Serene, Ethereal, Mystical, Powerful
One of my absolute favorite things about what I do at MLUC is collaborating with my colleagues on staff to create meaningful experiences for our congregation on Sunday mornings. When I asked Yvette about her sermon for this weekend, she gave me direction that the music should be "serene, ethereal, mystical, and powerful." You could hardly provide more evocative language to a musician! Immediately, these words brought to mind the music of perhaps my favorite composer, Federico Mompou, whose oratorio "Los Improperios" was the featured performance by the Choir last year on Music Sunday. The rare Spanish composer to adopt the Parisian idiom in the 20th century (usually it was the French imitating flamenco), Mompou invented a particular niche of musical impressionism characterized by subtlety of affect and form, gentle but striking dissonance, ostinato (repetitive figures), and distinct melody. Imagine a piece of impressionist [visual] art like the pictured still life painting by Federico Mompou's brother, Josep (which I actually own. That's another story!): the brush strokes—flecks of vibrant color—are the unlikely dissonances that together form a cohesive subject; and the lighting and shadow the tangible, perceptible realism that grounds the uncanny. Mompou says as much in a three-minute vignette for solo piano as Mahler or Bruckner can in an hour-long symphony. How would I describe the sublime beauty of such art? . . . What Yvette said!
It is a tragedy that I will be away from this service joining Kaitlyn and my in-laws for an annual family trip to Central PA (you are welcome to speculate about the part that is tragic). But, as always, I leave you in the most capable—and dextrous—hands of my mother, Jodie, who will enchant you with some of Mompou's most evocative, mystical compositions. As Yvette guides our transformation through imagination, allow the music to inspire you. The Prelude is two short movements of "Fêtes lointaines" ("Distant Festivals"): exotic jubilance—like a dream, at once comfortingly familiar and somehow utterly unrecognizable. The Offertory is from "Música callada" ("Silence Music")—one of the composer's largest bodies of work—where the seamless juxtaposition of French and Spanish idioms emerge from a light fog of alternating structural and harmonic dissonance. As though informed by the sermon itself, the Postlude—the cheery Danza from the fifth movement of the "Cançons i danses" ("Songs & Dances")—will send you out into the world with revitalized imagination. Together the congregation will sing hymn #95: "There Is More Love Somewhere" and India Arie Simpson's "I Am Light."
I'll be with you remotely on Sunday!
It is a tragedy that I will be away from this service joining Kaitlyn and my in-laws for an annual family trip to Central PA (you are welcome to speculate about the part that is tragic). But, as always, I leave you in the most capable—and dextrous—hands of my mother, Jodie, who will enchant you with some of Mompou's most evocative, mystical compositions. As Yvette guides our transformation through imagination, allow the music to inspire you. The Prelude is two short movements of "Fêtes lointaines" ("Distant Festivals"): exotic jubilance—like a dream, at once comfortingly familiar and somehow utterly unrecognizable. The Offertory is from "Música callada" ("Silence Music")—one of the composer's largest bodies of work—where the seamless juxtaposition of French and Spanish idioms emerge from a light fog of alternating structural and harmonic dissonance. As though informed by the sermon itself, the Postlude—the cheery Danza from the fifth movement of the "Cançons i danses" ("Songs & Dances")—will send you out into the world with revitalized imagination. Together the congregation will sing hymn #95: "There Is More Love Somewhere" and India Arie Simpson's "I Am Light."
I'll be with you remotely on Sunday!
Posted in Music Notes