Program Notes
Messe Solennelle by Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne (1870-1937) was born blind but gained limited vision at the age of six through an operation. Vierne studied the piano with Louis Specht, a blind teacher at the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Young Blind). It was there that in 1881 at the age of 11 that Vierne first heard César Franck play the organ:
“The organ played a mysterious prelude, quite unlike any I had heard at Lille; I was bowled over and became almost ecstatic...I could not hold back my tears. I knew nothing; I understood nothing; but my instinct was violently shaken by this expressive music echoing through every pore….When my uncle asked what I had felt and what it had done to me I replied: “It’s beautiful because it’s beautiful. I don’t know why, but it’s so beautiful I would like to play such music and die immediately afterwards.”
Upon Franck’s recommendation, Vierne went to the Paris Conservatoire to learn more. There he studied organ and composition, first with Franck himself, and later with Charles-Marie Widor, eventually winning First Prize in the organ class in 1894. Vierne had become Widor’s assistant at St. Sulpice in 1892, and was appointed titular organist at Notre Dame Cathedral in 1900, the same year the Messe Solennelle, in C-sharp minor, Op. 16 was composed. Vierne’s own many students and protegés included Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Duruflé. Vierne died as he wished, at the keyboard of the Notre Dame organ while playing his 1,750th recital there.
Vierne’s Messe Solennelle was originally composed for the two organs of St. Sulpice, where it was premiered in 1901 with Charles Widor on the grand organ in the back and Vierne himself on the smaller organ in the choir. It is most usually performed, as in our concert today, in a later adaptation for one organ. Still you can hear in Vierne’s writing with its grand organ passages, a cappella choral sections, and places where organ and choir exchange and combine lines, something of the antiphonal experience of the original premiere. Vierne’s Messe Solennelle is a shorter work in that it does not include the Credo of the Mass. The piece has wonderfully clear textures, warm, rich harmonies, and a particularly gentle Dona Nobis Pacem that fades into quiet contentment.
—Notes by Artistic Director David Hodgkins and Yoshi Campbell
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Brenda Portman’s Scherzo (2024) was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for the semifinal round of their National Competition in Organ Improvisation in 2024. On the more serious side of “scherzo,” which means “joke” in Italian, this piece has quickly become a favorite of mine. Portman weaves a lyrical melody together with a spirited figuration until all comes to a halt. A slower, more contemplative section proceeds with the main theme in canon between the pedal and right hand until the spirited configuration returns, this time more relentless. In her registration instructions, Portman indicates an optional crescendo to the end. I almost always follow this to support the piece’s drive.”
—Organist Jerrick Cavagnaro
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Composer notes on avoonan dbishmayya (The Lord’s Prayer):
In the midst of stillness, a solitary voice rises in supplication. Surrounded by resonant echoes, it soars; pleading, yearning, reaching beyond itself. The space between matter and spirit draws near, tenderly cradling the prayer with compassion while protecting the sanctity of its solitude.
The Lord’s Prayer is perhaps one of the most familiar prayers in the world, translated into nearly every language and recited by countless voices across centuries. In this setting, I turn to Aramaic, the predominant language of Judea between 539 BC and 70 AD, and widely believed to be the language most often spoken by Jesus.
With a lineage extending over three millennia, Aramaic once served as the administrative and cultural bridge across several Middle Eastern empires. It belongs to the Semitic family of languages—alongside Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic—and continues to live today among communities of Assyrian Christians, Maronite Christians (in Lebanon), Jewish groups, and Mandaeans.
Through this work, the ancient sounds of Aramaic become a vessel of timeless yearning—where breath becomes prayer, and sound becomes sanctuary.
(Composed for Chanticleer.)
—Composer Ilyas Iliya
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A conversation with composer Ilyas Iliya about Coro Allegro and his work avoonan dbishmayya (The Lord’s Prayer):
What does it mean to you to hear Coro Allegro perform your work?
I had the chance to hear Coro Allegro in concert live a few months ago, and heard the caliber of the sound performing complex music. As a composer, often sitting there by myself with a computer, to get to hear human voices bringing your piece to life is very special—to hear the human expression of your work. And then Coro Allegro’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, especially the LGBTQ+ component of your mission, is close to my heart. I am a gay man; it is part and parcel of my identity, and my romanticism.
