Story of how Ceremony of Carols came to be
Grand Philharmonic concert will feature tale of war and inspiration
KITCHENER — Benjamin Britten’s ethereal “Ceremony of Carols” has an unusual history, one with a Canadian connection and on Nov. 25, the 30-voice Grand Philharmonic Chamber Choir will perform the piece as part of a concert entitled “Winter Hymn.”
The British composer and his partner Peter Pears had left England for the U.S. during the Second World War but decided to return in 1942, at a time when the Atlantic was dangerously thick with German submarines.
“They stopped in Halifax and he got off,” said Mark Vuorinen, the choir’s music director who has conducted “Ceremony of Carols” but never with the Grand Philharmonic.
The stopover in Canada was long enough for Britten to visit a Halifax bookstore and for him to find a book of medieval poetry. The beauty of the text obviously inspired the great composer because for the balance of the trip across the Atlantic he used this inspiration to start composing “Ceremony of Carols.”
The work is described as moving from celebratory and festive to soft and reverent as the score blends the English populist style of the time with exquisite harp.
“The piece is quite famous,” said Vuorinen. “The carols took on a life of their own. It became immensely popular particularly with children’s choirs.
“The version we do is an arrangement for mixed choir.”
The original music was scored for higher voices, perfect for children’s voices but the adult version was arranged for all four parts: soprano, alto, tenor and bass.
The composer also wrote the score for musical accompaniment by a skilled harpist.
“It requires a super talented harpist, it’s quite virtuosic,” he said.
Vuorinen was pleased to find Toronto-based Julia SeagerScott, principal harpist with the Stratford Festival Orchestra.
Though “Ceremony of Carols” is the centrepiece for the concert, the choir is also performing a number of shorter pieces including Tawnie Olsen’s “Scel Lem Duib” a medieval Irish poem that celebrates winter.
Vuorinen said Olsen is one of Canada’s most accomplished living composers and that this particular piece of music evokes, “the brittle sounds of ice snapping and of geese calling.” In other words, the music feels like winter, cold and harsh and beautiful.
Other works will include R. Murray Schafer’s “Snowforms” a score written entirely in graphic notations, not actual notes. The sheet music looks more like a heart rate scan than a musical score with wavy lines sweeping up and down.
Vuorinen said it took a bit of time for the choir to figure out how to read these mysterious bits of information but they soon caught on. The result is voices sliding up and down, in sequences that make it sound like violin music, with text consisting of Inuit words, a language that has many words for snow.
In keeping with the winter theme, the choir will perform Eric Ešenvalds’ “Stars” which evokes winter’s cold but brilliant starry nights.
Vuorinen in his bid to include as much Canadian music as possible has added a fairly new piece, “The Christmas Night” by composer Patrick Murray, a former Kitchener resident and graduate of Cameron Heights Collegiate. Murray is also a former choir member, presently pursuing a PhD in conducting from the University of Illinois.
“The Christmas Night” was composed in 2013 for the Univox Choir in Toronto.
“He’s just a young guy, I’ve done a couple of his pieces,” said Vuorinen. “This one has luscious harmonies.”