Johann Strauss II
Tausend und eine Nacht (Thousand and One Nights), Op. 346
arr. Uwe Theimer
Johann Strauss II, the “Waltz king,” was the second Strauss with the first name Johann, but he is undoubtedly the more famous of the two. At least four members of the family were active as composers: Johann’s father, Johann Sr. (1804–1849); Johann himself (1825–1899); and his brothers Josef (1827–1870) and Eduard (1835–1916). When Johann was 10 years old, his father became Hofball-Musikdirektor (Music Director at the Court Balls). This was a high honor, but the elder Strauss did not want his sons to become musicians (a rather suspect profession at the time) and enrolled them in a trade academy. Johann, aided and abetted by his mother, received music lessons behind his father’s back. At 19, he founded his own (very successful) orchestra. Much of Strauss’ music is influenced by Roma and Jewish klezmer music, and there is an inherent ambiguity in these compositions; Strauss, who made the entire city of Vienna dance, was a nervous, ill-tempered, and lonely man, and he could not dance.

The Arabian Nights waltz is a blend of the best melodies from Johann’s operetta Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves), which opened in Vienna in 1871. A stage version of the famous tale of Ali Baba, the work received very mixed reviews and did enjoy success; the music survives in this graceful waltz. The text was written for the choir by Ewald Seifert, one of the Strauss’ teachers in the 1860s and 1870s.

Joseph Haydn
Insanae et vanae curae (Mad and useless worries)
Hob. XXI:1, 13c
Joseph Haydn, son of a wheelwright, grew up in the town of Rohrau east of Vienna. When Haydn was eight years old, Georg Reutter, master of imperial court music and Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, heard the boy and his younger brother Michael sing. In the following years, both boys became choristers at the cathedral and at court. It was the beginning of two eminent musical careers. During his lifetime, Haydn’s musical genius would come to be celebrated throughout Europe; many younger composers affectionately dubbed him “Papa Haydn.”

In 1775, Haydn wrote the oratorio Il ritorno di Tobia, a setting of the apocryphal book of Tobit, for the Vienna Tonkünstler-Societät, a group that paid small pensions to musicians and their families. Haydn had applied for membership and waived his fee. In spite of the generous gesture, which certainly helped pad the society’s funds, the composer had to wait until 1790 before being admitted. Another performance of Tobia, planned for 1781, could not be produced because of the departure of an alto soloist. But in 1784, the oratorio was performed again. Haydn was asked to revise Tobia. Among other things, he added a chorus in D minor (“Svanisce in un momento”). This chorus later became, with a new Latin text, “Insanae et vanae curae.” It is not known what prompted this (although Haydn certainly knew that he had written a very successful piece); the author of the text remains unknown. The motet was published in 1809, and was reviewed as a work in its own right in 1810.

Haydn contrasts the rather wild passages in D minor (“Insanae et vanae curae”/“Mad and useless worries”) with calm passages in F major (“Quid prodest o mortalis conari pro mundanis”/“O mortal man, what good does it to strive for worldly things?”). The resolution is in D major (“Sunt fausta tibi cuncta, si Deus est pro te”/“All things work in your favor, with God on your side”).

The piece was used in Curt Faudon’s 2009 film about the Vienna Boys Choir, Silk Road—Songs along the Road and Time. There, it is the piece sung by the boys to Emperor Joseph II.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
“Fac ut ardeat cor meum” (“Ignite my heart with love”)/“Quando corpus morietur” (“When the body will die”), from Stabat mater
Giovanni Battista was born in the town of Iesi, near Naples, at a time when Italy was a patchwork of small states. The family’s surname was Draghi, and they originally came from Pergola. Giovanni Battista combined the two place names to “Pergolesi.”

Naples had a thriving musical life at the time, and Pergolesi entered the conservatory as a child. He played the violin, sang, and composed, was much admired for his talent, and worked for a number of patrons. The last two years of his life were spent in the service of the Duke of Maddaloni, who probably commissioned the Stabat mater. Pergolesi was never very healthy, and died of tuberculosis at the age of 26.

The liturgical poem Stabat mater dates to the 13th century. It originated in Franciscan theology and the text is closely related to St. Francis’ mystic philosophy. The main source for the text is the Bible, John 19:25. The first part is a personal and emotional prayer that expresses the feelings of Mary when she sees her son on the cross. The second part is a prayer to Mary. It was clearly meant as an exercise in meditation. The question of authorship remains unresolved; the monk Jacopone da Todi (c. 1228–1306), Pope Innocent III (c. 1160–1216), and Saint Bonaventura (c. 1274) are all possible candidates.

Pergolesi divides his composition into 12 parts, to correspond to the 12 apostles. His music is simple and emotional, to match the tone of the prayer. One of his preferred means of style is the suspension of one chord into another.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ave verum corpus (Hail, true body)
In June 1791, Mozart went to Baden, a small spa town near Vienna, to visit his pregnant wife. While there, he was asked to write a piece for the Corpus Christi service. Being Mozart, the composer left it to the last minute: Ave verum corpus was written the night before the service. It is a simple piece of almost childlike piety, a humble and deeply felt prayer. Its emotional quality has made it one of Mozart’s best-known compositions.

The well-known standard text of the Ave verum, attributed to Pope Innocent VI (died 1342), is a prayer for the Feast of Corpus Christi that was introduced by Pope Urban IV in 1264. There are several slight variants that emerged over time. During the Middle Ages, it would have been sung at the elevation of the Host during consecration. In just a few lines, it covers the Incarnation, the Passion, the Eucharist, and the Last Judgement.

