The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

presents the thirty-third annual

Holiday Cathedral Choral Concert

Concert Choir

University Choir

Master Chorale

directed by

James D. Feiszli

An evening ofcarols

Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Rapid City, SD

December 5 & 6, 2015, 7:30pm

Carols evolved from folkdance traditions. Sung at winter and spring solstice celebrations, carols existed before pre-Christian times. The early church overlaid pre-Christian celebrations with Christian holidays (“holy-days”), but the elements of boisterous joy and dance remained in the songs that became popular with the uneducated populace of Western Europe. Since the general populace did not speak, read, or write Latin, macaronic carols (songs using both Latin and the local language) arose. Nativity plays in the Middle Ages frequently used carols to teach biblical doctrine to the illiterate. This development is partially responsible for the spread of the carol through Europe.

As Europe emerged from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the influence of the Church waned – particularly after the Reformation and the secularism of the Enlightenment. Holiday celebrations became associated with other ancient traditions which, in turn, led to a re-birth of carols as Christian musicians and clergy sought to reclaim the awe and joy of the Christmas season. The four-part hymn-like carols of the nineteenth century became what most of us think about when we hear the term.

Tonight we present an entire concert of carols both old and modern from Europe and the U.S.

I – Candlelight Carols

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree ……………….….. Elizabeth Poston

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly ………………………… David Willcocks

Carol of the Drum ………………..…………… Katherine K. Davis

We Three Kings ….. Stephen Hopkins, arr. DarmonMeader

II – University Choir

Pat-a-Pan …………………………….……………………… David Conte

Good King Wenceslas ………….. Robert Shaw / Alice Parker

Still, Still, Still ……………………………..…………… Norman Luboff

Ding Dong Merrily on High …………………..…. James D. Feiszli

III – Master Chorale

The Hills are Bare at Bethlehem …………..…… Ralph Johnson

FumFumFum …………………………………. Joaquin Nin-Culmell

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn ……………….………… Ron Jeffers

Riu, riu, chiu …………………….…………………… Noah Greenberg

IV - Concert Choir

Wassail Song………….…………………. Ralph Vaughan Williams

EsisteinRosentsprungen ………………… Michael Praetorius

EsisteinRosentsprungen ………………………..…. Hugo Distler

Wexford Carol ……………………………………………… John Rutter

V – Combined Choirs

In dulcijubilo …………………………………… Michael Praetorius

Night of Silence …………………………………………. DanielKantor

I – Candlelight Carols

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

Banks Music / Hal Leonard, 1967

Elizabeth Poston; a highly regarded English composer, musicologist, and music director for the British Broadcasting Company; was an authority on carols and folk-music. Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree, included in her Cambridge Hymnal(1967), is an original composition paired with the words found in the collection Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs(1784) by Joshua Smith of New Hampshire. Poston gives the text a folksong-like sound, setting the verses in a variety of voices – unison women, four-part women, mixed chorus, and finishing in unison on the dominant tone (fifth note of the scale). This gives a feeling of haunting incompleteness that is both mystical and ethereal.

Hannah Covey, soloist

Infant Holy Infant Lowly

Oxford University Press, 1961

This traditional Polish carol is a lullaby, but not one being sung tobaby Jesus, but rather abouthim. Willcocks, famed director of the Cambridge Kings College Choir for decades and co-editor with John Rutter (see below) of the well-known Carols for Choir series, set this carol for SATB choir, giving the sopranos the melody line. The altos, tenors and basses sing in what seems to be an ordinary hymn-like harmony but as the arrangement progresses, each individual part becomes its own line of melody. This sequence begins with the tenors followed by the other parts.

Carol of the Drum

Mills Music / Alfred Music, 1941

Katherine K. Davis wrote her first composition at the age of 15. A native of Missouri, she studied music atthe all-female Wellesley College in Massachusetts (1910-1914). After graduation, Davis remained an assistant in the music department while pursuing a graduate degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Carol of the Drum was composed in 1941. Davis never identified the original source, but her original manuscript reads, “Czech carol freely transcribed.”

Originally recorded in 1955 by the Trapp Family Singers, Carol of the Drum was recorded again in 1957 after Henry Onorati re-arranged it for the Jack Halloran Singers. In 1958, Onorati introduced the music to his friend Harry Simeone, a conductor and arranger who worked as the music director for a television show called The Firestone Hour. Simeone re-arranged it again and re-titled it The Little Drummer Boy. His recording was a huge success, scoring on the U.S. music charts from 1958 to 1962. Tonight we perform Davis’ original setting in which the sopranos have the melody overlaid with alto harmony, while tenor and bass voices produce a drum-like rhythm.

We Three Kings

Carl Fischer, 2004

J. H. Hopkins was an ordained minister and amateur musician who wrote both the lyrics and the music for this traditional Christmas hymn. The piece, composed around 1857, was written for a Christmas pageantthat took place while Hopkins was serving as the music director of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City. It was first printed in Hopkins’Carols, Hymns and Songs (1863). Set in a minor key to capture an“Oriental” feel, Hopkins’ carol has become a classic part of the Christmas season.

