The Crossing @ Christmas 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019 @ 7:30pm
Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA
presented by Annenberg Center
Saturday, December 21, 2019 @ 12:30pm and 3:30pm
The Fuentidueña Chapel, The Met Cloisters, New York, NY
Sunday, December 22, 2019 @ 5pm
Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA
PROGRAM
Act 1
Prelude: Song(s) Forest Songbirds
Spectral Spirits (2019) Edie Hill
world premiere
Prelude: These Birds
Eyewitness: Henry David Thoreau and the Passenger Pigeon
The Naming
Passenger Pigeon
Eyewitness: Gert Goebel and the Paroquets
The Naming
Carolina Parakeet
Eyewitness: Lucinen M. Turner and the Migration of the Curlews
The Naming
Eskimo Curlew
Eyewitness: Mr. Wilson and the Ivory-bill
The Naming
Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
–intermission–
Act 2
Entr’acte: Final Song Hawaiian O’o (extinct 1987)
the little match girl passion (2008) David Lang
1. Come, daughter
2. It was terribly cold
3. Dearest heart
4. In an old apron
5. Penance and remorse
6. Lights were shining
7. Patience, patience!
8. Ah! perhaps
9. Have mercy, my God
10. She lighted another match
11. From the sixth hour
12. She again rubbed a match
13. When it is time for me to go
14. In the dawn of morning
15. We sit and cry
Spectral Spirits was commissioned by The Crossing and Donald Nally with generous support provided by John Hawthorn and Danielle Macbeth.
We are grateful for all our friends and supporters, and especially thank Thomas Kasdorf and an anonymous donor for season support.
This concert is being recorded for broadcast at 10am on Christmas Day by our partner WRTI, 90.1 FM, Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz Public Radio Station. Available on the radio and online at wrti.org
"I don’t know whether the bird you’re holding
is dead or alive
But I do know it’s in your hands."
–Toni Morrison
A note from Donald
for The Crossing @ Christmas 2019
Patience.
Patience!
The word "patience" lies at the very center of David Lang’s the little match girl passion. It is spoken over the peculiar sound of a brake drum being scraped; the direction to the performer is, "barely audible, expectant and painful." "Patience" is drawn from an aria out of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion – the model for David’s work – that anchors the scene in which Jesus, questioned by the High Priest, chooses to remain silent.
Patience, patience! When false tongues pierce.
Although I suffer shame and scorn,
(more than my due)
dear God shall revenge the innocence of my heart.
What does that have to do with Christmas?
Each year at The Crossing @ Christmas – what we consider to be our holiday family gathering – we like to take the opportunity to reflect on the world we live in and to ponder our place in it. Though we find that weighing the state of the world can feel decidedly un-festive, we’re OK with that as the inspiration for a concert, because somewhere in all the gloom there’s a feeling of hope – beautifully naïve and innocently conceived as it may be. It’s there and it’s in the music we choose. In his passion, David calls the little girl’s "bitter present" a kind of "naïve equilibrium between suffering and hope." In the final moments of Edie Hill’s Spectral Spirits – a work devoted to the memory of birds gone extinct due to human activity – she observes (through Holly Hughes’ words) that the symbolically nicknamed Lord God bird "may not be gone"; "it’s not too late."
Our goal is to create programs that make sense as an organic whole, and perhaps, momentarily make sense of the chaos. So, we may ask, what is the relationship between these two works? The elemental answer is: martyrdom. We are charged with the curation of our children as in the little match girl passion, and we are charged with the curation of other living things, like birds, as in Spectral Spirits. And sometimes we fail in our curation; we make decisions that lead to this failure, we agree to this failure. As a result, The Other suffers. Passion, from the Latin "to suffer." Here, in the season of Advent – of expectation and the fulfillment of promises – we think it’s interesting to sing works that indirectly ask what could happen in our world if we put our minds to it. If we, in fact, curated.
We find that sentiment in the opening lines of Edie’s new work:
Take note. These birds are still singing to us. We must listen.