I am also Lebanese American with a Palestinian mother. I moved to the United States from Lebanon when I was 13. So much of my lost connection with what had been my homeland was all through music, singing, and song. I remember an experience I had in Lebanon when I was six years old, hearing another classmate playing piano live. I thought, “I want do that!” Anytime I get to hear a choir like Coro Allegro perform my music, it really touches on that memory and means so much.
What about this work in particular, avoonan dbishmayya (The Lord’s Prayer)? Is there a special significance for you in a group like Coro Allegro performing it?
I grew up in Lebanon mainly hearing liturgy in Arabic, but also in Aramaic, the vernacular language in the time of Jesus. It is extraordinary to hear something that ancient. The drones and sustained sounds of this work were very much inspired by the Byzantine chants that have informed what I find beautiful in music. The work doesn’t actually sound like Byzantine chant, but recalls it, in the essence of a solo voice singing in the midst of multiple, polyphonal drones. It’s almost like you can hear the historical voice of Jesus feeling alone, but having different vibrations from his community surrounding him in their own way, while retaining the sense of being a solo prayer.
In the Assyrian region (which encompasses Syria, Iran, and part of Turkey), there are minority religious groups, including the minority Jewish population and others, still using Aramaic in services. The use of this ancient language is something like a secret code that connects them all to their past. Sometimes, I would be in a Maronite church in Lebanon, historically majority Christian, now minority Christian, where they would use Aramaic for certain parts of the liturgy like the Lord’s Prayer.
For Coro Allegro to be singing this work, there may be something extraordinarily resonant about a minority group being able to sing in a language like that, even if it is not their own. The Aramaic offers a shared root for so many cultures.
Any time we get to get glimpses of each other in ways that are personal and creative, it helps us make connections across countries and borders that are much more meaningful. At a time where there is mutual banning of each others’ songs, it is even more important. When we connect to each other through music, through food, through language, fear gets replaced by connection. And there aren’t that many representations of Arab American, Lebanese, or Palestinian music in classical choral music, so this concert opens up possibilities.
— Interview by Program Consultant/Soprano 1, Yoshi Campbell
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Composer Morten Lauridsen on his sacred choral cycle, Lux Aeterna, (1997):
Lux Aeterna for chorus and chamber orchestra was composed for and is dedicated to the Los Angeles Master Chorale and its superb conductor, Paul Salamunovich, who gave the world premiere in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center on April 13, 1997.
Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to Light, assembled from various sacred Latin texts. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother’s final illness and found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels—spiritual, artistic, and intellectual.
In each of my seven vocal cycles, I have designed the musical materials to complement the style and content of the texts, ranging from atonal songs on abstract Lorca poems about time and night, to the complex, thorny harmonies of the passionate Madrigali, to the softer chords and tuneful melodies of Rilke’s Les Chansons des Roses. For the Lux Aeterna, I chose as my point of departure the sacred music of the late Renaissance, especially that of Josquin des Prez, to create a quiet, direct, and introspective meditation on Light, using primarily the consonant harmonies, intricate counterpoint, formal procedures, and chant-like melodic lines of that era.
The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of the Requiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, “O Nata Lux” and “Veni, Sancte Spiritus.” The opening Introitus introduces several themes that recur later in the work and includes an extended canon on "et Lux perpetua.” “In Te, Domine, Speravi” contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus "Herzliebster Jesu" (from the Nuremburg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on "fiat misericordia.” “O Nata Lux” and “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” are paired songs, the former an a cappella motet at the center of the work and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. A quiet setting of the Agnus Dei precedes the final “Lux Aeterna,” which reprises the opening section of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful celebratory Alleluia. I would like to express my gratitude to organist James Paul Buonemani of St. James’ Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, for his invaluable assistance in realizing the organ score.
Over the years I have received dozens of letters about Lux Aeterna, often from those experiencing deep sorrow. One listener wrote that “Lux Aeterna has become a rock in my sea of grief” that he turns to each day to gain strength and solace. It is my hope that this quiet mediation on Light will enrich and enlighten the lives of both performers and listeners in some way.
— Morten Lauridsen
Waldron Island, Summer 2008
Recipient, 2007 National Medal of Arts
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For permission to use either the Vierne notes or Conversation with composer Ilyas Ilia, please write yoshic@coroallegro.org and consider making a donation to Coro Allegro.