Motet: This morning we have the pleasure of presenting the first performance of a new motet by our friend John Harbison. "We do not live to ourselves" is a setting from the fourteenth chapter of Romans. It was written in one day, March 7, 2002, in memory of John's dear friend Michael Hammond. Of the piece John writes, "Romans 14 begins this way: 'Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.' It goes on to discuss differences about food, about attitudes towards life, and urges tolerance. Suddenly in verses 7-9 the circumference widens, anchored on this sturdy base of practical advice, and it is this passage that forms the words of this motet. Ann Hammond read this text at the memorial service for her husband Michael Hammond (1934-2002) - inspirational leader, renaissance man, curious and open-minded citizen and musician and the best company in the world." Michael Hammond had founded the music department at SUNY Purchase, had been the head of the Sheppard School at Rice University in Houston and had just been named the head of the National Endowment for the Arts. He died early in 2002 in Washington.

Cantata: Bach Cantata BWV 60 was an enormous favorite among the fin de siecle intelligentsia in Vienna. The final chorale, perhaps the most extreme of any chorale setting, was the backbone of the Berg Violin Concerto. Oskar Kokoshka sketched an astonishing series of drawings based upon the cantata and its dialogue between fear and hope. The drawings are mostly autobiographical and the female figure in the drawings bears too much resemblance to Alma Mahler to be coincidental. Kokoshka and Alma Mahler had one of the most scandalous affairs in turn-of-the-century Vienna. The content of our dialogue between fear and hope does seem tailor-made for the neuroses of Freudian Vienna. It is one of the most intense and immeshed thirteen minutes of music ever written. In the first movement the icy-cold chorale "O Ewigkeit du Donnerwort" appears in the alto voice above trembling strings and an hysterical tenor. An even more unstable recitative leads to the bony and unpleasant duet with violin and oboe d'amore. Jagged dotted rhythms and slippery scale passages live together in an uneasy truce. The voice of the Holy Ghost appears more as an arbiter than a comforter. The famous final chorale's words offer some kind of comfort but the music is hair-raising in its instability.

©Craig Smith

Translation