And we find them in the word “patience” at the heart of David’s work.
Patience is mentioned only one other time in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion – in the opening chorus, calling on the daughters of Zion to come and lament the loss of the innocent.
behold! – Whom? – the Bridegroom!
Behold him! – how? – As a Lamb.
Behold! – what? – behold the patience,
look! – where? – at our guilt.
The martyr is patient with us. The birds wait. The little match girl presumes nothing.
Does our program make any difference in the chaos? Probably not. But, when there was just one, lone Hawaiian O’o left, hoping to find a mate, did he stop singing?
No. He did not.
- Donald Nally, for The Crossing, December 2019
TEXTS
Spectral Spirits
music by Edie Hill (b. 1962)
Spectral Spirits was commissioned by The Crossing and Donald Nally with generous support provided by John Hawthorn and Danielle Macbeth.
PRELUDE: THESE BIRDS
Take note. These birds are still singing to us. We must listen.
–Holly J. Hughes
PASSENGER PIGEON
Eyewitness: Henry David Thoreau and the Passenger Pigeon (tenor solo with choir)
"Blue...dry slate...blue, like weather stained wood...a more subdued and earthy blue than sky...a fit color for this airiel traveller as its path is between sky and earth."
–Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and naturalist, adapted by the composer from Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Christopher Cokinos (b. 1963)
The Naming (alto solo)
Echtopistes migratorius. Wandering wanderer.
Passenger Pigeon
from the painting by James J. Audubon, 1824. On Sept. 1, 1914, Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo.
See how she bends to him, her beak held within his
while she waits for his food to rise up to her hunger.
He rests on the arcing branch, his neck a perfect answer to hers,
wings held aloft and slightly splayed while long tail feathers stream
away, Prussian blue going to dusk, breast russet, branch below
studded with viridian lichen to match his coat, colors chosen
by Audubon as he painted them in courtship in situ.
See how her colors foreshadow the fall—dun, mustard, black—
how her tail balances his wings painted in parallel planes,
how the drooping oak leaf holds them in place, stasis
in which they are aware of no one but each other.
Audubon captured then in gouache, graphite, and pastels,
not knowing they would soon be gone; in his time
they were more numerous than all other species combined.
They say the pigeons flew over the banks of the Ohio River
for three days in succession, sounding like a hard gale at sea.
Years later, guns spattered shot into skies stormy with pigeons.
Thousands plummeted, filling railroad cars bound for fine restaurants.
Now, of those hundreds of millions that once darkened
the skies, we are left with Martha, who never lived in the wild,
stuffed in the Smithsonian, Prussian-blue feathers stiff,
glass eyes staring, waiting, still, for her mate.
–Holly J. Hughes
CAROLINA PARAKEET
Eyewitness: Gert Goebel and the Paroquets (bass solo)
"In winter...flocks of paroquets were a real ornament to the trees stripped of their foliage...a flock of several hundred...settled on a big sycamore...the bright green color of the birds...the many yellow heads looked like many candles.
[In Germany] a young birch...was set in a pail of water. In the warm room it produced delicate leaves...and on Christmas Eve, was decorated with gilded and silvered nuts, apples and candies, not unlike these bird-covered tree tops, these enormous Christmas trees of the forest."
–Gert Goebel (1816-1896), German settler in eastern Missouri, from a translation of his 1877 autobiography, adapted by the composer from Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Christopher Cokinos
The Naming (alto solo)
Puzzi la neé. Head of yellow. Conuropsis carolinensis.
Carolina Parakeet
Incas, the last Carolina parakeet, died in his cage at the Cincinnati Zoo on Feb. 21, 1918, only six months after the death of Lady Jane, his companion of thirty-two years.
From Mexico to New York they flew, tail feathers streaming,
startling in the monochrome of winter’s eastern shore.
When their forests were cut, they swooped to the farmlands
in waves of color—yellow, green, orange—lit in fruit trees,
found the soft squish of peaches, cherries, figs. Descending
three hundred at a time, in crayon-box flocks, they were shot
by farmers defending their crops—who could fault them?
