Towards Golgotha
for voices and large ensemble or orchestra
Olibel Music
Armando Bayolo Towards Golgotha
Instrumentation
Solo soprano
Solo alto
Solo tenor
Solo baritone
Chorus (ad lib.) (SSAATTBB max. Choral part may be sung by the soloists)
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet/Bass clarinet
Bassoon
French Horn
Trumpet in C
Trombone
Bass Trombone
Percussion:
Bass drum, suspended cymbal, crash cymbal, whip, field drum (marching snare drum with snares off), 4 roto-toms (2x8" in diameter and 2x10" in diameter), glockenspiel, crotales (A5 and B5 only), bundle of sticks (rute), ratchet (large), chimes, large tam-tam, hammer (struck on a large enough piece of wood to produce a resonant, deep sound, but not in the manner of Mahler's 6th Symphony).
Piano
Strings (min. 1-1-1-1-1; max. 6-6-4-5-3)
Singers should be amplified
Written between April, 2002 and February, 2003, in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Portland, Oregon.
Duration: approx. 72 minutes
Score in C
Towards Golgotha
Texts
Epigram: “In the Olive Grove…” Solo cello
PART ONE
I. Gethsemane (Tenor and ensemble)
I.
O Father—if it be thy will— let this cup pass from me. But o my Father, I submit to thee: use me, thy servant, still. II.
Father, I cannot drink this cup! Release me (if it be thy will). Unwilling. Father, I am still thy servant. Bear me up.
--Mervyn Morris
Scena 1:
EVANGELIST (alto):Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders.
JUDAS (baritone): “I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood.” PRIESTS (soprano, alto, tenor): “What is that to us? That’s your responsibility.”
--Matt. 27:1-4a (NIV)
II. Judas (baritone and strings)
Always I lay upon the brink of love, Impotent, waiting till the waters stirred, And no one healed my weakness with a word; For no one healed me who lacked words to prove My heart, which, when the kiss of Mary wove His shroud, my tongueless anguish spurred To cool dissent, and which, each time I heard John whisper to Him, moaned, but could not move. While Peter deeply drowsed within love’s deep I cramped upon its margin, glad to share The sop Christ gave me, yet its bitter bite Dried up my ducts. Praise Peter, who could weep His sin away, but never see me where I hang, huge teardrop on the cheek of night.
---Vassar Miller
Scena 2:
EVANGELIST (alto or countertenor):Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
--Mark 15:1
While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife Sent him this message: --Matt. 27:19
III. Claudia Procula (soprano and ensemble)
(“Pilate’s Wife”)
I dreamt us strolling, arm in loving arm, Along the avenue that skirts the border; Our tender courting days wheeled back. Just then we heard a yapping, Loud, a pack in full pursuit!
Into our lives he crashed, A lamb, bleeding and bruised, And weary with the chase. I picked him up and cuddled him In my warm arms, my newest baby boy.
The hounds were yelping louder, Nuzzling the hedge. And then (but why? But why?) you snatched the poor thing from my arms, and with ‘We must not interfere, my love, the dogs demand their prey,’ you tossed their quarry over the prickly hedge. The ravenous pack were through him in an instant, ravaging the body.
That moment, in my dream, our sweet love died; that afternoon I sat alone, playing with thorns. At length, I turned to you to plead forgiveness. You offered that, and love; but, broken in simple grief, I could not take your proffered bread and wine.
--Mervyn Morris
IV. Pilatos (baritone, viola, percussion and piano)
(“Pilate Remembers”)
I wonder why that scene comes back tonight, That long-forgotten scene of years ago. Perhaps this touch of spring, that full white moon, For it was spring, and spring’s white moon hung low Above my garden the night He died. I still remember how I felt disturbed That I must send Him to a felon’s cross On such a day when spring was in the air, And in His life, for He was young to die. How tall and strong He stood, how calm His eyes, Fronting me straight and while I questioned Him; His fearless heart spoke to me through His eyes. Could I have won Him as my follower, And a hundred more beside, my way had led To Caesar’s palace and I’d wear today The imperial purple. But He would not move One little bit from His wild madcap dream Of seeking truth. What wants a man with “truth” When he is young and spring is at the door? He would not listen, so He had to go. One mad Jew less meant little to the state, And pleasing Annas made my task the less. And yet for me He spoiled that silver night,— Remembering it was spring and He was young.
--William E Brooks
V. Ecce Homo (soloists or chorus, tenor and ensemble)
Whose is this horrifying face, This putrid flesh, discoloured, flayed, Fed on by flies, scorched by the sun?
Whose are these hollow red-filmed eyes
And thorn-spiked head and spear-struck side?
Behold the Man: He is Man’s Son.
Forget the legend, tear the decent veil That cowardice or interest devised
To make their mortal enemy a friend, To hide the bitter truth all his wounds tell, Lest the great scandal be no more disguised: He is in agony till the world’s end,
And we must never sleep during that time! He is suspended on the cross-tree now And we are onlookers at the crime, Callous contemporaries of the slow Torture of God. Here is the hill Made ghastly by His spattered blood.
Whereon He hangs and suffers still: See, the centurions wear riding-boots, Black shirts and badges and peaked caps, Greet one another with raised-arm salutes; They have cold eyes, unsmiling lips; Yet these His brothers know not what they do.
