GMCD 7311 You can order this CD in our E-Shop under Instrumental/Piano Reviews ***Sound Clips***

Georg Schumann (1866-1952) Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt Geraldine Mcgreevy & Mary Nelson sopranos THE PURCELL SINGERS Mark Ford conductor Sopranos: Hilary Bentley, Carolynne Cox, Katherine Cox*, Sally Donegani, Melanie Downs*, Jane Goddard, Jenny Hill (soprano solo op. 71, 1), Laura Johnson, Jo Kilpatrick, Iris Korfker, Martine Kos, Laura Matters#, Sophie Miller*, Wendy Norman, Helen Price#, Anna Smajdor, Jan Smith#, Eleanor Whitehead, Susannah York Skinner Altos: Rosemary Burch, Philippa Dodds John (alto solo op. 71, 3), Renée Foster McBride*, Ali Fryer#, Virginia Harding#, Alex Hayes#, Deirdre Heaney, Charlotte Hicks, Rachel Kershaw*, Anna McKeon*, Lorna Perry, Giles Pilgrim Morris, Alison St Denis Tenors: Michael Ahmad*, Ian Brentnall#, Tony Damer#, Colin Fleming, Philip Harradine-Robinson, Michael Hope*, Larry Howes, Ian MacGregor#, Tom Stapleton*, Ambrose Viall, Justin Williams Basses: Craig Bissex#, Paul Bonter, Jonathan Dods, Quentin Evans, Dominic Evers#,Rainer Grämer, Martin Lawrence*, Stephen Metcalfe, Alan Miller, Chris Moore*, Peter Smith, Mark Williams (* 5 November only # 12 November only) Soloists Geraldine McGreevy – soprano op. 75 no. 3 and soprano II op. 71 no. 5Mary Nelson – soprano I op. 71 no. 5 Brass, Timpani and Organ John Barclay, Michael Laird, Nigel Gomm, Joe Atkins – Trumpet (2) Peter Davies, Graham Lee, Andy Wood – Tenor Trombone (1,2) Dave Stewart – Bass Trombone (2); Richard Watkins, Mike Thompson, Philip Eastop – Horn (1) Owen Slade – Tuba (1,2); Frank Ricotti – Percussion (2) Stephen Henderson – Timpani (1, 2) Iestyn Evans – Organ (2)

Contents:

