Compositions

I used English translations of Bach cantata texts and the words of the "O Antiphons" in my Advent Cantata. It is set for a Bach-style (period or not) orchestra: two oboes, strings and continuo. I dedicated it to our retiring Senior Pastor at Saint Peter's Church, the Rev. Amandus Derr. The Saint Peter's Bach Collegium premiered it for his ordination anniversary concert on January 25, 2020.

The design of my cantata follows closely that of Bach's Chorale Cantatas, in which  every movement has an unmistakable reference to its chorale tune or text, in my case the Advent Hymn "O Come, O come Emmanuel."  It is hard to miss the reference to BWV 140 in the concerto-style opening chorale fantasy, but I included some more subtle Bach techniques from his later period. The aria (No. 5) is interrupted by the choir (like in some arias in the St Matthew Passion), the Chorale fantasy (No. 9), in the oboes play the cantus firmus with three ornate vocal lines around it (like Suscepit in the Magnificat) and the arioso is a recit that sometimes becomes an arioso with the choir commenting on it. I chose the texts carefully, to be consistent with the Advent message of the O Antiphons. (My favorite is probably the bass aria No. 5 that has a poignant Lutheran text.)

1. Chorus

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Hymn “O come, O come,” Vs. 1

2. Recit (T)

Marvel, o humanity, at this great mystery:
the Supreme Ruler appears to the world.
Here the treasures of heaven are uncovered,
here a divine manna is presented to us,
O miracle! The purity will be entirely unblemished

3. Aria (S)

Prepare the ways, prepare the path!
Prepare the ways
and make the footpaths
in faith and in life
smooth before the Highest.
The Messiah is coming!
Da capo
Text: BWV 132 No. 1, translation by Alfred Dürr

4. Recit (T)

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Text: O Antiphons (O Sapientia)

5. Aria (B) with Choir

Who are you? Ask your conscience,
then you must hear without hypocrisy whether you,
O human, are false or true.
Who are you? Ask the law,
it will tell you who you are,
a child of wrath in Satan's net,
A false and hypocritical Christian

Choir:
A false Christian, a child of wrath!
Da capo

Text: BWV 132 No. 1, translation by Alfred Dürr

6. Chorale (SSA)

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
Text: O Antiphons (O Adonai)

7. Arioso (T) with Choir

I would freely confess to you God, I have not rightly acknowledged you before.
Though mouth and lips call you Lord and Father, yet my heart has turned away from you.

Choir:
I have denied you in my living.

Tenor:
How can you give me good testimony?
When Jesus your spirit and baptismal water cleansed me of my misdeeds,
I indeed promised to keep constant firm
faithfulness with you. Ahh, but alas the baptismal
Covenant is broken, I repent the unfaithfulness.

Choir:
O God have mercy on me!

Tenor:
O help me with unswerving loyalty
I may constantly renew in Faith the covenant of Grace.

Text: BWV 132 translation by Alfred Dürr

8. Aria (S)

Members of Christ consider what the savior has given to you
through baptism’s purifying bath!
With his blood and water fountain your garments become bright,
Which were stained with misdeeds.
Christ gave you as new garments scarlet, purple, white silk: these are the Christian’s splendor.

Members of Christ consider what the savior has given to you
through baptism’s purifying bath!

9. Chorale

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Hymn “O come, O come,” Vs. 2

I preserved the beautiful chanted lines of these ancient rites of the Compline Service, treating the Gregorian lines very carefully to preserve their essential beauty and modal qualities. For the words of the Anthem (No. 2) and the Lord's Prayer, I have chosen an open and transparent harmonic language that are more homophonic than the rest of the movements. Overall this piece is probably the best I have done for a cappella. Commissioned by the Rev. Jared Stahler for an interfaith service at Saint Peter's Church in 2019.

