Choral Reviews

Nathan Reiff, editor

Look out for squalls

Hilary Purrington (b. 1990)

SATB div., unaccompanied (c. 4’)

Text: English: The Weekly Star (Wilmington, North Carolina)

Score available from the composer

Recording: University of North Carolina Wilmington Chamber Choir, Aaron Peisner. April 24, 2022.

(credibility and character of the speaker) by proclaiming himself not to be an alarmist or a fraud: “The forecasts are not based on superstition or secrets, but what I know to be real, physical causes.” He appeals to logos (reason) by explaining those physical causes: the alignment of equinoxes of Saturn and Jupiter, which “cause great electric disturbances in our solar system.”

As the effects of climate change become increasingly dire, it is encouraging to see composers and musicians grappling with the subject in both overt and subtle ways. Hilary Purrington’s recent composition, Look out for squalls, sets text from an 1891 Wilmington, NC newspaper article describing the predictions of a “weather prophet.” Both textually and musically, Look out for squalls evokes the destructive power of hurricanes, the urgency of preparing for dangerous weather, and the sometimes illusory nature of information and expertise, without ever veering into the obvious or cliché.

The weather prophet’s words, which Purrington sets selectively, utilize the rhetorical triangle–pathos, ethos, and logos. Beginning with pathos (emotion, values), his opening words appeal to fear: “Look out for squalls beginning in May this year…destructive storms will begin to manifest themselves…and the great battle of the elements will begin in earnest.” He then appeals to ethos

Rather than passing judgment on the weather prophet’s astrological argument, Purrington decides to take his words at face value, matching each section of text with music that enhances and deepens its conviction and leaving the audience to decide what to make of this text. Her initial tempo marking, “With urgency,” along with driving rhythms, unisons that slowly reveal a minor mode, slides of major seconds to unisons, and outbursts of triads, meet the intensity of the weather prophet’s forecasts. The middle section, beginning with the text “I do not desire to create unnecessary sensation about these very great storms,” is inspired by Anglican chant, starting in unison and moving on stressed syllables to non-tonal dissonances, clusters, and triads. In the final section, where the text suddenly becomes celestial, Purrington’s tonal language shifts, becoming more triadic and arpeggiated, with frequent mystical-sounding third relationships between the triads, becoming more and more distant from its starting point: C major, C minor, A-flat major, F major/minor, D-flat major, G-flat major. Purrington ends the piece with a reiteration of the text “Look out for squalls,” with tonalities shifting between E-flat major and minor and the sopranos sliding on sustained pitches. The final moment of the piece is a cataclysmic-sounding eight-note chord that slides to a mixed majorminor chord, with the upper voices singing E-flat minor over E-flat major in the lower voices. Ultimately, the lower voices cut out, and we are left with E-flat minor.

Performance video: https://www.youtube.com/ watch/?v=Rrc8ikURhuE

Hilary Purrington’s website: https://www.hilarypurrington.com/index.html

— Aaron Peisner

Look out for squalls is most appropriate for an advanced choir. Aside from its final moments, it has minimal divisi, mostly for sopranos and basses. Rhythmically, Purrington frequently switches between duple and triple subdivisions. Her harmonic language never lingers in one place for too long, commonly bouncing between unisons, triads, clusters, and other non-triadic formulations. As a mezzo-soprano with significant choral singing experience herself, Purrington is highly attuned to the needs of singers regarding tonal reference points and preparations of dissonances and melodic leaps, making Squalls achievable and singable.

Look out for squalls was commissioned by the University of North Carolina Wilmington Chamber Choir, and premiered on April 24, 2022. Hilary Purrington holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, the Juilliard School, and Rice University. Recently, her choral-orchestral work, Words for departure , was premiered by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on a program with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Nathalie Stutzmann conducting.

Link to perusal score: https://issuu.com/hilarypurrington/docs/ purrington_look_out_for_squalls_perusal_score

O Guiding Night Roderick Williams (b. 1965)

SATB div., piano (c. 8:45’)

Text: English: St. John of the Cross (translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez)

Score available from Oxford University Press to develop into the final section. Toward the end of the text, the speaker describes the moment of unification with God by saying “I abandoned and forgot myself…all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten.” Here, the piano writing seems to evaporate while the choral harmonies become especially piercing, even suggesting bitonality for a moment. The effect of returning from this nebulous harmony to C major in the final measures is a powerful musical reflection of the spiritual journey that has taken place.

Recording (extended version): O Guiding Night: The Spanish Mystics. The Sixteen, Harry Christophers. CORO, COR 16090. April 26, 2011. MP3 or compact disc.

Choral musicians working in the U.S. may be unfamiliar with the impressive musical achievements of Roderick Williams, though an important part of his work applies directly to our own field. Williams, a leading British baritone, enjoys a busy career singing on top opera stages around the world, in recital halls, and in performances of works by Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Elgar, among many others. But he also exemplifies multi-dimensionality as a musician, and his compositional output—largely of choral works—continues to grow. According to his website through Groves Artists, Williams will both sing and have a choral work performed at the Coronation Service of King Charles III in May 2023.

Williams’ choral pieces vary in difficulty and voicings and include arrangements of spirituals (Children, go where I send thee), carols (Coventry Carol ), and original works. His ethereal and otherworldly setting of the Advent O antiphon O Adonai is among his more challenging pieces, particularly given the highly exposed material for sopranos, but is deeply moving.

Commissioned by the UK’s Genesis Foundation for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, O Guiding Night sets an English translation of poetry by the 16th-century Spanish priest and mystic Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross). The poem, the title of which is often translated as “The Dark Night of the Soul,” explores a transition from spiritual aloneness toward unification with the divine. The imagery of Juan’s poetry is both sacred and sensual, referencing God and the transitioning soul as a Lover and the beloved, respectively. An alternate, secular reading of the poem could imagine two human lovers being drawn to one another from afar.

O Guiding Night is through-composed and multisectional, as Williams sets different parts of the text to music of varying tempi and keys, often with piano interludes to connect. The piece begins with a striking piano introduction that suggests both the ecstatic end point of the soul’s journey and the mysterious process along the way. The choral writing to follow is hushed and rhythmic. In this section and throughout the piece, Williams makes thoughtful use of the choral ambitus: the more intimate parts of the piece feature closer harmony, and those passages that are more rapturous tend to explore wider spacing in chords and more extreme portions of the vocal range of sopranos and basses in particular.

The piece moves from C major to A major, Ab major, and back to C major. The third of these large-scale key areas includes one of the emotional and musical apexes of the work, and this material continues

O Guiding Night lies somewhere in the middle of Williams’ works with regard to level of difficulty. Most of the choral writing in the piece is homophonic, and the harmonic language is rooted in tonality with many colorful added nonchord tones. Williams’ vocal and piano writing is idiomatic, sensitive, and considerate of the needs of singers and players, but it still contains difficult passages, and tuning may be a challenge. The vocal writing is rhythmically vital and fits naturally with the word stresses of the translation, though the homophonic structure tends to expose any issues with ensemble. Finally, the dynamic and emotional ranges of all voice parts suggest a vocal approach that freely uses a variety of vocal timbres and colors.

Roderick Williams’ website (Groves Artists): https://www.grovesartists.com/artist/roderickwilliams/

Alternate translation of “The Dark Night of the Soul” (Poetry Foundation, translated by David Lewis): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poems/157984/the-dark-night-of-the-soul

— Nathan Reiff