CUUC Music: Sun Sep 13

CUUC’s annual Ingathering and Water Communion celebrations are marked by music with aqueous associations. The Choir is on hand with Andy Beck’s soulful, mysterious “In the Dark of Midnight” as well as a traditional American hymn. Music Director Adam Kent provides selections from a wide stylistic range, including an arrangement of the ubiquitous African-American Spiritual “Deep River”.

Spirituality of a different source inspires Franz Liszt’s Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este, an evocation of the fountains at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy, from the composer’s collection Years of Pilgrimage. In the midst of the score, Liszt interpolates the following quote from the Gospel of St. John: “But the water I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up in eternal life.” By contrast, Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 is said to derive from the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, and their ill-fated tryst across the stormy waters of the Dardanelles.

Elsewhere, titles are sufficiently evocative to suggest aquatic allusions. Read on for more programming specifics. and join us next week, when musical guest violinist Elena Peres returns to CUUC to perform Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre as well as works by Mozart. Consider arriving by 10am for a special family-friendly Music for All Ages with Ms. Peres and Adam Kent.

Prelude: Adam Kent, piano
“Song” from Sea Pictures, Op. 55                       

Edward MacDowell

Venetian Boatsong No. 2, Op. 30, No. 6           

                                                Felix Mendelssohn

Deep River                                   

                                                Trad. African-American, arr. by Coleridge-Taylor

Anthem: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas

Down to the River to Pray           

Traditional American Hymn, arr. by Roger Emerson

Water Communion

Still Waters:

El lago                                                           

                                                            Federico Mompou

Shining Waters:
Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este

                                                            Franz Liszt

Storm Waters:

Ballade No. 2 in b minor

                                                            Liszt

Rushing Waters:
Brooklet, Op. 62, No. 4           

                                                Edvard Grieg

Offertory:
“At Sea”                                               

                                                Ernst Bloch

Anthem:
In The Dark Of Midnight   

Andy Beck