NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

HEATHER SORENSON
Lessons Learned from Kids

“Lessons Learned from Kids” is an extended children’s choral work that teaches valuable character qualities. Listeners are reminded that these truths from childhood are just as relevant in the adult world as they are in grade school.... maybe even more so!

Known for her eclectic writing and wide musical palette, composer Heather Sorenson utilized a variety of musical styles to create memorable song hooks that she hopes children will remember for years to come, as the truths of these “lessons” continue to be applicable in their lives. Because children’s concerts are attended by adults, Ms. Sorenson intentionally layered nuance into the lyrics, allowing listeners of all ages to find application.

I. Perseverance (It’s a New Day!)

Mistakes happen. Each day is a chance to start over and do better, while giving grace
to ourselves and others.

II. Honesty

Encompassing more than just the words we speak, a lifestyle of honesty is truly the
best policy- including speaking, seeking, and discerning the truth.

III. Consequences (If You Plant Potatoes)

Actions have consequences! While we can’t control everything in our lives, we can
make positive changes by making good choices.

IV. Gratitude

A heart of gratitude allows us to be thankful even in hard times, which often leads us
to find special beauty in difficult situations.

V. Manners

Consistently using good manners is a double blessing! It’s a great way to show
kindness to others, and it opens doors of opportunity in achieving our own goals.

VI. Compassion (I Will Be the One)

In a society where too many people are invisible and brushed aside, each of us has
the opportunity to show compassion. Changing the culture begins with individual Initiative.

VII. Perseverance (It’s a New Day!) Reprise

-Program Notes by the composer

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Dona Nobis Pacem

War clouds and the rise of fascism had a profound effect on Vaughan Williams and his music during the 1930’s. His feelings manifested themselves especially in two works: the Symphony No. 4 in F minor, composed between 1931 and 1934, and the cantata Dona Nobis Pacem (“Grant Us Peace”), for soprano and baritone soloists, mixed chorus and orchestra, which dates from 1936.  The former is dark, brooding and disturbing throughout; the latter begins in the same vein and includes a long dirge, but ends on a note of affirmation and a fervent prayer for peace. 

Dona Nobis Pacem was written for the one hundredth anniversary of the Huddersfield Choral Society, which performed it for the first time with the Halle Orchestra of Manchester, under the direction of Albert Coates, at the Huddersfield Town Hall on October 2, 1936.  Vaughan Williams drew his text for the cantata from the Mass, the Bible, the poem Drum Taps by Walt Whitman, and a speech delivered by John Bright in the House of Commons during the Crimean War on February 23, 1855.  The composer’s biographer, Michael Kennedy, has noted, too, that he “anticipated by twenty-five years Britten’s method, in the War Requiem, of interpolating English poems into the Latin Mass.” Kennedy also says that Vaughan Williams claimed he was the only composer who ever set to music a text from a House of Commons speech.

The instrumental requirements of Dona Nobis Pacem include three flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contra-bassoon, four horns, four trumpets (two optional), five trombones (two optional), tuba, timpani, percussion, bells, organ (optional), harp and strings.

— Copyright © by Burkat Program Notes

MOZART
Requiem in D minor, K.626

In the summer of 1791, a man dressed in dark gray appeared at Mozart's door and handed him an unsigned letter that asked him to compose a Requiem and to name his own price for it. With some trepidation, Mozart accepted the commission and part of the fee was immediately paid to him. The balance was to be paid when the completed work was delivered.

Mozart was about to begin work on the Requiem when he got a commission from the city of Prague for an opera, La Clemenza di Tito, which had to be ready in four weeks for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia. He also had to finish The Magic Flute, whose premiere was to take place in Vienna less than a month after that of La Clemenza di Tito. As Mozart was getting into his carriage to go to Prague, the mysterious stranger appeared again and asked when the Requiem would be finished. The composer, whose health and spirits were low, is said to have believed that the gray-cloaked stranger was a messenger of Death, and that the Requiem was to be his last work.

After the first performance of The Magic Flute, on September 30, Mozart began to work hard at the Mass for the Dead. On December 4, he was still laboring over it. He even sang parts of it for his family and a few friends, but at the opening of the Lacrymosa he burst into tears and the impromptu performance came to an end. In a few hours, he was dead. It was soon learned that the stranger in gray was in the employ of Count Franz Walsegg von Stuppach, a dilettante who commissioned works from prominent composers and sometimes tried to pass them off as his own. He had wanted a new Requiem Mass for a memorial service for his wife, who had died a few months earlier.

Mozart had completed the first number of the score, the setting of the Requiem and the Kyrie. He left the music of numbers two through six, and numbers eight and nine, in a short score with some indications of the instrumentation. Of number seven, the Lacrymosa, Mozart wrote out only the first eight measures. There are no sketches in his hand for the last three numbers.

After Mozart's death, his widow, unwilling to forfeit the fee for the commission, looked around for someone to finish the composition. The assignment finally fell to Mozart's pupil, Franz Xavier Süssmayr, whom the composer himself had enlisted to help with details in La Clemenza di Tito. Köchel, the famous cataloger of the works of Mozart, wrote that in the Requiem "Süssmayr copied everything that Mozart had only sketched and then filled out the instrumentation in the manner that seemed to him to conform with Mozart's intentions." According to Süssmayr's statement, he then composed the remainder of the Lacrymosa, the Sanctus, the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei, and repeated the fugue of the Kyrie to the words of Cum Sanctis. Scholars are no longer certain that this is all literally true, but many musicians prefer this completion by Mozart's pupil and friend to those attempted a century later by scholars who were not even composers.

The music of Mozart's opening phrase for the Lacrymosa is so richly suggestive, so pregnant with possibilities to the perceptive musician, that we can understand and accept the idea of Süssmayr developing it into the beautiful piece we now know. Another contemporary, Johann Eybler, had filled in some of the gaps elsewhere in the score, but it is simply too difficult for us now to believe that Süssmayr could have written such a beautiful movement as the Benedictus without any knowledge of Mozart's intentions—especially considering the fact that this movement is so superior to any of Süssmayr's own compositions. We shall probably never know the solution to this musical mystery.

—© by Leonard Burkat