Happy Easter, everyone! I’ve been all wrapped up with Easter activities for most of the day, so I’m only just getting around to extending the invitation for you to cap off your Sunday by joining me on “The Lost Chord” for an hour of pieces inspired or influenced by cathedrals.
We’ll hear Jennifer Higdon’s “blue cathedral” (all lower-case), from 1999, commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music in honor of its 75th anniversary. The work is dedicated to the memory of Higdon’s younger brother, Andrew Blue. In the writing of the piece, she imagined a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky, with transparent walls and crystal pillars, through which clouds and endless expanses of blue are visible.
Guitarist-composer Agustin Barrios wrote “La Catedral” (“The Cathedral”) in 1921, after having heard music of Johann Sebastian Bach performed on the organ of the cathedral of San Juan Bautista de las Misiones in his native Paraguay.
Englishman Joby Talbot composed “Path of Miracles” in 2005. The work – dedicated to the memory of his father, Vincent – was written on a commission from the vocal chamber group Tenebrae. Its four movements reflect stops along the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago. The third of these, an evocation of León Cathedral, is imagined as a kind of “Lux Aeterna,” the interior of the space bathed in light.
Finally, American composer Adolphus Hailstork recollected his experiences as a child chorister at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, New York, when he came to write his “Sonata da Chiesa” (“Church Sonata”) in 1992. Hailstork, composer-in-residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, conceived the work’s seven vibrant sections – “Exaltation,” “O Great Mystery,” “Adoration,” “Jubilation,” “O Lamb of God,” “Grant Us Thy Peace,” and “Exaltation” – for string orchestra, providing a joyous conclusion to the hour.
I hope you’ll join me for “Master Builders” – architects of cathedrals in sound – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: The vaulted ceiling of León Cathedral
