Program notes, texts, and translations

On September 28, 1994, the luxury cruise ferry MV Estonia sank in the stormy Baltic Sea—it was Europe’s worst maritime disaster during peacetime. Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is dedicated to those lost  in the shipwreck. Mäntyjärvi calls his piece “a meditation involving three distinct elements.” The first, or “individual  aspect,” is the solo soprano’s folk song, which can be interpreted as the lament of a sailor’s widow, mourning gently  above the choir’s murmured prayers from the Requiem Mass for the Dead. The second element is the “objective aspect” of the bare presentation of the facts, in the straightforward manner of a news anchor—this is sung by a precentor, who intones the news report of the shipwreck as relayed on Nuntii Latini, the weekly news broadcast in Latin by  the Finnish Broadcasting Company. The third element is the “collective aspect,” an impassioned choral setting of the  well-known text of Psalm 107, “They that go down to the sea in ships.”

The piece uses vocalized effects to portray a number of sounds associated with the disaster. The whispering voices at  the beginning of the work allude to the hiss of sea-spray or radio static; the tune sung by the soprano soloist suggests the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which folk legend identifies as the tune played by the band on the deck of the  RMS Titanic as it went down; the tenor soloist who initially reports on the disaster mimics a cantor from a Catholic re quiem mass; humming in the bass part suggests the hum of the ship's engine or sounds from the depths of the ocean.  Later in the piece, Mäntyjärvi uses intensely dissonant chords to suggest the shriek of shearing metal; the "anima eorum" section mimics the transmission of an "SOS" signal in Morse Code. Chords that occur late in the piece—set to the  text "et clamaverunt ad Dominum cum tribularentur"—are sung in open, parallel fourths, suggesting funerary bagpipes.  The final words of the piece, "Requiem aeternam," are voiced in the bass and soprano registers, possibly suggesting fog horns and marine bells. At the conclusion of the piece, the soprano solo returns, while the whispered prayers ascend and are lost to mortal ears. 

Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is a Finnish composer and a professional translator. As a composer, Mäntyjärvi describes himself  as an eclectic traditionalist: eclectic because he adopts influences from many styles and periods, fusing them into his  own voice; and traditionalist because his musical language is based on the conventions of Western classical music  with only sparing use of more modern techniques. Mäntyjärvi has been active as an amateur and semi-professional  musician, mainly as a choral singer with numerous Finnish choirs, including the professional Sibelius Academy Vocal  Ensemble and the Tapiola Chamber Choir. He was deputy conductor of the Tapiola Chamber Choir from 1998 to 2004. 

Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Domine, miserere, Domine.

Plus octingenti homines vitam amiserunt 

calamitate navali in Mari Baltico septentrionali facta.

Navis traiectoria nomine Estonia, cum 

Tallinno Stockholmiam versus

navigaret, saeva tempestate orta

eversa et submersa est.

In navi circiter mille vectores erant.

Calamitate Estoniae nongenti decem

homines perierunt,

centum undequadraginta sunt servati.

-Nuntii Latini, September 30, 1994

Qui descendunt mare in navibus,

facientes operationem in aquis multis:

ipsi viderunt opera Domini,

et mirabilia ejus in profundo.

Dixit, et stetit spiritus procellæ,

et exaltati sunt fluctus ejus.

Ascendunt usque ad cælos,

et descendunt usque ad abyssos;

anima eorum in malis tabescebat.

Turbati sunt, et moti sunt sicut ebrius,

et omnis sapientia eorum devorata est.

Et clamaverunt ad Dominum cum tribularentur;

et de necessitatibus eorum eduxit eos.

Et statuit procellam ejus in auram,

et siluerunt fluctus ejus.

Et lætati sunt quia siluerunt;

et deduxit eos in portum voluntatis eorum.

-Psalm 107

Requiem aeternam.

--

May eternal light shine upon them, Lord,

and may perpetual light shine upon them.

O Lord, have mercy, O Lord.

More than eight hundred people perished in

a shipwreck in the northern Baltic Sea.

The car ferry Estonia,

en route from

Tallinn to Stockholm, overturned

in a severe storm and sank.

There were about 1000 passengers on board.

In the wreck of Estonia 910

people lost their lives,

139 were saved.
-Nuntii Latini, September 30, 1994

Some sailed to the sea in ships

to trade on the mighty waters.

They saw the deeds of the Lord,

the wonders God does in the deep.

For God spoke and summoned the gale,

tossing the waves of the sea

up to heaven

and back into the deep;

their souls melted away in distress.

They staggered, reeled like drunkards,

for all their skill was gone.

Then they cried to the Lord in their need

and God rescued them from their distress.

God stilled the storm to a whisper;

all the waves of the sea were hushed.

They rejoiced because of the calm

and God led them to the haven they desired.

-Psalm 107

Eternal rest.

Ethel Smyth was a prosperous English composer active from the end of the 19th century through the mid-20th cen-tury. She was supported by many leading composers and conductors including Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Sir Thomas Beecham, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Smyth was also an ardent supporter of women’s rights, advocating for suffrage and for greater support of female musicians. In 1912 Smyth was arrested along with 100 other suffragettes for throwing stones at the houses of suffrage opponents. While in jail, she led the other prisoners—conducting with a toothbrush, no less—in a performance of her song “The March of the Women” which was the suffragists’ anthem.