This arrangement is by one of the premier vocalists and arrangers in the jazz vocal and instrumental world today, DarmonMeader. As founder, member, and music director of the New York Voices, he has performed and recorded with artists such as George Benson, Bernadette Peters, and the Count Basie Orchestra.

II – University Choir

Pat-a-Pan

E. C. Schirmer, 2015

Originally titled Guillô, Pran Ton Tamborin(Willie, Take Your Little Drum)Pat-a-pan was written in 1720 by a French lawyer turned poet, Bernard de La Monnoye. Pat-a-pan is told from the perspective of shepherds playing flutes and drums. Throughout the piece singers repeat the phrase “pan pat a pan.” This is meant to mimic the sound of shepherds playing their drums. Likewise, the phrase “tu la ru la ru” is meant to mimic the sound of a flute.

Traditionally, Pat-a-pan has three verses, but David Conte, an American composer, repeats the first verse after the second and third verses of the original carol (ABACA style). In the first, fourth, and fifth verses, the women have the melody while the men sing an onomatopoetic drum beat. In the second verse, the men have the melody and the women sing the drum beat. The sopranos lead the melody echoed by the basses in the third verse while the tenors and altos sing the drum beat.

Still, Still, Still

Walton Music, 1958

Still, Still, Still is both a lullaby and a Weihnachtslieder (Christmas song). It conveys the joy of Mary at her newborn son and savior, as well as creates a sonic image of Mary gently sending Jesus off to sleep. This message is conveyed through simplicity in the harmony, melody, and lyrics. Throughout the piece, there is a gentle sequential rise and fall of notes which is meant mimic the motion of a cradle. In verses one and two, sopranos sing the melody while the other three parts sing harmony. In the third verse, sopranos retain the melody, but the harmony changes as the basses drop down an octave, and the tenors and altos also sing in lower registers.

The words of Still, Still, Still are attributed to G. Götsch and appeared in 1865. The tune of this Austrian carol, however, is from a collection of folk songs by Maria VinzenzSüß, the founder of the Salzburg Museum in Austria. Norman Luboff, a twentieth century American music arranger, publisher, and choir director, introduced much non-U.S. music to American audiences and this arrangement is one of his best-known.

Good King Wenceslas

G. Schirmer, 1953

Good King Wenceslas is not a traditional carol in either origin of tune or subject matter. Published in 1853 by English clergyman John Mason Neale, it is one of many pieces that Neale created from various sources. Based on a thirteenth-century song about spring,Tempus AdestFloridum, the text is a translation of a poem by a Czech poet. While it conveys messages of kindness and selflessness that exemplify the Christmas season, it has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. The story is of a good king braving a winter storm to bring aid to a peasant on the Feast of Stephen (Dec. 26). However, Wenceslas was not actually a king. Wenceslas was the duke of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) from 921-935. He was known as a charitable man, but there is nothing to indicate that the events of Good King Wenceslas actually happened. This arrangement is one of 223 choral arrangements produced by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker for Shaw’s professional choir. They divided Good King Wenceslas is into five verses. All singers sing in a homophonic manner in the first and last verses. In the second, third, and fourth verses, male and female voices sing the dialog between King Wenceslas and his page.

Male semi-chorus: Adrian Epp, Nick Kenaston, Mathew Volkmer

Female semi-chorus : , Antoinette Brumbaugh, Rachel Lere, Katie O’Rourke, NishanthiPerera, Elizabeth Pierce

Ding Dong Merrily On High

Musikhaus Publications, 2015

Ding! Dong! Merrily on High!is another non-traditional carol. The tune isBranle de L'Official, found in JehanTabourot’sOrchésographie(1589), a book of sixteenth century French dances. English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward, an Anglican priest, helped create the St Barnabas Choral Society and published Hymns and Carols for Christmas-tide(1924)in which Ding! Dong! Merrily on High!first appeared with this text and tune combined. Perhaps the most notable part of Ding! Dong! Merrily on High!is its melismatic melodic sequence, or elongation of a single syllable through many notes, in the refrain “Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!”(“Glory, Hosanna in the highest.”). This arrangement is by SDSM&T Director of Music James D. Feiszli.

III – Master Chorale

The Hills are Bare at Bethlehem

Earthsongs, 1995

Singing schools and shape-note singing flourished 1700-1900 as a popular form of recreation in the United States. It is still practiced today, by a small, but dedicated group of enthusiasts. Many songbooks were published to cater to this activity, including Kentucky Harmony (1816), Missouri Harmony (1820), Southern Harmony (1835), and The Sacred Harp (1844).The melody of The Hills are Bare was published in Southern Harmony under the title Prospect. It was not joined to this text until Royce Scharf, a Lutheran pastor, crafted a poem to fit to Prospect for the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. Ralph Johnson has arranged the hymn for vocal ensemble. It begins with unaccompanied soprano solo. The men take the melody in the second verse and the altos in the third.

solo: Alexa Worley

Fum, fum, fum

Rongwen Music / Broude Brothers, 1959

This carol, of 16th century Catalan folk origin, was made popular by the Robert Shaw Chorale (see Good King Wenceslas below). The English text is recent, and bears little resemblance to the original Catalonian text. The words "Fum, fum, fum", imitate the sound of the Orchésographie by JehanTabourot, a type of folk drum; closely associated with the flamenco tradition. Joaquin Nin-Culmell was born in Berlin of two Cuban musicians, raised in New York City, educated in Paris, studied with the Spanish composer Manuel da Falla, and spent most of his professional life in the United States as a professor of composition, lastly at the University of California-Berkeley.