DDD 67:40  - Recorded: St Alban’s Church, London, 5 and 12 November 2005

“The choir is extraordinarily musical and certainly learns quickly.” So wrote Georg Schumann in the record of the Berlin Sing-Akademie after his first performance conducting the choir on 6 November 1900. And it was precisely this choir that provided the decisive impetus for Schumann’s own choral output. He composed his choral music for their capabilities, while also developing the choir into such a brilliant instrument that he could at the same time develop, refine, and elaborate his own choral writing to match the superlative standards that the choir was now able to achieve. Already in 1902, shortly after assuming his position as director of the choir, Schumann published Drei geistliche Lieder (Three spiritual songs), op. 311, which were followed in 1909 by three more in op. 51. His very next opus continued along the same path: Drei Motetten (Three Motets), op. 52 – magnificent, harmonically adventurous pieces. With the Gesängen Hiobs (Songs of Job) op. 60, written during the first year of World War I, Schumann found his true voice, reaching the pinnacle of his choral style, striving to serve completely the expression of the text. Finally, with the chorale motets, op. 71 and 75, Schumann crowned his a cappella output.
The Five Chorale-Motets, op. 71, were written in response to the awarding of an honorary doctorate by the Friedrich Wilhelm University – today Humboldt University and published between 1921 and 1922. This honorific had already been bestowed on Schumann in 1916, on his 50th birthday, but the war and chaos immediately following had left no spare time for such an important work. The motets were first performed in a subscription concert of the Sing-Akademie on 27 October 1922 (see page 9). The press reaction was superb. One critic pointed towards the tradition upon which these chorale motets drew: Bach, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Far more important, however, was where Schumann differed from this tradition. He converts the chorale melody, from which he dutifully begins, almost beyond recognition: modulating its motifs and forcing them into modern harmonic relationships. Here Schumann had a very different mentor: the founder of his choir, Carl Friedrich Fasch, who, inspired by the text in his own 12 chorales, had transformed the melodies to conform to his own age of sensibility. Nor were the texts of the chorales sacrosanct. Schumann omitted or changed lines, summarized verses, and often repeated earlier or first lines at the end for formal closure.
Philipp Nicolai’s “Wie schön leucht’ uns der Morgenstern” (“How brightly shines the morning star,” chorale text and melody both by Nicolai) begins, like all other motets by Schumann, with the original chorale in a simple homophonic setting, here alternating between the upper and lower voices—with “lieblich, freundlich” (“lovely, pleasant”), naturally sung by the women—summed up at the end with “prächtig erhaben” (“splendid sublime”). The second verse, “Ei meine Perl,” begins with the first line of the chorale wandering through all voices. Soon, however, Schumann looks for new means to express the text. “Lauter Milch und Honig” calls for spicy harmonies, and the “himmlische Manna” indeed falls from above. The final line of the verse, “Du bist des Herzens schönste Blum,” is treated as a solo line with the original melody. In the next section, which combines the third and fourth verses of the chorale, the melody can hardly be recognized, wandering clandestinely through the voices. Schumann is usually the most harmonically adventurous in the central portions of his motets, creating thereby the greatest drama: lines like “Flamme deiner Liebe” reach the heights of expression. The original melody returns with the verse “Nun zwingt die Saiten in Chitara”, a lilting dance piece, with no end of singing and leaping, praising and exulting. The music clusters together over long held bass notes into a hymn of praise before returning again to the contemplative at “Deiner kann ich nicht vergessen.” Finally, a solo soprano arises out of the tender, sonorous “Amen” with the opening line, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern.”In the motet “Jesus, meine Zuversicht” (“Jesus, in whom I trust”, chorale text by Kurfürstin Henriette von Brandenburg, melody by Johann Crüger) Schumann again begins with a simple harmonization of the original melody, which continues into the second verse, but here single motives begin to be repeated to increase the intensity at passages such as “seufzt und fleht.” In the middle of the motet Schumann inserts a text from Gellert, “Meine Lebenszeit verstreicht”, and this section is so thoroughly Regerian chromatic, that the tonality becomes suspended, seemingly dissolved completely. At the end of the motet, though, we again find a synthesis: the tenors provide the chorale melody as a broad cantus firmus, but this becomes absorbed into the chromatic stream that finally culminates in the unison “Es ist vollbracht,” characterized by the austere interval of the tritone.
The motet “Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist” (“Take courage, my weak spirit”, chorale text by Wolfgang Carl Briegel, melody by Johann Schop) also begins with wonderful simplicity in its treatment of the original chorale, with the accompaniment developing into artful motives in the second verse. The third, “Willkomm, o süßer Bräutigam” is nearly a separate piece in its own right, a concertante dialogue between upper and lower voices, from whose final chords a warm alto solo rises with “O süßer Bräutigam.” At the end comes an exceedingly concise double fugue to the text “Lob, Preis und Dank.” Parts of the themes become engulfed in one another, are mirrored and developed, until the entire stream melds back into the chorale melody. The final utterance is: “Willkommen.”