Shot for their tail feathers, all the rage on ladies’ hats,
shot because they would not desert each other, each staying
by its wounded mate until hunters picked them off,
one by each last, bright, exotic, faithful one.
–Holly J. Hughes
ESKIMO CURLEW
Eyewitness: Lucinen M. Turner and the Migration of the Curlews (soprano solo with choir)
"The calls of a distant flock...sound like the wind whistling through a shipʹs rigging or the jingling of countless sleigh bells."
–an observer
"A most graceful undulation...like a cloud of smoke wafted by the lightest zephyr.
The whirl and rise...(Their) aerial evolutions (are) one of the most wonderful in the flight of birds."
–Lucien M. Turner (1848-1909), American ethnologist and naturalist, adapted by the composer from "Where Have All the Curlews Gone?" by Paul A. Johnsgard (b. 1931)
The Naming (alto solo)
Numenius borealis. Sweetgrass. Swiftwing. Little Sicklebill.
Eskimo Curlew
I grew up reading The Last of the Curlews before bed,
your crescent-moon beak beckoning me north.
Even then you were almost gone, though millions of you
once filled the skies, migrating from the northern tundra
to South America, feeding on grasshoppers along the way.
Within twenty years, your vast flocks were brought down
by market hunters, fire suppression, tilling of the prairies,
eradication of grasshoppers. Before hunting was banned,
two million curlews were killed each year.
Here’s the part that still makes me weep:
You were wiped out because you stayed
by your fallen companion; from you
I learned what loyalty means. Today, birders
search for you along Galveston’s shore,
sometimes catch a glimpse, memory being so strong.
No one knows for sure you’re gone. You live on
in the pages of a book, a waning crescent moon.
–Holly J. Hughes
IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER
Eyewitness: Mr. Wilson and the Ivory-Bill (baritone solo)
"The first place I observed this bird...was twelve miles north of Wilmington...North Carolina. There I found the bird from which my drawing was taken. ...
...
While engaged in taking the drawing, he cut me severely in several places...on the whole, displayed such a noble and unconquerable spirit, that I was frequently tempted to restore him to his native woods. He lived with me nearly three days, but refused all sustenance, and I witnessed his death with regret."
–Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) Scottish-American poet and ornithologist, 1811, adapted by the composer from Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Christopher Cokinos
The Naming (alto solo)
Campephilus principalis. Principal lover of grubs. Splendid recluse of the swamp.
Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
I wish I’d been at the sighting that inspired its nickname,
the Lord God bird. I’d love to see this woodpecker,
perhaps extinct, perhaps not; no one knows for sure.
Standing twenty inches tall with white wing patches
and a flashy red crest, who wouldn’t say Lord God,
look at that? Once it made its home in the hardwood
forests of the south; birders say its ivory bill could pierce
bark eight inches deep. Imagine the racket. Even so,
they were vulnerable: a single pair needed six square miles
of wet forest with dead trees in which to search for grubs.
In 1948, when a Louisiana forest was cleared for a soy plantation,
the last population vanished. The Cuban subspecies survived
a few more decades, but by 1970, logging had reduced its population
to eight pairs. In the 1990s, explorers in the mountains near Moa
found fresh signs of feeding, caught a glimpse of a bird that may
have been the ivory bill, but that sighting was never confirmed.
Since then, more reports have surfaced, suggesting
the Lord God bird may not be gone. A few still hide,
spectral spirits, reminding us of the shimmering line
linking memory and desire, reminding us that perhaps
it’s not too late to save them, to save us all.
–Holly J. Hughes
the little match girl passion
words and music by David Lang (b.1957) adapted from the words of H.C. Andersen, H.P. Paull, Picander, and Saint Matthew
1. Come, daughter
Come, daughter
Help me, daughter
Help me cry
Look, daughter
Where, daughter
What, daughter
Who, daughter
Why, daughter
Guiltless daughter
Patient daughter
Gone
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 1: Opening Chorus, Kommt, ihr Töchter
2. It was terribly cold
It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the
old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness,
a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through
the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left
home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large,
indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little
creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two
carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the
slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran
away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had
children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little
naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.
