Dona Nobis Pacem Music and Composers

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BACKGROUND FOR THE DONA NOBIS PACEM CONCERT:
Text and Composers

FULL TEXT OF DONA NOBIS PACEM
Composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams

I. (from the Latin Mass)

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
(Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, grant us peace.)

II. (Walt Whitman, from “Beat! Beat! Drums!” 1861)

Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows — through the doors — burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet — no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field, or gathering in his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums — so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities — over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day — no brokers or speculators — would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? Would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums — you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley — stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid — mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums — so loud you bugles blow.

III. Reconciliation (Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, 1867)

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly, wash again and ever again this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin — I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

IV. Dirge for Two Veterans (Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, 1891)

The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking
Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding
As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums
Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans, son and father, dropped together,
And the double grave awaits them.

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined,
’Tis some mother’s large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.

O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.

V. (John Bright, from his speech in the House of Commons, February 23, 1855)

The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one as of old ... to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on.

(from the Latin Mass)
Dona nobis pacem.

(Jeremiah 8:15-22)
We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land ... and those that dwell therein ... The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved ... Is there no balm in Gilead?; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

VI. (a scriptural montage)

(Daniel 10:19)
O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong.

(Haggai 2:9)
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former ... and in this place will I give peace.

(from Micah 4:3, Leviticus 26:6, Psalms 85:10 and 118:19, Isaiah 43:9 and 56:18-22, Luke 2:14)
Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
And none shall make them afraid, neither shall the sword go through their land.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Open to me the gates of righteousness, I will go into them.
Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled;
   and let them hear and say, it is the truth.
And it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues.
And they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them,
   and they shall declare my glory among the nations.
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,
   so shall your seed and your name remain for ever.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.

(from the Latin Mass)
Dona nobis pacem.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

At the age of 41, Ralph Vaughan Williams volunteered for the British Army in the first World War. Assigned to an ambulance company, he carried the dead and wounded back to the battle trenches. The experience of combat seared his memory. In 1936, Dona nobis pacem, his great masterpiece for chorus and orchestra, brought these memories to life.

When he went off to war, Vaughan Williams was one of England's leading composers. His long career yielded nine symphonies and several concertos, ballet and film music, and considerable music for solo voice and for chorus. Throughout his life he found inspiration in English folk song, and he supported community choruses throughout the British Isles.

"If we want to find the groundwork of our English culture we must look below the surface—not to the grand events chronicled in the newspapers but to the unobtrusive quartet parties which meet week after week to play or sing in their own houses, to the village choral societies whose members trudge miles through rain and snow to work steadily for a concert or competition in some ghastly parish room with a cracked piano and a smelly oil lamp." — RVW

WALT WHITMAN

America was just getting started in 1819 when Walt Whitman was born. As a young man he worked for several newspapers and published the first edition of his poetry collection Leaves of Grass in 1855. His brother joined the Union Army in the Civil War and wrote vivid letters home to Walt.

When his brother was wounded, Walt set off to find him, traveling from camp to camp, mainly on foot. He finally reached his brother, but the experiences he'd had, seeing the horrific conditions of military hospitals, led him to volunteer as a nurse in the war. As he continued to revise Leaves of Grass, the poems reveal his ardent love of life and intense desire for peace.

At college Ralph Vaughan Williams learned about the American poet Whitman, and he chose several of his poems for Dona nobis pacem.

Whitman wrote "Dirge for Two Veterans,” “Beat, beat, drums,” and “Reconciliation” after coming home from the war when, in both South and North, many towns buried men of several generations. Over 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War — by far the greatest loss of life in any military conflict our country has faced. The Crimean War and Boer Wars continued the 19th century's plunge into large-scale slaughter, which in the 20th century reached its climax in the 80 million deaths of World War II.

MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG
Composer of Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra

At these concerts, Anthony Ross and the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra offer the first Minnesota performances of his Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52.

"Mieczysław Weinberg... was a Polish composer of Polish-Jewish origin. From 1939 he lived in the Soviet Union and Russia and lost most of his family in the Holocaust. He left a large body of work that included twenty-two symphonies and seventeen string quartets." (Wikipedia)

"The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919 - 1996) is among some of the 20th century's greatest hidden treasures. Born in Poland, Weinberg emigrated to Russia in perilous circumstances, where he was to live out the rest of his days half-way between deserved fame and unjustified neglect. Often seen in the shadow of his close friend Dimitry Shostakovich, by whom he was regarded as one of the most outstanding composers of the day, Weinberg is slowly being rediscovered as a 20th century genius, a figure of immense significance in the landscape of post-modern classical music.

Weinberg's musical idiom stylistically mixes traditional and contemporary forms, combining a freely tonal, individual language inspired by Shostakovich with ethnic (Jewish, Polish, Moldovian) influences and a unique sense of form, harmony and colour. His prolific output includes no less than 17 string quartets, over 20 large-scale symphonies, numerous sonatas for solo stringed instruments and piano as well as operas and film-scores. With the constant stream of recordings, score publications and concerts over the last decade, many of these gems have been unearthed to finally receive the critical praise and attention they deserve." (http://www.music-weinberg.net/)