Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The music on this recording reflects several years of my association with Ars Nova
Copenhagen. Contrary to our usual way of working, however, the recordings have
been made at different times, in more than one place, and with slightly different
configurations of singers. The composers are from numerous different backgrounds,
although some of them certainly have elements in common. But basically this is a disc
of vocal music by composers most of whom Im fortunate to have known personally,
and almost all the works on this CD are first recordings.
Paul Hillier
Recording producer and sound engineer: Preben Iwan. Recorded 2006-2015 in Garnisons Kirke, Copenhagen
Ars Nova Copenhagen is a group of 12 singers. The members, and former members, who participated in these recordings are
listed in alphabetical order by voice group.
sopranos: Kate Macoboy, Hilde Dolva, Hanna Kappelin, Ann-Christin Wesser Ingels, Louise Skovbch, Else Torp
altos: Signe Asmussen, Ellen Marie Christensen, Rikke Lender, Linna Lomholt, Kristin Mulders, Elenor Wiman
tenors: Paul Bentley-Angel, Christian Damsgaard, Kasper Eliassen, Ivan Hansen, Tomas Medici, Jakob Skjoldborg, Lus Toscano
basses: Thomas Kirbye, Asger Lynge Petersen, Henrik Lund Petersen, Jakob Soelberg
organ: Christopher Bowers-Broadbent (on Walking Song)
percussion: Mathias Friis-Hansen, David Hildebrandt (on Know What Is Above You)
Executive producers: Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kenny Savelson and Julia Wolfe
Label manager: Bill Murphy | Cantaloupe sales manager: Adam Cuthbert
Art direction: Denise Burt / elevator-design.dk. Image of moon by Kaarina Dillabough (CC BY-SA 2.0)
first drop
ARS NOVA COPENHAGEN
Conducted by PAUL HILLIER
10. STEVE REICH Clapping Music (vocal arr. by Paul Hillier) 3:24
11. TERRY RILEY Mexico City Blues chorus 193 7:19
HOWARD SKEMPTON Rise up my love MICHAEL GORDON He Saw a Skull
Howard Skempton is one of a group of British composers who This was specially composed for the twelve voices of Ars Nova.
in the 1980s were identified as experimental, in the sense MG writes:
that they wrote tonal music that was often intimate in scale, The singers are divided into three groups of four voices,
avoided the rhetoric of modernism, and were inspired by with each group singing major and minor harmonies that are
Satie, Cage, and Reich while not necessarily imitating them approached by glissando. The text is taken from a short saying
to the extent of being labeled as minimalists. I commissioned by Rabbi Hillel found in the Talmudic tractate Pirke Avot.
this lovely choral work for the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber
Choir when I was their artistic director. I still fondly remember He saw a skull floating on the water. He said to the skull,
receiving the score in the post at my summer house, and being Because you
very moved by the tender sensuality of the music. The words drowned others, they drowned you. And they who drowned
are from the Song of Solomon. you will themselves
be drowned.
i) Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear
upon the earth. The time of singing of birds is come, And the DAVID LANG when we were children
voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig-tree putteth
forth her green figs, And the vines with the tender grapes give
DL writes: The director Francesca Zambello asked me to write
a good smell. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, In
something for choir, as a companion piece for a staging of my
the secret places of the stairs, Let me see thy countenance, let
work the little match girl passion. I wanted to make something
me hear thy voice; For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
that shared the spiritual questioning of the passion, and was
is comely. Rise up my love, my fair one.
also somehow appropriate for children. I remembered this
famous line from Saint Paul: When I was a child, I spake as a
ii) How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when
is thy love than wine! And the smell of thine ointments than all
I became a man, I put away childish things. That is the King
spices!
James version. Of course, this line wasnt originally in English.
Paul was born a Jew in what is now Turkey, he worshipped in
iii) My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of
Hebrew and he spoke Greek. This famous Christian line must
spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
have gone on an interesting journey to get to King James, and
to us. I compiled all the differing translations into English that I
iv) How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! I
could find, I cut them up into phrases and I alphabetized them,
am my beloveds and his desire is toward me.
creating a kind of catalog of its meaning, as it changes from
translation to translation.
