A few weeks ago I posted about the “Queen of Chorales”, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern. The tune has been used by many composers – today we’ll hear from Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn is often praised for championing and reintroducing JS Bach’s music to European audiences. Like Bach, he was an absolutely genius of a composer, and wrote in a conservative style for his time. Mendelssohn wrote a number of fantastic oratorios; when he died at the young age of 38, he left an unfinished oratorio, Christus. This chorus tells part of the story of the birth of Christ. It begins with a traditional-sounding recitative, followed by a short section sung by the Three Wise Men, and closes with a chorus – which ends, like many of Bach’s cantatas, with a chorale. The Queen of Chorales, that is.

Compare the end of the two pieces to get a sense of the chorale, and the stylistic difference between 1730 and 1830.

Bach: chorale starts at 20:45
Mendelssohn: chorale starts at 4:49

How can one capture Martin Luther King in a short blog post? Or one piece of music? It’s a daunting task that took me through lots of pieces, many of which I had never heard before.

American jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck wrote a piece in 1969 called “The Gates of Justice.” It is a religious concert work, taking its text primarily from the Psalms. However, in one movement, Brubeck  incorporates portions of King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as the ancient Jewish leader, Hillel the Elder: “If the time for action is not now, when is it?”

Brubeck had a fascinating life, including a scandalous graduation from a music conservatory without being able to read music, starting one of the US Army’s first interracial bands, and developing strong religious views despite growing up in a non-religious family.

The words of Hillel remain pertinent today, and probably, always: “If the time for action is not now, when is it?”

… and then I’ll stop and move on. I promise.

Welsh composer Ralph Vaughan Williams composed two major works for Christmas. Neither is neglected, though they haven’t achieved the same level of popularity as the A-list of holiday Art Music. The first is the Fantasia on Christmas Carols, which is on the B-list because the carols selected are not top-40 (perhaps 41-80?)

The second is the oratorio Hodie, which includes biblical texts along with poetry and hymns – not unlike Bach’s own Christmas Oratorio and the cantatas of Protestant Germany. Today I’ve selected the first movement of the oratorio – the movement after which the complete work gets its name. This piece absolutely tickles me, because it is the closest to Leonard Bernstein that Vaughan-Williams’ music ever gets (though it doesn’t get very close …). Vaughan-Williams composed in a very conservative style, so a movement like this with changing dance rhythms and meters is about as wild as he can get. How wild? Like wearing a tuxedo and … unbuttoning your jacket! Or maybe wearing an country suit to a city supper.

So, not very wild. But give the guy some credit.