So the little girl went on.
So the little girl went on.
3. Dearest heart
Dearest heart
Dearest heart
What did you do that was so wrong?
What was so wrong?
Dearest heart
Dearest heart
Why is your sentence so hard?
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 3: Chorale, Herzliebster Jesu
4. In an old apron
In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her
hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had any
one given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept
along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The
snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her
shoulders, but she regarded them not.
5. Penance and remorse
Penance and remorse
Tear my sinful heart in two
My teardrops
May they fall like rain down upon your poor face
May they fall down like rain
My teardrops
Here, daughter, here I am
I should be bound as you were bound
All that I deserve is
What you have endured
Penance and remorse.
Tear my sinful heart in two
My penance
My remorse
My penance
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 6: Alto Aria, Buss’ und Reu’
6. Lights were shining
Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory
smell of roast goose, for it was New Year’s Eve – yes, she remembered
that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond
the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn
her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and
she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take
home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her;
besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only
the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the
largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags.
Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold.
Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold.
7. Patience, patience!
Patience.
Patience!
–from Bach's No. 35: Tenor Aria, Geduld, geduld!
8. Ah! perhaps
Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from
the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one
out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright
light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was
really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was
sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass
ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the
child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame
of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the
remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.
She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and
where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil,
and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy
white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a
steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what
was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and
waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to
the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing
but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.
9. Have mercy, my God
Have mercy, my God.
Look here, my God.
See my tears fall. See my tears fall.
Have mercy, my God. Have mercy.
My eyes are crying.
My heart is crying, my God.
See my tears fall.
See my tears fall, my God.
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 39: Alto Aria, Erbarme dich
10. She lighted another match
She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting
under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully
decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at
the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green
branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the
show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out
her hand towards them, and the match went out.
The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to
her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving
behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the
little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever
loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star
falls, a soul was going up to God.
11. From the sixth hour
From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour she cried out:
Eli, Eli.
–from the Gospel of St. Matthew, 27:45
12. She again rubbed a match
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round
her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining,
yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little
one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns
out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the
large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole
bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And
the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day,
and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She
took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in
brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold
nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
13. When it is time for me to go
When it is time for me to go
Don’t go from me
When it is time for me to leave
Don’t leave me
When it is time for me to die
Stay with me
When I am most scared
Stay with me
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 62: Chorale, Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden
14. In the dawn of morning
In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale
cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been
frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year’s
sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the
stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of
which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one
imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she
had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.
15. We sit and cry
We sit and cry
And call to you
Rest soft, daughter, rest soft
Where is your grave, daughter?
Where is your tomb?
Where is your resting place?
Rest soft, daughter, rest soft
Rest soft
Rest soft
Rest soft
Rest soft
You closed your eyes.
I closed my eyes.
Rest soft
–paraphrasing Bach’s No. 68: Closing Chorus, Wir setzen uns mit Tranen nieder
Roster
Anika Kildegaard
Katy Avery
Nathaniel Barnett
Jessica Beebe
Kelly Ann Bixby
Karen Blanchard*
Colin Dill
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Dominic German
Steven Hyder
Michael Jones
Lauren Kelly
Heidi Kurtz
Maren Montalbano
Rebecca Myers
Daniel O'Dea
Becky Oehlers
James Reese
Kyle Sackett
Daniel Schwartz
Rebecca Siler
Daniel Spratlan
Daniel Taylor
Donald Nally, conductor
Kevin Vondrak, assistant conductor
John Grecia, keyboards
Paul Vazquez, sound design
* Karen Blanchard appears through a generous donation from Beth Van de Water in memory of Hank Van de Water.