The Magnificat I am composing for Donald Neuen and the Angeles Chorale will be a religious enactment of the story of Mary, as told in Luke and foreshadowed by the Prayer of Hannah from the Old Testament (First Book of Samuel, 1, 1-10). My work for three soloists, chorus and orchestra will be a concert oratorio, in Hebrew and in Latin, and will include the Ave Maria with the Prayer of Hannah and the Magnificat. The Magnificat has been set many times by the world's greatest composer, as has the Ave Maria. But this will be the first time in history that it will be combined with the Old Testament Prayer of Hannah, whose words are so similar to the Magnificat that it is probable that Mary was simply quoting or paraphrasing it in her response to the Angel Gabriel's majestic greeting. [This prayer of Hannah is in the Haftorah Trope, and sung traditionally during the service for Rosh Hashanah.] In my researches into the music appropriate to the Book of Samuel, I have been guided by the great composer/musical scholar Samuel Adler, who teaches at Juilliard, and the Cantor Steve Puzarne. I have also consulted with my colleague at UCLA David Lefkowitz and Yehudi Wyner of Brandeis University. Having been brought up Roman Catholic by the good nuns of the Immaculate Conception and the Jesuit priests, I am deeply familiar with traditional Catholic music and chant.

Flos Campi: suite for solo viola, small chorus and small orchestra is a composition by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, completed in 1925. Its title is Latin for "flower of the field". It is neither a concerto, nor a choral piece, though it features prominently the viola and a wordless choir. The piece is divided into six movements, played without pause, each based on a verse from the Song of Solomon:

Like his Sinfonia antartica, the quotations are intended to be read by the listener, and are not intended to be part of the performance. The quotations for each movement are as follows:

Lasting approximately 20 minutes, in addition to the solo viola, the score calls for flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, percussion (bass and snare drum and triangle) , harp, celesta, and strings (not to number more than 6 first violins, 5 second violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, and 2 double basses). The eight-part chorus should consist of 20 to 26 singers (six to eight each of sopranos and altos plus four or five each of tenors and basses).

The opening bars of the piece, which consist of a duet between the solo viola and the oboe, are well known as a classic example of bitonality.

The first performance of Flos Campi, on October 10th, 1925, was conducted by Sir Henry Wood, with the Queen's Hall Orchestra, violist Lionel Tertis, and voices from the Royal College of Music. Initial reactions to the piece were mixed; Gustav Holst, a fellow composer and friend of Vaughan Williams, said he "couldn't get hold of it". In time, however, it has become an accepted part of the musical canon.

In a program note for a 1927 performance, Vaughan Williams admitted "The title Flos Campi was taken by some to connote an atmosphere of 'buttercups and daisies....'" In reality, the piece is unabashedly sensual and lushly orchestrated, quite appropriately considering its subject matter.

Brahm's Requiem (The Chorale is performing the movement "How Lovely is Thy Dwellling Place")

Brahms's mother died in February 1865, a loss that painfully grieved him and that may well have inspired Ein deutsches Requiem. Brahms's lingering feelings over Robert Schumann's death in July 1856 may also have been a motivation, though his reticence about such matters makes this uncertain.

By the end of April 1865, Brahms had completed the first, second, and fourth movements. The second movement used some previously abandoned musical material written in 1854, the year of Schumann's mental collapse and attempted suicide, and of Brahms's move to Düsseldorf to assist Clara Schumann and her seven children.

Brahms completed all but what is now the fifth movement by August 1866. Johannes Herbeck conducted the first three movements in Vienna on December 1, 1867. Though the partial premiere went poorly, all six movements then extant were premiered in the Bremen cathedral six months later on Good Friday 1868, with Brahms conducting and Julius Stockhausen as the baritone soloist. The performance was a great success and marked a turning point in his career.

Brahms added the fifth movement in May 1868. It was first sung in Zurich on September 12, 1868 by Ida Suter-Weber, with Friedrich Hegar conducting the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. The final, seven-movement version of Ein deutsches Requiem was premiered in Leipzig on February 18, 1869 with Carl Reinecke conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chorus, and soloists Emilie Bellingrath-Wagner and Franz Krükl.

Text

Brahms assembled the libretto to Ein deutsches Requiem himself. In contrast to the traditional Roman Catholic requiem mass, which employs a standardized text in Latin, Ein deutsches Requiem derives its text from Martin Luther's German Protestant Bible.

Brahms's first known use of the title A German Requiem was in an 1865 letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended for the piece to be "a sort of German Requiem". Brahms was quite moved when he found out years later that Robert Schumann had planned a work of the same name. German refers primarily to the language rather than the intended audience. Brahms told Karl Reinthaler, director of music at the Bremen cathedral, that he would have gladly called the work A Human Requiem.

Although the Requiem Mass in the Catholic liturgy begins with prayers for the dead ("Grant them eternal rest, O Lord"), Ein deutsches Requiem emphasizes comforting the living, beginning with the text "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." A comparable sacred, humanist worldview persists through the work.