out the final details of the call for scores and the schedule, but we will be posting this shortly at the same website http://cfamc.org/conferences. Save these dates now, and celebrate! Southwest Airlines now serves Fresno, so it will be less expensive to come!
- In my last blog about the music of Jack Ballard and Larry Mumford (at http://waltersaul.com/index.php/2021/05/24/the-paul-stanbery-chronicles-issue-13-music-by-jack-ballard-and-larry-mumford/) we celebrated the beautiful score of Mumford, Adagio: Of Times and Seasons PAINTINGS. He just informed me that the largest classical music stations in Los Angeles (KUSC) and San Francisco (KDFC) have both aired this score! Despite the intense baseball and other sport rivalries between California’s largest metro regions, I want to give a shoutout to both of these cities for their similar great tastes in music. And, of course, we want to congratulate Mumford for a wonderful media breakthrough! I told him to aim for TV now, so we could see the exquisite paintings in this dramatic video, so that’s his homework assignment.
And now, on to the entrée!
Review: CFAMC 2020 Virtual International Conference
October 17, 2020
The Third Concert – The Music of Heather Niemi Savage and Paul Stanbery
We had the privilege of hearing earlier from CFAMC’s Vice President Heather Niemi Savage in the second concert of this conference (see http://waltersaul.com/index.php/2021/03/12/the-paul-stanbery-chronicles-issue-8/), where we aired her Chant De Benediction, a tour de force for solo guitar. Continuing her exploration of strings, we now tune into her Daughter of the Stars for string orchestra, presented in this final concert.
Daughter of the Stars joins many choral and instrumental arrangements and fantasies of the American folk tune “Shenandoah,” which may help to account for its popularity all across New England. However, there are some significant aspects of the conflicting legends behind this storied tune that Savage wisely chooses to highlight, which grants this meditation on “Shenandoah” a depth and breadth not possessed by most other fantasies. Her program notes about the work explain these differing legends well:
An original piece for string orchestra, “Daughter of the Stars” is inspired by the American folk tune, “Shenandoah.” The title comes from the meaning of the word “Shenandoah,” which is “spruce stream, great plains, beautiful daughter of the stars.” The folk song refers to a river, so while writing the piece I imagined traveling down a river and seeing the beautiful countryside surrounding it. At one point, the river becomes turbulent, goes over a waterfall and opens into a wide, smooth, serene scene. Some say the folk song originated with fur traders and then became a sea shanty. Since sea shanties are often in ¾ time, the melody was adapted to fit this time signature. Some say the folk song originated with slaves, and the lyrics “across the wide Missouri” were originally, “across this world o’ mis’ry.” This inspired the minor and turbulent section of the piece. Most believe the song is about a fur trader in love with an Oneida chief’s daughter and longing to see her, which fits so well with the melancholy yet hopeful nature of the piece.
As the notes above reference flowing water so the music word-paints water by a constant flowing of calm eighth notes in its quiet opening and agitated repeated 16th notes in the tempestuous section in the minor key. In a masterful way, Savage cascades the flowing and hurtling notes from one string section to another, thereby creating a stereophonic effect and literally moving us along the river or sea as the moving energy travels around the entire string orchestra.
Tonally, this work is simplicity itself: a quiet, contented G Major ends on a C2 chord (C major with an added 2nd), away from its tonic and bearing dissonance. Then it moves to the parallel g minor key, at first continuing the gentle flow, but then the storm moves in and the thunderous repeated 16th notes seem to attack the entire piece, wrenching it out of the g tonality momentarily, the only time this occurs in the work. This is followed by a brilliant hemiola effect as the hammered chords in 6/8 time rip across the ¾ flow into a boisterous half cadence, fully resolving only as the gentle music of this simple song form returns.
The entire string orchestra performs most of the work together, maintaining a five-voice texture that is rich and gratifying to hear. But there are a couple of textural contrasts when only three of the five parts comment, almost in the manner of a concertino and a concerto grosso. The work concludes with a peaceful and ingratiatingly-voiced tonic triad.
While I treasure the independence of the five voices in the string orchestra, the bass often is difficult to hear and needs greater prominence. It would be a good idea to divide the cellos so that half of them reinforce the contrabasses, who simply don’t have the horsepower to bring out their gorgeous lines by themselves. If we compare this work with, say, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, we will see that the latter freely divides up the string orchestra into as many as nine parts to ensure that the main voices will be clearly heard along with the foundational bass lines. Savage’s bass lines are even more interesting melodically and deserve this kind of highlighting.
Of special note is that this work quite worthily took second place in the 2020 American Prize in Composition – pops/light music division. To listen to this work and purchase the recording visit Savage’s website at https://heatherniemisavage.com/product/daughter-of-the-stars/.
Now we come to the final piece of the entire program and conference, whose composer gives his name to this review: Symphony No. 2, Foundations, II. In the Cathedral, by the late Paul John Stanbery. Indeed, this was one of Stanbery’s last conferences attended, as he passed away not long afterward from cancer on February 6, 2021. In reading his life story, posted at https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/cincinnati/obituary.aspx?pid=197702156, I am tempted to dub him “the Midwest Mahler.” Like Gustav Mahler, he was both composer and conductor, and, like Mahler, he got around in his career. Yes, he was director of the Butler Philharmonic in Hamilton, Ohio, for 24 years and grew the orchestra and expanded it to include the BPO Chorus and the Butler Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. But he also founded two other orchestras and guest conducted eight others. And, similarly to Mahler, he championed the music of other composers throughout his career. Stanbery also reminds me of Vienna’s other late 19th-century great symphonist, Anton Bruckner. Like Bruckner, Stanbery had a rock-solid, vibrant Catholic faith from his childhood that was part and parcel of the lofty cathedrals in which they grew up and later served. And, like both Mahler and Bruckner, Stanbery was not shy about the grand gestures and huge climaxes to which he drove his orchestras in his works. There’s no better example of all of these aspects of Stanbery’s creativity and personality than the slow movement of his second symphony, “In the Cathedral.”
