by Mike Telin
For the past eleven years, Quire Cleveland’s Carols for Quire concerts have become a holiday tradition. Over the years, the program — which began with pairing old and new carols — has explored numerous facets of the festive songs that are sung around the world during the Christmas season.
“Carols for Quire VI” featured French Noëls while “Carols VIII” presented a multitude of languages including Finnish, Abenaki, Afro-Portuguese, Mohawk, and Wendat, as well as English, Latin, and Spanish. The ninth edition was titled “Carols of Yore,” and the tenth highlighted the “O Antiphons.” This year the program will examine the Christmas story from the point of view of the angels and shepherds.
On Thursday, December 1 at 7:30 pm at Our Lady of Peace Church in Cleveland, Jay White will conduct the ensemble in “Carols for Quire XII: Angels and Shepherds.” The program will be repeated on December 2 at 8:00 pm at St. John Cantius Church in Tremont, and on December 3 at 8:00 pm at St. Paschal Baylon Church in Highland Heights. The concerts are free. Click here to view the program booklet.
“Last year we focused on Mary,” White said during a telephone conversation. “We haven’t left Joseph out of the story — he’s been there every so often. But when I was looking at possible topics for this year, I started thinking about who received the message” — the news of the birth of Jesus — “after Mary had figured it out and she and Joseph went to Bethlehem. And it was the shepherds who received it from the angels. I was also thinking of how amazing it must have been for the shepherds to have witnessed this celestial event, with the angels telling them it was happening and they should go see it.”
White’s next step was to examine the text. He found two responsories that are part of Christmas Matins which recount the story of the angels telling the shepherds about the baby. “Those two responsories — Angelus ad pastores ait and Quem vidistis, pastores? along with countless others that are available — became the core of the program.”
White said that during his research, he was interested to see how composers choose to set the text itself. “For example, when the shepherds are speaking they may be in the lower voices, and when the angels are speaking they may be in the higher voices. What’s also quite telling is how the composers choose to set the Alleluias at the end — whether they’re homophonic or polyphonic, or whether there are several iterations of the text. It’s fascinating to think that in that time period, whether you’re in Italy, England, or Germany, you had this similarity, yet each composer chose to put out something that was uniquely their own. And that reveals itself quite nicely in these settings.”
How much research goes into selecting the music for “Carols for Quire” programs? White said that once the text has been chosen, he then turns to the internet and ChoralWiki — Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) — which provides a treasure trove of editions. “I was able to find many pieces and figure out which ones would work best for the ensemble. This is also how I found some treasurers like the ‘O Antiphons’ we did a couple of years ago.”
White noted that while using the CPDL is easier than accessing the Yale Library, there are always problems to confront. “Some editions can be challenging to read or have slight issues with musica ficta. Fortunately we have enough scholars in the group that when we get to those places we ask, ‘Which edition should we use? Should this be a sharp or a natural?’ So that does make the collaboration quite fun. And those conversations also come into play with language — ‘Are we going to use English, German, or French Latin?’ At one point I decided that we would always use Roman Catholic Latin rather than trying to bend, unless it would really heighten the music.”
As always, the program will provide an opportunity for the audience to join in the singing. When choosing the communal carols, White noted that they need to be in keeping with the theme of the program. “Then the issue is which edition and whose arrangements are we going to use. And we want to be sure that the audience is singing something that is homophonic. We do combine — for example Quire will sing one verse of a Wilcox arrangement and the second verse will be sung by everyone, but in more straightforward 19th-century harmony. We’ve been told several times by audience members that they like to sing harmony, so this gives them the opportunity to do that as well.”
Although “Carols for Quire” may not be your run-of-the-mill holiday concert, White said there will be plenty of familiar sounds. “Going from a 16th-century Italian piece to an arrangement of a carol that was written in 1920 is just a vast change. But what people learn and what they experience is something that is hundreds of years old, that still lives and breathes, and that creates an homage to the legacy that is our classical music.”
Winding down our conversation, White said that it is always a joy for him to put these programs together. “Maybe it’s not the complete story and maybe there are bits and pieces that have been missed — we don’t talk about the animals, although that could be another concert. But many of the people who attend our ‘Carols for Quire’ concerts are familiar enough with the Christmas story, and to hear these ancient sounds that have reverberated time and again provides another way of feeling that story. And that’s what Quire Cleveland tries to show, that there is something that is deeply rooted in a tradition that’s part of our important heritage of telling stories.”
Published on ClevelandClassical.com November 29, 2022.
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