The Month of moderns 3: Sumptuous planet
The Crossing
Donald Nally, conductor
Friday, July 8, 2022 @ 7pm
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
PROGRAM
Beloved of the Sky (2020) Tawnie Olson
— world premiere —
1. I went down deep
2. I woke with this idea…
3. Oh, that lazy, stodgy, lumpy feeling
4. The subject means little
5. I made a small sketch
commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition
at Brigham Young University for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers
Sumptuous Planet: A Secular Mass (2021) David Shapiro
— world premiere —
1. Introit — Unsung
2. Mercy — If There Is Mercy
3. Glory — Magnificent Structure
4. Earth — Sumptuous Planet
5. The Adoration — Staggering, Elegant, Beautiful Thing
6. Thankfulness
7. Taking Away the Sins of the World — Sin
8. Spirit — Mystic Jelly
9. Belief — The Truth
1o. All things visible and invisible — Incredibly Tiny Things
11. Substance — Giant Megapolis
12. Death — The Lucky Ones
13. Suffering
14. Resurrection — One Life
15. Holiness — One God Further
16. Osanna — And We Dance
commissioned by The Crossing
This concert was being recorded for broadcast by our partner WRTI 90.1 FM,
Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz Public Radio Station
Archival Recordings in this broadcast from our 2011 album It Is Time
The Years from You to Me (2010) Shapiro
It Is Time (2008) Shapiro
Breathturn (2010) Kristin Broberg
Psalm (2005) Frank Havrøy
NOTES + TEXTS
Beloved of the Sky
music by Tawnie Olson
words by Emily Carr
Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers, completed while in residence at Copland House, Cordlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award
a note from the composer:
Although she is not well known in the U.S., artist and author Emily Carr (1871–1945) is a Canadian icon. She spent most of her life in Victoria, British Columbia, where she created rapturous, ecstatic paintings inspired by the landscapes and indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. “Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky” (1935) is one of her most famous paintings. It shows an impossibly tall pine, alone in the midst of a clear cut, haloed by light and clouds. Like many others, I see this painting as a kind of self-portrait of the lonely, eccentric, brilliant artist, her way of affirming her own value in the face of a lifetime of hurt, misunderstanding, and rejection.
As I read through Carr’s journals, I was particularly struck by her descriptions of the creative process. Waking up in the morning with a fresh idea, struggling with the discouraging lies that a creative block fomented in her brain, catching her breath as she discovers the image she’s looking for, becoming totally absorbed in a quiet day of steady work; I think these are experiences that most of us can relate to, in some form, to some degree. I set these texts because I wanted to explore and celebrate the creative process and the search for “beauty,” however defined. And because when I went down deep into myself, I found that they rang true.
1 - I went down deep
I went down deep into myself and dug up. (June 24, 1937)
2 - I woke with this idea…
I woke with this idea. Try using positive and negative colours in juxtaposition. Complementary are negative to positive. Try working in complementaries; run some reds into your greens, some yellow into your purples. Red-green, blue-orange, yellow-purple. (Feb. 7, 1934)
3 - Oh, that lazy stodgy, lumpy feeling
Oh, that lazy stodgy, lumpy feeling when you want to work and you're dead! Is it liver, I wonder, or is it old age, or just inertia, or something from which the life has gone forever, that just belongs to youth? (Jan. 11, 1931)
4 - The subject means little
The subject means little. The arrangement, the design, colour, shape, depth, light, space, mood, movement, balance, not one or all of these fills the bill. There is something additional, a breath that draws your breath into its breathing, a heartbeat that pounds on yours, a recognition of the oneness of all things. (Jan. 17, 1936)
God, God, God! Oh, to realize so completely that you could utterly let go and passionately throw your soul upon the canvas. (Jan. 29, 1934)
5 - I made a small sketch
I made a small sketch and then worked a larger paper sketch from it. The woods were in quiet mood, dreamy and sweet. No great contrasts of light and dark but full of quiet flowing light and fresh from the recent rain, and the growth full, steady and ascending. [ ... ] "This is thine hour, 0 soul, thy free flight into the wordless." (Sept. 7, 1933)
– words of Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands.
Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007, pp. 48, 85, 138, 139, 293, 389
Sumptuous Planet: A Secular Mass
music by David Shapiro
words by Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Commissioned by the Crossing
a note from the composer:
Sumptuous Planet is a statement and celebration of belief in a scientific view of how life and the universe work. It is constructed along the lines of a Christian mass. The chosen texts are by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist famous—in part—for his defense of atheism. Composing a mass on his words was an idea I found to be pleasingly paradoxical.
Sumptuous Planet starts with a setting of physicist Richard Feynman’s lament that “the value of science remains unsung by singers. This is not yet a scientific age.” From there, the piece proceeds to glorify, with music, an unvarnished, open-eyed way of looking at the world as it really is, without dressing it up with myths or miracle stories. In other words, the concept is that before the piece begins, we do not yet live in a scientific age. By the end, we do.
Each movement takes a word or an idea from the Christian mass, and sets a text by Dawkins that touches on that same concept from a very different perspective. Gloria becomes: Nature is a magnificent structure; Credo: I believe in an orderly universe indifferent to human preoccupations; Sanctus: We are all atheists about most...gods-some of us go one god further.
As in Bach’s B Minor Mass, large movements of this piece are broken up into smaller movements which set just a passage or two of the larger text. The “Gloria” movements focus on a sense of amazement at the structure of the universe. The “Credo” movements focus more on how life works, and the inescapability of suffering and death. The mass ends with two quick movements on the subject of holiness, and a celebratory Osanna.
The music itself takes its inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Much of the piece was written early in the pandemic to the backdrop of the sounds of “Rising with the Crossing” videos. And I was inspired by the juxtaposition of medieval music with the rhythmic grooves of Toby Twining, performed at the last live concert I attended before the shutdown. My aim was that every movement would be a complete, distinct world unto itself, which would still fit into the mass as a whole.
Introit — Unsung
“Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers. … This is not yet a scientific age. “
– Richard Feynman, from his talk “The Value of Science,” provided courtesy of Ralph Leighton
Mercy — If There Is Mercy
”[If] there is mercy in nature, it is accidental. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.”
– Richard Dawkins, from A Devil’s Chaplain (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003), used by kind permission of the author
Glory — Magnificent Structure
”Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.”
Gloria repleta est natura
Magnifica campages est natura. Possumus
intelligere autem, licet imperfecte. Et haec quidem
oportet replere sensu humilitatis hominem
cogitantem sua mente.– Richard Dawkins, from The God Delusion (Mariner Books, 2008), used by kind permission of the author. Latin translation by Theodore Cheek.
Earth — Sumptuous Planet
“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again.”
– from Unweaving Rainbows: science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), copyright Richard Dawkins; used by kind permission of the author
The Adoration — Staggering, Elegant, Beautiful Thing
“Life Started from nothing - that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing.”
Vita apparuit ex nihilo - tam mirabilis est et placita et pulcherrima
– Richard Dawkins, quoted in The Telegraph 2012-02-24, used by kind permission of the author. Latin translation by Theodore Cheek
Thankfulness
“Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.”
– Richard Dawkins, Quoted in Salon 2005-04-30, used by kind permission
Taking away the sins of the world — Sin
“Let us try to teach generosity … because we are born selfish … We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth … deliberately cultivating and nurturing … altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. … we have the power to turn against our own creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. … Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”
– Richard Dawkins, from The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1976), used by kind permission
Spirit — Mystic Jelly
“There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pulsating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly.”
– Richard Dawkins, from River Out of Eden (Basic Books, 1995), used by kind permission
Belief — The Truth
“I believe … an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before we find it, … a … beautiful, … wonderful place.”
“My eyes are … wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence, but the existence of life and how … natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to make redwood trees and humans.”
