December 2024 Concert
Tickets
Saturday Dec 14, 7:30 pm, at Phillips Church, Tan Lane, Exeter, N.H. Buy Tickets
Sunday Dec 15, 3:00 pm, at South Church, 292 State St, Portsmouth, N.H. Buy Tickets
Program
Fantasia on “Greensleeves”, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Erin Dubois, flute
Adelyn Nelson, piano
Liturgical Music from the Renaissance
“Alma Redemptoris Mater”, Giovanni da Palestrina
“Sicut Cervus”, Giovanni da Palestrina
“Verbum Caro Factum Est”, Hans Leo Hassler
Carols of the Season
“I Saw a Maiden”, arr. Edgar Pettman
“In Dulci Jubilo”, arr. R.L. Pearsall
“Infant Holy”, arr. David Willcocks
Sweetgrass Quartet
“Christmas Night”, arr. John Rutter
“A Merry Christmas”, arr. Arthur Warrell
INTERMISSION
“Resilience”, Abbie Betinis
“Come Sing a Song”, Jerry Estes
PMAC Sandpipers Youth Chorus
“Where the Owl Lives” (world premiere), Gregory W. Brown
Erin Dubois, flute
Adelyn Nelson, piano
“Peace, Peace”, Sylvia and Rick Powell, arr. Fred Bock
Combined choirs
***** With a multitude of thanks to the following musicians*****
Erin Dubois, flute
Adelyn Nelson, piano
In Dulci Jubilo quartet: Elizabeth Chilton, soprano; Allie Griffiths, alto; Gabe Casanave-Cohen, tenor; Chris Brown, bass
PPM Sweetgrass Quartet: Shaina Hughes, soprano; Nova Mullineaux, alto; John Martin, tenor; Fred Calcinari, bass
PMAC Sandpipers Youth Chorus and Nathan Wotton, director
Program Notes
Today’s concert opens with three Renaissance-era liturgical motets of the season. Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) was a major German composer and organist of the early Baroque period. His “Verbum Caro Factum Est” is a festive example of the antiphonal choral style learned from his study with Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice. This style exploits the principle of contrast as heard in the famous acoustics of St. Mark’s Church, Venice, with its two opposing choir lofts each with its own organ.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (born in the town of Palestrina near Rome in 1525) was the leading composer of late 16th century Europe and a brilliant practitioner of the polyphonic style. In our two selections, “Sicut Cervus” and “Alma Redemptoris Mater,” the melody and sense of line are given primary importance with minimal dissonance. Palestrina composed 105 masses and 300 motets and is buried in the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome.
Our selection of carols represents several cultures. Percy Dearmer, musical editor of “Oxford Book of Carols” (1928), characterized carols as “songs with a religious impulse that are simple, hilarious (joyful), popular and modern.” The tune of “In Dulci Jubilo” is 14th century German and employs a macaronic structure mixing Latin with English. “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” is a well-known Polish carol, while “I Saw a Maiden” comes from the Basque region of Spain. The familiar “Merry Christmas” is a West Country traditional song from the counties of Cornwall and Devon.
PPM commissioned composer Gregory W. Brown (b. 1974) to write a piece for the chorus’ fortieth anniversary. It came about after the premiere of “At This Point” in November 2023 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the city of Portsmouth, N.H. Brown’s composition “Where the Owl Lives” utilizes the three vocal groups that I’ve had the good fortune to work with since 1985: mixed chorus, women’s chorus and the Sandpipers Youth Chorus. The text, which is in the Japanese poetry form tanka, belongs to Seacoast poet Mimi White. Tanka is a free verse thirty-one syllable five-line short poem which predates Haiku. Each tanka describes an event, feeling or mood. The five tanka that White chose for this piece were selected from her larger work “The World Disguised as This One.”
“Where the Owl Lives” – perhaps called “a snowy walk in the woods” – is unified by the refrain, “My heart wanders back to the river.” Past the old apple trees we stop to see where the owl lives. We search for a path where we find both birds and deer prints. The snowy owl is finally sighted, and our meeting is brief and fleeting. What does the encounter sound like – and will there be a hoot?
— Priscilla Stevens French