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Program notes - "A Boy was Born" |
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A Note from the Artistic Director For a choir that 1) performs a Christmas concert every year, 2) usually sings a cappella, and 3) doesn’t want to present a piece-meal concert consisting of 20-some short carols, there are a limited number of larger works for consideration. Near the top of this list, however, is Benjamin Britten’s A Boy was Born. Written at the extremely youthful age of 19-20 (although later revised when he was 42), this ambitious set of Choral Variations stands as one of the few truly monumental a cappella Christmas works. Clocking in at over 30 minutes, and containing some of the most challenging music ever written in a tonal vein for a cappella chorus, however, it is heard with rather less frequency than it ought. The subtitle “Choral Variations” reveals the overall structure of the piece, the first movement the theme that, as far as anyone can tell, is Britten’s original. The core of the theme is a simple four-note motive that permeates the rest of the work in various guises:
Spaced through the texts and translations, I have reproduced various permutations of this theme for your perusal. The young Britten was at this time fascinated with the 12-tone Serial Technique of Schoenberg (his request to study with Schoenberg’s disciple Webern during his University studies was turned down by Vaughan Williams – for better or for worse we shall never know, but I have my opinion!). Britten’s treatment of this theme, which is a retrograde of itself, is redolent of serial technique, but is freely (both tonally and modally) rendered in such a way as to make it far richer – to my ears anyway – and therefore infinitely superior to the strict Serialism of Schoenberg and his school. Although I am convinced that no ear could find A Boy was Born as anything but exquisitely beautiful, the first half of the concert is perhaps more conventional, presenting creative arrangements of familiar carols, and the world-premiere of a set of three works newly commissioned by St. Martin’s from New York City composer Robert S. Cohen to texts by Christina Rossetti.
From all of us in St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, both musicians and staff, I wish you the very happiest of holidays, and
wonderful New Year. Timothy J. Krueger
© 2010 Timothy J. Krueger |
