The Many Mysteries in “The Mission”

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Image accessed from ikipedia.

Imagine, if you will, a film with tremendous star power, including Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro in the two leading roles, a spectacular setting centered around a South American waterfall that’s 100 feet higher than Niagara Falls, and cinematography if the highest order, and yet . . . it didn’t even earn enough in theaters to repay production costs. And it’s remembered today almost solely for its soundtrack, whose composer Ennio Merricone was best known up till that time for his music in the so-called “spaghetti westerns” that included The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The great film critic Roger Ebert said that:

The Mission feels exactly like one of those movies where you’d rather see the documentary about how the movie was made. You’d like to know why so many talented people went to such incredible lengths to make a difficult and beautiful movie – without any of them, on the basis of the available evidence, having the slightest notion of what the movie was about. There isn’t a moment in The Mission that is not watchable, but the moments don’t add up to a coherent narrative. At the end, we can sort of piece things together, but the movie has never really made us care. (“The Mission”)

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An Italian writes Spanish songs for guitar and chorus

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various images of the composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, accessed via the website https://mariocastelnuovotedesco.com/new-light-on-intellectuals-who-fled-fascist-italy/

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Falls in Love with Spain and the Guitar

How likely is it that an 18-year-old Italian Jewish boy was given a trip to Spain as a graduation gift by his parents and fell in love with the country even though he never returned? That seems to have indeed happened to the young Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, so much so that “It was in Spain, as nowhere else that he felt at home…the experience left him with deep impressions that would one day be reflected in his music.”

Indeed, Castelnuovo-Tedesco is a completely fascinating character, who lived a remarkable life even as he dealt with the traumas of bad health, anti-Semitism, and a total uprooting of his life. There is no way I can deal with his biography in any thorough way at all, but I’d encourage you to at least read the Wikipedia article about him if he sounds interesting to you. (But I will include the tidbit here that his hyphenated last name came about because of an inheritance requirement put on his grandfather. You’ll see in the following material that sometimes I just use the initials of his last name.) It’s fascinating to note that a chance meeting with the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia at a music festival in Venice sparked C-T’s eventual composition of over 100 works for the guitar, an instrument he knew nothing about and had never played before this point. But for some reason Segovia asked the composer to write a piece for him. C-T said yes at the time, but later had second thoughts:

Dear Segovia: It would be a great pleasure to write something for you, because I have had the occasion to admire you many times. However, I must confess that I do not know your instrument and I do not have the remotest idea on how to compose for it.

But the great guitarist persisted, encouraging the composer to study other works for the guitar, and eventually C-T sent along his “Variazioni attraverso I secoli” (“Variations Across the Centuries”). Segovia replied that: “It is the first time I have met a musician who understands immediately how to write for the guitar.”

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The story behind the Whitacre/Plitmann “Five Hebrew Love Songs”

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The German town of Speyer, where the Five Hebrew Love Songs was first performed. Image accessed via Pixabay.

Sometimes the genesis of a now-popular piece can be almost unbearably poignant in light of the situation on the ground now. Such is the case with the popular Five Hebrew Love Songs with music by Eric Whitacre and lyrics by Hila Plitmann. Both composer and lyricist have been extremely open about the meaning of the words. Here, for example, is a relevant paragraph from Whitacre’s website, describing how the songs came about in 1996 as the result of a request from the violinist Friedemann Eichhorn:

Because we were appearing as a band of traveling musicians, ‘Friedy’ asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for piano, violin and soprano. I asked [then-girlfriend] Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few ‘postcards’ in her native tongue, and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps, and we performed them [Plitmann sang the soprano part] for the first time a week later in Speyer.

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Is “Scarborough Fair” about Herbs?

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No. Hey, that was easy, wasn’t it? You can just stop reading now if you want to.

However, if you’d really like to know what “Scarborough Fair” is about, I’ll say that the true meaning is probably quite different from the impression you have. That was certainly the case for me, as I always vaguely thought as I listened to Simon and Garfunkel that the song was about a pining lover asking someone to say hello to a former true love if that someone was going to the fair where presumably the former true love was going to be. A wistful “Say ‘hi’ to him/her for me,” in other words, perhaps in the hope that the lover would say, “Oh yeah–I should get in touch.” (This sort of thing never happens.)