“The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or … mystery or miracle.”
– Richard Dawkins from Unweaving the rainbow: science, delusion and the appetite for wonder (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), Quoted in The Guardian, 2013-09-15, and from The Magic of Reality (Bantam Press, 2011), used by kind permission
All things, visible and invisible — Incredibly Tiny Things
“The whole world is made of incredibly tiny things, much too small to be visible to the naked eye. Ponds and lakes, soil and dust, even our body, teem with tiny living creatures, too small to see, yet … complicated and … beautiful.”
“I perceived in the water more of those Animals … And I imagine, that ten hundred thousand of these little Creatures do not equal a grain of sand. For, the circumference of one of these little Animals in water … is not so big as the hair in a Cheesemite.”
Totus mundus factus est ex infinite parvis materniis quas nemo videre potest. Visibilium omnium et invisibilium.
– Richard Dawkins from The Magic of Reality (Bantam Press, 2011), used by kind permission of the author. Latin translation by Theodore Cheek. Additional text by Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, 1632-1723, known as the “Father of Microbiology”
Substance — Giant Megalopolis
“The Krebs cycle, the 9-toothed cogwheel that is largely responsible for making energy available to us, turns over at up to 100 revolutions per second, duplicated thousands of times in every cell. Chemical cogwheels of this particular marque are housed inside mitochondria, tiny bodies that reproduce independently inside our cells like bacteria …Mitochondria … are directly descended from ancestral bacteria who, a billion years ago, gave up their freedom. You are a giant megalopolis of bacteria.”
Et homo factus est
– from Unweaving the rainbow: science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), copyright Richard Dawkins; used by kind permission
Death — The Lucky Ones
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. … It is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
– from Unweaving the rainbow: science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998), copyright Richard Dawkins; used by kind permission
Suffering
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. … thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. […] In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, others will get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
– Richard Dawkins from River Out of Eden (Basic Books, 1995), used by kind permission
Resurrection — One Life
“Don’t kid yourself that you’re going to live again after you’re dead; you’re not. Make the most of the one life you’ve got. Live it to the full.”
– Richard Dawkins from an Interview with BeliefNet 2005-11
Holiness — One God Further
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
Baal, Isis, Ra, Mithras, Zeus, Balder, Ing, Ishtar, Ashur, Bes, Geb, Aphrodite, An, Inti, Sangti, Nuwa, Mot, Hera, El, Enki, Tengri, Bor, Zhinu, Utu, Jamus, Cronus, Horus, Dionysus, Heka, Freya, Lir, Bacchus, Chaac, Venus, Kon, Xolotl, Thor, Bastet.
– Richard Dawkins from a TedTalk, 2002, used by kind permission
Osanna — And We Dance
“DNA neither cares nor knows. And we dance to its music.”
– Richard Dawkins, from River Out of Eden (Basic Books, 1995), used by kind permission
The Years From You to Me
music by David Shapiro
words by Paul Celan
Wieder wellt sich dein Haar, wenn ich wein. Mit dem Blau deiner Augen
deckst du den Tisch unsrer Liebe: ein Bett zwischen Sommer und Herbst
Wir trinken, was einer gebraut, der nicht ich war, noch du, noch ein dritter:
wir schlürfen ein Leeres und Letztes.
Wir sehen uns zu in den Spiegeln der Tiefsee und reichen uns rascher die Speisen:
die Nacht is die Nacht, sie beginnt mit dem Morgen,
sie legt mich zu dir.
Your hair waves once more as I weep. With the blue of your eyes
you set the table of love: a bed between summer and autumn.
We drink what somebody brewed, neither I nor you nor a third:
we lap up some empty and last thing.
We watch ourselves in the deep sea's mirrors and faster pass food to the other:
the night is the night, she begins with the morning
beside you she lays me down.