I am done with childish ways I spoke and thought and reasoned as but, when I became a man
I did away with childish things a child but now that I have become a man
I do not act like a child anymore I spoke as a child but when I became a man
I felt as a child I spoke like a child but when I became an adult,
I gave up childish ways I stopped doing things like a child but when I grew up
I gurgled and cooed like any infant I stopped those childish ways but when I was made a man
I had done with what belonged to I talked and felt and thought like a but when we grew up
the child little child just so
I had the intelligence I talked like a child my childish speech and feeling and
I had the understanding of a child I thought as a child thought have no further
I have finished with childish ways I thought as a little child significance for me
I have made useless the things of I thought like a child my speech, feelings, and thinking were all
the babe I understood as a child those of a child
I have no more use for childish ways I understood as a little child now I am a man
I have outgrown childish ways I understood like a child now that I am a man
I have put away childish things I used to speak like a child now that I am an adult
I left those infant ways for good I used to speak like a child, think like now that I am become a man
I no longer used childish ways a child, reason like a child now that I have become a man
I put an end to childish ways I avoided those things that were of reason like a child
I put aside childish things a little child since I became a man
I put away childish things Ive put an end to childish things the thoughts of a child
I put away the things of a child think like a child
I put childish ways behind me and have put them aside thought like a child
I put the ways of childhood behind me and I made plans like a child we quit our childish ways
I reasoned as a child and reasoned like a child we thought and reasoned
I reasoned like a child and when I have become a man when I became a man
I set aside childish ways argued like a child when I became an adult
I set aside the things of a child as a babe I was reasoning when I grew up
I set aside those childish ways as a babe I was speaking when I was a babe
I spake as a child as a babe I was thinking when I was a child
I spake as a little child as children do when I was a little child
when I was an infant at my mothers breast
when we were children
KEVIN VOLANS Walking Song 3. Laboravi in gemitu meo, lavabo per singulas noctes lectum
meum, lacrimis meis stratum meum rigabo.
Volans was born in 1949 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I am weary with my groaning, all night I make my bed swim, I
He is now an Irish citizen. Walking Song was originally written water my couch with tears.
for flute, harpsichord and clappers; the organ version played
here was made in 1986 and premiered in Dublin by Gerald 4. Haec dies quam fecit Dominus: exultemus et laetemur in
Barry. I have often programmed this work in the company ea. Alleluia. Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus quoniam in
of vocal works like the ones on this CD, so it seems to me saeculum misericordia eius.
to belong here. This is the day which the Lord made: let us be glad and rejoice
organ: Christopher Bowers-Broadbent in it. Alleluia.
Praise the Lord, for he is good for his mercy endures for ever.
193rd Chorus
Who has accomplished,
And is accomplishing,
And will accomplish,
All these words
Of mystery,
Svaha,
So be it,
Amen.
Numberless roses arranged,
The milk of merriment
without the curds,
The Pleased Milk
of Humankindness
The Frowns of worried saints,
The helpless Hands of Buddha
burning,
The Crown Prince of the Lotus
Blossom Sky,
Lover of all the mental phantoms For more about everything you hear on this CD, visit cantaloupemusic.com or arsnova.dk.
To get specially priced advance copies of all our new releases, as well as catalog discounts and other
in the mind perks, join the Cantaloupe Club at club.bangonacan.org, or join our digital subscription service at
Wordmaker, curdmaker drip.kickstarter.com/cantaloupe.
Kingmaker, Ding
Dong, the Buddhas Gong Cantaloupe Music is from the creators of Bang on a Can.
& 2017 Cantaloupe Music, LLC. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.
Cantaloupe Music, 80 Hanson Place, Suite 301, Brooklyn, NY 11217
www.cantaloupemusic.com | CA21127 UPC/EAN 713746312725