Roberto Sierra’s powerful, rhythmic Missa Latina
Roberto Sierra's Missa Latina will be performed by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia on April24th with guest soloists Heidi Grant Murphy and Nathaniel Webster.
By Tom Di Nardo
The Latin Mass began its evolution during the seventh century, with Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Notre Dame—from around 1360—the first known example in its eventually-accepted form.
Since that time, thousands of Masses have been composed which include the Kyrie-Gloria-Credo-Sanctus-Agnus Dei core elements, usually set to Latin texts. Perhaps the grandest of them all, Bach’s B Minor Mass, was unacceptable to his Lutheran church and not heard during his lifetime. The form evolved through Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, though many were conceived for concert rather than liturgical purposes. In recent times, Leonard Bernstein’s eclectic MASS and Osvaldo Golijov’s polysourced La Pasión Según San Marcos have expanded the use of popular forms, different languages and many ethnic flavors.
Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina refers not only to the Latin texts, with prayers to peace added to its extremities, but to the rhythmic palette he brings from his native Puerto Rico. These rhythms on claves, bongos, congas, and timbales emerge organically with a sense of inevitability, never jarring and always with stunning dramatic effect.
The Mass, subtitled “Pro Pace,” was commissioned in 2003 to celebrate two anniversaries: the 75th of the National Symphony of Washington, D. C., and the 40th of the Washington Choral Arts Society. Leonard Slatkin conducted the premiere on February 2, 2006, with the 75-minute work featuring enormously challenging solos for soprano Heidi Grant Murphy and baritone Nathaniel Webster. An excellent recent Naxos recording of the work, with the Milwaukee Symphony led by Andreas Delfs, features the same two soloists.
Murphy and Webster will also join the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, conducted by Alan Harler, in the Philadelphia premiere of Missa Latina on April 24. The venue will be the restored Baptist Temple at Broad and Berks Streets, a 36,000 square-foot space neglected for 35 years and given a $30 million restoration. Built in 1891 as the Grace Baptist Church, the edifice with 140 stain glass windows became the parish from which Russell Conwell founded Temple University.
The prolific Sierra, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Composer-In-Residence during the 2000-2001 season, studied in Europe with iconic composer Gyorgy Ligeti. He now teaches at Cornell University, and just supervised a new recording of his chamber works and Concerto for Saxophone with jazzman James Carter as soloist.
Sierra had always wanted to write a large choral piece, though not necessarily a Mass, so the commission was the perfect opportunity. “I believe in one church for myself, and I’m respectful of that,” said Sierra. “The Catholic Church was the only one around for a millennium and a half, the one frame of mind. But others worship with the same sincerity and goodness of heart. Therefore, one cannot say one church any longer.”
In his compositional palette, Sierra often uses a tresillo (3/3/2) rhythm, as well as the octatonic scale, constructed of alternating whole and half steps.
“You’ll find the tresillo a lot in my other pieces,” explained Sierra, “and it should be at the center of expression. I don’t consciously work to do it, or it would be just an artifact. It’s useful because you can create a huge variety of complexity around it, as in the Gloria, using any kind of meter and subdivision, almost like a friction between the inner structure and the main rhythms.
“The octatonic scale has elements of tonality, but gives you some sense that you are not doing triad tonality. And the body relates to the rhythm in a physical way, and the enormous variety or meters gives it a kind of dance aspect.”
The tresillo at the end of the opening Introitus comes as a kind of an amen to the Amen; its use in the Gloria and the cha-cha-cha in that movement’s Laudamus te seem natural accents to the work’s fervency; and the octatonic scale in the Kyrie gives a slight exoticism which accentuates that section’s rhythmic undulations.
Alan Harler will be leaving his Temple post next month after 30 years, though continuing his leadership of the Mendelssohn Club. Since he toured Puerto Rico many times with the Temple and the Mendelssohn Club choirs, his friendship with Sierra goes back almost three decades.
Alan Harler, Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn Club
“I discovered Roberto’s early and wonderful Cantos Populares in the ‘80’s and later commissioned two subsequent works, Guakia Baba and Lux Aeterna. This Mass is a brilliant work, and like all great works, the deeper one gets into the score, the more that is found. It sometimes approaches a popular idiom with translucent harmonies and Latin dance rhythms, whose forms and structure are quite complex and sophisticated.
“All I had was the recording of the premiere performance until the recent CD came out, and I thought I would perform this in an instant, especially if I could get these soloists. We’re so lucky to have engaged them, because there is so much for them to do. Heidi [Murphy] can float her high notes with the best of them, and she uses that range throughout. And their voices match in duet singing, which predominates in the piece.”
Harler’s Mendelssohn Club has commissioned 45 works in the last 20 years. “It’s good for us to find pieces which speak to audiences directly and immediately, music that a general audience doesn’t have to struggle with. That’s especially true with this work, with so many intense dance rhythms. If it weren’t distracting, in my dream performance, the audience would be moved to get to their feet and dance!”
While in town, Sierra will engage the Latin Community in a number of residency programs, noted below. “It takes a lot of effort,” Sierra said, “but it’s worth it, even if there aren’t immediate results of people flocking to the concert hall. I think it’s important that both the smaller and larger institutions get involved in this, because outreach should be continuous. You cannot use public funding and then ignore your demographic base, because then you have a subsidized concert club. But these Latino citizens need to feel that the doors are open for them, that there are efforts to welcome them, and that the arts are not just for a certain segment of the community.”
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Tom Di Nardo writes about the arts for the Philadelphia Daily News.
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Missa Latina: Saturday, April 24, 2010. 8 PM (pre-concert talk by the composer at 7:15). The Baptist Temple, 1837-55 North Broad St, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122.
Tickets: Buy online or call 800.298.4200 (press 6, then 5)
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Roberto Sierra’s community itinerary prior to the April 24 concert:
Thursday, April 22, 4-5 PM: Roberto Sierra will offer an introduction to his “Missa Latina” for the afterschool programs at Taller Puertorriqueňo, 2721 North 5th Street. Their two after-school groups, the Young Artists Program (a two-year professional art-training program for high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors) and the Cultural Awareness Program (an arts education program for younger students, ages 5 to 15) will participate in an interactive session, which will include listening to excerpts of the Missa Latina recording as well as demonstrations of the percussion sections by musicians from AMLA (Artistas y Músicos Latino Americanos) and excerpts performed by Mendelssohn Club soloists. Students will have an opportunity to experiment with Latin percussion instruments and to play rhythms used in the work.
Friday, April 23, at 2:30 PM: Sierra will present a workshop for the music students at Nueva Esperanza Academy Charter School, 301 West Hunting Park Avenue. This group of about 70 high school students comprise the school’s string orchestra, chorus, and elite band. The interactive session with the composer will incorporate the same elements as at the Taller workshop, but will be offered at a level appropriate for these experienced music students.
Friday, April 23: All workshop participants will be invited to attend the evening dress rehearsal for Missa Latina at Baptist Temple, giving students exposure to the rehearsal process with full orchestra, chorus and soloists.
