The Story of Crossing Over (part 3)

7/12/2016

Welcome to the third and final part of the Story of Crossing Over, where we're sharing the inspiration behind our new album. If you want to start from the beginning, be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 first!

My time has come
Carols of Death, William Schuman

If the Vuichard piece represented a moment of denial (and ultimate acceptance) before the death of our protagonist, the Schuman animates the moment of death itself. Set in three parts, the Carols offer diverse tableaus about the universality, inevitability, and mystery of death.

When considering the song cycle, Schuman rejected several texts by T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and others (offered by the commissioning music department of St. Lawrence University) in favor of texts by Walt Whitman that he found so meaningful.

Schuman later wrote:

The words of Carols of Death haunted me for years, because I think they are absolutely beautiful words, and I could never find the music that I felt was right to go with them. The “Carols” of course is my own title…I don’t mean it in an ironical sense at all…I think they are songs about death. I am not and have never been morbid about death. I always think that death is one branch of life, just to make up a thought no one’s ever mentioned or said before. There’s nothing very special about it. But I thought the Whitman texts were absolutely special.

1. The Last Invocation

The Last Invocation
from Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful,
fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock
the locks—with a whisper,
Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!)
Strong is your hold, O love.

In the first Carol, The Last Invocation, the speaker seeks permission to leave his or her mortal life, but acknowledges the strong hold of human desires and earthly love. Perhaps most notable is how Schuman sets the piece in a broad and stentorian tempo, allowing the lines of Whitman’s text to try to escape the rhythmic strictures created by the meter.

I feel as if the whole movement is a musical illustration of the popular cultural image of someone lying on their death bed experiencing their soul beginning to leave the body and slowly "waft" up towards the ceiling (images like this). The first stanza of text represents the soul trying to break free of the body (both metrically and dynamically). During the next stanza, we "noiselessly" float towards the ceiling, approaching a door that opens to what may lie beyond.

In the last stanza, we start back down towards the bed and ourselves. We achingly feel the pull of our loved one(s) by the bed, not wanting to turn towards the unknown. The chilling final chord is our last attempt to hold on to those we love.

2. The Unknown Region

The Unknown Region
from Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman

DAREST thou now, O Soul,
Walk out with me toward the
     Unknown Region,
Where neither ground is for the feet,
     nor any path to follow?

No map, there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of
     human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips,
     nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not, O Soul;
Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us;
All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land.

In the second Carol, The Unknown Region, the speaker and his or her soul dare to escape life and “walk out” towards the unknown. I feel that the narrative structure from the previous movement stays intact: we are at the precipice, staring out into the void.

I absolutely adore the two images from Caleb and Collin at Sono Luminus that we included in our CD booklet at this point in the program.

In the opening section of the movement, Schuman uses a repetitive and seemingly endless rhythmic layering of the same four notes to illustrate the rituals of our daily lives.

Staring out towards the void, he then turns to an extended two-part harmonic section (likely illustrating the journey of man or woman and his/her soul).

Once we reach the edge of the unknown, our time signature changes and so does the harmonic formula. Venturing into wild dissonances, the section ends with a chord that is both A major and minor at the same time, representing utter disorientation.

After briefly re-visiting the first motif, the movement finally ends with an extended section looking towards the abyss, where it seems like we are trying to reach some version of a chord in the key of A. We are looking “through a glass darkly” but can never quite get there, as we have not yet seen the unseen. The final chord is as deeply unstable as the concluding text.

3. To All, to Each

To All, To Each
From When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
Walt Whitman

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely
arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.

In the third and final Carol, To All, To Each, Schuman sets just a few lines of a death carol sung by a grey bird in Whitman’s masterpiece, When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (his elegy for Abraham Lincoln). The movement begins with a figure that calls to mind the tolling of bells (set strictly at 60 beats per minute). To me, it seems clear that these are the chimes of an eternal clock announcing "the time is nigh."