And on his either side hang dead
A labourer and a factory hand, Or one is maybe a lynched Jew And one a Negro or a Red, Collie or Ethiopian, Irishman, Spaniard or German democrat.
Behind His rolling head the sky
Glared like a fiery cataract Red with the murders of two thousand years Committed in His name and by Crusaders, Christian warriors Defending faith and property.
Amid the plain beneath His transfixed hands, Exuding darkness as indelible As guilty stains, fanned by funereal And lurid airs, besieged by drifting sands And clefted landslides our about-to-be Bombed and abandoned cities stand.
He who wept for Jerusalem Now sees His prophecy extend Across the greatest cities of the world, A guilty panic reason cannot stem Rising to raze them all as He foretold; And He must watch this drama to the end.
Though often named, He is unknown To the dark kingdoms at His feet
Where everything disparages His words, And each man bears the common guilt alone And goes blindfolded to his fate, And fear and greed are sovereign lords.
The turning point of history
Must come. Yet the complacent and the proud And who exploit and kill, may be denied— Christ of Revolution and of Poetry— The resurrection and the life Wrought by your spirit’s blood.
Involved in their own sophistry
The black priest and the upright man
Faced by subversive turth shall be struck dumb, Christ of Revolution and of Poetry, While the rejected and condemned become Agents of the divine.
Not from a monstrance silver-wrought But from the tree of human pain
Redeem our sterile misery, Christ of Revolution and of Poetry, That man’s long journey through the night May not have been in vain.
--David Gascoyne
PART TWO
Scena 3
EVANGELIST (alto or countertenor): Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother. When Jesus saw his mother there he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.”
--John 19:25-26a.
VI. Stabat Mater (soprano and ensemble) (“Mary”)
To see him strung up there between two robbers, scorned, abused!
I still remember when an angel, as they say, predicted him; and Joseph; and those tough uncomfortable miles to Bethlehem; and bedding in a stable, for the inn was full; and giving birth.
O God, the pain!
To hear him cry! To see the head fall slack!
The wounded hands! The spear-slit in his side!
--Mervyn Morris
VII. Good Friday (alto and ensemble)
Am I a stone and not a sheep
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy Cross, To number drop by drop thy blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the sun and moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon— I, only I.
Yet give not o’er, But seek thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.
--Christina Rossetti
Scena 4:
EVANGELIST (alto):On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled
away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Suddenly, two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
ANGELS (tenor and baritone): “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” --Luke 24:1-4a, 5b.
VIII. Easter Night (tenor and ensemble)
All night had shout of men and cry Of woeful women filled his way; Until that noon of somber sky On Friday, clamour and display Smote him; no solitude had he, No silence, since Gethsemane.
Public was death; but power, but might, But life again, but victory, Were hushed within the dead of night, The shuttered dark, the secrecy. And all alone, alone, alone He rose again behind the stone.
--Alice Meynell
IX. Epilogue: “Hymn” (soloists or chamber chorus and ensemble)
Thou art my God, sole object of my love; Not for hope of endless joys above; Not for the fear of endless pains below, Which they who love thee must not undergo. For me, and such as me, thou deignst to bear An ignominious cross, the nails, the spear: A thorny crown transpierced thy sacred brow, While bloody sweats from every member flow. For me, in tortures thou resignst thy breath, Embraced me on the cross, and saved me by death. And can these sufferings fail my heart to move? Such as then was, and is, thy love to me, Such is, and shall be still, my love to thee— To thee, Redeemer! Mercy’s sacred spring! My God, my Father, Maker, and my King!
--Alexander Pope
for Olivia, with love.
Towards Golgotha
Use
I. Gethsemane PART ONE
II. Judas
Baritone
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Double Bass
Recitativo
III. Claudia Procula
Andante Allegro (q qq q=c.120-126/h hh=60-63)
In a walking pace at first but increasingly intense
Clarinet
Trumpet
Senza sord.
IV. Pilatos
Lo Stesso Tempo, ma flessibile (q qq=120)
> ˙ bn˙ > ˙#œ œ scorchedbythe ˙bœ œ scorchedbythe ˙nœ œ scorchedbythe œ œ scorchedbythe ˙# > arco > arco
eyesAndthorn-spiked
eyesAndthorn-spiked
J œ ‰ŒÓ ?
j œ ‰ŒÓ
J œ ‰ŒÓ
‰ŒÓ
≤ IV cresc. poco a poco J œ ‰Œœ ≥ ≤ œ ≥ œ ≤ III
cresc. poco a poco
j œ ‰Œ ˙b
cresc. poco a poco j œ ‰Œ
156 PART TWO Scena 3
VI. Stabat Mater
greatdarkness
greatdarknessatbroad
Œ U ŒŒ Œ U ŒŒ
Œ U ŒŒ
˙ U œœn
Subito
˙#
˙ U œœn Í Í Í Í Í p f f f Glockenspiel
. ˙# ˙# . ˙# . ˙# ˙# . ˙# J œœ œœ #### > ‰ŒŒ J œ ###œœ > ‰ŒŒ J ##œœ > ° ‰ŒŒ
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet in Bb
Bassoon
Horn in
Trumpet in
Trombone Bass
savedmebydeath.
3 œ# j œ#œ
> savedmebydeath. 3
> savedmedeath. 3
savedmebydeath.