"Thank The Franks", Part The Second

A guest post by John Marks

This is the highly-awaited followup to JM’s If You Like Music, You Should Thank The Frankish Infantry Of A.D. 732. If you haven’t read that, go back and check it out; at the very least, this article will make more sense! — jb

7. Eric Whitacre: “When David Heard” (OT text)

(music composed 1999)

Wichita State University Concert Chorale, Michael Hanawalt, conductor

More drama from King David.

Absalom was the third son of King David of Israel. Absalom’s mother was Maacah, who was the daughter of Talmai, who was the king of Geshur. Maacah bore David both Absalom, and a girl, Tamar.

Eric Whitacre chose as his text II Samuel, Chapter 18, verse 33 (King James Version):

When David heard that Absalom was slain
he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept,
my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!

I have always found King David’s extravagant grief over Absalom’s death to be rather perplexing. Absalom had killed David’s oldest son Amnon, because Amnon had raped Absalom’s sister Tamar (who was also Amnon’s half-sister). Absalom skedaddled, and the heat did die down. David allowed Absalom to return from exile after three years.

Absalom spent the next four years undermining David’s rule. He then declared himself King and openly rebelled, forcing David to flee his palace. Absalom then lined up David’s ten concubines and publicly raped them. What a charmer!

As David fled his palace, he instructed a loyal servant to stay behind and to pretend to defect to Absalom’s side, and then to give Absalom bad advice. The servant discouraged Absalom from attacking David while David was fleeing. He encouraged Absalom instead to assemble a large force.

While that advice probably played into Absalom’s vanity and love of showing off, it allowed David critical time in which to prepare for battle. It seems that his officers thought that it was for the best that David not take part in the battle.

So, David ordered them to treat Absalom “gently.” Wha?

Some later commentaries, I have been told, have David telling his commanders that not a hair of Absalom’s head should be touched (or, fall to the ground). But that could be after-the-fact embellishment, rather than from a valid oral tradition.

At the Battle of Ephraim’s Wood, Absalom’s forces were routed, and Absalom fled.

Ironically enough, Absalom, on his mule, fled headlong into a large oak tree, and his luxurious rock-star hair got tangled in the branches of the oak tree. Absalom’s mule just (wisely) headed for the hills.

David’s commander Joab caught up with Absalom (who was just hanging around). Disregarding David’s directive, Joab carefully implanted three javelins in Absalom’s back. Joab’s armor-bearers then finished Absalom off.

The death of Absalom, hanging from a tree
by his hair (a 14th-century German miniature)

They threw Absalom’s body into a pit, and then they threw rocks on top of it. As though the king’s son had been nothing more than a common criminal. Well, that is what he really was, wasn’t he?

Eric Whitacre’s “When David Heard” is one of the most beloved—even revered—pieces of modern choral music. And, it is mind-bendingly difficult. The climax is an 18-part chord. I think of an earlier section before the climax as a “tone painting” of “the voices in King David’s head,” as he melts down. I heard Eric Whitacre conduct his own singers in this piece at Symphony Hall, Boston, and it was a peak lifetime experience for me.

Whitacre wrote the piece for friends, a young couple who had lost a baby. It seems that Eric took David’s lament totally at face value. It seems that Eric was not troubled by the issue of whether Absalom hadn’t richly deserved his Javelins. (Note, I speak not of American Motors Corporation’s 1960s-1970s “Pony Car,” the Javelin.)

OK, so here’s a stray thought:

Might it have been the case that King David was so blasé about Absalom’s nearly-successful attempt to dethrone him (which, had it been successful, most likely would have resulted in David’s death), was because King David, in his heart of hearts, felt that he really deserved to die?

Why? For arranging the Murder-by-Proxy of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah the Hittite was not only Bathsheba’s husband. He also was one of David’s most devoted and loyal soldiers.

What a Puddle-Jumping Mo-fo David was.

Please refer to “Miserere Meus,” from Part 1.

Indeed, I think that Whitacre’s little three-note gesture (or perhaps it is a four-note phrase) for the highest soprano (at 10 min. 57 sec. in this performance) is an “Easter Egg” reference to Allegri’s masterpiece!

BTW, Bathsheba was not a temptress. She was bathing (in rainwater) on her roof, because it was a religious requirement for purification after her monthly period. And King David was a Peeping Tom.

Indeed, a Peeping Tom who should have been on the front lines with his troops. Bastard.

There are times I think that King David’s real purpose here on Earth was to make Tony Soprano look like Mother Teresa, at least by comparison. As an example, David repaid Joab’s loyalty by ordering Joab’s murder, but only after David’s own death.

That’s a typical “King David Win-Win.” One, that meant that Joab would die only after King David had no further need for Joab’s services; and Two, that the blood would be on someone else’s hands.

Eric Whitacre is a remarkable human being, and I highly recommend that you check out his first TED talk. Reputedly, it was the first-ever TED talk that was interrupted by a standing ovation.

The singing by the college kids in this YT is… the kind of thing that makes you hold your breath. Rather eye-watering, too. The more you know, the more you are knocked out.

8. Jaakko Mäntyjärvi: “Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae” (Modern + OT texts)
(composed 1997)

Kamerkoor JIP, Imre Ploeg, conductor

The title is Latin for, “The Song of Maritime Calamity.” In 1994, an Estonian passenger ferry took on water and sank, with the loss of 852 lives. One of the texts set in this astounding work for chorus and soloists is a transcript of a Latin-language Finnish-radio news broadcast about the sinking.

