Friday, December 6, 2024 at 7:30pm

The Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul 

Dr. Zen Kuriyama, conductor

Chiharu Naruse, collaborative pianist

Dr. Erica Johnson, organ

            The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgment and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: "Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true." The music had such an extraordinary force of reality that we realized, no longer by deduction, but by the impact on our hearts, that it could not have originated from nothingness, but could only have come to be through the power of the Truth that became real in the composer's inspiration. 

–Pope Benedict XVI, August 2002 (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) 

On Friday, December 6, at 7:30pm, the Bates College Choir will present a sacred-themed concert, called “A Light Shines in the Darkness,” under the direction of Dr. Zen Kuriyama. The title of the concert is taken from New Testament scripture, from the Gospel of John: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). All of the pieces explore the juxtaposition of inextinguishable light amidst encroaching darkness. Whether with the lighting of the first Advent candle or the sole candle that is lit in utter darkness at the end of the Tenebrae service during Holy Week, a light in the darkness has endured as a powerful symbol in Christian spirituality. This is epitomized in Christ’s statement in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 

The first piece is by the English composer Herbert Howells  (1892–1983). The text by Robert Seymour Bridges sets the tone for the concert: “My eyes for beauty pine…And every gentle heart, / That burns with true desire, / Is lit from eyes that mirror part / Of that celestial fire.” Within each of us is that “divine spark” that can keep the darkness at bay. 

            Following are two musical settings of James Agee’s poem, “Sure on this Shining Night.” The first setting is by American composer Samuel Barber (1910–1981). Within this setting contains so much of the history of Western musical composition: masterful melodic crafting, polyphony (elaborate melodic lines weaving together in harmony), text painting (when the music mirrors the meaning of the words), expansive harmony–and that just scratches the surface! Following is a setting by Morten Lauridsen (1943)–written seventy years after Barber’s–which offers an equally beautiful but altogether different commentary on Agee’s timeless poem. Lauridsen’s sound world is one that verges on the mystical, incorporating an expansive harmonic palette, tightly structured around melodic and motivic material. While Agree’s poem is not explicitly sacred, it nevertheless echoes throughlines of the Christian spiritual life: weeping for wonder, wholeness of hearts, a surety in the night. 

            The masterwork for the concert is Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna (1997). It is Lauridsen’s most well-known composition. Rather than provide my own mini-analysis, Lauridsen’s own words describe this work better than I could do: 

Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to “Light,” assembled from various sacred Latin texts. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother’s final illness and found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels - spiritual, artistic, and intellectual.

The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of the Requiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, O Nata Lux, and Veni, Sancte Spiritus. The instrumental introduction to the Introitus softly recalls motivic fragments from two pieces especially close to my heart (my settings of Rilke’s Contre Qui, Rose and O Magnum Mysterium) which recur throughout the work in various forms. Several new themes in the lntroitus are then introduced by the chorus, including an extended canon on et lux perpetua.

In Te, Domine, Speravi contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus “Herzliebster Jesu” (from the Nuremburg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on “fiat misericordia.” O Nata Lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus are paired songs, the former an a cappella motet at the  center of the work and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. A quiet  setting   of  the Agnus Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, which reprises the opening section of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful celebratory Alleluia. — Morten Lauridsen

Please consider coming to this free concert, and to experience sacred music in a sacred space. Advanced free ticket registration is encouraged (although not necessary), and can be done through the QR code below or by visiting batesconcerts.eventbrite.com: