N. Arizona Univ. Holiday Dinner Concerts, pt. deux

Today I’m going to relate how I worked with the text for “Christmas Bells”, the commissioned piece for Northern Arizona University’s Holiday Dinner December 2010.

First some important background to the poem, related quite well by a certain Tom Stewart [Mr. Stewart, I can’t locate you even though this well-written article by you is all over the internet- please contact me if you would like receive more detailed recognition for this article]:

[The Story Behind]
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"

by Tom Stewart, December 20, 2001

One of America's best known poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), contributed to the wealth of carols sung each Christmas season, when he composed the words to "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on December 25th 1864. The carol was originally a poem, "Christmas Bells," containing seven stanzas. Two stanzas were omitted, which contained references to the American Civil War, thus giving us the carol in its present form. The poem gave birth to the carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and the remaining five stanzas were slightly rearranged in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin (1827-1905), who also gave us the memorable tune. When Longfellow penned the words to his poem, America was still months away from Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9th 1865; and, his poem reflected the prior years of the war's despair, while ending with a confident hope of triumphant peace.

As with any composition that touches the heart of the hearer, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" flowed from the experience of Longfellow-- involving the tragic death of his wife Fanny and the crippling injury of his son Charles from war wounds. Henry married Frances Appleton on July 13th 1843, and they settled down in the historic Craigie House overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They were blessed with the birth of their first child, Charles, on June 9th 1844, and eventually, the Longfellow household numbered five children-- Charles, Ernest, Alice, Edith, and Allegra. Alice, the Longfellows' third child and first daughter, was delivered, while her mother was under the anesthetic influence of ether-- the first in North America.

Tragedy struck both the nation and the Longfellow family in 1861. Confederate Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard fired the opening salvos of the American Civil War on April 12th, and Fanny Longfellow was fatally burned in an accident in the library of Craigie House on July 10th. The day before the accident, Fanny Longfellow recorded in her journal: "We are all sighing for the good sea breeze instead of this stifling land one filled with dust. Poor Allegra is very droopy with heat, and Edie has to get her hair in a net to free her neck from the weight." After trimming some of seven year old Edith's beautiful curls, Fanny decided to preserve the clippings in sealing wax. Melting a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed upon her dress. The longed for sea breeze gusted through the window, igniting the light material of Fanny's dress-- immediately wrapping her in flames. In her attempt to protect Edith and Allegra, she ran to Henry's study in the next room, where Henry frantically attempted to extinguish the flames with a nearby, but undersized throw rug. Failing to stop the fire with the rug, he tried to smother the flames by throwing his arms around Frances-- severely burning his face, arms, and hands. Fanny Longfellow died the next morning. Too ill from his burns and grief, Henry did not attend her funeral. (Incidentally, the trademark full beard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arose from his inability to shave after this tragedy.)

The first Christmas after Fanny's death, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after the incident, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me." Almost a year later, Longfellow received word that his oldest son Charles, a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac, had been severely wounded with a bullet passing under his shoulder blades and taking off one of the spinal processes. The Christmas of 1863 was silent in Longfellow's journal. Finally, on Christmas Day of 1864, he wrote the words of the poem, "Christmas Bells." The reelection of Abraham Lincoln or the possible end of the terrible war may have been the occasion for the poem. Lt. Charles Longfellow did not die that Christmas, but lived. So, contrary to popular belief, the occasion of writing that much loved Christmas carol was not due to Charles' death.

Christmas Bells"
(The original poem, complete with all seven stanzas)

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"


So there you have the historical background and the full text, but what you don’t get in the familiar carol setting and in many other settings even recently is any inclusion of the important verses, the real guts of the poem, that refer to the Civil War. What is usually included is the sixth verse, but without verses four and/or five setting up the story, the sentiments of verse six really makes no sense and probably leave most readers feeling like they missed something (well yes, they did!).

What I decided to do was embrace the idea that this is as much an anti-war text as it is a Christmas text. And as soon as I decided to do that I also knew that I would be challenging singers and audience with war images at their Holiday Dinner for a few stanzas filed with cannon sounds in the muted brass and percussion and some fairly dissonant choral writing as well. I knew that this would have to be done just right, and not just be a pile of musical clichés, so I especially challenged myself as I worked to be creative and guard from falling into such traps. After all, Edie did want something festive, with a big loud ending, etc. So, I went to work and chose to use verses 1-4, 6-7, and repeat verse one. This would use enough of the war element so that the true context of the text’s creation is honored, and also the repetition of verse one would heighten the glory of the final sentiments and of course make the ever-satisfying quasi ABA musical form. And really, after passing through the darkness of the war stanzas, the final glorious recapitulation in a really bright G Major, with the handbells peaking like crazy, was pretty spectacular (if I may say so!).

