St. Martin's Lutheran Church in Austin
A week ago Friday, I went with my mother to hear Seattle composer John Muehleisen's epic work Pieta at St. Martin's Lutheran Church in downtown Austin. I have some very specific memories of another long-ago concert in this same church. It was where I performed the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Civic Orchestra when I was fourteen, wearing a bright pink dress my mother sewed for me. This was a much darker affair. The 90-minute long Pieta performance was the second night of Conspirare's ten-day long comPassion Festival, organized by Conspirare's director Craig Hella Johnson. Conspirare is Mr. Johnson's brain-child: a virtuoso choir which explores a variety of genres and themes and brings choral music into unexplored realms.
Pieta is scored for SATB choir, a chorus of male chanters, girls choir, soprano and tenor solos, two oboes (second doubling English horn), two percussionists, organ, and the choir of the audience. The piece utilized the towering church space and the dark of evening. The chanters and girls choir sang in the loft at back of the church near the organ. The table and rails at the front of the church were moved for the performance and risers put in their place. The oboes and percussion were nestled in the horseshoe of the choir at the front, with soprano soloist Nicole Greenwood Smith standing on one side, and tenor soloist Ross Hauck standing on the other. Conductor Craig Hella Johnson stood in the middle. The overhead lights were dimmed, but subtle light design bathed elements of the church structure in symbolic colors at various points.
The work began rather bewilderingly with a single percussionist in the narthex clacking a rhythm on a long piece of wood - I later learned it was an instrument used to call Eastern Orthodox monks to prayer. As the percussionist made his way down the center aisle to the front, it became clear that this noise was the start of the music, and not some building malfunction disturbing the peace. As the percussionist processed, many in the audience couldn't help but hear nails being driven into Jesus' cross.
The music we heard for the next hour and a half was both familiar and weirdly unheard-of. There were musical quotes from religious works of Bach but with words from World War I poets about guns. There were chants from Eastern Orthodox Good Friday services with words about Jesus death. There was a Civil War song, sung by a lonely tenor voice. There was a wild vocalise from the stunning soprano with a mumbling and almost frightening chorus behind her. The music swelled to deafening roars and hushed to a nearly silent hum.
The texts varied wildly. We slid back and forth through three different stories in the seamless fashion of a talented screen writer. We heard words from the eulogy given at Matthew Shepherd's funeral and were asked the question, Why did this tragedy happen? We heard the story of John Kippling and his mother Carrie. John wanted to go fight in the Great War. His mother didn't want him to go, but his father Rudyard got him the medical exemption he needed. John was killed on the front, and we heard his mother's mourning and the question, Why? We heard about the flogging and crucifixion of Jesus and his mother Mary's question, Why? Jesus' death had meaning. Maybe these other deaths could have meaning, too. We are being called to be transformed and to work for peace. These thoughts came from the pens of John Kippling and Rudyard Kippling, several other poets, the New Testament, the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, a contemporary Methodist sermon, a Civil War song, Catholic liturgy, and the composer himself; they were all woven together into one large, striped fabric.
The ending of Pieta was as dramatic as its beginning. The organ played a verse of a beautiful old hymn in a brilliant key, and the audience was invited to our feet to join all the choirs in singing all the verses about hope in God.
This was not the sort of performance which could be enjoyed as well on a recording in one's living room. The room and the staging contributed substantially to the message of the work.
When the performance was over, a small group of us joined John Muehleisen and Craig Hella Johnson in the church's chapel for a discussion. People of all faiths had beautiful comments and questions about the work, and it was wonderful to hear the composer and conductor speak about some of their thoughts. I also spoke with the tenor soloist Ross Hauck, because he and I did Messiah together in Tacoma this past Easter, and I think we're slated to do Messiah together again in Tacoma in November.
Composer John Muehleisen
- Considering Matthew Shepherd, a work in progress, by Craig Hella Johnson
- Durufle's Requiem
- A Gnostic Passion, by twin brothers Doug and Brad Balliet, in a workshop reading of a new piano 4-hands version
- J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion
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