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Liverpool John Moores University Series
Gloria!
Saturday 10 June 2017 7.30pm
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
IAN STEPHENS (b.1974)
The World In One City
Early in the morning of 4 June 2003, I heard the news that Liverpool had been selected as European Capital
of Culture 2008. I was so struck by this that I contacted the Phil and asked Gerard Schwarz – then Musical
Director – if I could write a celebratory fanfare to be played at that evening’s concert. He agreed, stipulating
that it should be 30 seconds long and for brass alone. It was performed that evening. At the suggestion of
my wife, I based it on a rhythm and melodic shape suggested by the motto of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture
bid, ‘The World In One City’. For the Orchestra’ concert at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2004, I was
asked to extend and rescore it for full orchestra, and it’s this full version that will be heard tonight.
The message of Liverpool-wide community cooperation espoused so strongly by Archbishop Derek Worlock
of this Cathedral and his Anglican counterpart Bishop David Sheppard from 1976 to 1996 is reflected in the
idea of ‘a world in one city’, so I am particularly pleased that this piece has been chosen to open this concert
celebrating the Cathedral’s 50th anniversary.
Ian Stephens © 2017
GIOVANNI GABRIELI (c.1555-1612)
Sacrae Symphoniae (1597): Sonata pian’ e forte a 8, alla quarta bassa
The path-breaking and hugely influential Giovanni Gabrieli was an organist at St Mark’s, Venice from 1585
until his death. His duties at the great Byzantine basilica included writing music (vocal and instrumental)
for use during the liturgy, and this he did with astonishing originality – his influence can be heard
throughout the entire Western musical tradition. Of his relatively few publications is his Sacrae
Symphoniae of 1597, a volume containing 42 vocal motets, a Mass, 5 organ toccatas, 14 instrumental
canzoni and 2 sonatas (the first pieces ever to be so titled). While there is no hard-and-fast musical
distinction between the canzoni and the sonatas, liturgically the latter were likely played during the very
heart of the Mass, the Elevation of the Host.
Tonight, in this highly appropriate and resonant surrounding, we hear the most celebrated work from
Gabrieli’s 1597 collection, his Sonata pian’ e forte a 8, alla quarta bassa (‘A sonata both soft and loud for
eight parts in the low register’). The sonata features two instrumental ‘choirs’: the first of which, situated on
the left side of the nave, consists of two trumpets and two trombones; the second, on the right, of four
trombones. The two ‘choirs’ work against and ultimately with each other across space. Given its intended
place in the liturgy, the piece is suitably solemn and dignified. An essentially elegiac, richly harmonised
melody passes from group to group until the ensembles unite in the more rhythmically animated closing
section.
Anthony Bateman © 2017
about the composer James MacMillan (b.1959)
When James MacMillan began to make the musical headlines at the beginning of the 1990s it was clear this
was a composer who had cast his net wide in terms of influences: from Celtic folk music to the hard-edged
modernism of Harrison Birtwistle; from the radically experimental mysticism of Olivier Messiaen to the
darkly humanist symphonic narratives of Dmitri Shostakovich. Of course there were some who grumbled
about ‘eclecticism’; but to many others who were stirred by such early masterpieces as the orchestral The
Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990) and the percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992), it
was clear that this was a composer whose inclusiveness was natural, unforced – as much a reflection of a
coherent vision as any narrow ideology.
The key word here is ‘catholic’, in its original sense of ‘universal’, ‘all-inclusive’. MacMillan is Roman
Catholic by birth, and today his faith remains central to his life. His early involvement with Marxism was
strongly coloured by Latin American Liberation Theology, and its impact can still be sensed in his work
today, right up to his opera The Sacrifice (2005-06). At the same time MacMillan is keenly aware of the
divisions partisan religious thinking can cause. While his works often draw on Catholic liturgy and chant for
their basic formal and melodic material, he can also include elements from the Jewish Passover rite in his
second string quartet, Why is this night different? (1998), or instrumental colours associated with the
Japanese Shinto religion in Symphony No.3: ‘Silence’ (2003).
The result is music that embraces a startling variety of musical styles. Dense, thorny atonal textures can
suddenly yield to soaring tonal melodies, reminiscent of Wagner (another crucial early influence). Jagged,
complex, muscular rhythms may similarly melt into free-floating improvisatory lyricism, or fine-spun
polyphony recalling Bach and the renaissance church composers. Thrillingly garish or abrasive colours sit
alongside delicate, fragile patterns or velvety warmth. Hymn tunes, folk laments and brash marches float as
conflicting layers in vibrant musical tapestries. One may be reminded of the teeming orchestral
kaleidoscopes of the pioneering American composer Charles Ives, or the Russian ‘polystylist’ Alfred
Schnittke.
What draws all this together is MacMillan’s deeply ingrained feeling for musical storytelling. Today grand
narratives are often derided as outdated, irrelevant. MacMillan however has proved through works like
Isobel Gowdie, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and the massive orchestral trilogy Triduum (1995-97) that
this kind of spiritual journey in music, as exemplified by Beethoven in his symphonies and Bach in his great
‘Passions’, can be recreated in terms which speak both to sophisticated musical intelligences and ordinary
music lovers – MacMillan’s more recent large-scale works include his own very personal response to the
classic St John Passion narrative. His choral-orchestral Quickening (1998) brought a potent reminder
that compelling contemporary music can be inspired by the most common human experiences: in this case
the conception and birth of a child. In an age when populism and modernism seem like irreconcilable poles,
James MacMillan’s music continues to hold out the hope of integration, the healing of painful divisions, of
transcendence.