The Boatswain’s Mate is Smyth’s fourth opera and her first in the comedic style. Smyth wrote the music as well as the libretto which was based on the short story Boatswain by W. W. Jacobs. The story follows a widowed tavern owner named Mrs. Waters who cleverly thwarts the efforts of several men intent on wooing her. In the opera, a former boatswain, Harry Benn, hatches a plot to impress Mrs. Waters with the hope of having her hand in marriage. Harry enlists a friend, Ned Travers, to rob her tavern with the idea that Harry would swoop in during the active burglary and “save” Mrs. Waters. Mrs. Waters, however, finds out about Harry’s plan and outsmarts him by pretending to kill Ned. Needless to say, Mrs. Waters is not interested in either of these men.

The Overture to The Boatswain’s Mate displays Smyth’s wide-ranging and, at times, eclectic style. The music is highly descriptive and vacillates between varying moods and emotions. Several prominent themes are heard, including the opening scherzo-like melody as well as a more lyrical theme first played by the clarinets. The frequent change in character of the music mirrors the hilarity of the opera, as well as the scheming intention of the main characters.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' first large-scale choral-orchestral work, A Sea Symphony, was composed between 1903 and 1909, and premiered in 1910 with the composer conducting. As the first and longest of his nine symphonies, and one of the first to feature chorus throughout as an integral part of the texture, it helped inaugurate a new era of symphonic and choral music in Britain in the early 20th century.

Originally conceived in 1903 as a song cycle called The Ocean, the piece evolved into the expansive symphonic work published in 1909 as A Sea Symphony. Vaughan Williams selected verses from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass for the first three movements, and from Passage to India for the finale. Whitman’s poetry uses images of intrepid sailors navigating vast oceans as a metaphor for the human soul's journey through life.

The opening movement, "A Song for All Seas, All Ships," begins with a dramatic brass fanfare in B-flat minor, immediately echoed by the choir's rousing declaration "Behold, the sea itself." This is strikingly transposed to D major on the word "sea," vividly conjuring the sea’s expansive immensity and primal force. A shanty-like theme then depicts the "dashing spray" and "winds piping and blowing," followed by a poignant lament for all sailors lost at sea. Taken as a whole, this movement focuses the listener’s attention on the sea itself: the movement of the waves, the traversing of ships, and the lives of sailors and sea captains.

The slow second movement, "On the Beach at Night, Alone," is an atmospheric nocturne with oscillating tonalities of C minor and E major evoking lapping waves. The baritone soloist contemplates humankind's place in the vast "similitude" uniting all time and space. With the full chorus joining, the music gradually increases in intensity, and the singers reflect that “all souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, all nations, all identities” are all enfolded and enclosed together. This message of embracing all people, regardless of our differences, still speaks directly and eloquently to us today. 

The scherzo-like third movement, "The Waves," is a bravura choral-orchestral depiction of the sea's fearsome power, with an exhilarating portrait of wind, waves, and a great ship plowing through the ocean.

The finale, "The Explorers," opens with the majestic phrase "O vast Rondure, swimming in space," preparing for further development of the metaphysical themes explored earlier. The climax comes with the line "Finally shall come the poet worthy that name, the true son of God shall come singing his songs," followed by a sublime soprano-baritone duet. An urgent cry of "Away, O soul, hoist instantly the anchor" in shanty rhythm readies the ship for launch. The transcendent conclusion sees ship and soul begin their quest, calmly sailing over the horizon into the great unknown.

A Sea Symphony

I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships

Behold, the sea itself,
And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships;
See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green and blue,
See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,
See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke.
Behold, the sea itself,
And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships.

Today a rude brief recitative,
Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,
Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach,
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,
And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge.

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay.
Picked sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,
Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest the nations,
Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,
Indomitable, untamed as thee.

Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!
Flaunt out visible as ever the various flags and ship-signals!
But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the souls of all one flag above all the rest,
A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of all elate above death,
Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty,
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,
A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.

-Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

II. On the Beach at Night, Alone

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different,
All nations, all identities that have existed or may exist
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned,
And shall forever span them, and compactly hold and enclose them.

III. (Scherzo) The Waves

After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun,
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.

IV. The Explorers

O vast Rondure, swimming in space,
Covered all over with visible power and beauty,
Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above,
Below, the manifold grass and waters,
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,
Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.
Down from the gardens of Asia descending,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
Wandering, yearning, with restless explorations,
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts,
With that sad incessant refrain,
Wherefore unsatisfied soul?
Whither O mocking life?
Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?
Who justify these restless explorations?
Who speak the secret of impassive earth?
Wherefore unsatisfied soul?
Whither O mocking life?

Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out,
Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
After the seas are all crossed,
After the great captains have accomplished their work,
After the noble inventors,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.

O we can wait no longer,
We too take ship O soul,
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
Amid the wafting winds, thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,
Caroling free, singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them.
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;

Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!

Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only.
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

-Walt Whitman (1819-1892)