"The only American composer in history who can be called a mystic,
whose probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient
which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered"
-Nick Strimple, musicologist
Morten Lauridsen
The Myth…
• Morten Johannes Lauridsen (born February 27, 1943) is an
American composer.
• A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-inresidence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (1994–2001) and has
been a professor of composition at the University of Southern
California Thornton School of Music for more than 40 years.
• A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen worked as a Forest
Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St.
Helens) and attended Whitman College before traveling south to
study composition at the University of Southern California with
Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He
began teaching at USC in 1967 and has been on their faculty ever
since.
The Man…
• In 2006, Lauridsen was named an 'American Choral Master' by the
National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National
Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his
composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power
and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.”
• His works have been recorded on more than 200 CDs, five of which
have received Grammy Award nominations, including O Magnum
Mysterium by the Tiffany Consort,A Company of Voices by
Conspirare, Sound The Bells by The Bay Brass and two all-Lauridsen
discs entitled Lux Aeterna by the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by
Paul Salamunovich and Polyphony with the Britten Sinfonia conducted
by Stephen Layton. His principal publishers are Peermusic (New
York/Hamburg) and Faber Music (London).
The Legend.
• A recipient of numerous grants, prizes, and commissions,
Lauridsen chaired the Composition department at the
USC Thornton School of Music from 1990–2002 and
founded the School’s Advanced Studies program in Film
Scoring. He has held residencies as guest
composer/lecturer at over seventy universities and has
received honorary doctorates from Whitman College,
Oklahoma State University, Westminster Choir College
and King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
• Lauridsen now divides his time between Los Angeles and
his summer residence on a remote island off the
northern coast of Washington State.
Compositions
• His eight vocal cycles and two collections—Les Chansons des
Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), A Winter Come (Moss), A
Backyard Universe, Madrigali: Six "FireSongs" on Italian Renaissance
Poems, Nocturnes (Rilke, Neruda and Agee), Cuatro
Canciones (Lorca), Four Madrigals on Renaissance Texts, Five Songs on
American Poems (Moss, Witt, Gioia and Agee) and Lux Aeterna—his
series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O
Nata Lux, Ubi Caritas et Amor, and Ave Dulcissima Maria) and numerous
instrumental works are featured regularly in concert by distinguished
artists and ensembles throughout the world. O Magnum Mysterium,
Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses), O Nata Lux (from Lux
Aeterna) and Sure On This Shining Night (from Nocturnes) have become
the all-time best-selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore
Presser, in business since 1783.
His Approach
• His musical approaches are very diverse, ranging
from direct to abstract in response to various
characteristics (subject matter, language, style,
structure, historical era, etc.) of the texts he sets.
His Latin sacred settings, such as the Lux Aeterna
and motets, often reference Gregorian chant plus
Medieval and Renaissance procedures while
blending them within a freshly contemporary sound
while other works such as the Madrigali andCuatro
Canciones are highly chromatic or atonal. His music
has an overall lyricism and is tightly constructed
around melodic and harmonic motives.
Contre qui, Rose
• In 1993 Lauridsen’s publisher released Les Chansons
des Roses, a cycle of five settings of French poems
by Rainer Maria Rilke.
• While Rilke is known mostly for German verse,
these French poems made a strong impression on
Lauridsen.
• It is in this cycle that the chord voicing now
associated with Lauridsen (which, in technical
terms, is a 2nd-inversion or “6/4” chord) first made
its powerful stamp.
Contre qui, Rose
• In the second movement, “Contre qui, rose,”
what starts out sounding like a melody in the
sopranos with harmonic support from the lower
lines then becomes more and more
contrapuntal, with each voice part having
something distinctive to say.
Rilke
• Rilke’s poetry is often multi-layered and
frequently ambiguous, forcing his reader to use
his or her own imagination to grasp the text.
• This wonderful little poem poses a series of
questions and the corresponding musical
phrases all end with unresolved harmonies as
the questions remain unanswered.
Translation
Contre qui, rose.
Avéz-vous adopté
Cés épines?
Voltre joie trop fine
Vous a-t-élle forcé
De devenir cette chose armée?
Mais de qui vous protégé
Cette arme exagéree?
Combien d’ennemis voius ai-je enlevés
Qui ne la craignaient point?
Aue contraire, d’été en automne
Vous blesses les soins
Qu’on vous donne.
Against whom, rose,
Have you assumed
These thorns?
Is it your too fragile joy
That forced you to become
This armed thing?
But from whom does it protect you,
This exaggerated defense?
How many enemies have I lifted from you
Who did not fear it at all?
On the contrary, from summer to autumn
You wound the affection
That is given to you.
What is happening in the music?
• We have all been in situations where we have given
affection and not had it returned, where attempts at
communication have been unsuccessful, met by resistance
or defenses of some kind.
• A sense of quiet resignation begins the setting as the
stark harmony and melodic line, filled with unresolved
suspensions and appoggiaturas, gradually build to a ninepart chord on “au contraire” and then the music folds
back on itself, ending on a cluster that simply fades away
as does the hope of understanding the reasons for the
rose’s thorny protection.
You have a cool chorus teacher
We’re tight, obviously.
Easy Listening
Complete the questions you received in rehearsal
and turn in tomorrow morning.
Be prepared to answer questions in class about
Lauridsen and Contre qui, Rose.