Sound & fury feb 2010

Acknowledgements BENEFACTORS

The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective presents

The activities of C4 are funded, in large part, by grants and generous contributions. We wish to thank and acknowledge: For their major support: The David and Minnie Berk Foundation, Inc. Dodger Properties Nan Bases Michael David & Lauren Mitchell Tracy & Stanley Shopkorn

C4

And for their contributions: Ian Moss Clarence & Sally Baum Ruth Mueller-Maerki Francine Belkind Michael Nassau Jennifer Borum Rochelle & Bernard Natt Timothy Brown Elizabeth Newman Nancy & Lee Corbin Julianne Parolisi Zachary Cummings Raymond Penn Orianne Dutka Warren Prince Hugh & Kathryn Eddy Barry Putterman Carol Garner & Martin Geller Amy Fonda Sara Martha Garner-Duhe Ann & Richard Sarnoff Eileen & Arthur Hirsh Mina Seeman Linnéa Johnson Larry & Pat Siegel John Kander Alan Silverman Sheldon Klenetsky Carol Spencer Tania J. León Ellen Stafford-Sigg Jodi & Stephen Leone Daniel & Susan Stearns Stanley Lieblein Kenneth & Jean Telljohann Patricia Lutz Deborah Teplow Elizabeth Marker Mary Tsimenoglou Dan Martin & Michael Biello Richard Walker Edward & Rose Mermelstein Jessica & Markus Wichser Peter & Christine Metz Jon Minikes & Susan Backstrom

���������������� ������������������������

c4ensemble.org

SPECIAL THANKS We also wish to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following organizations and individuals for their support and assistance: Church for All Nations Jennifer Rosa St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church Douglas Keilitz

Thursday, February 25 ���������������������� ��������������� ����

Saturday, February 27 ���������������������������������������� ������������������� ����

������������������

C4: THE CHORAL COMPOSER/CONDUCTOR COLLECTIVE Sopranos Franny Geller Karen Siegel Martha Sullivan

Altos Jamie Klenetsky Erica Lowe Elizabeth Marker Malina Rauschenfels

Tenors Christopher Baum Jonathan David David Rentz Joseph Rubinstein

Basses Daniel Andor James Bilodeau Timothy Brown David Harris Christian Smythe

Joseph Rubinstein sings with C4 and the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus. He is a passionate supporter of contemporary music and has been involved in many premieres of pieces by young and emerging composers.

A composer himself, his works have been featured at festivals such as the Bowdoin International Music Festival and The Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, and by groups including the Columbia University Bach Society, the International Vocal Arts Workshop, and WorldMuse. He graduated with a BA in Music from Columbia University in 2008, and currently works on composer and new music promotion for a major music publisher.

Corps, and Cerddorion. He has worked at Talent Unlimited High School since 2001, directing choirs and solo repertoire classes, teaching music theory and keyboarding, and being an all-around accompanist. His choirs have premiered several of his choral arrangements and he has twice had the honor of being included in Who’s Who Among American Teachers. Christian holds a BS in Music Ed from NYU and a MFA in Vocal Performance from Hunter College.

He also enjoys trying to live a little greener every day.

C4 C4

C4, the world’s first Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, is a unique vocal ensemble in New York City dedicated to performing music written in the last twenty-five years. A collaborative project of its singing members, it functions not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right, with a three-program, six-concert season, but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group. It is, as far as we know, the first ensemble of its kind.

Please visit our website, www.c4ensemble.org.

We hope to see you at our next concert — please note the special time!

Savage Dreams

Join us for an exciting program of music for chorus and electronic media, featuring Ingram Marshall’s Savage Altars and new works by C4 composers Christopher Baum, Timothy Brown, David Harris, Malina Rauschenfels, David Rentz and Joseph Rubinstein.

c4ensemble.org

Saturday, 15 May 2010, 4:00 p.m.

Caspary Auditorium, Rockefeller University (1230 York Avenue)

Karen Siegel grew up harmonizing doowop tunes with her family, and went on to study voice, piano, cello, and eventually composition. She holds a Master’s degree in Composition from NYU, where she studied with Marc Antonio Consoli, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yale.

