Five Chorales from PASSION with Tropes
Don Freund
About this work:
Five Chorales from PASSION WITH TROPES (1983)
1 Chorale of the Bread from Barnfloor and Winepress by Gerard Manley Hopkins for SATB Chorus
Thou that on sin's wages starvest, Behold we have the joy in harvest:
For us was gather'd the first-fruits, For us was lifted from the roots,
Sheaved in cruel hands, bruised sore, Scourged upon the threshing floor;
Where the upper mill-stone roof'd His head, At morn we found the heavenly Bread, And on a thousand Altars laid, Christ our Sacrifice is made.
2 Chorale of the Blood from The Agonie by George Herbert for SATB chorus
Who would know love, let him essay And taste that juice which on the crosse a pike Did set again abroach: Then let him say If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, Which my God feels as bloud, but I as wine.
3 Ballad of the Trees and the Master by Sidney Lanier SSATB Chorus and Roto-Toms
Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went, And he was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: 'Twas on a tree they slew Him - last When out of the woods He came.
4 Song with Bach Chorale from God and Man by Richard Eberhart for SATB Chorus Pop Baritone, and Piano
My grandmother said I was an atheist God said I was a man. My father took me by the hand, My mother vanished in a mist. In the rich stores of the ether The future was seen as the past, Flesh was aerial prescience, And the devil was seen last.
In time you have no grandmother For ancient earth recedes. Your father and your mother go, But God says, you are a man.
Between budding leaf and blue sky Angels of mercy were spreading, Like bees around the cider-press Diffusing this blood with murmurousness.The angels were the archetypes. Would go away while devils overcame Time, and chased the crooked years, You still lusting after evil.
Every one a father and a mother has And every one more ancient staffs, Yet all lose even loss itself When God says, you are Man. For man precedes his knowledge Aroused within his variant myth, A stalwart, fiery with animus Whose death is only another dream.
And God has the deep justice, And God has the last laugh. To be God God needs man As man needs God to be man.
Bach Chorale (from St. John Passion): Petrus, der nicht denkt zurück
Peter, while his conscience slept, Thrice denied his Saviour, When it woke he bitter wept, At his base behavior. Jesus, let me not forget; True devotion teach me; When on evil I am set, Through my conscience reach me.
5 Pieta Chorale (Anonymous 15th Century) SATB chorus with chorus soloists
Lully, lulley, lully, lulley, The fawcon hath born my make away.
He bare hym up, he bare hym down, He bare hym into an orchard browne.
In that orchard there was an halle That was hangid with purpill and pall.
And in that hall there was a bede; Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
And yn that bed there lyeth a knight, His wowndis bledyng day and nyght.
By that bedeside kneleth a may, And she wepeth both nyght and day.
And by that bedeside there stondith a ston, "Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.
Year composed: 1983
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus, Unaccompanied
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: Roto-Toms in Chorale 3, Piano in Chorale 4