© Stephen Johnson
JAMES MACMILLAN
Gloria
Gloria was commissioned by Coventry Cathedral to celebrate the 50th Anniversary in 2012 of its
consecration. It is scored for solo tenor, large chorus, children's choir, brass, timpani and organ. It is in one
continuous movement but has clearly discernible sections throughout. It begins in a declamatory manner
with the soloist, reflecting liturgical practice. The first main section, ‘Et in terra pax’, is boisterous and
joyful, with instrumental interjections.
The second section, ‘Laudamus Te’, is fast and energetic. This is followed by a slow, reflective solo for the
tenor, ‘Domine Deus’. The children's voices are then highlighted in ‘Domine Fili’ in music that is simple and
dance-like. However, a more mysterious accompaniment is later added by the organ, muted trumpets and
sliding timpani.
A climactic instrumental outburst then leads to the final section ‘Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris’ where the
large choir sings quietly and unaccompanied. The opening bold music returns before the final Amen which
features the solo voice and the children again.
© James MacMillan
OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Les Offrandes oubliées
The Cross – Sin – The Eucharist
The ‘symphonic meditation’ Les Offrandes oubliées (The Forgotten Sacrifices), was written as long ago as
1930 when Messiaen had only just left the Paris Conservatoire and the composition class of Paul Dukas.
Even so, and although several characteristics of his mature style were still to develop – not least his
obsessive interest in birdsong – the composer of such monumental works as Et exspecto resurrectionem
mortuorum and La Transfiguration de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ is instantly recognisable in this, his
first orchestral work. As he once said, “I have the good fortune to be a Catholic; I was born a believer … That
is the most important aspect of my music … perhaps the only one I shall not be ashamed of in the hour of
death.”
Apart from the religious inspiration, there are several technical aspects of Les Offrandes oubliées which
make it unmistakable Messiaen. One of these, as he had already demonstrated in his organ piece Le
Banquet céleste, is his ability to extend a constantly developing melodic line at a tempo slower than most
other composers would dare sustain for more than a few bars at a time. The slow progress of the melody
quietly winding its way through the string textures in the outer sections of Les Offrandes oubliées is most
effectively contrasted with the suddenly noisy stampede in the middle section. Messiaen’s characteristic use
of modal harmonies is put to particularly expressive use in the final section where they are allied to a kind
of halo effect secured by drawing the melodic line on first violins through an ethereal background of four
solo violins and five solo violas.
The theological background of each of the three sections – identified respectively as ‘The Cross’, ‘Sin’, and
‘The Eucharist’ – is elaborated in the composer’s own words in the score:
With arms extended on the tree of the Cross, sad unto death, you pour forth your blood. You love us,
gentle Jesus; we had forgot.
Driven by folly and the sting of the serpent, we were in a breathless, frenzied, ceaseless descent into sin, as
into a tomb.
Here is the pure altar, the source of charity, the banquet of the poor; here adorable Pity offers the bread of
Life and of Love. You love us, gentle Jesus; we had forgot.
While there has probably never been a performance at which more than a small proportion of the orchestra
and the audience shared those precise sentiments, it is the sound rather than the thought behind it that
counts. As Messiaen said after the first performance of Les Offrandes oubliées by the Straram Orchestra in
Paris in 1931, “It is so much more beautiful than I thought. These musicians play it like champions.”
Gerald Larner © 2017
FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963)
Gloria
Gloria
Laudamus te
Domine Deus
Domine Fili unigenite
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
Although Poulenc was brought up a Catholic – by a devout father and a rather less devout mother – and
although he was drawn to writing for the voice from an early age, he composed no church music until he
was in his mid-thirties. Before then he had completed only one choral work of any kind, the Chanson à
boire of 1922. But the death of a close friend in a particularly horrific road accident in 1935 and a
subsequent pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Rocamadour in the Dordogne inspired the Litanies à la Vierge
Noire, which turned out to be the first in a whole series of religious works including the Mass in G, the
Stabat Mater and the Gloria.
Commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky, written in 1959 and first performed by Charles Munch and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra in January 1961, the Gloria was an immediate success in the United States. If
it took a little longer to establish itself in France it was partly because of some initial discomfort with the
popular rather than churchy tone of the piece. The composer, who considered the Gloria the best thing he
had ever done, was unrepentant and explained to his critics that he had been thinking of “those frescoes of
Gozzoli where angels stick their tongues out and those grave Benedictine monks I have seen playing
football.”
Certainly, it is a tuneful work in which, paradoxically true to himself, Poulenc draws on a variety of stylistic
sources – not all of which, however, are foreign to the Church. There is just a hint of something Gregorian
about the fanfares which open the work and, although there is also a tendency to play football with the
natural stresses of the Latin text, the setting of the first movement is conventional enough to include some
(for Poulenc) rare examples of choral counterpoint. Similarly in the Laudamus te, while there might be a
brief echo of the music hall in the trombone introduction and more than a little of Rake’s Progress
Stravinsky in the orchestral accompaniment, the short but very slow and very quiet middle section (Gratias
agimus tibi) might almost have been written by Messiaen in celestial mode.
From the Domine Deus onwards – and particularly where the soprano soloist is involved – religious
sentiment tends to prevail over cheerfulness. It is true that the cheeky composer of Les Biches is
unmistakably present in Domine fili unigenite but, in spite of comprehensive allusions to Prokofiev, the Qui
sedes is a prayer as personal as it is radiant. The last movement, which recalls the fanfares from the
beginning of the work, seems to be proceeding briskly to a cyclic conclusion when the tempo slows down for
another very slow and very quiet episode featuring the solo soprano. One last and very loud fanfare on
‘Amen’ precedes a hushed ending on a prolonged, theoretically dissonant but actually conclusive orchestral
chord.
Gerald Larner © 2017