It feels like we are in a golden age of choral music. Ensembles like Voces8 are commissioning new music and cranking out recordings faster than I can keep up. Composers like Benedict Sheehan are creating wondrous new works that engage with traditional devotional music. Even early-music specialists like the Tallis Scholars are commissioning new work. Amid the geysers of new releases, two recent EPs of spiritually-inspired vocal music have struck me. And the winter holidays are the perfect time to listen to North Woods from composer Scott Ordway and the Lorelei Ensemble, and Exaltations from composer Reena Esmail and the Cathedral Choral Society.
Scott Ordway, North Woods – Lorelei Ensemble Conducted by Beth Willer
North Woods is a four-movement a cappella piece for treble choir. Ordway composed it for the Lorelei Ensemble, conducted by Beth Willard. The composer adapted the text from the writings of the first-century Roman historian Tacitus, who produced fantastical depictions of the Germanic lands north of the empire.
One of the texts Ordway chose expresses a reverence for nature that resonated with the composer, who writes: “I relate to forests in the same way as Tacitus’ half-real Germans: they are where I go to connect with the world on a deep and irrational level, to make important decisions, and to know who I am.” Reflecting the nature and architecture of the forest, Ordway sought to compose “music that is concerned with construction of sonic environments.”
Ordway has engaged with the natural world in larger works as well, as in The End of Rain, an oratorio that memorialized the California wildfires of the past few years. The environment he captures on North Woods is vivid and arboreal too. “Representation I” begins with a unison note that almost immediately expands into a soft tone cluster. The choir intones the first line, “The nights are not dark,” with a kind of religious hush. The three-and-a-half-minute movement sustains this sense of quiet and indefinable harmony, evoking, to my ear, the atonal wash of sound one might hear on a breezy day in a forest – animals rustling, wind whistling, ferns vibrating. With only treble voices, the texture is clear in sound and at the same time dense with feeling.
The same statement opens “Representation II.” But here, though still dissonant, the voices cohere to express more melodic ideas, and more contrast. The music continues to depict the natural world, in this case rivers leading to Tacitus’ imaginary “vast and shoreless…Northern Ocean.”
(It’s fun to think of Tacitus’ visions being true reflections of what actually lies much further north than he was thinking – the Arctic Ocean and the midnight sun.)
Things get weird in “Representation III” where Ordway considers Tacitus’ idea that the Germans worship not human-like gods but “consecrate[d]…woods and groves…the hidden presence that they see only by the eye of reverence.” But such is the composer’s own stated reverence for the forest. He notes in particular the California redwoods.
The fourth movement of this engaging, crystalline work repeats the lyrics of the first three, but includes chorales that leave more space for the listener to ponder the meaning, either of the musical language or of the words themselves.
North Woods is out now on New Focus Recordings and available at Bandcamp.
Reena Esmail, Exaltations – Cathedral Choral Society Conducted by Steven Fox
In the three movements of Exaltations for double choir and brass quintet Reena Esmail looks to Christian liturgy. The rich Handelian depth of the full Cathedral Choral Society and the piercing sound of the brass produce unusual textures in the “Hosanna,” which opens with a series of crescendos and misty decrescendos before expanding into something like a call to prayer (or arms). The choir is a solid, declarative actor in this piece; it’s in the brass that we hear individual “voices.”
The “Alleluia” pulls back on the intensity, with solo voices and cool celestial harmonies. Like the “Hosanna,” the text is just a single word. The interest is in the intertwining of the parts and the dynamic contrasts. When the solo voices emerge the piece can feel like a song without words.
The bright “Gloria” is a short, triumphant dance in 7/4 time, the singers and brass reveling in imitation and flow and the brass shooting sparkling motives up the scale.
Though the material is rooted in Catholic practice, Esmail based the thematic material on raags from the Hindustani tradition. This gives them a hint of Eastern flavor that you can discern without any specific knowledge – I did so on my first cold listen, before I read anything about the music. Go a step further, and even the most casual music geek can discern the melodic parallels by listening to examples of the specific raags that the composer used – respectively, Megh, Pratiksha, and Bageshri.
Esmail wrote the pieces to be performed interstitially between works of Anton Bruckner and 16th-century Italian composer Andrea Gabrieli. The EP reveals that these small gems with a big sound can easily stand alone. Exaltations is out now on Acis.