Additional studies include coursework with Conrad Cummings at the Juilliard Evening Division and vocal instruction with Lavinia Bertotti and Claudine Ansermet at the Fondazione Italiana di Musica Antica in Urbino, Italy. Her works have been commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble, Trio Eos, and the Matrix Music Collaborators, and performed by the new music ensemble Cygnus. Currently, Karen is a PhD candidate in composition at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she studies with Tania León and was recently awarded the Robert Starer Award for composition.

She is also Adjunct Lecturer in Music at City College.

Martha Sullivan’s music has been praised as “vibrant” and “a singer’s favorite”.

She has been commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Esoterics and numerous others, in cities as far-flung as Tokyo, Reno, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and Zurich. She has received several Meet the Composer grants for her work with Gregg Smith and recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts for her work with the Esoterics. She was a medalist in the Sorel Medallion competition in 2009, in which Voices of Ascension premiered her music at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, and she won the Dale Warland Singers’ Choral Ventures competition in its final year (2003).

She has never studied composition formally, but she has studied voice with such notable divas as Phyllis Curtin and Lili Chookasian, at Boston University and Yale. She has sung and recorded premieres by such innovators as Toby Twining and John Zorn, so she’s been heard on WNYC’s “New Sounds” a number of times; she has also appeared on New York City Opera’s VOX program of new operas twice, in Gordon Beeferman’s The Rat Land. She has sung with numerous ensembles in New York and elsewhere, under conductors such as Sarah Caldwell, Robert Shaw, and James Levine. Singing with C4, however, is unique, in that its members’ interests and experience are at least as eclectic as her own.

c4ensemble.org

Christian Smythe hails from Danbury, Connecticut. Since high school, Christian has been active in the Connecticut and New York areas as singer, actor, and oboist, appearing with local groups like the New York Metro Vocal Arts Ensemble, Chelsea Opera, The Lesbian and Gay Big Apple

Erica Lowe started singing in choirs when she was six and has been a singer and conductor of various groups in New York, Wisconsin and Hong Kong, her hometown.

She is the founder of a six-voice ensemble, I Cantanti, which gave its debut performance in Hong Kong in 2007. While attending college in Madison, WI, she co-founded/codirected Museko, a 20-voice multicultural group that performs choral music from all over the world, and sang with the University of Wisconsin Concert Choir and Choral Union, both directed by Beverly Taylor.

She was also a professional chorister at the eight-voice Choir of St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in New York City. She studied voice with Ho-Do Yung and Bruce Gladstone and presently studies with Kristine Kalina. She also studied choral conducting with Bruce Gladstone. Professionally, she manages an English as a Second Language program for adult immigrants at LaGuardia Community College.

heard on two recordings: My Heart is Ready, music of Yuri Yukechev (Russian Chamber Chorus), and, as the Mother of Iseut, in Le vin herbé by Frank Martin (I Cantori di New York).

Even back in Minnesota, Malina Rauschenfels always had a short attention span. Although she has spent nearly a quarter century playing the cello at Eastman (BM), Juilliard (MM), and around town, large chunks of that time were also spent playing violin, viola, flute, composing “serious” music, collaborating/writing with choreographers, dancing, doing handstands, and singing while walking down the street. When not teaching nonstop, Malina is generally creating some sort of performance art and collaborating with other artists. Check out her MySpace page for performance clips and information about upcoming concerts. Malina has written for/collaborated with Airelise, Laura Flowers, Nicole Speletic, Pat Catterson, and scored Jody Oberfelder’s film ‘LineAge’. She has danced with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects as a dancing violinist in both Serbia and Pennsylvania and performed her own choreography at the Southern Theater, Zenon Dance in Minneapolis, MN, and at the City Center Studios in NY.

C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective

“Sound and Fury”

Thursday, 25 February 2010, Church for All Nations, New York, NY Saturday, 27 February 2010, St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, New York, NY Titania’s Garage Sale (2009)† Phillip Cheah, countertenor Christopher Baum, conductor

Jonathan David (b. 1965)

An Ever-Fixed Mark (2009)† Erica Lowe, conductor

Jamie Klenetsky (b. 1984)

C4 C4

Elizabeth Marker is an accomplished musician who has devoted the major portion of her career to the advancement of choral music. She holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance from Boston University where she studied with Mary Davenport and coached with Alan Rodgers. In New York she studies with Maria Farnworth. She has sung with many notable choral groups including Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Russian Chamber Chorus and Cantori New York.

