Naxos to release Cecilia's recording of "The Construction of Boston."
The CD of Composer in Residence Scott Wheeler's opera will be released during 2008. The libretto, as well as program notes from the April 2007 concert performance, are available now.

"Teeters and his classy cast and players offered the first truly satisfying performance I’ve heard... If I ever forget what a superb programmer he's been over his 39 years of directing Boston Cecilia, remind me of this concert."

-Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix, Apr. 5, 2007. Read the review!

Introducing New Music: Recent and Right Now, presenting the music of up-and-coming composers, in collaboration with Scott Wheeler. Annual series debuts in June 2008!

A perilous five-week crossing of the North Atlantic during the wartime months of March and April 1942 would hardly seem an auspicious spawning ground for one of the most optimistic of all homages to the Holy Birth. Benjamin Britten had departed his homeland in 1939, in the turbulent first days of this century's most brutal conflict. His decision to return was as daring and principled as had been his decision to leave. Britten's career had moved forward in major ways in America. However, his well-known espousal of conscientious pacifism made it unclear what reaction to expect from public and colleagues in those troubled times at home. Approbation? Unlikely. Hostility? Almost certainly. Imprisonment was even a possibility — Michael Tippett spent a period of internment for his refusal of military service. That a work of such knowing innocence as the Ceremony of Carols could result from that dangerous sea voyage is one of those wondrous mysteries, the sort of contradiction that confounds those who are determined to find logic — a predictable cause-and-effect consistency — in the artistic process.

And what a work it is! Making use of only three treble voice parts and harp, Britten created sonorities that, though reassuringly familiar now, were unprecedented. By the way, the published score calls for boys (trebles), although the earliest sketches suggest a preference for women's voices. Britten later even sanctioned performance with mixed chorus, although that decision may have been a reluctant response to his publisher's urging. As to the choice of harp for accompaniment: Inevitable as that choice now seems, Britten's decision may have been simply the result of his bringing along for the long voyage a couple of manuals on harp composition to help him get started on a newly commissioned harp concerto.

Framed by plainsong (the Hodie chant is proper to Vespers on Christmas Eve), and making use of medieval and 16th century poetry, the Ceremony is, in a sense, a forerunner of the church parables, those richly dramatic, biblically derived works of Britten's later maturity that are themselves parodies of medieval morality plays. The plainsong tune asserts its key role in the haunting harp Interlude at the Ceremony's mid-point. This sublime movement lays out the Hodie tune in the uppermost voice, swathed in an impressionistic, pointillist atmosphere that is worlds away from its ancient roots, but apt and urgent and poignant in context.

The Ceremony of Carols is largely homophonic and dance-like, although counterpoint is essential to recreate the raindrop effect of "dew in Aprille" (#5), the sun-lit duetting of the Spring Carol (#9), and to reinforce the intensity of contrasts of the "freezing winter night" where the "silly tender babe" lies in a stable which itself becomes, by His very presence, "a Prince's court"(#8). Of special significance is the virtual Holy War between the new-born Babe and the powers of Satan described in #6, "This little Babe." The angular, metrically irregular melody is set over a rhythmically relentless accompaniment. As the war between good and evil expands, the chorus separates first into a canon in two parts, then in three, expanding Southwell's poetic imagery to create a vivid picture of apocalyptic conflict---a picture replete with pressing contemporary references for Britten, as noted above.

One should not underrate the importance of acoustic environment in an ideal realization of Britten's Ceremony. Though he composed relatively little music for use in church services, he did write quite a number of pieces intended for performance in a church building. And these works exploit acoustics and architecture in varying degrees for their fullest realization. For this recording, we are fortunate to be able to make use of the remarkably fine acoustics and organ in Boston's Church of the Advent, an internationally known venue for fine music-making and music-listening.

When The Boston Cecilia was approached by Newport Classic to make a Christmas CD, we agreed immediately on the centerpiece work, Britten's Ceremony of Carols. To complement the Britten, I have chosen a diverse selection of works associated with the Christmas theme from Germany and France, and, even from colonial America, where celebrating the Yule could be a bit risky — it was thought to be a frivolous, nay, papistic observance by our rock-ribbed forebears.

Joining us in this venture, as she has in many previous performances, is harpist Carol Baum, an artist of rare and distinguished talent. Trained at the Curtis Institute, she was harpist with Fritz Reiner's Chicago Symphony; toured extensively with the Angelaires, a well known harp quintet, under Columbia Artists' Management; and for some years has been a prominent free-lance performer in the Boston area and throughout New England. Carol Baum has been a close collaborator of composer Daniel Pinkham's, having edited, premiered and recorded a number of his works for harp.

Soprano Karol Bennett has been hailed by The Boston Globe for her "ravishing tone and fire of imagination." The Globe also selected as Vocal Recital of the Year her performance of the original version of Hindemith's Das Marienleben. She is an international recitalist and operatic performer of renown: she sang Mélisande in the first-ever production of Debussy's opera in Russia. She is an acclaimed performer of new music, but also includes stylish period-instrument performances of baroque works in her résumé.

Marylène Altieri, alto, performs regularly with Boston Cecilia, Boston Baroque and Handel & Haydn Society. Organist Thomas Handel is a doctoral candidate in organ at New England Conservatory, where he also is a member of the faculty.

The Boston Cecilia and I began our association in 1968. Among my predecessor conductors of Cecilia were B.J. Lang, the founder of the group (in 1876) who guided Cecilia's fortunes for thirty-one years, and who was an avid promoter of new music; and Arthur Fiedler (1930s/40s), who established Cecilia as the Boston Symphony's regular choral collaborator, an association that included the first American performance of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. During my tenure, the group has reduced its size, and now specializes in period-instrument performances of baroque works, especially the oratorios of Handel (fifteen major productions since 1981), and contemporary music.

Buy Cecilia's recording of this work.

- Donald Teeters

© 2004 Donald Teeters. All rights reserved.

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