Music Notes 3-31-24

Once again, it’s Easter morning and it’s time to celebrate.  We welcome our extra musicians, artists that play with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Disneyland Band and in the studios.  The glorious sound of the brass, the organ, the timpani, the voices, all combine to bring the joy of the resurrection to a level that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  I hope you leave the service with a sense of euphoria – that means I did my job.  Happy Easter!

Also Sprach Zarasthustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra) is an orchestral tone poem by German composer Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 when he was 32 years old.  It was inspired by the philosophical novel of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche.  The opening fanfare, which he titled “Sunrise” in his program notes, became wildly famous when it was used extensively in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001, A Space Odyssey.  By the time of the 2nd World War, Richard Strauss was the most famous composer in the world.  He had written orchestral works and operas that had put him on the very short list of composers who were absolute masters of both melody and orchestration.  To this day, his opera Der Rosenkavalier (“The Knight of the Rose”) is considered to be one of the very best in history, and the closing trio, even if you don’t particularly like opera or understand the German language, is considered to be the closest thing to musical ecstasy ever written.  Listen to it on YouTube sometime – turn up the volume, because with the specified 125 piece orchestra, it will blow your mind.  Wanting to take advantage of his fame, the Nazis appointed him, without his consent, to the position of music master of the Third Reich.  He took advantage of his position to save a number of Jews from prosecution (including his daughter-in-law), then packed up his family and escaped to Austria, where he hid for the remainder of the war.  Ironically, the first Allied soldier to find him and tell him the war was over was an oboe player from the New York Philharmonic, who recognized him and immediately asked him to write something for oboe (he agreed).

John Williams is an international icon and national treasure.  He attended North Hollywood High School, then UCLA, then was drafted into the US Air Force, where he conducted and wrote arrangements for the Air Force Band.  He then went to Julliard School of Music, where he studied piano, and worked as a jazz pianist in the New York nightclubs.  After moving back to Los Angeles, he began working as a session pianist (in those days, he was known as Johnny Williams), especially with Henry Mancini.  He was the pianist on the famous recording of Peter Gunn (we know that piece as the background music for the movie The Blues Brothers), and was the pianist for Marilyn Monroe on the movie Some Like It Hot.  He wrote music for TV shows like Lost In Space and the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island, and began transitioning to movies.  His first movie score was a B movie called Daddy-O, his first Oscar nomination was for 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, and his first Oscar win was for 1971’s Fiddler on the Roof.  In 1974 he was approached by Steven Spielberg to write the score for The Sugarland Express, and the rest is history.  Spielberg recommended John to his pal George Lucas to write the score for a little movie called Star Wars, and history exploded.  In 1984, the Olympic Organizing Committee commissioned him to write a fanfare to be debuted at the opening ceremonies, and it has become part of the Olympic tradition, as well as one of the most recognized orchestral pieces of the 20th century.  The composer told Jon Burlingame in 1992 that his music was intended to musically represent “the spirit of cooperation, of heroic achievement, all the striving and preparation that go before the events and all the applause that comes after them.”

John Rutter is a British composer, born in London in 1945, and one of the most recognized composers of church music in the world.  His work includes carols (both original and arrangements of familiar carols), anthems, choral works and larger musical compositions.  He has written for the King’s Singers and regularly records his music with his own chorus, the Cambridge Singers.  Many of his larger works, including his Gloria and his Requiem, are considered classics and are part of standard repertoire.  This Easter, we’re singing the first movement of his Gloria, which was written for Mel Olsen, a choral conductor in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1974, and was his first American commission.  Rutter composed it according to Olson's specifications, noting his influence: "Much of the credit must go to Mel Olson … because, in telling me what he was looking for in a new choral work, he was telling me what thousands of other choral directors were looking for too”.

Craig Courtney is one of the dominant forces in the world of church anthems.  He is currently the Executive Music Editor for Beckenhorst Press in Columbus, Ohio, and was the protégé of the founder, the legendary John Ness Beck.  What his resume doesn’t tell you is how he started composing (I got this information one day over coffee with him).  He was a staff piano teacher at the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.  Sitting in his cubicle, day after day, waiting for piano students to arrive (or not), he began to improvise and noodle.  This brought about his first big publication, Thy Will Be Done (which we happen to have in our library).  He sent that to John Ness Beck, founder of Beckenhorst Music Publications, and the rest is history.  This week’s offertory, Coronation, was composed in 1986 and invokes visions of the Coronation of King Charles of England – a slow, majestic procession and text that talks about “crowning Him Lord of All”