In 1987, Elizabeth was invited to sing with the Oregon Repertory Singers representing the United States at the 26th Choral Singing Festival in Kärnten, Austria where the group won both the Folk and Classical Repertoire competitions. Elizabeth performed in many Robert Shaw Choral Workshops at Carnegie Hall and was a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. She has served as section leader at The Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) and been a member of the professional choir at St. Ignatius of Antioch (Episcopal). As a soloist, Elizabeth can be

c4ensemble.org

In addition to his work with C4, David Rentz directs Guildsingers, an early music ensemble. He also directs the choruses at the Brearley School and has served as assistant conductor for the New Amsterdam Singers. He has earned graduate degrees in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and, most recently, Yale University, where he was co-director of the University Chapel Choir. David is also an active composer whose works have been performed by, among others, the Madison (WI) Youth Choirs, the Washington University Chamber Chorus, the Milwaukee Young Artists Festival Ensemble, and the Yale Camerata.

Signifying Nothing (2009)† David Rentz, conductor

Karen Siegel (b. 1980)

Ophelia (2008)† Timothy Brown, conductor

Jocelyn Hagen (b. 1980)

Tzara’s Hamlet (2009)† Christopher Baum, conductor

Franny Geller (b. 1981)

Elements of Distance (2009)† I. Dull Substance and Heavy Tears II.The Other Two Karen Siegel, soprano David Rentz, conductor

Martha Sullivan (b. 1964)

TEN-MINUTE INTERMISSION

c4ensemble.org

Sonnet (2009)† Christopher Baum, guitar Daniel Andor, conductor

David Harris (b. 1974)

More Shakespeare Songs (1997) 1. Fear no more 2. Over hill, over dale 3. Time 4. Who is Silvia?

5. A scurvy tune David Harris, conductor

Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (b. 1963)

† World premiere

Program Notes & Texts Titania’s Garage Sale On reading Mary Alexandra Agner’s moving and melancholy poetic portrait of Shakespeare’s fairy queen after the glory days of A Midsummer Night’s Dream I was immediately struck by the wide variety of musical possibilities it suggested. My work travels indeed through a “cries of London” opening; a short canon for trebles; a barcarolle; a countertenor solo with a pointillist accompaniment for the men; a wistful, fading coda. The piece is held together by the common use of material from the opening, and by the consistent suggestion of the presence of “voices from the past,” underlining the theme of memory.

— Jonathan David

of her hair, but silver ones, not gold.

And in the way she rubs the vial, now empty, sets it aside and picks it up again, it’s clear that love forgives the tricks of jealousy. What price, immortal tears?

And will the honey bags and green figs ripen dusty, shuttered, shut out of fairy song?

Mary Alexandra Agner (b. 1974)

previously at the Putney School (Vermont) and Cathedral High School (NYC) where he was the Director of Music.

Jonathan David has been described as “an important emerging musical voice” in the worlds of choral music, music-theatre, and art song. He has served as Composerin-Residence for The Greenwich Village Singers, Music Director for the Morningside Heights-based chorus, Howl!, and is a core member of New York’s pioneering new music group, C4, the Choral Composer/ Conductor Collective. Upcoming premieres include Hopkins Songs, a song cycle for soprano Amy Bartram and Even in Darkness, a commission from the Packer Collegiate Concert Chorus. He has also received commissions from the New York Treble Singers, Glass Menagerie, and the ThanksGiving Foundation. His choral music has been performed by the Princeton Singers, the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, and Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, among others.

Current projects include a large-scale song cycle, Winter Birds, for countertenor Phillip Cheah, to texts by poet David Brendan Hopes. His music has received awards from ASCAP, the Americas Vocal Ensemble, and the Global Network of Conservatories. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he studied with John Bavicchi and Don McDonnell at the Berklee College of Music. He is published by Oxford University Press.

devoted to Medieval music. Franny has also pulled a couple of musical all-nighters, once for the New York premiere of John Tavener’s Veil of the Temple, and again to close the 2008 Bang On a Can Summer Marathon with Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung, as a member of Toby Twining Music.

David Harris is a freelance musician living in Manhattan. His compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by ensembles across the country.

He is the music director of the Columbia University Glee Club, a member of C4, assistant director for Canticum Novum and teaches for the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music. In 2009 he released three CDs, each available on iTunes and CDBaby. David moved to New York from Colorado where he began and directed Jubilate, a 55-voice a cappella choir, for eight years in addition to working with Denver-area professional ensembles. He holds degrees from the Universities of Alabama, Oklahoma, and Colorado.

