(News about Walter Saul appears at the bottom)
The Biblical book of Habakkuk is one of the most challenging passages of all Scripture as the prophet tells about God’s plan to punish the apostate nation of Judah by a yet more wicked nation of Babylon. The last three verses of Habakkuk are a startling statement of continued faith in God despite all the unimaginable disasters He permits to His chosen people. Having set this text, Habakkuk 3:17-19, myself for solo soprano and piano, I was pleased to hear Jerry Casey’s rich setting of these profound words for full chorus and orchestra.
The work begins with descending half-step “sighs” in the orchestra which prefigure the fugue that portrays the disasters in ascending intensity as the voices stair-step from the bass up to the soprano. At first the orchestra sounds astringently dissonant chords and augments the intensity of the voices by gathering rhythmic energy that transforms itself into militaristic dotted rhythms, suggesting the approaching Babylonians in an appropriately grim fashion. The disasters pile up, one on top of another, until the choir states “and there shall be no herd in the stalls” dramatically and in a totally exposed a cappella.
Casey rightly speaks of “the pivotal word, ‘yet,’” and sets it dramatically with an eight-voice chord built mostly in fifths and fourths. The choir remains a cappella in this difficult writing that evokes Krzysztof Penderecki’s thick choral textures. Then, all at once, everything is transformed in a brilliant example of word-painting. For the first time since the muted introduction, we hear trumpets and timpani as the music becomes bright, invoking the Lydian mode, one of the few scales even more optimistic than the major scale. The men sing “the Lord God is my strength” low and then slightly higher; here I would welcome a continuation of this thought into the full choir before the upper voices continue to “He will make my feet like the feet of a deer.”
Perhaps my favorite section is the following section that sets “He will make me to walk upon the high places, which has a dramatic build that sets the final scene for rejoicing in the Lord. The work ends in one of the more dramatic E major chords I have heard in a while.
Casey wisely chooses a chamber orchestra to accompany the choir. In this way, the choir remains largely audible throughout the work, only very occasionally being drowned out by the trumpets. Yet there is plenty of sound for dramatic crescendos and climaxes, particularly the end. I would, however, welcome double basses in the string section to augment the bass voices.
My one reservation about this epochal work is that the contrast between the two sections is so great that there is almost a disconnect here. I am trying to imagine how Habakkuk would rejoice in the Lord in the face of all these disasters, and it’s difficult to conceive of Habakkuk so completely numbing himself to these dark times as he celebrates God’s presence. However, Casey has ameliorated these difficulties by retaining the Hindemith-like harmonies in both sections as well as using sequences effectively to shift the tonal center from the obvious E major. In short, this is a significant addition to the choral repertory and deserves more performances and possibly a new arrangement for choir and organ or piano.
News from Walter Saul:
- I am performing at a concert of the Michener Duo (my cousin Jane Shelly, flute, and me, piano) plus guests in Petaluma, CA, at the First Presbyterian Church, 930 B Street, on Sunday, September 13, 2015, at 6:30 pm. We are featuring my Three Family Portraits, which are musical depictions of three Old Testament women: Leah, Rachel, and Tamar, along with Prokofieff’s amazing Sonata in D for Flute and Piano, op. 94.
- On Sunday, it will be exactly a month until the Naxos CD release of my orchestral works!
- The world première of Kiev 2014 takes place October 17 and 18, 2015, by the Fresno Philharmonic under the direction of Maestro Theodore Kuchar. Please visit http://www.fresnophil.org/ for more details and to order your tickets.