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How Did John Tavener’s “Song for Athene” Become Associated with British Royalty?

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Pallbearers leaving Westminster Abbey at the end of Diana’s funeral, as they were accompanied by “Athene.” Image accessed via Parade Magazine.

John Tavener was one of the most intriguing, unconventional, and prolific composers in British music, but it’s fair to say that at least for Americans he’s known for only a couple of pieces, notably “The Lamb” and “Song for Athene.” When my own choir sang that first piece I was woefully ignorant about Tavener, thinking that he was some sort of musical flash in the pan. After all, he’d said, “‘The Lamb’ came to me fully grown and was written in an afternoon and dedicated to my nephew Simon for his 3rd birthday.” Doesn’t that quotation make him sound like someone who just jots down musical compositions as the inspiration strikes him, without taking too much thought?

In reality, this picture of John Tavener as a dilettante is very misleading. As I’ve read about the composer’s work and life (he died in 2013 at the age of 69), it’s become very clear that he worked extremely hard on his compositions and took his work very seriously. He also took his religious faith seriously, converting to the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1977. But don’t think that he was some kind of stern and forbidding sourpuss! He also loved fast cars and had a famous collection of them. He seems to have been one of those rare people who just plunges into life in all sorts of ways. This zesty approach is all the more fascinating when you realize that he suffered from serious health issues for most of his adult life, having had a serious stroke in his thirties as well as several heart attacks and cancer. This panoply of disorders probably stemmed at least partially from the fact that he had a condition called “Marfan’s syndrome,” a genetic disease that attacks the heart and usually leads to abnormal height. Tavener was 6 feet 6 inches tall; most medical historians believe that Abraham Lincoln suffered from the same disease. But Tavener (like Lincoln) didn’t let his suffering dampen his humor: “He told a reporter from London’s Guardian newspaper that doctors couldn’t pinpoint a cause of some of the pain he was enduring. ‘All they ever say is, “You’re lucky to be here at all!’” Tavener said, ‘which is charming.’” But he also saw the spiritual side: “Suffering is a kind of ecstasy, in a way. . . . Having pain all the time makes me terribly, terribly grateful for every moment I’ve got.” (both quotations from “In Memoriam of a Genius”)

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Who was Zadok the priest, and what does he have to do with royal British coronations?

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The Anointing of Solomon by Cornelis de Vos. According to 1 Kings 1:39, Zadok anointed Solomon as king. Image accessed via Wikipedia.

To answer that question it’s necessary to delve into the following ideas:

1. A history of British coronations dating back to 973.

2. An explanation of why a German composer, George Frederick Handel, was commissioned to write a set of coronation anthems for a British ceremony in 1727.

3. A look at the source of the actual text for the anthem referencing said Zadok.

Let’s start with #3. Zadok was the high priest of Israel at the time of King Solomon’s coronation around 970 BCE. The story about his role in this event comes from the book of I Kings in the Jewish Bible; the text for the anthem is shortened and simplified to read:

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A Mysterious Text with Three Beautiful Settings and a Bonus: “Gaelic Blessing/Deep Peace”

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Image by SEIMORI from Pixabay

The miniature gem “Gaelic Blessing” written by John Rutter in 1978 has an interesting connection with the choral music scene in the US. How did that happen with an English composer and a Scottish text? It all started with one of those inexplicable human connections that can never be completely teased out.

John Rutter started his long relationship with America in 1974 when he was contacted by a church choir director, Mel Olson, in Omaha Nebraska, and asked to write a 20-minute piece for Olson’s Chancel Choir. How did someone from Omaha even know about John Rutter, then in the very early stages of his composing career? I don’t know for sure, but it seems possible that Olson had gotten hold of Rutter’s early Christmas music and liked it. Whatever the reason, Rutter was very pleased to get the commission and ended up writing his magnificent Gloria. As he said in answer to my inquiry when I wrote about that piece, “Other commissions from the USA just seemed to follow, to the point where I was able to look upon America as my second home.” And one of those commissions was for “Gaelic Blessing” in 1978, but this time it was the Chancel Choir that reached out for a piece they could dedicate to Olson. I haven’t been able to find a detailed description of Olson’s career, but I’m wondering if this was a farewell gift to him from that choir because he was leaving Omaha. He ended up at in California, where in 1985 he was involved in the initial performances of Rutter’s Requiem.