C4 C4

At Titania’s Garage Sale Dried violet, musk roses, eglantine, and wild thyme planked out between unmatched saw-horses near the front, their smells to call you hither; racks of elven coats, snake skin bewitched as tap dance shoes, stomping galoshes; stuffed geese, caught out by Cupid’s bow, hanging from open pinewood rafters. Clearing the motes and cobwebs from the bins of mustard seed and peaseblossom: Titania herself, still muttering she thought the furniture would be the last to go.

The king of shadows, the rolling Os of tide within his name, jackanape and jester, instead the first to haunt the hollows gods are heir to.

Sweaty late afternoon sunlight makes halos

An Ever-Fixed Mark

Most pieces I write are personal, my reflections on a text or scene. This sonnet embodies what I think love is really about: something immovable, even when a person feels lost. It declares that love is the only constant in life, beyond emotion, doubt, and appearance. This piece is broken up into phrases, with a pause between some; it has an older feel to it, and almost reminds me of a lecture from the pulpit. I don’t always know the musical intention of my writing until I hear it performed, but upon hearing it, I think this setting fits well. — Jamie Klenetsky Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

c4ensemble.org

Jamie Klenetsky is a composer, singer and web designer residing in Morristown, NJ. She has sung in multiple college choirs while obtaining her BA in Music/Composition at Rutgers University, including the Kirkpatrick Choir. While in college, she performed at the Festival 500 Choral Festival in Newfoundland, Canada, and toured Taiwan, performing at various sites throughout the country. Jamie was the second-place winner of the San Fransisco Choral Artists’ 2007 “New Voices” competition, and a finalist in the Karen Sokolof Javitch 2008 “Emerging Jewish Composer” competition.

Her electronic piece Space Music was featured by New Music Hartford at their September concert. Currently, Jamie sings professionally with the Seton Hall Chapel Choir. She currently works as the web designer of the government of Morris County, NJ.

c4ensemble.org

Franny Geller is a boy soprano in a dress and an aspiring ornithologist. A choral addict since childhood, Franny has passed through such New York City ensembles as Trinity Wall Street Choir, St. Bartholomew’s Choir, the Pharos Music Project, Canticum Novum Singers, and Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, with whom she appears on two recent releases: Lisa Bielawa’s A Handful of World and Yumiko Matsuoka’s To Every Thing There is a Season. She is currently a member of the Bach Vespers Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, and of Guildsingers, a quartet

C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective Daniel Andor started playing piano at four and studied composition and piano at The Purcell School of Music, London.

His compositions won a number of awards and have been performed internationally, and he was featured by the Society for the Promotion of New Music during 2000–2002. As he felt drawn to making music with others, he took up trombone and conducting. Orchestral conducting kept him busy during his years at the University of Cambridge, where he lingered vigorously until he received his PhD in physics in 2005.

Daniel now finds himself in New York, contemplating the receiving end of music: researching hearing and its neuro-physiology.

Timothy Brown completed his BA at the University of North Texas and has been a choral professional for over 25 years, directing and singing with high school, community, and chamber choirs. As a composer, Tim focused for a time on music for the theatre. His Curious George toured nationally for over ten years and his songs were showcased at the West Bank Theatre, the BMI Workshop, and in the Donnell Library ‘Songbook’ . Tim later studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Nils Vigeland. His Incidental Dance Suite was premiered at Merkin Concert Hall, and Epitaph (Songs on Poems of Dorothy Parker) was recorded by Metropolitan Opera mezzo, Theadora Hanslowe. Tim’s church music includes Christ Our Passover and Eloi, Lama Sabbachtani, both commissioned by and premiered at The Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York.

If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Signifying Nothing This piece began as an idea of sound emerging from nothing and then disintegrating back into the ether. Only after I had developed the technical ideas for how this idea could be musically realized did I find the right text, thanks to my husband Charles who suggested Macbeth’s soliloquy contemplating the meaning of life and death. Each phrase ebbs in and out of being, only briefly existing as an understandable line of poetry with a cohesive melody and rhythm. — Karen Siegel

small for most of the work, expanding only to word-paint a phrase describing Ophelia’s clothes filling with water. The work is a masterful combination of precise text setting offset by surprising musical lines and dynamics, bringing out the emotions which alternately recede into blank shock, and then bubble — even churn to the surface.