The transition to a surprising harmonic slinkiness on “lovely and soothing” is achingly beautiful, particularly the winding melodic figure on "soothing" sung by the sopranos and altos – perhaps death isn’t so bad?…we just don’t know what it is.

Schuman animates the remaining birdsong in a haunting three-part ostinato. In the most lyrical moment of his set, the two outer parts wind up and down, slowly expiring around a sustained and repeated E sung by the middle voice. We have discussed in rehearsals whether the concept of a "flatline" EKG was in the popular consciousness at the time of the composition. If so, it seems an utterly appropriate image for the conclusion of the set.

Beyond the Veil
Heyr þú oss himnum á, Anna Thorvaldsdottir

The Schuman was the end of the mortal life of our protagonist.

What lies beyond?

I personally have no idea - I would place my theology firmly in the "agnostic of Episcopalian heritage" camp.

But I love the idea of hope of what could be. And Anna Thorvaldsdottir's gorgeous piece provides that to me.

After a final cadence in A minor, we ascend a fourth to D (a reverse plagal relationship - perhaps we are undoing the chillingly final "amen" at the end of the Schuman?)

I believe this simple hymn beautifully illustrates what an assemblage of ascending souls might sound like as they approach the unknown but perhaps beautiful realm that could like beyond.

As you listen, I encourage you to read the translation below, as the text is simple and powerful. I love the last two stanzas, and particularly this line in the third verse, which perfectly captures why Skylark exists: "We cannot make a joyful song unless we are moved by love."

Heyr þú oss himnum á, Guð.

Heyr þú oss himnum á,
hýr vor faðir, börn þín smá,
lukku oss þar til ljá
líf eilíft þér erfum hjá,
og að þé r aldrei flæmumst frá.

Þitt ríki þró ist hér,
það þín stjó rn og kristni er,
svo að vé r sem flestir,
Guð, til handa þér,
fegin yfir því fögnum vér.

Síst skarta sönglist má,
sé þar ekki elskan hjá,
syngjum þvíþýtt lof þá,
Þér, Guð drottinn, himnum á,
Maður rétt kristinn mun þess gá .

En þegar aumir vér,
öndumst burt úr heimi hér,
oss tak þá , Guð, að þér,
Í þá dýrð, sem aldrei þver.

Amen, amen það eflaust sker.

Hear us in heaven, O God.

Hear us in heaven,
loving Father, as we, your small children,
ask for the fortune
to receive eternal life.
We shall not stray from your path.

May we help your kingdom
to grow here on earth.
Following your guidance,
we gather around in your name,
and gladly celebrate.

We cannot make a joyful song
unless we are moved by love.
So let us sing our gentle praise
to you, Lord God, in heaven,
as the truly faithful have done.

When our poor souls
pass away from this world,
take us God to you,
into your everlasting glory.

Amen, Amen, may this be done.

—Old Icelandic Psalm

We who remain
Funeral Ikos, John Tavener

At this point on the disc, our protagonist has crossed over to what may lie beyond.

We are left here, on earth, wondering what has happened.

Our program returns to John Tavener, and his Funeral Ikos (with a text from the Greek Orthodox Order for the Burial of Dead Priests) ponders the mystery of where our loved ones have gone and where we may someday go ourselves.

The piece is a simple chant, and over-analysis defeats the purpose. We strove to deliver the text in as compelling and honest a way as we could.

The only thing I will offer is that Tavener’s indicated tempo is far faster than any professional recording I have heard before ours. At this faster tempo (still slightly below the 88 beats per minute in the score), I think the piece takes on an urgency and an emotional life that is missing in slower versions.

The piece and the album end on a stark open fifth. We have progressed through a series of dreams and visions, and witnessed someone cross over into the beyond, but we as humans on earth still lack a clear image of what is to come.

Oh, and if you don't yet have your own copy, you can find it on Amazon and iTunes!

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