Ever since my mother Ruth died in the summer of 2022, I have wanted to present a concert in her honor—an artistic expression of affection and closure. I didn’t want it to be a “mom’s favorites” kind of thing, although certainly those pieces would be in the programming mix. Instead, I wanted something that encapsulated her character and her influence on me, my life, and my music making. I kept coming back to “water.” My family grew up in Western Michigan, surrounded by water. Our home was on a bayou connected to Spring Lake, a lake connected by the Grand River to Lake Michigan. Our family were boaters, spending our summer days skiing, cruising, anchoring for a swim, and picnicking on the beaches. My mom kept a beach chair in her car and would stop by the beach after work (mom was a church secretary) to sunbathe and enjoy the view of the Big Lake. Her eulogy, delivered by her work colleague and close friend Pastor Laura de Jong, captured this love of water and mom’s belief that “the shortest way home is by the lake,” a variation on the James Joyce quote, “Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
Water is a common metaphor for life, and water is vital to our existence. Lakes, rivers, and oceans can be peaceful or turbulent, deep and mysterious, or shimmering and refreshing. This program explores life, death, and longing through the lens of bodies of water. John Rutter’s REQUIEM, with its Psalm references of being led beside “waters of comfort” and calling from “out of the deep,” is the central work on the program. It was the last piece of choral music my mother heard on the Sunday afternoon before she passed.
“River in Judea,” arranged by John Leavitt with lyrics by Linda Marcus and music by Jack Feldman, is a feel-good, gospel-style choral piece depicting a metaphorical river of peace and hope. The lyrics describe a singing, ringing river, dreamt of often, that offers solace, fills the soul with goodwill, and rests on the Sabbath day. I first encountered this piece in my days with the Dordt College Concert Choir and our director, Dale Grotenhuis, touring throughout the Midwest. Dale Grotenhuis was my first true mentor and a major influence in my musical life. As an undergraduate, I worked for him and with him as a work study aid, a choir assistant, and eventually as the Business Manager of the Dordt College Concert Choir. Many of my most basic choral ideas (and certainly much of my OCD) came from my time with “Mr. G.”
“River in Judea” was a favorite closer, but tonight it gets the opener spot.
Next, we present two contrasting settings of Psalm 42. The first is a model of Renaissance polyphony composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. “Sicut Cervus” is a fervent, yet somewhat reserved, setting of Psalm 42:1-3. Psalm 42 was a prescribed tract for the blessing of the water (baptismal font) on Holy Saturday, recalling the water of baptism as well as the “living water of the eucharist”. The text, speaking of the longing for God, retained its association with funeral music, having been widely used as the tract in catholic funeral services.
The second setting of Psalm 42, “Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks,” is a dramatic modern setting for organ and choir by Herbert Howells.
Dennis Keene (Voices of Ascension) describes the motet this way:
Herbert Howells was one of a long line of 19th and 20th century English composers who wrote anthems and service music for the Church of England. In the opinion of many musicians today, Howells rises to the top of the whole list. His compositions have the impeccable craft of a master composer and, above all, an exceptional poetic beauty. The phrase “so longeth my soul after thee, O God,” for example, perfectly evokes an inner soul’s intense hunger and longing to reside in the beautiful presence of a loving God. Likewise, when the sopranos first sing “My tears have been my meat,” we feel their sadness which obviously has been going on for quite some time. Even the simple, final three chords on the organ can conjure up a whole series of emotions to different listeners.
“God of the Deep” by Dan Forrest is an example of his singular way of composing piano accompaniments that fully enhance the poetry in the lyrics. The piano part sets up a repeated pattern that provides a musical undercurrent to the piece, the sixteenth notes flow and pulse like the waves of the sea. The piano and vocal ranges, the tempo changes, and dynamics mimic the heights and the depths in Eileen Berry’s poetry in a most satisfying way.
Two instrumentalists from our December “Hodie” concert return to perform with us tonight.
French hornist Taylor Helms accompanies the choir on Paul Basler’s setting of Psalm 23. Basler, “forever” on the faculty at the University of Florida, wrote the composition in 1999 and dedicated it to the Florida State University Singers and their conductor Andre Thomas, a close friend and colleague. I first met Paul Basler when I was attending FSU, and we sang Basler’s Missa Kenya with the composer playing French horn. Basler collaborated with GCA for Missa Kenya in May 2013 (“Inspired by Africa”), a concert in Barnesville that my parents enjoyed immensely. The capstone concert for our Fifth Season, Basler joined the singers, instrumentalists and Board members for a celebratory reception in the home of Charles and then Board President Jean Dukes. Basler’s Psalm 23 has become a choir and audience favorite.
Harpist Kristi Pass also returns and presents a harp solo by Claude Debussy entitled En Bateau (“By Boat” or often translated “Sailing”). Originally from a suite for Piano Four Hands, the impressionistic work has a shimmering wind-and-water-like quality. Kristi performed this piece originally in a solo recital in her early years as a harpist.
