EXPLORING MUSIC: A Different Recording: Pro Arte Sings Christmas
David M. Greene
The MHS Review 391 Vol. 11 No.13 1987
The Pro Arte Chamber Singers first banded together in 1974 in Stamford, Connecticut, a onetime suburb now, with the exit of businesses from Manhattan, rapidly expanding into a major metropolis. The singers number 36, rather evenly divided into voice categories (10-9-8-9). They are increasingly well known in their quadrant of this country and have concertized in Europe. Their repertoire is catholic (with a small c), and they tend to avoid the beaten track, as demonstrated by some of their prior recordings (Masses by Edgar Tine! and Joseph Rheinberger, for example).
Their conductor and founder is Arthur Sjogren, a graduate of the Westminster Choir School, who has done advanced work at Indiana University, the Peabody Conservatory, and the Vienna Academy, and, in the land of his ancestors, has studied with Eric Ericson, conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir. Harpist Alyssa Hess Reit was a pupil of the great Marcel Grandjany at the Juilliard School and has appeared widely as soloist and in various orchestras. Organist Stephen Rapp holds a doctorate from Yale.
What is different about this recording is that the songs used are almost without exception not from the usual Muzak-cursed repertoire. In fact, I note only two selections that are relatively familiar to me. One is the Sussex Carol, a folksong here presented in a rather souped-up arrangement. The other is Thou didst leave thy throne, which I remember dimly from childhood; but 1 can't swear whether the melody (by T.R. Matthews) is the one I heard (which may have been by J. Baden Powell).
Herewith a brief survey of the rest: The opening number is a setting of What sweeter music can we bring, a poem written by Robert Herrick for a Christmas celebration at Court. The music here is by Michael Fink, guitarist and composer of stature, born in Long Beach in 1939. Next comes a set of six Australian carols by John Wheeler with
music by William G. James. (One should recall that Christmas comes in midsummer Down Under.) The tunes are attractive in an innocuous way. (I have a hazy notion that Mr. James is/was a popular writer of drawing-room songs in Australia.)
The next two numbers were composed by Alice Charlotte Sandstrom Tegner, a Swedish person who died at age 79 in 1943, about whom I can learn nothing more. The first song, Bethlehem's Star, is apparently well known in Sweden; the other, The Shepherds Play for the Infant Jesus, is for female voices only. Christo paremus cantica takes its macaronic text (medieval Latin and English) from a true 15th-century carol. Who is responsible for the music Heaven only knows. Is is listed as "English Traditional," but the notes say that the original music has disappeared and that "it has been set many times," without any hint of who the setters are.
After the two "standards" noted above, we have an arrangement of Schlaf', mein Kindelein (Sleep, my little child), a folksong by Max Reger. The Polish carol W zlobie lezy (Infant Holy) provides another puzzle. The annotator appears to say that the melody was first used for Angels from the Realms of Glory in 1877 and only later applied to the Polish song. But another reference calls it a Polish folk tune, and says the work as a whole is the most famous Polish Christmas song.
Berceuse angelique (Angelic lullaby), however, has a very clear origin. It is by Paul Vidal (1863-1931), the teacher Aaron Copland dumped when he discovered Nadia Boulanger and altered the history of American music. Successful as a composer of ballets and light operas, he was also a notable conductor. Away in a manger uses the tune found on MHS 912043H (Christmas Carols from St. John's; see release 390). After a motet by Hans Leo Hassler, Dixit Maria (Mary said), the recording ends with a big "Gloria in excelsis" from SaintSaens' only Mass, written when he was 20.
On the whole, most of these works are cut from the same cloth as the "carols" we all know and love. Perhaps they too will turn up as elevator music!
The Pro Arte Chamber Singers first banded together in 1974 in Stamford, Connecticut, a onetime suburb now, with the exit of businesses from Manhattan, rapidly expanding into a major metropolis. The singers number 36, rather evenly divided into voice categories (10-9-8-9). They are increasingly well known in their quadrant of this country and have concertized in Europe. Their repertoire is catholic (with a small c), and they tend to avoid the beaten track, as demonstrated by some of their prior recordings (Masses by Edgar Tine! and Joseph Rheinberger, for example).
Their conductor and founder is Arthur Sjogren, a graduate of the Westminster Choir School, who has done advanced work at Indiana University, the Peabody Conservatory, and the Vienna Academy, and, in the land of his ancestors, has studied with Eric Ericson, conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir. Harpist Alyssa Hess Reit was a pupil of the great Marcel Grandjany at the Juilliard School and has appeared widely as soloist and in various orchestras. Organist Stephen Rapp holds a doctorate from Yale.
What is different about this recording is that the songs used are almost without exception not from the usual Muzak-cursed repertoire. In fact, I note only two selections that are relatively familiar to me. One is the Sussex Carol, a folksong here presented in a rather souped-up arrangement. The other is Thou didst leave thy throne, which I remember dimly from childhood; but 1 can't swear whether the melody (by T.R. Matthews) is the one I heard (which may have been by J. Baden Powell).
Herewith a brief survey of the rest: The opening number is a setting of What sweeter music can we bring, a poem written by Robert Herrick for a Christmas celebration at Court. The music here is by Michael Fink, guitarist and composer of stature, born in Long Beach in 1939. Next comes a set of six Australian carols by John Wheeler with
music by William G. James. (One should recall that Christmas comes in midsummer Down Under.) The tunes are attractive in an innocuous way. (I have a hazy notion that Mr. James is/was a popular writer of drawing-room songs in Australia.)
The next two numbers were composed by Alice Charlotte Sandstrom Tegner, a Swedish person who died at age 79 in 1943, about whom I can learn nothing more. The first song, Bethlehem's Star, is apparently well known in Sweden; the other, The Shepherds Play for the Infant Jesus, is for female voices only. Christo paremus cantica takes its macaronic text (medieval Latin and English) from a true 15th-century carol. Who is responsible for the music Heaven only knows. Is is listed as "English Traditional," but the notes say that the original music has disappeared and that "it has been set many times," without any hint of who the setters are.
After the two "standards" noted above, we have an arrangement of Schlaf', mein Kindelein (Sleep, my little child), a folksong by Max Reger. The Polish carol W zlobie lezy (Infant Holy) provides another puzzle. The annotator appears to say that the melody was first used for Angels from the Realms of Glory in 1877 and only later applied to the Polish song. But another reference calls it a Polish folk tune, and says the work as a whole is the most famous Polish Christmas song.
Berceuse angelique (Angelic lullaby), however, has a very clear origin. It is by Paul Vidal (1863-1931), the teacher Aaron Copland dumped when he discovered Nadia Boulanger and altered the history of American music. Successful as a composer of ballets and light operas, he was also a notable conductor. Away in a manger uses the tune found on MHS 912043H (Christmas Carols from St. John's; see release 390). After a motet by Hans Leo Hassler, Dixit Maria (Mary said), the recording ends with a big "Gloria in excelsis" from SaintSaens' only Mass, written when he was 20.
On the whole, most of these works are cut from the same cloth as the "carols" we all know and love. Perhaps they too will turn up as elevator music!