The motet “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (“Awake! the voice calls us,” chorale text and melody both by Philipp Nicolai), which Schumann called a “Festgesang” (“song of celebration”), achieves its monumentality by means of an expansion of the musical apparatus. The six-part chorus that sings the first verse a cappella, is joined in the second by the organ, and in the third by brass instruments and timpani. Apart from a few deviations in the second verse, Schumann here retains the original melody intact. The motet begins with a trumpet call “from a distance”—the signal of the watchman atop the tower from the chorale’s first lines.
The final motet from op. 71, “Vom Himmel hoch” (“From heaven above,” chorale text and melody both by Martin Luther), is also characterized by scenic allusions. As from a high altitude, the music begins with a solo soprano, an angel, who is then joined by the other women’s voices, echoing each others’ phrases as a choir of angels. The “people” of the men’s voices answer this with a pious Hosanna—an novel insertion by Schumann. The angels descend further and further into the realm of the people, uniting with them to form a single choir, lifting them upwards. Schumann, as so often, ends here not with a fortissimo conclusion, but with a return to the contemplative, drawing upon another, similar, Chorale by Luther “Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar“ (“The angels came from heaven”), as the angels float into the distance with their Hosanna.
Schumann composed no further sacred choral music for over a decade until he began in 1932 with three further chorale motets, choosing this time less-familiar chorales. They were first performed on 12 May 1934 by the Sing-Akademie (see page 9). In his Three Chorale-Motets, op. 75, Schumann retains his usual approach, which leads him from the simple harmonized original melody to his own music of symphonic scope, by means of thematic metamorphosis inspired completely by the meaning of the text, to an apotheosis of the original melody, and finally to a retrospective, summarizing coda.
Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt (Jerusalem, thou “high-builded city”, chorale text by Johann Matthäus Meyfart, melody by Melchior Frank) is the title of the first motet. The first verse allows the women’s voices to sparkle, before the entire eight-part choir depicts her greatness and majesty. In the second verse, the descending head-motif of the chorale remains, accompanied by descending chromaticism, which here serves not as the expression of pain, but rather ecstatic joy. This is followed by symphonic treatment that knows both passionate climax and warm poetry. Magnificent musical visions are suggested by the text.
“Propheten und Patriarchen” inspires the men’s voices to advance; the music remains in the sound-world of the ecstatic where from the radiant multitude of the chosen ones is spoken. This gigantic development crystallizes, then calms itself with the return of the original chorale. Once again, the harmony wanders out into far domains, before huge soundscapes pile up, singing hallelujah. But here, again, is a quiet, devotional closing with the transcendent magical word “Jerusalem.”
The motet “Sollt ich meinem Gott nicht singen” (“Should I not sing to my God,” chorale text by Paul Gerhardt, melody by Johann Schop), while perhaps more restrained in sonority, still explores the entire harmonic universe unlocked by Wagner and Liszt. There is almost no discernible break between the verses, indeed, they seem rather bracketed together as a single unit. Pictoral music, again, comes to the fore—one can nearly see “how an eagle spreads his plumage over his young,” one can nearly physically feel how death and hell are broken in harsh dissonances, one is calmed by the refrain “all things have their time,” feeling eternity in the long developments which sing out broadly at the end. The gesture at “therefore I lift my hands to you, my father, as your child” is one of infinitely fervent tenderness. This is, perhaps, Schumann’s most personal motet.
And finally we have the farewell from the motet by the 66-year-old Schumann with Luther’s chorale “Mit Fried und Freud, ich fahr dahin.” (“In peace and joy I now depart”, chorale text and melody both by Martin Luther). The men’s voices, who sing the original melody, are surrounded by a timpani roll. The second verse with the full choir varies and develops the melody and rhythm, finding its climax in jarring distress, and dying in sinking chromaticism. At this point a horn enters with a D-flat that clashes with the C of the timpani, and with that the last verse begins: a solo soprano sings the first verse once again, carried “sehr weich” (“very softly”) by a warm, full wind ensemble. The choir, however, sings in unison a counterpoint against this with the words of the third verse, but then turns along with the solo soprano to the central phrase: “Der Tod ist mein Schlaf worden” (“Death has become sleep to me”), which is repeated in the lower register on a single note, grounded by the funeral march of the instruments.

Page Revised Wednesday  June 20 2007