The Seattle Recorder Society’s President Dave Gloger welcomed about two dozen in-person recorder players and another dozen or so Zoom players to our evening of music. Although there were no first-timers present, the Back Room Gang joined the large group for the entire evening, so there were still “new” faces to me. Dave introduced us to Larry Stark, our conductor for the evening. 
Many already knew Larry–he’s been with the SRS since 1978! Perhaps some were unaware that he’s now a retired machinist who makes xylophones.
For this evening, Larry chose music from the nineteenth century, a contrast to the Baroque–and earlier–music or the modern music that we are usually exposed to. “A whole lot is available, but we never get around to it,” he said. Much of this music was originally written as vocal music; Larry provided us with scores so that we could see what the other “voices” were doing.
Larry explained that in Renaissance music the shape of a line–and what happens as it unfolds–is more important than the chords. The vertical alignment of notes is the definition of a chord, and since we were playing from the scores, we could track what parts of the chord others were playing. If you’re familiar with hymns as printed in hymnals, many are just chord after chord, and don’t have the linear quality of Renaissance music. Nineteenth century music moves a lot in chords.
Sweet and Low by Sir Joseph Barnby
Our first piece was Sweet and Low with music by Sir Joseph Barnby (1838-1896) and words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1802-1892). Larry provided a lesson on music theory and directed us to look at the last note of the bass line: that was likely indicative of the key, in this case in the key of C major, and the basses’ C was called the tonic. The notes that we all played as the last chord were the familiar set of C, E, and G. Starting on the G – the dominant – provided for the “common practice harmony” chord of G, B, D. In a stately tempo, Larry got us started, but then interrupted to urge us that he was missing the sense that we were saying the words; we need to be “gushing and wearing our hearts on our sleeves!” Since it’s vocal music we must give the impression that we’re singing. Also, as with singing, we shouldn’t be playing as if blowing through a soda straw; rather we should breathe as often as we need to, to give the notes all the air they require. At the end of the piece the tenors successfully sounded schmaltzy – and nearly like a barbershop quartet. Larry remarked that our tuning was pretty acceptable – one can never achieve perfect, but one can get quite close. “What is ‘perfect’ after all?”
Crossing the Bar by Sir Joseph Barnby
“It’s too bad that we don’t study more nineteenth century poetry–it’s good stuff!” The lyrics for Joseph Barnby’s Crossing the Bar were another poem by Tennyson; he was on a boat somewhere and saw the parallel “of crossing the bar,” (leaving the river and heading into the wide sea) to leaving life and entering eternity. After writing it, he asked that it appear at the end of all the editions of his poems. (I can personally report that the beginning of Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” announces which members have passed away in America’s Boating Club’s quarterly magazine.) Again we found and played the tonic (C,E,G) and dominant chords, and learned the related subdominant chord of F,A,C. Larry coached us that when we’re practicing by ourselves, it’s worth it to work on chords, not only on scale-wise passages. After the first time through, Larry exclaimed, “Thank you, oh, that was nice!”
If you’ve ever had voice lessons, you’ve been instructed to try not to sound like you’re reaching to get up to a high note and not quite getting to it. Where the sopranos had to leap from a G to the F above it, Larry recommended they imagine coming down to the high note – not actually having your pitch do that but imagining settling down into that. After giving it another try, the sopranos succeeded, which gave it a much more relaxed rather than strained feeling, with good tone and pitch, too. For the repeated notes, for example on the bass part, we were asked to play strictly in rhythm and give miniscule breaks between the repeated notes, like “snipping a ribbon off of a spool.” After our final playing of Crossing the Bar, Larry beamed, “Much better than earlier–really gratifying!”
On the Chapel Steps by G.C.Gow
Larry showed us some early 20th century singing books; there was a time when people sang just for the fun of it–imagine that! This piece was more lighthearted than the previous one, with the theme of singing on the chapel steps sounding archaic to us. …but there was a time when people really did this: “Here at the pleasant twilight hour, when daily tasks are o’re, we gather on the chapel steps, to sing our songs once more…” Larry told of a 1970 Whitman College alumni gathering where someone asked, “What songs do kids sing?” and the reply was, “None, they don’t sing anymore,” as these alums had done themselves in earlier, magical, innocent years.
