A NEW ANTHEM AND

A NEW ANTHEM AND AN OLD CHURCH

by Joel Martinson, Director of Music & Organist

One of the purposes of my sabbatical trip to Scandinavia last summer was to hear and to sit in on rehearsals of some of important church and cathedral choirs. I was able to experience this in all three capital cities, but what was interesting is that the three choirs I spent time with were in various stages of preparation for concerts of music from England, France, Germany, and Austria – not by Scandinavian composers! The short Danish and Swedish anthems which the Transfiguration Choir sang this fall were both sung by smaller choirs. I did hear some organ repertoire by late 19th and 20th century Scandinavians and will be purchasing music and learning some pieces to play for you in the future.

A Norwegian composer that I have greatly admired for over 30 years is Trond Kverno. Born in 1945, Kverno is from the generation of composers which followed Knut Nystedt (1915-2014) and Egil Hovland (1924-2013), two important composers of Norwegian music whose work spread Scandinavian music to the rest of the world. Like Nystedt and Hovland, Kverno studied at the Oslo Conservatory of Music, and blended various elements into his music – chant, modal harmony, lean Neo-Medieval and Neo-Renaissance harmonies with Neo-Baroque contrapuntal techniques, such as ostinato (repeated musical pattern), canon, etc. I first heard Kverno’s Ave Maris Stella on a 1989 recording titled “A Rose in Winter” by the Dale Warland Singers. This Minneapolis-based professional choir was known for its singing of new music, including choral pieces from Scandinavia as well as those by Minnesota composers. Transfiguration’s own David Reece was a member of Dale Warland Singers at the time of this recording, and shared the work with Don Krehbiel, artistic

director of Orpheus Chambers Singers, Dallas’ oldest professional choir. Krehbiel programmed the work for a December concert that Orpheus sang at St. Rita during my time as director of music there.

Ave Maris Stella was composed in 1976 during the time Trond Kverno was associated with the Gamle Aker Kirke (Old Aker Church) and Oslo Cathedral. Kverno was a proponent of catholic high-church practices in liturgy and music, and often ran counter to authorities of the protestant and rather staid (Lutheran) Church of Norway of the time. This popular Latin hymn to the Virgin Mary – “Hail, Star of the Sea” – dates from medieval times, most likely the 9th century and was most often sung at Vespers. Though I purchased the sheet music for my choir at Saint Rita, and more recently for the Transfiguration Choir, neither performed it under my direction. This will all change on December 4 at 5 pm, when the work will receive its Transfiguration debut at our Advent Procession of Lessons & Carols!

Kverno’s setting of the seven stanzas of the Latin text begins with a dialogue between a choir of trebles (SSA) and a choir of basses (TBB). After each sings a stanza alone, the two choirs sing against each other in canon at a higher pitch level, then the middle stanza grows in intensity by the use of a rapid ostinato in one group against slow accented chords in the other. The piece gradually winds down in stanzas 5 and 6 until a chant-like setting of the final, doxological stanza, and an “Amen” based on the opening music conclude the piece. It is a perfect setting of the Marian text in both form and content, and one of the gems of latetwentieth century Scandinavian choral music. On my second full day in Oslo, the day following the first post-Covid celebration of the Syttende Mai (“17th of May”) national holiday, I took a bus into the city center from suburban Oslo to begin exploring more of the Norwegian capital. I started at Oslo Cathedral and began walking up the hill to the nearest spire I could see to check if the adjoining church was open and to make note of any midweek services or concerts I could attend there. I went to the Swedish Church, Trinity Church, St. Olav Catholic Cathedral, its neighboring parish church – St. Joseph, the Oslo Cathedral’s cemetery and chapel (presently loaned to the Russian Orthodox Church) then up to the top of the hill to see the Gamle Aker Kirke. Built around 1100 this three-nave Romanesque church is the oldest existing building in Oslo, as well as its oldest church. It is also the starting point of the pilgrim path to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, where faithful believers in the Middle Ages would walk 639 kilometers to visit the shrine of St. Olaf situated behind the altar.

An elderly “prest” (pastor) was giving a tour of the church to a group of teens, so the church was open and I was hoping that I could peer in when that was done, or at least when I wouldn’t be noticed. I walked around the churchyard (“kirkegård”), also dating from the 12th century, and saw the headstones from the most recent generations buried there. Early spring flowers were blooming, and the lilacs and rhododendrons were about to burst open. After a few minutes I looked back into the church to see that the tour had left the nave, so quietly crept in and felt the solemn stillness of this place which had seen nearly one thousand years of Christian worship. I imagined

what the sound of a choir singing Gregorian chant or a Renaissance anthem would be in this glorious space with its meter-thick stone walls. Later, when I heard that Trond Kverno was associated with the church around the time he composed the fore-mentioned Ave Maris Stella, I thought of how he might have “staged” the work in this ancient church, pitting the treble and bass choirs against each other from opposite sides of the nave. Soon, the tour finished, and I was asked to leave this very holy place by the prest who was anxious to lock the door behind me and get on with his day.

Two weeks later, I returned to Gamle Aker Kirke with my husband David following our sojourns in Stockholm and Göteborg, Sweden. We drove straight there after arriving in Oslo, as I wanted David to experience this church during the only time it was open to visitors outside of services, from 4 to 6 pm on Thursday afternoons. It was a joy to be back here and to have more time to explore the church, particularly the sanctuary and choir areas. I look forward to our choir singing Ave Maris Stella for you on December 4 and to the time I can return to this sacred space and hear it come alive with sacred choral music.

If you want to hear more about Joel’s sabbatical:

Please attend his Transfigured Nights presentation “Joel Martinson’s Scandinavia” on Monday, January 23, at 7 pm.

If you are on Facebook, see his personal blog “Joel Martinson’s Search for His Peeps 2022” about the first two weeks of his time in Scandinavia.