The Santa Barbara Choral Society and the State Street Ballet open their respective seasons with a collaborative performance, American Masters, featuring the Choral Society and Orchestra conducted by Jo Anne Wasserman, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, at the Granada Theatre.
With choreography by William Soleau, the program includes the work of three American composers: Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” (1965), with chorus, orchestra, and countertenor Jacob Hall; Morten Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna” (1997); and Aaron Copland‘s “Appalachian Spring (ballet for Martha),” (1944) (with the State Street Ballet, artistic directors Rodney Gustafson and William Soleau).
Now that Lenny has, alas, gone from us, and we are no longer dazzled by the sheer voltage of his presence, it is possible to hear his music without feeling we need to cut him some slack out of love for him. It turns out we don’t really need to cut him any slack at all, for the most part — aside from obvious blunders like the Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish” or the egregious “Mass.”
The first two symphonies, the Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium” for solo violin, strings, harp and percussion (1954); the ballet Fancy Free (1944), the musicals On The Town (1944) and West Side Story (1957); his score for Elia Kazan‘s On the Waterfront (1954) — these works continue to grow in stature and become more firmly embedded in our concert halls and stages with every performance.
Then there is the “Chichester Psalms.” Commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival at Chichester Cathedral in England, it has become one of Bernstein’s most widely performed works, second only to West Side Story. It is a brief work, upbeat and tuneful, suffused with Bernstein’s trademark joy in the face of life.
Lauridsen was born in the Eastern Washington town of Colfax (apple country), and worked for awhile as a fire spotter for the Forest Service, before migrating south to Los Angeles to study music at the University of Southern California, with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. After taking his degree in 1967, he joined the USC faculty and has been there ever since.
“Lux Aeterna” gives weight and substance to the adjective “sublime.”
Notwithstanding early masterpieces like John Alden Carpenter‘s Krazy Kat (1921) and Skyscrapers (1924), or Richard Rogers‘ Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1936), it was Aaron Copland who put American ballet on the map, starting with Billy the Kid (1938), continuing with Rodeo (1942), and coming to its first peak with Appalachian Spring (1944).
Written on a commission from the choreographer and dancer Martha Graham, with funds from the Coolidge Foundation, Copland called it, at first, A Ballet for Martha. It was Graham herself who, shortly before the premiere, suggested calling it Appalachian Spring.
Tickets to American Masters are $38, $48, $58 and $106, and are available from the Granada box office, 1214 State St., by phone at 805-899-2222, or online at ticketing.granadasb.org/single/SYOS.aspx?p=13714.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.