I. Opening

"Almighty God, grant us a quiet night and peace at the last"

II. Anthem

"Let Light Shine out of Darkness"
2 Corinthians 4:6-7 John 17: 11b

III.Responsory

"Into your hands O Lord, I commend my spirit"

IV. Gospel Canticle

"Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping that awake we may watch with
Christ and asleep we may rest in peace"
- Prayers (chanted with harmonized Amen)

V. Our Father

- Prayers (chanted with harmonized Amen)
- Blessing (chanted with harmonized Amen)

An arrangement of the great Lutheran tune "Lasst uns Erfreuen" with an unnecessarily difficult harp part. We had one of the best harp players in the city (Melanie Genin) for our 2018 Easter service, so I made a nice part for her. She was very happy and so were the people listening.

I used a favorite small, symphonic-sounding chamber ensemble for this arrangement for our 2018 Easter service at Saint Peter's. The melody, an old French Carol, is in fact a Christmas tune re-fitted with an Easter text by John Campbell Crum (1872-1958). Since there was going to be dance during our service, I went all the way and used a rather blasphemes quotation from Richad Strauss' "Dance of the Seven Veils." There were no complaints from the clergy nor the parishioners. Only in New York City.. There is also a quite crazy piccolo passage at the end, which I rewrote for a subsequent performance per the request by the flute player Brandon George, but I still like the first, crazy version better.

Noël Nouvelet/Now the Green Blade Rises
(2018) for choir, orchestra and congregation by Bálint Karosi
The Saint Peter's Choir, Orchestra and Dance at Saint Peter's

1 Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

2 In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

3 Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead the risen One is seen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

4 When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Jesus' touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Another Easter work based on the appointed Psalm 118 for Easter Sunday "This is the Day the Lord Has Made (2016)

I wrote this piece for a commission by the Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, CT to be performed at the closing concert of Simon Carrington's annual choir workshop. I commissioned Kai Hoffman-Krull to write a poem about the arbitrary redrawing of borders (re. the Russia-Crimea conflict earlier that year).  Molly Netter did a wonderful job with the demanding vocal lines.

Lines on a Page (2014)
--Kai Hoffman Krull
When did men begin owning this land? When did they look over a river,
see sun spilling over the creases of water, and believe this belonged to man?

Do you remember the day
you brought me to the river?
do you remember leaving
our shoes in the sand?
Do you remember how you cast
the pole like trees in wind.
Do you remember
as you brought that trout in
and laid it on the beach,
how the scales looked like wood
becoming coals becoming heat.
Do you remember the knife
you placed in my hand,
how the blade caught light
growing heavy in the sky
as though the day’s end
wished to linger.
I ask this brother
For my memories are less and less mine
lost ever more in the current of time.
Whose hand brought blood and why?
I am a wanderer in the wilderness of the mind.

This work for SSAATTBB a capella was commissioned by Andrew Shenton for the Boston Choral Ensemble in 2014. I set a haunting poem by William Butler Yeats. Here are samples of the world premier sung by BCE, conducted by Andrew Shenton.

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
And walk among long dappled grass,

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

It was my first collaboration with poet Kai Hoffmann Krull, who wrote the words for my cantata "Words of Beginning" for the 175th anniversary of First Lutheran church of Boston. Kai's text reflects the light and dark imagery in J. S. Bach’s great Reformation cantata BWV 79 “Gott, der Herr ist Sonn und Schild” and is expanded to a narrative on Genesis the star of Bethlehem and Luther’s enlightenment. I used almost the same orchestration as Bach in his Reformation Cantata. In 2018 I re-orchestrated the soprano aria for period instruments for a performance at Saint Peter's NYC for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.

Program Booklet-Words of Beginning

1. Opening Chorus

In the beginning was the word
and the word was with him and in him and him

What story does the sun tell of the Holy
as lumen spilled from pen to page of day
words capturing each crest of wave
each crease of current, each ripple, each fragile break
of water upon water
upon water upon water
as wind formed crescents on the surface
the day when light was made

What of the stars that day when day was shaped

what of their questions as they were molded like clay
by hands of words and words of light
what did they think as their glow moved away
into darkness that was beginning before it began
what did they see when seeing became sight?