On the Chapel Steps was in B flat major, with two flats and a few accidentals. Playing in different keys is really good practice, encouraged Larry. Sopranos and tenors had the same rhythm for much of the piece, but when the tenors deviated from that as written while everyone else held a chord, Larry cheered them on for their moving part, “Be bold!”
Singing On the Chapel steps reminded me of attending my nephew’s graduation – a multi-day celebration at Princeton, including alumni from the decades. Hundreds of new graduates met one evening as the sun was setting to sing on the steps under a designated archway on campus. My brother and I stood in a crowd below the steps as my nephew and the other new grads gathered–and sang! There were songs that were “archaic” and warmed the hearts of the older alumni, John Denver and Beach Boys songs that even I knew the words to, modern songs that the Class of 2019 had selected as their favorites (of which I knew none except for one Beatles’ song), and by the time they were singing their alma mater song as a finale, everyone (including me since I’d been hearing this so often the past three days) sang together. It truly was memorable and heart warming!
Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen by Johannes Brahms
In Protestant churches (where singing hymns is very important), to prepare the congregation for singing the opening hymn, the organists often play a choral prelude in the same key that the congregation will use. Larry reminisced that when he was stationed in Germany with the US Army, he attended the big, old, Lutheran church in town on Sundays. The congregation not only sang with gusto, but also sang in parts, which he loved so much! I recently returned from two months in Germany and will attest that the old Protestant churches are still there and are fabulous places to hear stunning organ and choral music every Sunday.
Brahms had written this beautiful piece late in his life when he had returned to composing for the organ. The melody of the hymn is buried inside the prelude, but it’s difficult to pick out in this arrangement by Angelo Anastasio, on faculty at Western WA University.
It’s not so homophonic and has “busier” parts. “Let’s just give it a try with a more relaxed tempo” (on our first attempt), said Larry. It intentionally moved slower than our previous piece: “Don’t rush, it’s laid back, wallow in it!” Larry spoke of passing a phrase around: like receiving with gratitude the phrase that others have been working on, carrying it forward and passing it along again. Imagine passing a baton in a relay race in a strong and centered manner: don’t wait for the phrase to end before you start – there should be no gaps. We could spend hours practicing this, but as a brief demo Larry had the three upper voices play only their three bars of moving eighth notes sequentially while the rest looked on in the scores and listened to experience the hand-offs. Tenors were commended, particularly with their E flat just before the final note.
The Long Day Closes by Arthur Sullivan
Aptly chosen for our final piece of the evening, The Long Day Closes was written by Arthur Sullivan, whom you would know as half of Gilbert and Sullivan. He wanted to become the next Richard Wagner but was overshadowed by others during that time. He not only was a good composer but could also compose amazingly fast!
As we squinted at the four flats in the key signature, Larry smiled. “It’s not going to be that hard,” he said confidently! As a psychological game, we started at the end and then worked backwards in chunks, which gave us the feeling of success as he intended.
Larry recalled The Hilliard Ensemble coming to town in the 1978-79 season, with four young cherubs who looked quite inexperienced. Imagine his surprise when the music from these children was the most beautiful, electrifying sound! The ensemble was promoting the revival of Early Music, but also requested that the nineteenth century period be revived, and then sang this moving, touching piece adding deeper meaning to the lyrics, “No Star is o’er the lake. It’s pale watch keeping, The moon is half awake, Through gray mist creeping, The last red leaves fall round the porch of roses, The clock hath ceased to sound, the long day closes….Go to the dreamless bed where Grief reposes, thy book of toil is read, The long day closes.”
Due to the four flats–for good measure and brain challenge–Larry had us play an A flat scale. (For me this works best if I don’t think about it too much!) Where everyone was in unison (unlike in Renaissance music) we were taught to be bold: “Heed not how hope believes And fate disposes: Shadow is round the eaves, (The long day closes).” With that, Larry signed off, “Now you can brag that you’ve played in four flats! Thank you!”
Thank you, Larry, for a wonderful and educational evening!