It’s been an extraordinarily busy last few weeks, leaving me no time to blog But Master Chorus Eastside is gearing up for our December concerts on the 6th and 14th, which feature some exciting works by composers who live here in the Northwest, and I’m itching to write about them. So, deadlines notwithstanding, it’s my pleasure to begin with Seattle composer John Muehleisen, creator of a beautiful and otherworldly work in our program called Invocation.
http://johnmuehleisen.com/index.htm
I first met John several years ago, and he struck me as friendly,
unpretentious, outgoing, easy to talk to—a relief for us introverted types who
find hardly anyone all that easy to
talk to! Plus he exhibited an impish
sense of humor, always an appealing trait!
He showed me a piece of his, Aversion
to Carrots, part of his cycle called Eat
Your Vegetables!; it fit right in with a quirky concert I was planning
called Sound Imaginarium, and so we
performed it. Here is the entire cycle,
sung by the Central Washington University Chamber Choir. Carrots
is the middle piece, sandwiched in there between Bounty (as in the ubiquitous zucchini) and Rah! (short for Rutabagas)!
Invocation couldn’t
be more different: enigmatic, mystical, Celtic in its sensibilities. It’s part of a three-movement Christmas cycle
called This Night for chorus and
harp, commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers in 2003-2004. John later reformed it into an a capella version for Seattle Pro Musica. The poem comes from The Carmina Gadelica, a massive compendium of folk lore and
remedies, poems and hymns, legends and proverbs, charms and blessings, in
Gaelic and English, gathered from crofters in the Highlands and Western Isles of
Scotland by a tax collector named Alexander Carmichael, and first published in
a limited edition in 1900.
Here is a link to the 1940 edition, volume 3:
The poem appears on two separate pages in volume 2, numbered
as if it were two separate poems but John set it as one work, linked by text
and music.
God of the moon, God of
the sun,
God of the globe, God of
the stars,
God of the waters, the
land, and the skies,
Who ordained to us the
King of promise.
It was Mary fair who
went upon her knee,
It was the King of life
who went upon her lap,
Darkness and tears were
set behind,
And the star of guidance
went up early.
Illumed the land,
illumed the world,
Illumed doldrum and
current,
Grief was laid and joy
was raised,
Music was set up with
harp and pedal-harp.
God of the moon, God of
the sun,
Who ordained to us the
Son of mercy.
The fair Mary upon her
knee,
Christ the King of life
in her lap.
I am the cleric
established,
Going round the founded
stones,
I behold mansions, I
behold shores,
I behold angels
floating,
I behold the shapely
rounded column
Coming landwards in
friendship to us.
It invokes the presence of God and overflows with
conundrum and contradiction, darkness and light, mystery and nature, all in
service to the Nativity of Christ: the star (of Bethlehem? The Morningstar
Himself? Who can say?), the sun, moon and
waters; stagnant doldrum and flowing current, indeed the entire world, illumined;
humble Mary holding the King of life; grief laid low and joy upraised; the releasing
of music; the enigmatic cleric with his ecstatic vision of mansions and angels
and founded stones.
John’s music is passionate, expansive, expressive,
challenging! He uses dissonance to
obscure key centers and create an atmosphere of mystery, and fluid melodies and
time signatures and subtle tempo shifts to build a sense of eternity, of space
and time unleashed. But the piece isn’t
formless. He brings the music of the
first two strophes to the related fourth strophe, but shortened and transformed,
as is its text. The cleric begins with a
new melody, befitting his sudden appearance in the poem, but then the “illumed”
music reappears as he beholds mansions and shores and angels, perhaps because his
vision is equally illuminating. The “star of guidance” melody, which rises and
rises in layered tiers, bears a strong resemblance to the soaring lines that accompany
the setting up of harp and pedal-harp.
And in a really lovely touch, a similar music unfolds as the shapely column
comes “landwards in friendship to us,” but this time inverted, moving downward
from heaven, even as the star and harp music moved upward toward heaven.
The above is only a brief analysis of this wonderful
work. There is no YouTube recording, so
you will simply have to come and experience it 1n December. There will be a composers’ forum before each
concert, where John and several other local composers will discuss their compositions. May it illume your Christmas season!
Dr. Linda Gingrich
Artistic director and conductor
Master Chorus Eastside
www.masterchoruseastside.org
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