2. Aria (S)

Before he followed the star
the shepherd followed whiteness,
woolen backs entering fields
of long grass filled with the long sun,
the moist dew of dawn.
With wind from the east each blade
bowed as though giving themselves
to the unseen. Soon he too will bow
in the words of light,
for the sight of wings
feathers of a whiteness more than white,
a brightness more than bright.

3 Aria (B)

Before he wrote he prayed
and the feather flew across the page
between ink and each impression of grain
words speaking back to him
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven

4 Chorale

"Now thank we all our God"

I wrote this piece for Canto Armonico and Simon Carrington. I used the biblical text of the annunciation, when the angel appears to Mary that she will be with a child. I was influenced by the music of the masters of the Notre Dame Polyphony and Franz Liszt.

I set this haunting poem about Endymion, who was loved by the Moon by Borges for choir and a small instrumental ensemble. The dreamy quality (and content) of the poem fascinated me and recreated that atmosphere with Ligetiesque micro-polyphony as a winter-term project while studying at Oberlin.

I was sleeping on the mountain top
and spent by the years my body was lovely.
Deep in the Hellenic night, the centaur
paused in his quadruple race
to spy on my sleep. It was a pleasure
to sleep in order to dream, and to seek the other
lustral sleep that eludes memory
and cleanses us of the burden of being who we are on earth.
Diana, the goddess who is also the moon,
saw me sleeping on the mountain
and slowly descended into my arms.
Gold and love in a night ablaze.
I pressed fingers to my mortal eyelids
I wanted not to see the lovely face
my lips of clay were profaning.
I breathed in the fragrance of them moon
and her infinite voice spoke my name.
Oh, the pure, sought after cheeks.
Oh rivers of love and of night.
Oh the human kiss and tensed bow.
I don’t know how long the bliss lasted.
There are things not measured by grape
or flower or delicate snow
People flee from me, afraid
of the man who was loved by the moon.
The years have passed. An inner anguish
brings horror to my sleeplessness. I ask myself
if that tumult of gold on the mountain
was true, or only a dream.
Useless to tell myself that a dream
and the memory of yesterday are the same thing.
My solitude wanders the ordinary
roads of earth, but I always search
the ancient night of the spirits
for the daughter of Zeus, the indifferent moon.

Yo dormía en la cumbre y era hermoso
mi cuerpo, que los años han gastado.
Alto en la noche helénica, el centauro
demoraba su cuádruple carrera
para atisbar mi sueño. Me placía
dormir para soñar y para el otro
sueño lustral que elude la memoria
y que nos purifica del gravamen
de ser aquel que somos en la tierra.
Diana, la diosa que es también la luna,
me veía dormir en la montaña
y lentamente descendió a mis brazos
oro y amor en la encendida noche.
Yo apretaba los párpados mortales,
yo quería no ver el rostro bello
que mis labios de polvo profanaban.
Yo aspiré la fragancia de la luna
Y su infinita voz dijo mi nombre.
Oh las puras mejillas que se buscan,
oh ríos del amor y de la noche,
oh el beso humano y la tensión del arco.
No sé cuánto duraron mis venturas;
hay cosas que no miden los racimos
ni la flor ni la nieve delicada.
La gente me rehúye. Le da miedo
el hombre que fue amado por la luna.
Los años han pasado. Una zozobra
da horror a mi vigilia. Me pregunto
si aquel tumulto de oro en la montaña
fue verdadero o no fue más que un sueño.
Inútil repetirme que el recuerdo
de ayer un sueño son la misma cosa.
Mi soledad recorre los comunes
caminos de la tierra, pero siempre
busco en la antigua noche de los númenes
la indiferente luna, hija de Zeus.

Jorge Luis Borges