Click the link to visit my website and hear the piece:

http://paulcarey.net/Music/Christmas%20Bells.htm


The greatest reward for me, in a sense, was after the concerts. As I said in part one of this blog entry, the singers themselves were struck by this text, its origins, and by the fact that we were singing about something important still today. Their post-concert comments to me were so beautiful, and I saw on their faces how much the text and my music meant to them. And then there was an audience member who came up to Edie Copley after the concert Friday night, and said to her (Edie told me this later that night), “That first piece sure wasn’t just some Christmas fluff, he put a lot of work into that”! Of course this comment made my day- an audience member even starting to think about what the nitty-gritty process might have been for me as a composer to bring this text to light, even though having to pass through some verses of darkness.

Thanks for reading!

Paul

N. Arizona Univ. Holiday Dinner Concerts, pt. one

The Northern Arizona University Holiday Dinner, December 2010

Part One

This past summer Edie Copley, director of choral studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ asked me to write a commissioned work to serve as the opening processional music for their 36th Annual Holiday Dinner, a wonderful event which raises substantial money for the choral program’s scholarship fund. I of course accepted, as I know Edie and Ryan Holder have a great program there, and I do need to write more holiday music. Edie requested something big and bold to grab the audience, and the proposed voicing was SATB choir, organ, brass, percussion and hand bells. Edie stressed to me that NAU has an amazing handbell program AND a great handbell arranger by the name of Doug Benton. She told me I could sketch in a handbell part and Doug would be glad to flesh it out.

(Edie Copley)

This was all an interesting turn of events, and when I called Sherri from Raleigh, NC where I was teaching she again encouraged me to consider setting Wordsworth’s “Christmas Bells”, known to most of us in the form of the 3/4 meter barbershop-ish tune called “I heard the bells on Christmas day”. Sherri had been urging me to set this very interesting text to my own music for 2-3 years, but I kept running into two blocks- I just couldn't get the usual tune out of my head, and two, the fair amount of conflict in some of the verses seemed counter to the simple mirth most people expect at the holidays (the poem references the American Civil War, war cannons, etc). So I had always told her that it just wasn’t working for me to set this text.

However, one night shortly thereafter I was lying awake at night and all of a sudden a new melody (meaning my own melody!) in 4/4 popped into my head and before a day or two had gone by I couldn't even remember what that old standard melody sounded like. So I started sketching out parts of the song, and also decided that I would tackle head-on those verses with the conflict. I was concerned that Edie might not like the text but I ran it past her and she said that it actually was a favorite poem of hers and therefore definitely a go. Sherri was, I think, a bit in shock, after all those times she urged me to set this text, here I was finally doing it (of course she has pushed me toward other texts as well, and I have gradually made them into pieces!).

So there I was in Raleigh, NC writing Christmas while the temperature outside was 90 or 100 in the daytime and not much cooler at night. When I got back to Chicago I spent the whole month of August doing three things; 1) finishing the piece, including all the parts, 2) playing Plants versus Zombies on the computer (yes, our whole household was addicted to this game for awhile), and 3), going to Kane County Cougar minor league baseball games with Sherri and Aidan for fun.

Edie was kind enough to allow me extra brass, so the final version is SATB, organ, three trumpets, two horns, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, percussion including tympani, and a big bell part. When Doug Benton sent me his version of my bell part sketch it was fun to look at- he had taken my sketches and really put them on steroids, cool! The other thing I worked with Doug on was the idea of having a final bell peal near the end when the poem becomes joyous and positive again and references all the bells ringing. Doug devised a way to have the bells do rapid peals and not really try to be in rhythm with the main forces, so you would get the sense that the bells were from the real world and not straitjacketed into the rhythm of a composed piece. When I finally got to see this and hear it in person it was both audibly, visually, and poetically stunning. Many thanks to Doug for figuring out what I was trying to convey there! As the fall progressed I got word from Edie and Ryan that the singers loved the piece and everything was going well. Then it was time for me to fly to Flagstaff and hear a Monday night rehearsal and then attend the first two performances (Thursday and Friday nights, then back to Chicago; NAU would finish out with two more performances Saturday and Sunday).

I got on a US airways plane to go from Chicago to Phoenix (and then a puddle jumper up to Flagstaff), but the pilot got about 10-20 feet off the ground and immediately pulled the plane back down- interesting! They told us to hang on while they checked out the problems and then finally kicked us off the plane, and their ticket agents couldn’t get me out to Flagstaff in time for that evening’s rehearsal- bummer. So I decided the best thing to do was go Wednesday, and anyway I was trying to finish up a fun commission for Robyn Lana and her Cincinnati Children’s choir. Staying in Chicago two days would allow me to be home and get this done easily.

