Music Notes – Sunday, March 22nd:
This week’s musician is UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley
Centering Music: Clusters of Crocus/Come to my Garden – Simon/Norman
This Sunday’s Centering Music comes from the 1989 musical The Secret Garden, written (book and lyrics) by Marsha Norman (b. 1947) with music by Lucy Simon (1940-2022, sister of pop music icon Carly Simon). The Secret Garden was based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical was successful commercially, running for almost 2 years on Broadway, and was critically acclaimed, receiving 3 Tony Awards among other honors.
Song: Lo, the Earth Awakes Again – Anonymous tune/Longfellow
#61 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal, “Lo, the Earth Awakes Again” is a triumphant celebration of nature’s rebirth. The words for this hymn are adapted from Unitarian minister and hymnist Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892), set to a folk tune known simply as “Easter Hymn”. This tune is usually sung with the Easter lyric “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”, and is found in that setting in most Christian hymnals (and as #268 in Singing the Living Tradition). The melody likely dates to 14th century Bohemia and was first published in 1708 in a collection of songs called Lyra Davidica (The Harp of David).
Music: When Daffodils Begin to Peer and Who is Silvia? (Quilter); Mai (Fauré)
The music to accompany this Sunday’s joys and concerns will be a mini-medley of art songs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“When Daffodils Begin to Peer” and “Who Is Sylvia?” were written by British composer Roger Quilter (1877-1953), one of the most prolific writers of English art song. These songs represent two of seventeen settings Quilter created of words by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), and both songs were published in 1933 in the collection Four Shakespeare Songs.
“Mai” is an art song by Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), a highly influential and respected French composer and educator who helped to bridge the gap from 19th century Romanticism to the musical Impressionism of the early 20th century. Some of Fauré’s best-known works are the Sicilienne, piano Nocturnes, and his unconventional Requiem Mass setting. Fauré was also a very accomplished composer of art songs for voice and piano, and “Mai” is one of the ten Fauré art song settings of the French author and poet Victor Hugo (1802-1885), composed when Fauré was still studying composition at the École Niedermeyer in Paris (his teacher was the well-known composer Camille Saint-Saëns (Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, Organ Symphony).
Offertory: May-Night (Palmgren)
Selim Palmgren (1878-1951) was a Finnish pianist, composer, conductor, and music educator. Palmgren was a widely respected pianist who toured extensively, and although he wrote for a variety of performing forces, he is best-known today as a composer of piano works. Written in 1906 or 1907, “May-Night” was part of a larger suite of solo piano works titled Kevät (‘Spring’).
Song: Rising Green – McDade
Written in 1983, “Rising Green” is #1068 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook. The song was written by Carolyn McDade (b. 1935), a self-described songwriter, spiritual feminist, and social activist, who is also the composer of three other UU favorites: “Spirit of Life”, “Come, Sing a Song with Me”, and “We’ll Build a Land”. About “Rising Green”, the composer shares these words: “Earth shakes out a mantle of green—each blade of grass true to the integrity within, yet together with others is the rise of spring from winter’s urging. Our coming is with the grass—the common which persists, unexalted, but with the essence of life. Our humanness, our rhythms and dreams, the faith which nurtures our ardent love and hope for life—all this we share with earth community, of which we are natural and connected beings.” (from uua.org)
Postlude: Rustle of Spring – Sinding
Christian Sinding (1856-1941) was a Norwegian composer of the late Romantic period who was best known for his piano works. His most famous composition was “Frülingsrauschen” (Rustle of Spring, Op. 32, No. 3), a piece for solo piano which Sinding wrote in 1896.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director