Also subtly injected into the work is the little song of Ophelia who, sinking into madness, laments her lost love for Hamlet (Act IV, Scene 5). Ingeniously these lines, sung in the play, are the only ones Ms. Hagen sets without pitch; they are instead whispered as an eerie sort of accompaniment to the telling of Ophelia’s demented descent to the bottom of a pond.

Laertes’ numb response to the news concludes the work; “Too much of water hast thou, Poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears.”—Timothy Brown JOCELYN HAGEN, a native of Valley City, North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” (Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune). Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, and this is very evident in her work. Her music is melodically driven, boldly beautiful, and intricately crafted. Since her graduation from St. Olaf College in 2003, Jocelyn has received over 40 commissions, 50 premieres, and 100 performances across the United States, England, and France. Jocelyn has received grants and awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, VocalEssence, the Sorel Organization, the Yale Glee Club, the Lotte Lehman Foundation, the University of Minnesota, and the San Francisco Song Festival. Her commissions include the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, the North Dakota Music Teacher’s Association, Cantus, the St. Olaf Band, NDSU Gold Star Band, the Murasaki Duo and the Copper Street Brass.

She founded Graphite Publishing, an online

C4 C4

In addition to conducting, singing and occasionally composing for C4, Christopher Baum is the Music Director of the Manhattan Wind Ensemble and a member of the artistic staff of New Music New York.

He received his BA in Classical Guitar from San Jose State University and his MM in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Denver. Upcoming performances include two concerts with the Manhattan Wind Ensemble and, later in the spring, a concert of chamber music for flute and guitar.

Phillip Cheah (C4 Alum and Guest Soloist) is a member of the New York Choral Artists, the Concert Chorale of New York, and the renowned Bach Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. A tireless champion of contemporary music, he has performed works by Ralph Shapey, Joe Manieri, John Eaton, and David Lang, as well as the US premières of Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum and John Tavener’s monumental all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple. Phillip has conducted the Pocket Opera Players of Chicago, the Handel Society of Dartmouth, Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, the Indiana University Opera Theatre, and the Amato Opera, where he was also a répétiteur. As an accompanist, he has given recitals with the Aguavã New Music Studio, the Millennium Wagner Opera Company, and the Opera Collective of New York. He has recorded on the Pro Organo and Tzadik labels.

Phillip teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and Barnard College, and has taught

c4ensemble.org

James Bilodeau grew up in the Adirondacks.

He spent his youth singing in church choirs, school choruses and several musicals. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Production and Technology from the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT. At Hartt he also studied choral arts and conducting with Dr. Edward Bolkovac and voice with Janine Hawley and Janet Alcorn.

Since moving to New York, James has sung with the Empire City Men’s Chorus under Dr. Jonathan Babcock and with C4.

Professionally, he works as a Talk Radio Imaging Producer for Sirius XM Radio.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last Syllable of Recorded time: And all our yesterdays, have lighted Fools The way to dusty death. Out out, brief Candle, Life’s but a walking Shadow, a poor Player, That struts and frets his hour upon the Stage, And then is heard no more. It is a Tale Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act V, Scene 5

c4ensemble.org

Ophelia C4 is pleased for its first opportunity to present the music of Jocelyn Hagen. These performances mark the premiere of her lovely Ophelia, based on the passages from Hamlet in which Queen Gertrude brings news of the drowning of Ophelia to her brother, Laertes.

Ms. Hagen’s approach is purposely uncomplicated, allowing the text to be the focus. She keeps the the vocal range quite

publishing company, in 2004 along with fellow composer Timothy C. Takach, and is also published by Boosey and Hawkes.

Former teachers include Judith Lang Zaimont, Peter Hamlin, David Maslanka, Mary Ellen Childs, and Timothy Mahr. She completed her Masters in Composition at the University of Minnesota in 2006. www.jocelynhagen.com

Tzara’s Hamlet As a dabbler, I didn’t feel my compositional skills were a match for one of the greatest wordsmiths in history. But I did feel perfectly capable of chopping up a beautiful soliloquy, throwing the pieces into a hat, and pulling them out one by one to create a whimsical Frankenstein monster of a new poem. Some of the fragments have surprising personality despite their incoherence, and they translated very naturally into musical ideas. — Franny Geller

Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone: Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act II, Scene 1 3. Time (Sonnet 12) When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silvered o’er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard; Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow, And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence..

