Hear works that use form of the mass, but not the traditional content, in music by the late Icleandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, and the sound design team, O & A. Plus, music by Canadian composer Matthew Patton and UK-based Jocelyn Pook.
Listen to sections of Drone Mass, “a contemporary oratorio,” for voices, string quartet, and electronics by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. The title refers to the musical idea of drone, but also its more recent associations with drone warfare, surveillance, and death. The program notes credit Jóhannsson’s textual source material to the so-called “Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians”, but there are also passages of vocalise-style writing using strings of vowel sounds. The 2022 recording is by the vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, and members of American Contemporary Music Ensemble, aka ACME, who toured and recorded with Jóhannsson for almost ten years. While this recording was made after Jóhannsson's death, “an engineer located his performance sound files, incorporating them with the musicians to offer a composer's gift from the great beyond,” (NPR Music’s Tom Huizenga.)
Hear some of American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered for chorus and a 12-piece ensemble, where text by Nathaniel Bellows supplants the more usual mass content in Latin or Greek. Then, listen to some of Requiem for Fossil Fuels, a memorial mass, by sound designers Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger, which combines human voices and the highly-processed site-specific sounds of fossil fuels being used (an 8-channel “Orchestra of Cities”), controlled by the composers.
There’s also a selection from Canadian composer Matthew Patton's The Infected Mass, a haunted minimalist requiem of sorts, which combines strings and choral voices recorded in both Winnipeg and Iceland - 'ghost strings' and 'ghost choir'- , along with drones and found sound. Plus, hear some of Alfred Schnittke’s Requiem, written as a theatre piece, not as a liturgical work, and more. - Caryn Havlik
Program #4603, Works Based on the Mass or Requiem
ARTIST: Gallicantus, and instrumentalists
WORK: Sarah Kirkland Snider: Kyrie [1:19]
RECORDING: Sarah Kirkland Snider: Mass for the Endangered
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records / Nonesuch Records
INFO: sarahkirklandsnider.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, and ACME
WORK: Jóhann Jóhannsson: One is True [3:36]
RECORDING: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass
SOURCE: Deutsche Grammophon
INFO: deutschegrammophon.com
ARTIST: Gallicantus, and instrumentalists
WORK: Sarah Kirkland Snider: Kyrie [6:44]
RECORDING: Sarah Kirkland Snider: Mass for the Endangered
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records / Nonesuch Records
INFO: sarahkirklandsnider.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A)
WORK: Requiem for Fossil Fuels: Kyrie [5:37]
RECORDING: Live, World Financial Center, November 12, 2010
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: www.o-a.info/rfff/index.html
ARTIST: Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, and ACME
WORK: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Divine Objects [7:04]
RECORDING: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass
SOURCE: Deutsche Grammophon
INFO: deutschegrammophon.com
ARTIST: Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, and ACME
WORK: Jóhann Jóhannsson: The Low Drone Of Circulating Blood, Diminishes With Time [3:54]
RECORDING: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass
SOURCE: Deutsche Grammophon
INFO: deutschegrammophon.com
ARTIST: Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, and ACME
WORK: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Moral Vacuums [5:06]
RECORDING: Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass
SOURCE: Deutsche Grammophon
INFO: deutschegrammophon.com
ARTIST: Joceyln Pook
WORK: Joceyln Pook: Requiem Aeternam [4:24]
RECORDING: Flood
SOURCE: Virgin #48150
INFO: jocelynpook.com
ARTIST: Those Who Walk Away
WORK: 7, After The End [6:57]
RECORDING: The Infected Mass
SOURCE: Constellation Records CST 122
INFO: cstrecords.com
ARTIST: Hymnia Chamber Choir Flemming Windekilde, cond
WORK: Schnittke: Requiem [4:07]
RECORDING: Schnittke: Requiem from the music to Schiller`s drama Don Carlos
SOURCE: Classico 3601
INFO: Out of print, but try auction sites
