Icelandic composer Hjálmar Helgi Ragnarsson passed away last Friday, March 13. He was 73. Ragnarsson left behind a wide range of music including symphonic works, operas, incidental music, songs, and film scores. He was a respected music theorist, and served as president of the Federation of Icelandic Artists, and rector of the Iceland University of the Arts. Composed in 1985, Ragnarsson’s Ave Maria for a cappella mixed choir is music from a …
Christina Rossetti’s sonnet, Rest, presents death as a serene eternal sleep which provides relief from earthly pain. It is part of her collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, published in 1862. In 1902, Ralph Vaughan Williams set the poem for a cappella chorus. It unfolds in a gentle, flowing 3/4 time. At the poem’s midpoint, the word “paradise” is accompanied by a radiant turn to D major. From this climax, the music …
Helmuth Rilling, an acclaimed German choral conductor and influential interpreter of Bach, passed away last Wednesday, February 11. He was 92. Rilling founded numerous ensembles including the Gächinger Kantorei (1954), the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (1965), the Oregon Bach Festival (1970), and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (1981). He served as professor of choral conducting at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule from 1965 to 1989 and led the Frankfurter Kantorei from 1969 to 1982. “Music has to …
We begin the year by celebrating a milestone at The Listeners’ Club. This is our 2,000th post. I have enjoyed exploring all of this music with you during these years, and I look forward to continuing the journey. For today, I have selected the brief and festive Osanna in excelsis (“Hosanna in the highest”) which opens the fourth section of Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232. Set in 3/8 time, its lively forward …
By coincidence, a recent post exploring John Adams’ El Niño was published on the 25th anniversary of the work’s premiere in Paris on December 15, 2000. Now, let’s return to El Niño to hear the nativity oratorio’s surreal final moments. In the drama, Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus are on the road to Egypt. They flee the persecution of King Herod, who has decreed that the child be killed. A setting of a poem …
Anonymously penned, the 15th century poem, I syng of a mayden, is a mystical meditation on the Annunciation and Nativity of Christ. Elements of Elizabethan polyphony blend with dreamy chromaticism in English composer Arnold Bax’ 1923 five-part a cappella setting of the text. As the five verses unfold, the majestic melody gives way to variation, only to return in the triumphant final moments. This 2017 recording features The Choir of Westminster Abbey, …
Antonio Vivaldi was 24 years old when, in September of 1703, he was first employed as maestro di violino at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà. Located near the Piazza San Marco, the Ospedale della Pietà was a generously endowed orphanage for girls, the most talented of whom received an exceptional music education. Describing the calibre of the performances, French scholar Charles de Brosses wrote in 1739, “The girls sing like angels, and play …