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A Composer's ReflectionsLEE HOIBYLet me start by telling you how I came to write anthems. My studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia required me to master counterpoint. In some schools that means Bach-style usage—I had already studied that in university so I was not happy that my teacher was making me go throlugh it all over again. But I was in for a surprise—I had to do it à la Palestrina, which was much harder, like swimming with one hand tied behind your back. In the very first lesson my teacher, Gian Carlo Menotti, said to me: "These are not exercises. This is music." Species counterpoint is all I did for two years, daily lessons and assignments; by and by I began to see where it was leading. The swimmer eventually feels he has been given an extra pair of arms, and I learned how to lead voices among other voices, several lines at a time, and make it interesting for the singers as well as for the audience. For me it is counterpoint that gives music its most profound richness. It has always struck me that Schubert, shortly before his death, with so many unassailable masterpieces behind him, felt his lack of formal training in counterpoint and sought lessons. It is easy to feel that one can do without counterpoint; luckily I was forced to it at an early age. I found those first two years the most rewarding of my studies. Afterwards, when I started out on my own, I wanted to write some a cappella songs. Not a piano piece, though I was a pianist; nothing for orchestra, though I loved orchestration. Just some short four-part songs. I used the songs of Shakespeare's Feste—the clown in Twelfth Night —calling them "Songs of the Fool." The first one, "O Mistress Mine," is a double canon throughout. The second song, "Come Away, Death," is I think very beautiful and (since you asked me to discuss liturgy) I think it is suitable for funerals. I sent these songs around to conductors I had met, and Paul Callaway—then music director of the National Cathedral in Washington—wrote back enthusiastically. He didn't perform them, but he did ask me to write a cantata for his cathedral. That was "A Hymn of the Nativity," which I will discuss later. It was well received, and got me my first strong recognition from a major critic. My publisher took notice, and right away he dreamed up a choral project for me. It was to write fifty-two anthems, one for each Sunday of the year, all on biblical texts. He had the crazy idea that this could significantly augment my income. And so I began to write anthems, something I would never have thought of because I wasn't very religious. As it turned out, my anthems have never augmented my income very much, because the organ parts are too difficult. Thousands of churches with limited organists never did them. The good news is that the biggest churches with the best organists did do them. Other good news is that I love to write them. The anthem-a-week project petered out after only two, although several more came afterwards. The first was "Let This Mind be in You," which gets done quite a lot because it's fairly easy. Next came "Inherit the Kingdom," whose text is very dear to me. It deals with the parable of the sheep and the goats, and ends with the line, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these thy brethren, ye have done it unto me." Twenty years later I took a closer look at "Inherit the Kingdom" and decided to revise it, particularly the baritone solo, the voice of Jesus ("I was a stranger and ye took me in"). I slowed it way down, so that the words of Jesus are now framed in a special window, and they become much more touching. Here I might mention a phenomenon that the composer has to deal with: revision and its effect on the performer. The performer who has learned a piece is often thrown for a loop if the composer comes along and changes it. My friend David Garvey, Leontyne Price's perennial accompanist, told me that for her changing a note was like breaking a bone. Once I changed something in a song she sang and she never sang it again. |
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