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Robert Burns and the Lasses–Two Love Songs

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Jean Armour at age 57, 26 years after Burns’ death. Image accessed via Wikipedia.

It’s always a bit of a facer to track down some lovely, idealized idea about a person or artwork and find out the real story. So it’s been with Robert Burns and two of his famous love songs, “O My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose” and “I’ll Ay Call In by Yon Town.” Was he a tender, faithful lover who paid the object of his desire these tributes? Does he stand as an example of proper behavior to those reading his poetry? Did he . . . well, I think you get the gist: the answer to these and similar questions is a resounding “no.”

When Burns died at age 37 he’d fathered 13 children (that we know of) by four different women and had love affairs with a number of others. The only woman he married, though, was Jean Armour. Were she alive today she’d probably be labeled as an “enabler;” she even went so far as to bring up Burns’ daughter by another woman who was born the same month as his son with Jean. As she said, “Oor Rab needed twa wives.” Just to sketch out the relationship between Jean and Burns takes up a fair amount of space. He met her in 1785 when Burns was 26. She quickly became pregnant by him, but her father refused to let the couple marry because of Burns’ poor financial prospects. He went off and got involved with someone else while Jean gave birth to twins. The couple reconciled and married after “many bizarre turnings” and yet another set of twins. She seems to have remained faithful, and her last child by Burns was born on the day of his funeral. He was an on-again, off-again presence in her life. I can’t imagine what they talked about when he was home!

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The Mysterious and Haunting “Skye Boat Song”—Tragic History told in Beautiful Music

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Isle of Skye, Photo by Piotr Musioł on Unsplash

You’ll probably think as you read the lyrics below that they sound familiar, and you’d be right. This song has had a very long and popular life, starting with its first publication in the 1880’s. The most recent incarnation has been as the theme song for the long-running drama Outlander, based on a series of novels by Diana Gabaldon. I’m not going to deal with anything outside of the actual historical origins of the song, as there’s plenty to say just in that area.

The short version of the story behind the lyrics is that it centers around the Battle of Culloden in 1746, in which the Scots were soundly defeated by a much-larger English force. The battle had come about through an attempted restoration of the Stuart dynasty to Britain’s throne, with the Scottish forces being led by Charles Stuart, or “Bonnie Prince Charlie” (and often referred to in the material below as “BPC.”) It’s an incredibly complicated bit of history that I won’t go into in detail here. If you’d like to get a more thorough overview of the events referred to in the song, let me direct you to a post I wrote several years ago that tells the story behind yet another very famous song associated with this battle: “I’ll Take the High Road and You’ll Take the Low Road.”

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Is the song “Grace” based on real people and events?

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Gifford standing outside Kilmainham Jail on 2 May 1916; image accessed via Wikipedia

Oh my goodness to gracious yes. You just never know until you start diving into a piece how much background there is to find. Such is the case here–I’ve had quite a time finding out about the tragic love story of the Irishman Joseph Mary Plunkett and his beloved Grace Gifford. It’s hard to know even where to start, but here goes:

You may have looked at Joseph’s full name and questioned why his middle name is “Mary.” Was that his mother’s name, perhaps, and he had no sisters to carry it on? No. It was a symbol of his deep Roman Catholic faith and his devotion to the Virgin Mary. (I’m assuming that he added the name himself.) Plunkett seems at first glance to be a contradictory figure in Irish history, combining religious mysticism and hard-headed military abilities. In reality, though, Ireland’s desire to be an independent country and not under Protestant English rule stemmed at least in part from its loyalty to Catholicism. So Plunkett could help plan a violent bloody uprising against the government and see it as a profoundly moral cause, which is exactly what he did with his fellow Irish revolutionaries in the spring of 1916 for an event known as the “Easter Uprising” because it started in Dublin on the Monday after Easter. “Wait!” you might say, “1916? World War I is going on at the same time. How did anyone have spare energy for carrying out a revolution?” Good question. In reality, at least part of the reason for this specific rebellion was that it was seen as a way for Irish men to escape conscription into the British army to fight in that war.

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