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Pilgrims and Polyphony: Ether Game Playlist

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This week, in preparation for Thanksgiving, the Ether Game Brain Trust donned their big-buckled hats and presented a show about musical pilgrims. Browse our traveler's music below, and remeber to join us for the live quiz Tuesdays at 8 oclock on WFIU.   

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) Tannhäuser: Pilgrims' Chorus When Americans hear the word “pilgrim,” especially in late November, we probably think of those intrepid religious dissidents who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, After suffering through a harsh winter, these pilgrims were finally able to harvest and feast, thanks to the help of the Native Americans. The Pilgrims’ in Wagner’s famed “Pilgrims’ Chorus” from Tannhäuser, on the other hand, are instead travelling to Rome, where they hope to be absolved of their sins by the Pope. The theme of absolution is central to Tannhäuser. The title character competes in a singing competition, where he finds that his soul has been damned after a salacious excursion to the den of Venus, the goddess of love. Tannhäuser takes his own  pilgrimage to Rome, where he is unable to be saved. His salvation is eventually granted, though,  thanks to the pure love of the Princess Elizabeth.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Songs Without Words, Op. 67: Song of the Pilgrim Felix Mendelssohn (and his sister Fanny) ignored traditional necessary requirement of a song by writing several dozen Lieder Ohne Worte, or “Songs Without Words.” These solo piano pieces had all the melodic tunefulness of an art song without that pesky singer to worry about. These Songs Without Words became fixtures of 19th-century middle class homes throughout Europe, performed in the parlors of amateur musicians. Even a world-class professional musician like Franz Liszt enjoyed them: he even arranged Mendelssohn’s first Song Without Words as a grand concert piece for 2 pianos. 

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Second Year of Pilgrimage: No. 2 'Il penseroso' The three volumes from Franz Liszt’s piano suite Years of Pilgrimage exhibit the composer’s style as it evolved over several decades. Modeled in part on the “journeyman” years of Goethe’s character Wilhelm Meister and the pilgrimage of Lord Byron’s character Childe Harold, the works chronicle the travels of Liszt and his mistress Marie d’Agoult around Europe. The second volume focuses on various locales in Italy as well as Italian art itself. For instance the second movement titled “The Thinker” references the sculptures by Michaelangelo which decorate the tomb of Giuliano di Medici in Florence. Other allusions in Volume Two include references to paintings by Raphael and the sonnets of Petrarch, as well as a quotation of a melody by Baroque composer and cellist Giovani Bononcini.

Arvo Pärt (b.1935) Wallfahrtslied (Pilgrim's Song) As with many of his pieces, when Arvo Pärt completed his Wallfahrtslied, he included a stirring introduction to the music. He wrote “When my friend Grigori Kromanov, the Estonian film and stage director, died in July 1984, it was like a bolt from the blue. Suddenly an invisible rift had opened up between us – with me still on the side of time and him already in the sphere of timelessness. My Pilgrims’ Song is an attempt to overcome this insurmountable gap through a gentle touch, a greeting. I wanted the two worlds, Here and There, to merge in the music, as contrasting layers – that was the origin of the work.” The piece ushered Pärt into a band of 20th century composers known as the “mystic minimalists.” Pärt, alongside Hovhaness, John Tavener, and Sofia Gubaidulina, used minimalist composition techniques—lots of repetition, minimal harmonic motion, simple melodic material—but composed with religion or mysticism in mind.

William Billings (1746-1800) Thanksgiving Anthem: O praise the Lord of Heaven We don’t have any specific record of a composers joining the pilgrims on the journey to America, however we do have surviving music by the first early American choral composer. Self-taught composer of numerous hymns and polyphonic works he called “fuging” tunes, William Billings has gone down in history as the earliest published American composer. Billings also found success as the author of pedagogical works on singing, and by briefly running his own singing school. His compositional prowess was somewhat awkward and “unsophisticated” by European standards, however, and by the end of Billings’s life, his works were widely perceived as old-fashioned. In poor financial straits, Billings held several odd jobs, including for a time a professional hogreeve (HAWG-reev—a guy who catches and returns escaped hogs for a fee. He also worked on and off for most of his life as a leather tanner, the line of work in which he had apprenticed as a teenager.

Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) Symphony No. 15 "Silver Pilgrimage" II. Marava Princess Hovhaness’s name has already appeared once in tonight’s show as a member of the mystic minimalists, alongside Pärt. When he wasn’t taking inspiration from various mountains, Hovhaness wrote music based on spiritual themes. It was inevitable that he would find his way to a pilgrim-based story. His fifteenth symphony is named from a novel by Justice M. Anantanarayanan, an account of a pilgrimage by a young Indian prince from Lanka, Ceylon, to Kafhi, Banaras. Though the music itself incorporates Indian scales or raga, Hovhaness wrote the piece while he was in Japan on a research Rockefeller grant. It was eventually premiered  in 1962 by Hovhaness’ friend and famed conductor Leopald Stokowski, who had commissioned Hovhaness’ most popular symphony, The Mysterious Mountain, a decade earlier. 

Anonymous Medieval Stella Splendens The Catalonian abbey of Montserrat was one of the most important pilgrimage sites for medieval Christians. Constructed on a site where a legendary statue of the Madonna was said to have miraculously appeared, the abbey is also the origin of one of the most famous sources of medieval music. The Llibre Vermell de Montserrat is a devotional manuscript prepared around the end of the 14th century. In its surviving folios are ten pilgrim songs that are probably much older. The anonymous editor of the Llibre Vermell makes the purpose of this music clear; pilgrims who wished to keep watch day and night in the church needed something pious to sing and dance to, and these devotional songs would allow them to do so with appropriate modesty so as not to disturb those in contemplation and prayer. In contrast to solemn chants or complex polyphonic motets, these songs are tuneful and simple, most likely based in folk music with strongly emphasized dance rhythms. Aside from Latin they are in more vernacular languages like Occitan and Catalan, making them easy for lay people to learn. Their lasting appeal captured the spirit of the medieval pilgrim and has ensured its survival through many centuries.

Saariaho, Kaija (b.1952) L'amour de loin, Overture Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (Kye-yah Sorry-ah-ho) is known for combining electronics with acoustic sound in her music. After writing several pieces for instrumental ensembles and tape, Saariaho began composing with the aid of a computer alongside traditional instruments. Despite these electronic processes, she finds much of the inspiration for her music in literature, art, and natural phenomena. Her first opera, Love from afar, uses 12th century troubadour songs as its inspirational launching point.  The relatively simple plot and straightforward narrative revolves around deeper themes of devotion, loneliness and illusion. The opera has only three main characters: the troubadour-prince Jaufré, the countess Clémence, and a pilgrim. The prince and the countess are separated by the sea and have never met, yet they become obsessed with a strange love for each other. The distance between them only encourages their passion. The pilgrim travels between them and is their sole means of communication. As the opera explores their inner lives, their obsession becomes self-destructive. 

Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976) Little Birdie The music of Vince Guaraldi will forever be associated with the popular comic strip “Peanuts”, and its many television specials, including “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” Premiering on CBS in 1973, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” ran every year until 1989.While recording the score for this broadcast, Vince Guaraldi expanded his trio into a quintet to include brass players, a trumpet and a trombone, and Vince Guaraldi himself provided the vocals for this featured song, “Little Birdie.” In this special, Charlie Brown’s beloved beagle Snoopy is joined by his sidekick Woodstock, a small yellow bird who tends to fly upside down.

 

 

 

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