4. Who is Silvia?

Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness.

Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness, And, being help’d, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act IV, Scene 2

C4 C4

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: Hamlet Act IV, Scene 7

Contumely, when he himself might, and the spurns that patient consummation, for that makes the oppressor’s in that sleep his quietus make.

‘Tis nobler what dreams may come, troubles, perchance, for who would life to sleep must give us, we end.

And by a sleep that is the question, delay.

And arrows of, against, a sea of outrageous fortune.

The slings shuffled off to be wish’d natural shocks.

To suffer the unworthy takes so long!

The rub, the insolence!

Pause: there’s or to take arms.

The pangs of to be, the proud man’s to sleep, is heir to the respect coil no more.

Wrong!

The heart-ache in the mind, bare bodkin and scorns, and the to dream of time.

When we have to die, merit of them, and by opposing whether or not to be.

That flesh bear the whips to die, to say this mortal thousand calamity, the law’s to sleep.

Ay, there’s with a disprized devoutly of office.

Love of death, ‘tis a end of.

Hamlet Act III, Scene 1 (random reordering)

c4ensemble.org

5. A scurvy tune The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I, The gunner and his mate Loved Mall, Meg and Marian and Margery, But none of us cared for Kate; For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor, Go hang!

She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch, Yet a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch: Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

The Tempest Act II, Scene 2

c4ensemble.org

the composer focuses emotional attention on specific aspects of Shakespeare’s dense language (1. release, 2. frolic, 3. inevitability, 4. infatuation, 5. raucousness).

Although Shakespeare’s overall output is filled with effusions of love and life, queries into the complexities of human passions and celebrations of triumphant and tragic individuals, he pauses frequently to consider the dark muse that reminds him life will soon be over, and that he is richer for knowing the beauty of each moment. A composite summation of these five pieces, Mäntyjärvi’s reflection on Shakespeare, might sound something like this: “nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense, and nobody cares for Kate (to her let us garlands bring): farewell thou lob of spirits, and renowned be thy grave.” – David Harris JAAKKO MÄNTYJÄRVI studied English and Linguistics at the University of Helsinki, and music theory and choral conducting at the Sibelius Academy. As a composer, Mäntyjärvi describes himself as an eclectic traditionalist: eclectic in that he adopts influences from a number of styles and periods, fusing them into his own idiom; traditionalist in that his musical language is based on a traditional approach and uses the resources of modern music only sparingly. He has been active as an amateur and semi-professional musician, mainly as a choral singer with a number of Finnish choirs, including the Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir, the professional Sibelius Academy Vocal Ensemble and the Tapiola Chamber Choir. He conducted the Savolaisen Osakunnan Laulajat student choir from 1988 to 1993. He was also deputy conductor of the Tapiola Chamber Choir from 1998 to 2004, and composer-inresidence of that group from 2000 to 2005.

1. Fear no more Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

Golden lads, and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great, Thou art past the Tyrant’s stroke, Care no more to clothe and eat, To thee the Reed is as the Oak: The Scepter, Learning, Physic must, All follow this and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash.

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone.

Fear not Slander, censure rash.

Thou hast finished joy and moan.

All lovers young all lovers must, consign to thee and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee, Nor no witch-craft charm thee.

Ghost unlaid forbear thee.

Nothing ill come near thee.

Quiet consummation have, And renowned be thy grave.

Cymbeline Act IV, Scene 2

Elements of Distance Two Shakespeare Sonnets for C4 Shakespeare uses the four classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—to embody the tension between being far away from a lover in space and yet close in thought and desire. The first sonnet links earth and water to the literal land and sea that separate the poet from his beloved; he laments that he cannot transform himself into thought and traverse that distance in an instant. The second sonnet links the element of air to thought and the element of fire to desire; both thought and desire can find their way to the lover instantly, so the sonnet is happier. However, the split between those elements and the heavier elements of the first sonnet is unbearable (“My life, being made of four, with two alone/Sinks down to death...”). The ideas are complex enough to require two sonnets to give them their shape, so the choral setting comprises two pieces as well.

