Virtues and Vices of Brotherhood and Love: “Outward Bound” Program Notes

Concert on February 28th, 2020

Intro:

Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl – Traditional

I.

Brothers, Sing On! – Edvard Grieg, arr. Howard McKinney, text by Herbert Dallas

Brother, My Brother! – arr. Frederick Wick, text by Daniel Kassler

How Rare the Moon, 明月几时有 – Liang Hongzhi, 梁弘志, arr. Yichi ,亦驰, text by Su Shi, 苏轼

II.

Christ lag in Todesbanden, Versus II – Johann Sebastian Bach

Frobisher Bay – arr. Diane Loomer

The Dying Californian – arr. Gregory Brown

Lamentation Over Boston – William Billings

III.

Což Ta Naše Bríža – Leos Janáček

Loch Lomond – arr. R. V. Williams

Swansea Town – arr. Alice Parker & Robert Shaw

Outro:

I’m Strong for Chicago – arr. Wes Kim

The program opens with a lighthearted gig song, usually not over-thought. In this case, we might take its greater sentiment to heart: we the speakers (or singers, as it were) are free to choose the path we please, and in doing so pursue merriment - though past tonight's merriment, death is the only certainty. In the most general of ways, this idea sets the stage for what follows.

 I.
We open with three odes to brotherhood. Brothers, Sing On!, the most jubilant and carefree, seems to challenge the world, the winds, the seas; brothers in song, together, in common spirit are made to be gleefully unstoppable. That "maid on a distant shore"? It doesn't really matter who she is, but simply that she exists, so there be a "song of love" for a vessel! She is a non-specific object of desire, a member of the audience for this chest-puffing show of fraternal glory. The glory boasted here though is not just of strength or will, but unified voices and song. This piece expresses a very particular kind of musical masculinity that has made it extremely on-brand for tenor/bass glee clubs for ages.

“Brother, my Brother” reveals more tenderness and vulnerability. If the song that precedes it hails the strength of unified brothers, this song pines for a desired reunion, and promises that unity is possible (inevitable?) despite physical distance. Again, song is what binds the parted brothers, each knowing the others are singing along.

But loneliness begins taking its toll in “How Rare the Moon” (明月几时有). Drink in hand, the singer marvels the moon and its beauty as the only thing he has to share with his brother and family. He acknowledges that sometimes people do not reunite, and life in exile is cold and long even with this song. The chance for meeting his family again in this song is far less promising than we were led to believe by the first two songs of the set.

 II.
"Nobody could overcome death
among all the children of mankind.
Our sin was the cause of all this,
no innocence was to be found.
Therefore death came so quickly
and seized power over us,
held us captive in his kingdom.
 Alleluia!"

(translated by Francis Browne)

Martin Luther's words and J.S. Bach's raw setting give gloomy frame to our second full set. How quickly one can forget one's own mortality in songs of long-lasting love and inspired journeys. The following three songs give gruesome heed to the message Bach conveys: whalers, sailors, and colonists can fall victim to sins of hubris, lust, greed, and vengeance that inevitably trap them where no fellow people can save them. “Frobisher Bay” laments the ambition of a captain and the crew that followed him to be frozen in the "lonely grave" of the Arctic. In passing confessions, The Dying Californian hints at this wanderer's desire to find "stone[s] of precious dust" and yearns for passage into a "world that's free from sin". Even as the speaker beholds "his savior," Gregory Brown's setting is uneasy and abrupt, emphasizing the mercilessness of death, more than the salvation. The voice of the enraged colonists in “Lamentation Over Boston” illustrate what measure of violence and hate men can have for those they previously called countrymen; that not even the brotherhood idealized elsewhere in the program can save them from "hateful discord," sin, and death. Song is invoked at the end here as a unifying means, just like in the first set, but here it's used to frame a bloody "us" and "them" dichotomy. Moreover, the pieces in the set communicate one thing: death remains certain, and that greed and hubris can and will still thwart the brotherhood and masculine confidence we sing of in the rest of the program.

III.
"Why must our birch tree sigh and shiver?
What secret longing makes it quiver?
With some hidden sorrow does it languish,
 Whispering and sighing in its anguish.
And so my heart aching leads to sadness,
 Anxious it may forfeit love and gladness.
All around is peaceful, quietly sleeping,
but the birch tree trembles as if weeping.

Tender leaves are fearful of a flurry,
Clinging to their birch tree in their worry
That the wind will crush them, break and sever
carry them onwards, lost forever.
 My hear too is restless, always grieving
For my love so tender, ever fearing.
Just as in a flurry, leaves are scattered,
Our love so fragile, may be shattered."

 (translation by Karel Brušák)

The third set brings us to love, and steadily pulls us out of the depths of despair (and minor keys) that characterize the middle of the program. “Což Ta Naše Bríža” is the song of a confused lover in anguish over the stagnation and decay of their connection to the beloved. The tree featured in the song leans in reaching, either back to what once was, or towards the beloved, tantalized by emotional distance (ok this interpretation from a different set of "singlish" than printed above; a direct translation not available is not at hand for publishing). Perhaps no other song in our repertoire engages with emotional and physical distance as well as “Loch Lomond”, though. Longing here is expressed not only for more time and a return to a former place, but as the grieving of both these things intertwined together. New springs bring new flowers, and the heart once broken is not simply mended. There is something to the central line, "but me and my true love will never meet again"—perhaps even if the right people met at the right place again, the right time would still have past, long ago, and with it the love once felt.

“Swansea town”, then, serves as a possibly remedy to fears featured in the entire program. Brotherhood, Nancy (that "maid on a distant shore"), song, love, and the safety of home are all wrapped up in this jolly chanty. Alice Parker's setting is deeply gratifying and singable, splitting the choir and bringing them together again at the most poignant of moments with elegant yet simple harmonies. And yet there is room for doubt near the end—the sailor's song picks back up as an echo of before, perhaps as if snapping back to reality from a sweet daydream of a distant love. Sometimes, even the mere imagination of the warmth and welcome of home is enough to inspire relief from travel, work, and fear.