When GCA performed John Rutter’s Requiem in 2011, Bill Pasch noted:
Widely considered to be John Rutter’s masterpiece, this contribution to the long and venerable line of musical settings of the Mass for the Dead recalls the free setting of the mass by Johannes Brahms (performed by GCA in October 2009), and is indeed very Brahmsian in many ways, with its “arch”-like, symmetrical overall structure, its free use of biblical texts not normally included in the traditional Requiem mass, and its lush, Romantic sonorities. It also exhibits Rutter’s characteristically subtle eclecticism in choices both of texts and music, with stylistic borrowings all the way from thousand-year old church chants to modern film scores.
Rutter wrote the Requiem in 1985 in memory of his father, who had died the previous year. Music scholar Steven Ledbetter cites Rutter’s own explanation of the dedication of the piece to his father: “I wanted to remember him in music in some way, and preferably in a way that he might have enjoyed and appreciated [even as a non-trained musician]. . . . It was particularly important in this case to write something that could be appreciated by people everywhere.” Ledbetter continues, “[Rutter] was . . . inspired by the example of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, a work he had always loved, the manuscript of which happened to turn up about that time, so that he was able to study it at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.” (www.heritagechorale.org/pdf/Fall2010ProgNotes.pdf; accessed 9.5.11)
The work premiered in 1985 at Lovers’ Lane UMC in Dallas TX, with the composer conducting. The immediate and lasting popularity of the work surprised the composer, who accounts for the work’s success in these terms: “For me, it stands as a clear sign of humanity’s quest for solace and light amidst the darkness and troubles of our age. Art, André Gide said, must bear a message of hope—a message which is embedded in the age-old texts of the Requiem Mass, and also in the [Anglican] Burial Service, some of which I have interpolated into the structure of the work, using the incomparably resonant and glorious version from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.” (Program notes, Columbia [MD] Pro Cantare, www.procantate.org/images/Rutter.pdf; accessed 9.5.11)
“Sweet Rivers” has become one of Shawn Kirchner’s most loved anthems. I first heard the piece when Kirchner visited Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in 2024 and held a workshop for church musicians with Dr. Sean Vogt. Later that year, Dr. Sean and I performed “Sweet Rivers” with a mass choir for the Diocesan Council Meeting in Atlanta. On his website, Shawn Kirchner describes “Sweet Rivers” this way:
The banjo-like accompaniment adds considerable motion and excitement throughout the piece. The first verse is shared by the women, who introduce the theme. The men take the melody in the second verse as the women add echoing phrases. A modulation launches the third verse brightly, and quickly successive vocal entrances build the energy which crests in the first climax of the piece. An interlude follows, as the voices soar on the text “joy to be thine own.” The text of the first verse is heard again as the piece circles back to its home key for the jubilant final verse. A coda brings quick, unexpected modulations that rise to the rapturous conclusion: “sweet rivers of redeeming love lie just before mine eyes.”
Tonight’s concert title, “My Life Flows On,” is taken from the opening line of the hymn arrangement entitled “How Can I Keep from Singing?” The piece is a call to remain joyful and grateful through all of life’s ups and downs. Hymnary.org describes it this way:
This hymn is all about perspective. It opens with an assertion that the troubles of this world are nothing when compared to the new creation that is to come. By keeping our focus on our Lord – that He is our Rock and that He lives – we can follow the admonition of the apostle James: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2 ESV).
Barbara W. Baker’s “The Storm is Passing Over” uses the first verse of Charles Albert Tindley’s hymn and sets it in a gospel style. Dr. Baker (Ph.D. from University of Maryland) had a distinguished career in Maryland public schools, receiving the Maryland Award for Excellence. Griffin Choral Arts performed this piece recently for the Griffin Black Heritage Festival, an annual fundraising event for our local high school choirs.
We conclude our program tonight with the Dale Grotenhuis arrangement of “When Peace Like a River.” Early in our preparation for “My Life Flows On,” GCA singer Dotty Murray reminded us of the story behind this hymn. Horatio G. Spafford suffered the loss of a fortune in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, a four-year-old son to scarlet fever, and his four daughters in the wreck of the Ville du Havre, a cruise ship on its way to Europe. His wife survived the wreck and waited for Horatio in Europe. As his own ship passed over the site of the wreck, Horatio received the courage and inspiration to write “it is well with my soul.”
Composer/Arranger Dale Grotenhuis also suffered loss—the loss of his 27-year-old son Jack, the apple of his eye and himself a promising young musician, in a motorcycle accident. Dale and his wife Eleanor spoke frequently about the loss and about how God gave them the ability to survive and witness to God’s goodness in the face of adversity. Dale composed “Song of Triumph,” his most performed original composition, in the wake of the tragedy. Eleanor wrote a book with the same title as her response to the loss.
Jack died in 1983 and this arrangement was published in 1985.
–Stephen J Mulder, Artistic Director
In memory of Ruth Mulder (1941-2022)