These pieces sometimes repeat text or use vocal sound effects (imitating the four elements with rain noises for water, or blowing for air, or stamping or thumping the chest for earth) just to slow down the text and give the listeners and singers time to absorb it. The strictly musical elements include simple repetition, canons, and word painting, all used in an effort to clarify the meaning of the words. A demanding solo line for soprano appears in both settings, at moments of intense emotion; in the first, she sings of the grief of separation, while in the second, warm thought and passion for the beloved cause her to sing ecstatically of joy.

Both sonnets end with the poet bemoaning his separation from the beloved, so both musical settings end with exactly the same chord progression, heard differently in the differing contexts of two distinct pairs of elements, those elements all being acted out by the singers in an effort to embody the frustrations of separation. – Martha Sullivan

Sonnet 44 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be.

But ah! Thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that so much of earth and water wrought I must attend time’s leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

C4 C4 2. Over hill, over dale Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon’s sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be: In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

c4ensemble.org

Sonnet 45 The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present–absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to death, oppress’d with melancholy; Until life’s composition be recured By those swift messengers return’d from thee, Who even but now come back again, assured Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

c4ensemble.org

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.

Sonnet James Joyce’s protagonist Stephen Dedalus posits that art can inspire “a stasis called forth, prolonged and at last dissolved by what I call the rhythm of beauty”: an emotional happenstance of impenetrable presence wherein we want to believe we can remain. Following attempts by composers over the past century to create stasis through metric and formal elements (think Glass’ repetitive cells, Ligeti’s slow-moving blocks of sound or Stravinsky’s rhythmic/metric layering) the form of “Sonnet” juxtaposes a ritornello (“How sweet the moonlight sleeps. . .” ) with solo-like passages on Sonnet 104.

Each section in the piece approaches time release differently and sectional contrast challenges measurement. An altered version of the whole tone scale further disrupts directional focus. The idea comes from Shakespeare, as in both texts he usurps temporal boundaries and establishes new authority (1=“the sound of music” and 2=an immortal “beauty”). The piece opens with seven other sonnets as I have come to believe that all 154 sonnets speak to a universal sense of humanity understood through love, loss, impermanence, beauty, ego, connection, creativity, devotion, belief and faith as much as they speak to (or, possibly, from) an individual. Jumbled layering asks the listener to release their desire to grasp meaning and listen for meaning to flow from the experience, the essence of Joyce’s “stasis.”

— David Harris

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 56 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, ...

Let this sad int’rim like the ocean be ...

Else call it winter, which being full of care, Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.

Sonnet 29 When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, ...

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

C4 C4 Sonnet 105 Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my belovèd as an idol show, ...

Fair, kind, and true have often lived alone, Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.

Sonnet 128 How oft when thou, my music, music play’st ...

Do I envy’ those jacks that nimble leap ...

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

c4ensemble.org

Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. ...

Sonnet 12 ...

And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Sonnet 109 O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify. ...

For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

The Merchant of Venice Act IV, Scene 1

More Shakespeare Songs Anticipation propels Mäntyjärvi’s “Songs” as three death references and two preparations interweave in colorful, descriptive music.

According to his score notes, Mäntyjärvi’s textual choices reflect a passing glance to connection, yet, one can’t help but notice a nod to The Bard’s penchant toward impermanence. The cold and soldierly eulogy over a princess (1. “Fear no more”) contrasts with Stephano’s reflective drunkenness (5. “Scurvy tune”), in which he toasts a prudish maid after recanting “a very scurvy tune to sing at a man’s funeral.”

With these first and last movements, Mäntyjärvi provides episodic bookends to the central “Time,” her sober message absent of Shakespeare’s customary silver lining.

“Time” is flanked by frivolous scurrying on one side (2. “Over hill, over dale”) and joyous infatuation on the other (4. “Who is Silvia?”), a comment, perhaps, on the composite expenditure of most people’s measure of life.

Mäntyjärvi uses ostinato (i.e. riff) to structure his music and allow for straightforward presentation of the text. A cool, resigned 6/8 lilt in the first movement begets a nature-filled buzzing that breathes life into the second movement’s fairy messenger. The third piece’s metronomic/ tritoned background lulls “Time” into necessary placation that is contrasted by party-chatter images evoked in the “Silvia” double fugue, and transformed into a boomchunk hornpipe that gives sarcastic flight to the final tune. By choosing ostinato

c4ensemble.org

Sonnet 104 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride; Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen; Three April pérfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace