Chant Café

Priest and servers, in a Good Friday procession in Popayán

[J. Richard Haefer completes his guest columns about a Holy Week visit to Colombia and to the Festival of Religious Music at Popayán:]

As I was not writing during the Triduum and, after Easter, we took a trip into the heart of the Andes, to the Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Las Lajas, by narrow roads with deep ravines on one or both sides, this last report will reach you in the Easter season.

The concerts of Holy Thursday and Friday noon were strictly secular: strange, since they are the most sacred days of the week. Thursday noon saw a presentation of music for flute and piano by the Barcelona flautist Patricia de No accompanied by Cristina Casale from England (the online information is incorrect), including works by C. P. E. Bach (1714-1788), François Poulenc (1899-1963), the Hungarian Franz Doppler (1821-1883) and twentieth-century composers Gary Shocker (U.S.A., b. 1959), Astor Piazolla (Argentina, 1821-1992) and Francois Borne (Spain, 1840-1920).

The evening concert featured one of five professional orchestras of Colombia: Orquesta Sinfónica de EAFIT (consisting of faculty and students from EAFIT university in Medellin and organized in 2000) and conducted by Cecilia Espinosa of Wednesday’s Coro de Cámara “Arcadia”. The opening overture by Emil von Rezncek (1860-1945) was quite delightful and the highlight of the program. Astor Piazzolla’s “Estacione Porteñas” is certainly a candidate for a concert of “disaster pieces of music.” Several sections ended with quotes from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and one section featured the cellos playing the ostinato from Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The violin soloist, Oksana Solovieva, born in Russia but raised in the West, did a splendid performance of the solo parts despite the mundane nature of the composition. With so many excellent contemporary Latin American composers it is too bad this trite piece was chosen. Sibelius’ Symphony number 2 (Op. 43) concluded the concert.

At noon on Holy Friday the ensemble Macondo Chamber Players (string quintet, piano and oboe) presented works by Mozart, Borodin, Rachmaninoff, and Brahms. While interesting, none would qualify for use in any religious situation.

On Friday evening the Orquesta Sinfónica de EAFIT, along with the Coros de Cámara de Popayán, Arcadia, and Los Gatos presented Brahms’ German Requiem, Op. 45. A wonderful balance between choruses and the low strings opened the composition but soon the full orchestra overpowered the singers, as happens with many orchestra conductors. As with the previous evening and the concert by Arcadia, the overall sound was flat and unchanging throughout this wonderful composition. The highlight was the solo by baritone Valeriano Lanchas and the soprano solo by local singer Julie Fernández was also well done.

As for the festival as a whole, it was certainly successful. The audience for nearly every concert was full, with admission free except for the last two evenings. With the exception of the latter, the audience was a mix of townsfolk and tourists with many locals attending all the free programs. It was interesting to see the appreciation for music in general as nary a program was left behind, unlike at concerts in the U.S., where programs are scattered on the floor of the concert hall.  As the director of the festival (Dra. Stella Dupont) refused my request for an interview, I have no idea how the groups were chosen or any details of the arrangements. While the organizers tried to obtain advance information about the concerts and performers, it is likely that some were booked at the last minute, and the program booklet was filled with editorial errors. I assume that no restrictions were imposed as regards repertoire, though I would have preferred to have at least some religious music on every concert.

I will complete this report by mentioning a little about the state of church music in Colombia and about the second reason I chose to be in Popayán during Holy Week.

To date I have witnessed church music in Colombia only in Bogotá and Popayán, and I am sorry to report that it is as dismal as in most Spanish-speaking parishes in the United States: multiple guitar players and some percussion, with happy-clappy songs, clapping often encouraged by the priests (and, of course, altar girls). Brethren, we have a long way to come to return the dignity of the Mass to its proper state.

Our Lady of Sorrows, in the Good Friday night procession

As to Holy Week in Popayán: as in many cities in Spain (especially in Castile, León, Murcia, and Andalusia), in Colombia in the cities of Pamplona, Monpox, and especially Popayán, nightly processions are held throughout Holy Week. Carried in the processions are life-size statues and groups of statues arranged in biblical Passion scenes, each paso carried by eight Cargueros, all men. The processions last up to four hours and demand much endurance, especially since some of the streets are hilly. In Popayán family groups support each paso, while in Spain the pasos are organized by brotherhoods, and one or two dozen men carry the larger Spanish pasos.

Each day is devoted to a particular topic: Friday of Passion Week, “Friday of Sorrows;” Palm Sunday, the Passion; Tuesday of Holy Week, Our Lady of Sorrows; Wednesday, the Love of Jesus; Thursday, “Our Lord of the True Cross”; Friday, the “Funeral of Christ”; and Saturday, “Jesus Christ Resurrected.” Appropriate statues and scenes illustrate each procession, numbering from seven to seventeen pasos.

Also included in each procession are bands and choruses, as well as the Archbishop of Popayán, priests from each of the churches from which the different processions start, and various dignitaries (including local members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem). Dies Irae on Friday, and two choruses even sang traditional Latin hymns. The bands marched at a pace of about 30 beats per minute and the Cargueras stopped about every half-block to rest the pasos, weighing over 400 pounds each. In a future paper I will be discussing the religious-commercial-patrimonial “conflict” of the modern Popayán Holy Week processions, with input from interviews with various people involved with the events.

In the earlier processions, the bands played secular music — the large drum sections could be heard five to ten blocks away — while during the Triduum Spanish religious songs were played, as well as the

If you have enjoyed these reports or would like more information, please feel free to contact me.

[Thanks to Dr. Haefer (rhaefer at asu.edu) for the guest contributions. — Ed.]

[We continue J. Richard Haefer’s account of this year’s Festival de Música Religiosa de Popayán.]

The Coro de Cámera ‘Arcadia’, a semi-professional chorus from Medellín, presented a concert of predominantly 20th-century religious music. Due to the variety of contemporary vocal expressions and harmonies the works are best suited for concert performance and not for church usage. The opening Kyrie by the Argentinean composer Alberto Balzanelli (b. 1941) utilized Sprechstimme, whispers, shouts, and dissonant harmonies in seconds and constant interaction of all of these elements. A hugh dynamic climax ended the Christe section. The word Kyrie was probably repeated more than a hundred times. Though not suitable for Mass it was a very interesting piece and very well presented. Some of his many contemporary religious compositions can be heard on YouTube.

The exact identity of the composer of the Salve Regina was unclear from the program but I believe it to be the Venezuelan César Alejandro Carrillo and not the Puerto Rican Carlos Carillo. Both have written contemporary religious music as did the Mexican Julio Carrillo who composed for more than 32 divisions of the octave. The Salve Regina provided a more pleasant melody than that of Balzanelli, however, alternating modal and tonal harmonies with sections of much dissonance. Czech Composer L. Zedneck’s [Zdněk?] Parabolas Salomonis (text based on Venerable Bede’s writings) may be characterized as very dissonant with much “shouting” of the text. Similar to the previous was Javier Busto Sagrado’s O Magnum Mysterium with male Sprechstimme over dissonant oohs and hums of the ladies ending with extremely loud dynamics. Busto is a prolific composer of religious music for various voicings. Arcadia Director Cecilia Espinosa’s forte is the presentation of contemporary music but unfortunately the overall sound seemed the same with predominant blend problems in the soprano section.

The latter half of the concert provided a nice change of harmonies beginning with Bruckner’s motet Os justi (1879) based on the Gradual of the Commune Doctorum. (Vulgate, Ps. 36). The choir struggled with the Lydian mode but was able to recover. The motet ends with a short Alleluia sung in unison and repeated. Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah (a text for Holy Thursday) was written as two motets. The choir performed both the Aleph and Beth sections, the latter a nice predominantly homorhythmic section, composed in five voice parts performed as SATTB though they lacked any subtlety and again the sopranos dominated the sound. Victoria’s Sancta Maria sucurre miseria was a much better presentation, though there were intonation problems in many of the melismas. The choir appeared tired throughout the second half of the program. O vos omnes by the Catalan Pau Casals (1876-1973) began with two-voice male imitative lines, gradually adding the alto and soprano lines to moderately modern harmonies, thus ending the religious works.

Secular compositions by F. Ochoa (“Rising Sun”), V. Agudelo (Ensalada de verdugas, a silly song sung in chef hats and aprons with spoons and bowls for rhythm instruments), and A. Gallo (Invierno) concluded the program. Interspersed was a nice villancico by J. de Aroujo, Los Coflades de la Estleya.

Written for two soloists and chorus, the Coro performed it with baroque guitar accompaniment and drum and hand clapping. The performance was the highlight of the program for me. While contemporary music appears to be the emphasis of the conductor and chorus, their overall sound was monotonous despite the variety of vocal techniques in the music.

One of the best performances of the Festival de Música Religiosa de Popayán occurred at 5PM in the theatre. The brilliant Colombian baritone Valeriano Lanchas performed the complete Schubert’s Der Winterreise. Not religious, but spectacular! [Here he performs Verdi’s Confutatis.]

No religious music for Holy Thursday’s concerts, but perhaps I will write more about the Processions and the music accompanying them.