– “The Years from You to Me” by Paul Celan, translation by Ulrike Huhs
It Is Time
music by David Shapiro
words by Paul Celan
Aus der Hand frißt der herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Traum wird geschlafen,
der Mund redet wahr.
Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Schlecht der Geliebten:
wir sehen uns an,
wir sagen uns Dunkles,
wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,
wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,
wie das Meer im Blustrahl des Mondes.
Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der Straße:
es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!
Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,
Daß der Unrast ein Herz Schlägt.
Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.
Es ist Zeit.
Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.
From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:
Then time returns to the shell.
In the mirror it's Sunday,
In dream there is room for sleeping,
Our mouths speak the truth.
My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one:
we look at each other,
we exchange dark words
we love each other like poppy and recollection,
we sleep like wine in the conches,
like the sea in the moon's blood ray.
We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:
it is time they knew!
It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
Time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time.
It is time.
– “Corona” by Paul Celan, translation by Michael Hamburger
Breathturn
music by Kristin Broberg
words by Paul Celan, translated by Pierre Joris
BREATHURN: Five continuous movements for choir with poems by Paul Celan:
i. INTO THE FURROWS
ii. (I KNOW YOU
iii. YOU WERE
iv. PATHS IN THE SHADOW-BREAK
v. THREADSUNS
INTO THE FURROWS
of heavenacid in the doorcrack
you press the word
from which I rolled,
when I with trembling fists
the roof over us
dismantled, slate for state,
syllable for syllable, for the copper-
glimmer of the begging-
cup's sake up
there.
(I KNOW YOU, you are the deeply bowed,
I, the transpierced, am subject to you.
Where flames a word, would testify for us both?
You-all, all real. I-all delusion.)
YOU WERE my death:
you I could hold,
when all fell from me.
PATHS IN THE SHADOW-BREAK
of your hand.
From the four-finger-furrow
I root up the
petrified blessing.
THREADSUNS
above the grayblack wastes.
A tree-
high thought
grasps the light-tone: there are
still songs to sing beyond
mankind.
Psalm
music by Frank Havrøy
words by Paul Celan
Niemand knetet uns wieder aus Erde und Lehm,
niemand bespricht unsern Staub.
Niemand.
Gelobt seist du, Niemand.
Dir zulieb wollen
wir blühn.
Dir
entgegen.
Ein Nichts
waren wir, sind wir, werden
wir bleiben, blühend:
die Nichts-, die
Niemandsrose.
Mit
dem Griffel seelenhell,
dem Staubfaden himmelswüst,
der Krone rot
vom Purpurwort, das wir sangen
über, o über
dem Dorn.
No one kneads us again out of earth and clay,
no one incants our dust.
No one.
Blessèd art thou, No One.
In thy sight would
we bloom.
In thy
spite.
A Nothing
we were, are now, and ever
shall be, blooming:
the Nothing-, the
No-One's-Rose.
With
our pistil soul-bright,
our stamen heaven-waste,
our corona red
from the purpleword we sang
over, O over
the thorn.
– Paul Celan, "Psalm" from Selected Poems and Prose, translated by John Felstiner.
TEAM
The Crossing
Katy Avery
Nathaniel Barnett
Jessica Beebe
Steven Berlanga
Karen Blanchard
Steven Bradshaw
Colin Dill
Micah Dingler
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Dimitri German
Steven Hyder
Michael Jones
Lauren Kelly
Anika Kildegaard
Heidi Kurtz
Maren Montalbano
Rebecca Myers
James Reese
Daniel Schwartz
Rebecca Siler
Tiana Sorenson
Daniel Spratlan
Elisa Sutherland
Donald Nally, conductor
Kevin Vondrak, assistant conductor
John Grecia, keyboards
Ryan Flemming, John Walthausen, guest rehearsal accompanists
Paul Vazquez, sound design
Jonathan Bradley, executive director
Stephanie Lantz-Goldstein, development manager
Shannon McMahon, operations manager
Elizabeth Dugan, bookkeeper
Sam Scheibe, summer associate
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