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn

Earthsongs, 1987

Maria durchein'nDornwaldging(“Mary through a thorn-wood goes”)is a 16th-centuryGerman song traditionally sung during the Advent season. The first appearance of lyrics and music together was in theAndernachGesangbuch (1608). The use of kyrieeleison from the Ordinary of the Mass with a vernacular text indicates that the song dates back to the Middle Ages. The lyrics tell of Mary’s pregnancy and her role as mother of Jesus, associating the Blessed Virgin Mary and the “spotless Rose”–a traditional image in German culture (as heard later in the Praetorius and Distler settings of EsisteinRosentsprungen). This setting is by American Ron Jeffers, who uses the English translation by Henry S. Drinker.

Riuriuchiu

Associated Music Publishers, 1950

This 16th-century villancico (dance carol), from the Catalan region between Spain and France displays folkdance origins by its tuneful melody, and use of the vernacular, rather than the “high” language of Latin. It is known from a single source, theCancionero de Uppsala, published in 1556 in Venice. The nonsense syllables ríuríuchíuare heard as the predator call of a kingfisher.

Riu, riu, chiu, The river bank is protected

God has kept the wolf from our ewe lamb

The rabid wolf wanted to bite her

But Almighty God knew how to defend her

He willed to make her unable to sin

Even original sin this virgin did not have

The one who is born is the Great Monarch Christ the patriarch

Clothed in flesh He has redeemed us by making himself small

Though he was infinite He became finite

He comes to give life to the dead

He comes to repair the fall of all mankind

This Child is the light of day

He is the Lamb of whom St. John spoke

I saw a thousand angels who were singing

Flying around chanting in a thousand voices

Saying to the shepherds “Glory in Heaven,

And peace on earth for Jesus is born.”

Now we have what we desire

Let us go together to present him gifts

Let us all give him our will

For he came as our equal

IV – Concert Choir

Wassail Song

Stainer & Bell, 1913

“Wassail” derives from the Old Norse “vesheil” which became the old English “was hál” (“be healthy”). Wassail isa beverage of hotmulledcider, traditionally drunk while “wassailing”, a Medieval Englishdrinking ritual intended to ensure a good harvest the following year. In small communities, village “waits” went from farm to farm, bringing good luck with their singing—for which they were rewarded with food and drink. There are manywassail songs in England and most adopt the title of the region in which they were sung. This Gloucestershire wassail is believed to date to the Middle Ages. The carol was first published in the Oxford Book of Carols in 1928.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was one of a handful of British composers at the turn of the 20th-century who drew on the rich treasury of English folk song. His arrangement of this carol is a vocal tour-de-force, set in a quick triple meter, depicting a group of carolers approaching a manor house and toasting the occupants.

EsisteinRosentsprungen

E. C. Schirmer, Music, 1921

Concordia Publishing, 1967

This melody and text first appeared in print together in the SpeierischesGesangbuch(1599).The text comes from the book of Isaiah the eleventh chapter, first verse. “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Neither the composer of the tune nor author of the text is known.

A more complete biography of Praetorius is found near the end of this concert program. Praetorius took the original melody - full of syncopated rhythms – and simplified those intricacies into a more metrical tune with a 4-part harmony. It remains one of his most widely-known works.

Hugo Distler (1908-1942) was a brilliant young composer whose fiercely held religious convictions led to him committing suicide rather than joining the Nazi Germany Army. He left behind a body of work that is a microcosm of early twentieth-century compositional techniques, nearly all of it sacred music. His setting of the same melody that Praetorius set shows a sensitivity to the text and yet is far more rhythmically intricate.

Wexford Carol

Oxford University Press, 1978

Wexford Carol is probably the best-known Irish carol. William Grattan Ford (1859-1928), organist and music director at St. Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy, Ireland, transcribed this carol from a local singer, and had it published in the Oxford book of Carols (1928). John Rutter, one of the most prominent choral composers of the twentieth-century, served asdirector of musicat Clare College from 1975 to 1979 and led the choir to international prominence. He and David Willcocks were co-editors of the Carols for Choirs books used by choirs around the world.

Opening with a baritone solo, Rutter’s setting is lush and complex with the entire choir singing the words only in the fourth verse. The second and third verses feature a small group of female and male soloists respectively while the rest of the choir paints a sonic background to the words. The arrangement concludes with the solo.