With its March 2007 revival of Lukas Foss’s The Prairie, the Providence Singers began an exploration of “American Treasures” that has carried the chorus through its first two commercial recordings. The focus is on excellent choral works by American composers — works that are not frequently performed and may not be familiar to American audiences.

American Treasures

Rich, witty, full of alliteration, and wonderfully inventive, Jonah and the Whale delights and instructs listeners of all ages with its clear lesson: Face woe with fortitude, and joy will follow.

Composer Dominick Argento drew from several sources to prepare his text, but he found his chief inspiration in a ceiling mural by the late 15th-century Swedish artist Albertus Pictor, worked into the CD cover, right. Argento said he sought to capture Pictor’s “blending of simplicity and sophistication” in a musical form.

The music ranges through many styles, from twelve-tone to sea shanteys, and the text is dramatic, humorous, full of subtle anachronisms, and strikingly alliterative throughout, a nod to medieval sagas and epics in which alliteration was an important technique analogous to rhyme in later verse.

Jonah and the Whale was commissioned for the professional choral organization now known as VocalEssence by Plymouth Congregational Church and the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Providence Singers and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project gave two performances in the fall of 2008 (November 7 and 9) and recorded the work a week later at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Mass. The finished CD, on the BMOP sound label, will be available in the first quarter of 2010.

About the concert  |  Composer’s notes

American Treasures

Lukas Foss was 19 when he encountered Carl Sandburg’s gritty 1918 epic poem The Prairie. As a young immigrant, Foss recognized an energy and optimism in Sandburg’s factory workers, lumberjacks, farmhands, prairie girls, and city builders and immediately began composing a musical setting. Robert Shaw presented the world première on May 15, 1944.

In March 2007, the Providence Singers, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and soloists gave The Prairie its first performance in more than 20 years, reintroducing the work to American audiences in an “American Treasures” concert. The Singers and guest artists recorded the work a week later. That recording — the Singers’s first commercial CD — is now available on the BMOP Sound label. The concert and recording were supported in part by an “American Masterpieces” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Review:
“BMOP Sound just barely managed to get this one out before Foss passed away at the age of 86; of any music he had composed that had never been recorded, this is probably the most desirable title anyone could have revived, and it provides a fitting testimonial to a great American composer.”  Full text

About the concert  |  Download CD booklet (pdf)  |  BMOP sound