So finally on Wednesday I got to Flagstaff, my first visit there. Edie took me to lunch and showed me around town just a bit. I got to see the old hotel where Zane Gray wrote a lot of his books. Later that evening I had dinner with Ryan and a grad student by the name of Elliott Lilles- a very talented and nice guy. We were checking out one of the local microbreweries.





(Ryan Holder)


Since there were no rehearsals for me to attend Thursday or Friday during the day and Edie and Ryan were both really tied up with planning, classes and other things I decided to rent a car and go see Sedona, AZ for the first time. I am so glad I did, it was amazing. I do like nature and hiking and you could hike for weeks around the Red Rocks Sedona area. I hiked both Thursday and Friday during the day and took pictures around the usual attractions like Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock but also got further off the beaten trail to the point that during some of the hiking all I could hear was my own heart beating—not a single traffic or human noise. The weather was absolutely amazing- in Sedona during the daytime it was very sunny and in the upper 60’s. With the sun angle being what it was (December at 5,000 ft. above sea level), it was almost feeling hot and most folks were walking around in T-shirts.

I had some very low-key meals at the Barking Frog Grill and also the Hideaway. I didn’t really hit the shops there much- they were either touristy or very high end fine art. And I’m not much of a shopper dude anyway, especially with all that nature to be explored.



The concerts Thursday and Friday were amazing. My piece, as per Edie’s request, starts with about sixty seconds of instrumental intro for the massed choirs to process to- then the singing starts and yes, I was channeling Vaughn Williams’ “Dona Nobis Pacem” a bit I suppose on this (not a bad model, eh?). People seemed to really love the piece, especially on the second night when the choir turned up the expression at least a notch or two. What really endeared me to the audience and to NAU’s young singers was this- so many people came up to me and told me how much they liked the piece, and so much of it was based on the text. The students especially liked that the text wasn’t just all sweetness and holiday fluff, and that meant a lot to me- the fact that they “got it”. A bunch of them told me it was their favorite piece on the program and actually a few even said it was their favorite piece they had sung in their life. That was amazing to hear and so sweet of them to share that with me. NAU’s students were by far the most communicative singers I have ever been around in two ways. First, they are highly expressive singers both sonically and also visually. Apparently this is not anything Edie drills into them with specific exercises, they just all seem to be such a family and so into the music and texts of all their numbers that you not only want to hear them sing, you want to watch their eyes and their face too- and not just a few singers, the whole choir. Secondly, they just seemed to want to seek me out and communicate their feelings about my piece so much.

Click on this link to go to my webpage for audio of the piece:

http://paulcarey.net/Music/Christmas%20Bells.htm



(Shrine of the Ages Choir)

Another thrill for me was getting to watch Edie conduct the Shrine of Ages Choir, the select ensemble at the university. I have seen her conduct honors choirs before, but never her own group. I was seated close by on Thursday so I could see most of her facial expressions as well as take in a very good view of her hands. She is a lovely conductor to watch and obviously the students are totally in tune with her. I got a kick out of a nice O Magnum Mysterium by Kevin Memley(yes, there some “Whitacre-isms” I wish would have been left out, but otherwise a nice piece) during which the singers wanted to take off on and climax way too early. It was fun to watch Edie coax them to stay patient and not open up the sound until just the right moment. Her left hand was often a gently controlling brake and kept things paced just right- brilliant conducting.

Edie and I got a chance to hang out both Thursday and Friday night after the concerts. She is a lot of fun, has a great sense of humor, and an amazing pedigree. She’s studied and/or worked with Robert Shaw, Robert Page, Weston Noble, and many others. The stories she told of how she got into music as a young girl on an Iowa farm were wonderful to listen to, and it just goes to show that you don’t have to be living in a big city to become cultured and a success in the arts.

Saturday morning I got a chance to meet Erica Kragness, who has a masters from NAU, and who had conducted my music at NAU when she was a grad student. We had not met in person yet, so we both were looking forward to meeting. We met in a ‘lil coffee shop, had a very nice chat, and then I gave Erica an intro to geocaching, as I just happened to have my trail GPS and 1-2 geocaches were waiting to be found nearby. She thought geocaching was a hoot. Then it was off to the airport and back home to Chicago- delayed only by US Airways generally crappy planes (don’t fly this airline if you can help- they are not good!).

So there you have it, my wonderful experience writing this piece for NAU and all the fun things I got to do in Arizona. But honestly three things stick out the most. First I have to thank Sherri for needling me to set this text. Secondly, many thanks to Edie and Ryan for commissioning me and being such wonderful hosts. And finally, many thanks to the NAU singers for connecting so fully to the texts and being so communicative to me during my visit. I hope to return to NAU whenever possible to continue this very rewarding relationship.

PART TWO, coming up- A discussion of the text of this poetry, how it has usually been set, and what I did differently