However, it is the opening of the piece that is sublime—in the sense of terrifying. After a choral sigh and whispered invocations of the Requiem text, the soprano soloist sings a wordless folk-style lament.

The whispers are indistinct—they may be a tone painting of the sounds of the water against the hull, or of the whispered prayers of the passengers. The tenor declaims the news story in Latin, creating an eerie echo of The Evangelist in Bach’s Passions. The words move on to Psalm 107 ("They that go down to the sea in ships...").

Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae is a tremendously serious work, imaginatively conceived, and performed with dignity and compassion.

9. Gabriel Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine (ancient text, variously attributed)

(music composed 1865)

Orchestra de Paris (and chorus), Paavo Järvi, conductor

Gabriel Fauré wrote this setting of the poet and playwright Jean Racine’s (1639-1699) French-language free rendering of a Latin hymn from the breviary for matins, Consors paterni luminis. Fauré wrote the work between the ages of 18 and 19.

The Cantique de Jean Racine certainly prefigures Fauré’s famous Requiem. But, as far as I am concerned, the Requiem is a bit calculated and performative, compared to this chaste, subdued, and devoted work.

And Paavo Järvi certainly knocks it out of the park, with the help of more than a hundred close friends.

10. Josquin Desprez: Chanson “Mille Regretz,” 4-part setting

(music composed post 1500)

Vox Luminis vocal ensemble, Lionel Meunier (artistic direction)

Talk about “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” (a reference from Part 1): “A Thousand Regrets” was the favorite music of King Charles I of Spain. Who was also Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Mille regretz de vous abandonner

Et d'eslonger vostre fache amoureuse,

Jay si grand dueil et paine douloureuse,

Quon me verra brief mes jours definer.

A thousand regrets at deserting you

and leaving behind your loving face,

I feel so much sadness and such painful distress,

that it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.

Great job, guys!

11. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: “Super Flumina Babylonis” (OT text)

(music composed 1604)

University of North Texas A-Cappella Choir, Allen Hightower, conductor

Perhaps the strongest competitor to Allegri’s “Miserere,” for the prize of “Peak Late-Renaissance Vocal Music” is Palestrina’s setting of Psalm 137 (a/k/a Psalm 136): “By the Rivers (or Waters) of Babylon.”

The Babylonian Captivity (obviously) was not much fun for the Hebrew captives.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?

That said, even the Talmud states that “the names of the Angels came from Babylon.” Furthermore, there are several doctrines or beliefs that were unknown in Judaism before the Babylonian captivity, which now are core to Christianity.

For more on that, please refer to the fascinating book In Search of Zarathustra.

This is a truly amazing performance by a bunch of college kids.

12. “By the Rivers of Babylon” (OT text)

(music composed 1970)

“Boney M.”

OK, how many of you had already guessed that I would end with this song?

Talk about “unlikely.” A Rastafari song by the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians later gets covered by a pick-up German vocal group with Caribbean roots.

Their producer Frank Farian had come up with the pseudonym “Boney M.” (which is a Napoleon reference) for his own use. But then, when he hired singers for a group, he used that name for the group.

The alleged or claimed group Boney M.’s 1978 single cover of “By the Rivers of Babylon” leapt to the top of the charts all over Europe. It was one of the biggest-selling singles of all time in the UK, and it remains the No. 1 in Germany.

Quick, name another Billboard Hot-100-charting US single for which the words were 100% from the Old Testament!

But, Boney M.’s apple was, from the beginning, somewhat rotten.

It was later discovered that two members of the group were singing into dead microphones while on tour, and that their live parts were being covered by off-stage backups. Literal backups. And also, in the recordings, their vocal parts were covered by others, including their producer. There was some public backlash; but not a huge backlash.

The lack of a huge backlash emboldened Frank Farian to push the envelope (to the max), and to really push his luck. But then, his luck ran out.

What was the name of the really-not-singing-at-all faux “group” that later was the cause of Frank Farian’s crash-and-burn into everlasting, total laughing-stock-ed-ness?

(A hint: they won 1990’s “Best New Artist” Grammy award.)

Milli Vanilli.

I knew someone who knew someone who was hired as a videographer for a Milli Vanilli music video. Now, of course, a Caribbean location shot with all kinds of environmental noise means that the video is only for the live action, with the singing to be dubbed in later. Or even, the talent are lip-synching to a CD that is playing in an off-camera boom box. So, the videographer was not surprised when the talent were not knocking themselves out singing, or that their audio was not being recorded.

Now, the videographer had bristled a bit at being told he had to sign a secrecy agreement. But as soon as he got back to the US, he ignored it.

So, that’s how I know that Milli Vanilli’s dreadlocks were fake. They were glued on with rubber cement.

That wraps this one up, Kiddos!

Any outrageous statements are entirely my own, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Avoidable Contact’s management.

Pax, Lux, et Veritas; and thanks for reading!

john

John Marks is a multidisciplinary generalist and a lifelong audio hobbyist. He was educated at Brown University and Vanderbilt Law School. He has worked as a music educator, recording engineer, classical-music record producer and label executive, and as a music and audio-equipment journalist. He was a columnist for The Absolute Sound, and also for Stereophile magazine. His consulting clients have included Grace Design, the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), Steinway & Sons, and the Estate of Jascha Heifetz.