Stanbery loses no time setting the stage for this massive work, every bit resembling the grand architecture of Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio, his home parish where he grew up. A full brass section, escorted by the entire orchestra, commands our attention and awe as the music launches with a dissonant major 7th chord demanding resolution. Only at the fourth huge chord of this fanfare do we get to relish the gorgeous G Major chord that sets the tonic for this movement. Four more dissonant chords follow and lead to a D Major chord, the expected dominant. But what is that dissonant G# in that D chord? Evidently, it is one of Stanbery’s favorite chords, because it is used many times through this paean of praise to his Creator and Savior God. It’s worth a closer look.
We might be tempted to dismiss this as a major triad with an added raised 4th (D-F#-G#-A), but I believe there’s more to it. This combination of notes is one of only two such combinations called the all-interval tetrachords. If we list all the intervals we see in these 4 tones, we will find one, and only one, example of each of the half step (G#-A), whole step (F#-G#), minor third (F#-A), major third (D-F#), perfect 4th (D-A, the inversion of A-D) and tritone (D-G#). All intervals used in Western music are these intervals or their inversions, so they are all represented here in this tetrachord, or four-note chord. Is it possible that Stanbery was envisioning a chord that represented all of creation and all of humanity drawn into harmonious relationship with God? If only I could interview him now about this!
The huge fanfare continues, as if heralding a great – and fearful – king, finally recalling that awesome G Major chord, only the second tonic chord in an entire minute of music. Surely, this is an example of what many of Stanbery’s admirers mean by “the Stanbery moment”! Then, in typical Mahler fashion, Stanbery drops out almost the entire orchestra to focus on just a flute and oboe, with some commentary by timpani. A solo cello is added to the duet, and the reason for the troubling dissonances is unveiled as we hear the plaintive sounds of “Victimae paschali laudes” (“Christians, to the Paschal Victim offer sacrifice and praise”). Yes, this is a sequence chant for Easter, but it reminds us of the horrible suffering that Jesus Christ endured in His sacrifice for us. This chant and the three lonely instruments in the midst of this stage-cramming orchestra remind us indeed of the Paschal Lamb, suffering all alone on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as the music moves to the tonal center of C, colored by the Mixolydian and other ancient church modes. Eventually this tune culminates on E, reminding us that it is in the Phrygian mode.
At this juncture, there is a warm and caressing string interlude based on the opening motive of “Victimae paschali laudes” which we will hear again and again throughout the movement. Now we hear the entire cello section play a second stanza of “Victimae paschali laudes” with a slightly richer woodwind group and more persistent timpani, like the Master’s walk on the Via Dolorosa. The interlude returns, with woodwinds joining the strings, and is extended. There are several chromatic mediant relationships, such as a phrase beginning in E-flat major and ending in C major, a mediant, or third, away, and a chromatic inflection, such as E-flat becoming E in the C chord. Sometimes these conflicting tonalities collide and we get another hallmark Stanbery moment, the polymodal chord. This is a chord that has both a major and a minor third in it, so it’s a major/minor triad. Of course, it’s also stridently dissonant, reflective of the agony and pain of Christ before His death.
At this point a solo trumpet introduces the other main theme of this movement: “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei” which comes from the second half of the motet Ave Maria by Tomas Luis de Victoria, followed by a soft reprise of the opening chords up high. Now the two themes are combined in an agitated way by the strings tremoling “Sancta Maria” while the bassoon intones “Victimae paschali laudes.” This agitation and troubling combination reminds us of the acute suffering of the Virgin Mary beholding her Son on the cross. It seems as though, on the way to the climax, another “Stanbery moment,” all the music falls apart into a disorderly atonality portraying the ugliest crime of humanity. Broken and shattered, “Victimae paschali laudes” progresses into the darkest depths, reminiscent of Christ’s descent into hell. But a lone flute finishes the “Victimae paschali laudes” theme and gently moves the softened orchestra to E Major, again, in a chromatic mediant relationship to the opening G Major, bringing peace and an inner Easter hope to the comforting closing chord, yet a progression to a new place, perhaps the heavenly home in which Stanbery now resides.
Stanbery conducts the Butler Philharmonic in a gripping and exciting performance of this 8-minute movement, and indeed the entire 36-minute symphony on the Paul Stanbery YouTube channel. For the entire symphony with the orchestra on video, I would recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1xIHOvJnbQ&t=978s (although the video is not HD). A more inspired experience is the beautiful tour of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral with “In the Cathedral” as its soundtrack at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ES-vRnSZ5c&t=19s.
Upon hearing this majestic music, truly larger than life, more enduring than death, the CFAMC conference truly had a “holy moment” to celebrate the composer before we all said goodbye to one another in six nations, six time zones, and three continents.
It seems fitting with the review of Stanbery’s music to draw the Paul John Stanbery Chronicles to a close. But, while we do this, we rejoice in the magnificent legacy that Stanbery leaves to us as well as extremely large shoes to fill. May we, like him, live our lives grandly, victoriously, and generously as we prepare those around us to meet our Saviour.