Composer

Richard Rice

Program Notes

Early in my composing career, I took an interest in writing choral music for treble voices. Something about the (usually) thinner texture and (nearly) equal voices appealed to my ear, and the rigors of (typically) three-part writing helped keep my rambling harmonies somewhat in check. The exercise has served me well, and I produced a collection of Introits for Treble Voices, in simple harmonic style, covering the entire church year, as well as my more challenging Four Marian Antiphons and Three Marian Hymns. When I finally decided to write a complete Mass setting, I was not surprised to find myself turning to this familiar idiom. The motet (anthem really, being in English) started as a very simple hymn-like setting, which I enriched and intensified for this arrangement. I determined to make an old fashioned parody Mass out of it, and took great delight in molding each phrase of the Latin Mass using the most appropriate phrase of the motet. The results please me, probably inordinately. From performance experience, I found I didn’t always respect the singers’ needs, and wrote lines that work well musically, but are not always easy to sing. The Credo in particular presents impediments to proper breathing, and I finally relented, adding a full beat of rest near the end, to give the singers a fighting chance. (I have yet to hear the Credo at tempo, which I imagine would be thrilling.) I also quickly discovered that, as much as I love the richness of altos below the treble clef, and the thrill of sopranos above it, few of either can sustain the tessitura I set for them. The present arrangement, transposed down a step from the original, and set for SSAT, gives a different feeling, but all in all, I prefer the excitement of tenors up high (“resurrectionem mortuorum” takes them to an A-flat). I have included settings of the Introit, Offertory, and Communion chants for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which use a somewhat richer harmonic language, but are derived from the same melodic source. The Offertory uses five voices, with an added bass part, in which the composer/conductor indulged himself for the premiere.