Musical Threads Newspaper Article

Musical threads C.O. Mastersingers perform ‘Choral Tapestry’ this weekend By Eleanor Pierce / The Bulletin Published: April 24. 2009 4:00AM PST

The Central Oregon Mastersingers will present the final concerts of their fourth season tonight in Bend and Sunday in Redmond (see “If you go”). The title of the spring concert is “Choral Tapestry.” The director of the auditioned choir, Clyde Thompson, uses the idea of weaving cloth as a metaphor for the combination of elements in choral music. In program notes, Thompson described how tapestries will utilize both horizontal, or “woof” threads — to borrow the weaving terminology — and vertical, or “warp” thread elements. “The horizontal element in music is melody; the vertical element is harmony,” Thompson said. Different textures are achieved by using varying combinations woof and warp in a tapestry, or melody and harmony in a song. “Sometimes there can be several voices sounding at once, all with their own independent melody,” Thompson said, resulting in a polyphonic effect. “Sometimes a single melody predominates (usually in the highest voice) and other parts follow along in the same rhythm, just creating harmonies — this is called a homophonic texture,” Thompson said. The performance will open with a brass choir, which is a brass instrument ensemble. “It’s called a brass choir partly because the instruments sound so similar to one another” that “the brass can sound like a choir of voices,” Thompson said. Historically, brass choirs and vocal choirs have been interchangeable, often playing the same music. In fact,

Submitted photos Clyde Thompson, director of the Central Oregon Mastersingers, leads the choir in December, top, as the group performs George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah,” center photos. At left, Thompson poses for a portrait with the auditioned choir, which will perform its final concerts of the season this weekend.

one of the Italian Renaissance pieces that will be performed by the nine-piece brass choir was written to be sung. The brass choir, which is mostly made up of members of the Central Oregon Symphony, will also accompany the choir on a few other pieces throughout the concert. The choir will begin by singing sacred classics, first “Jubilate Deo” by the Venetian Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli. “It’s a very rich, ornate piece,” Thompson said, with eight independent vocal parts going at one time. The next piece, “Ave Maris Stella,” by the 19th-century Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, is “in complete contrast to the Gabrieli,” Thompson said, notable for its “very simple melody with other notes sounding underneath that simply provide harmony, nothing more.” Of the other two sacred classics the group will perform, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Ave Maria” is another piece with an “austere,” simpler texture. “Gloria” by modern composer Dominick Argento is again more complex, more thickly textured, Thompson said, featuring “a torrent of notes that take the listener on a breathless ride.” Next, 23 members of the 41-person choir will take turns in octets, performing nine of the Liebeslieder Waltzes of Johannes Brahms with accompaniment by local pianists Jean Shrader and Kathleen Gault playing together on one

If you go

piano.

What: Central Oregon Mastersingers present “Choral

The combination of elements in these pieces has a grand effect. “I think of Brahms symphonies as being all steak and potatoes,” Thompson said. “In the case of these waltzes, it’s all dessert — a very rich dessert.” Following the intermission, the choir will perform a number

Tapestry” Where: Today at Bend Church of the Nazarene, 1270 N.E. 27th St., Bend; and Sunday at Community Presbyterian Church, 529 N.W. 19th St., Redmond When: 7:30 p.m. today, 3 p.m. Sunday Cost: $15 for adults, $10 for children and students under 18. Tickets are available at Visit Bend, 917 N.W. Harriman St., Bend, and at www.co-mastersingers.com. Contact: 541-382-8048 or www.co-mastersingers.com

of madrigals, a type of song developed in Italy in the 16th century. “The texts of madrigals inspired composers to endlessly creative ways of expressing words through music,” Thompson explained, resulting in a technique referred to as “word painting.” In many madrigals, the text is based on secular poetry, and if the text talked about “the flight of birds, the music would go light and upward,” Thompson said. Conversely, if the text spoke of “some dark forest, the music might get darker and

lower.” Thompson says one particular piece is the centerpiece of the concert: “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine” by Eric Whitacre, an American composer who was born in 1970. Thompson calls Whitacre “one of the most important composers of choral music in the world today.” The piece “really taps into that tradition of madrigal,” Thompson said, “of that very vivid word painting.” The last set of songs consists of African American spirituals. “In traditional classical music harmony and melody are very important,” but the third element to music — rhythm — “wasn’t so important in European music.” But in African, and hence, African American music, that element is essential. The final section of the concert will add in the element of rhythm to complete the textural picture. Eleanor Pierce can be reached at 541-383-0361 or [email protected].

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