Anton Bruckner
Virga Jesse floruit (The rod of Jesse has flowered), WAB 52
[Isaiah 11:1]
Anton Bruckner was born in 1824. His father was teacher in the village of Ansfelden, Upper Austria, and was responsible for the music at church and village fêtes. Anton Bruckner was taught violin, piano, and organ as a boy and he proved an exceptionally gifted organist, playing at church services from the age of 10 onwards. At 13, Bruckner became a chorister in the nearby monastery of St. Florian. In the 1850s, the young man was appointed organist at Linz Cathedral, where he became famous for his incredible, multi-layered improvisations. In 1868, Bruckner applied for and was appointed to a position as court organist in Vienna. As part of his duties, he gave the court choir boys music and singing lessons.

Virga Jesse floruit received its first performance in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel on December 8, 1885, sung by the court choir boys, the predecessors of the Vienna Boys Choir.

Leonard Bernstein
“Adonai ro-i” (“The Lord is my shepherd”)/
“Lama rag’shu goyim” (Why do the nations rage”), from Chichester Psalms
[Psalm 23 and Psalm 20]
Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, MA, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. At a very young age, Bernstein heard a piano performance that inspired him to begin learning the instrument. His father was a businessman and initially opposed his son’s interest in music. Bernstein studied music at Harvard University. He then pursued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Isabella Vengerova and Fritz Reiner, who awarded him the only A grade he gave to any student. Bernstein was highly regarded as a conductor, composer, and educator. For many years, he was the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and he worked with most of the world’s leading orchestras. He wrote three symphonies, two operas, and five musicals, among them West Side Story.

Chichester Cathedral commissioned the Chichester Psalms for the Southern Cathedral Festival in 1965. Bernstein chose the texts himself. The second movement begins with a single boy singing Psalm 23, arguably the most famous Biblical psalm: “Adonai ro’i”/

“The Lord is my shepherd” is thought to have been written by King David when he was a shepherd boy. David sings in triple meter, a typical plaintive shepherd melody, designed to calm the sheep, echoed by the sopranos. They are brutally interrupted by the massed singers, with the lacerated phrases of Psalm 2, “Lamah rag’shu goyim”/“Why do the nations rage?” The shepherd boy takes no notice, but sings on, in the end overpowering the masses.

The shepherd theme was taken from the musical The Skin of Our Teeth, which Bernstein never completed; the “raging nations” theme from material originally intended for West Side Story.

Traditional
Joshua
arr. Rollo Dilworth
“Joshua” is a hugely popular, traditional African-American spiritual that likely originated among the slave population during the early 19th century.

It was first published in two different song collections in 1882, M.G. Slayton’s Jubilee Songs and Marshall W. Taylor’s A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies. It was first recorded in 1922 by Harrod’s Jubilee Singers. Since then, it has been sung by countless artists, among them Mahalia Jackson, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, and—in 2011—Hugh (“Dr. House”) Laurie.

Joshua 6:15-21 does not describe a historic battle; but the idea of bringing down fortified walls by blowing trumpets (or rather shofarot) would have held tremendous appeal for more than just the slaves in America. It is a metaphor for escaping slavery and achieving freedom.

David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager , Alberto Testa, Tony Renis
“The Prayer,” from Quest for Camelot
“The Prayer” was written for the animated 1998 film Quest for Camelot. It was sung by Celine Dion in English and Andrea Bocelli in Italian; both artists later recorded a duet version. It won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999. The duet version was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Johann Strauss II
Tritsch Tratsch (Chitchat), Op. 214
[Tina Breckwoldt]
Tritschtratsch (Chitchat) is the title of a vaudeville by Johann Nestroy, first performed in 1833. In 1858, Viennese journalists created a satirical newspaper that used the same name; Tritsch-Tratsch poked fun at famous people. On March 21, 1858, the paper printed a humorous portrait of Johann Strauss, speculating about his yearly visits to Russia. (Strauss spent the summers in Pawlowsk with his orchestra, performing for the holiday-makers there.) The paper obliquely hinted at an affair with a Russian woman, and the gossip spread through Vienna like wildfire. Strauss penned this polka as an answer.

Tritsch Tratsch was composed between August and November of 1858 and was first performed in a public house called “The Great Siskin” in the Spittelberg area of Vienna later that same month. The Viennese media printed notices about the piece’s composition, its first performance, and its publication; a most unusual amount of publicity for a short piece of music and a good example of 19th-century public relations hype.

There are a number of texts for Tritsch Tratsch. The version sung by the Vienna Boys Choir deals with gossip mongering and what it can do to people, ending with a tongue-in-cheek bow to Plato.

This cheerful polka has sometimes been put to unexpected use: it features in the James-Bond film Moonraker, where it accompanies Bond (Roger Moore) as he glides across St. Mark’s Square in a hovercraft; most recently, it was used in Netflix’s The Gray Man.

The Vienna Boys Choir has performed this popular piece—a signature tune for Austrian musicians—three times at the New Year’s Day Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, in 1988, 1998, and 2012.

Irving Berlin
“There’s No Business Like Show Business,” from Annie Get Your Gun
Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidore Baline in Russia, probably in Tyumen, Siberia. His father, an itinerant cantor, had taken the family there. The Balines immigrated to the United States when Israel was five years old. Israel left home at 14 and made his way by singing in bars and restaurants. In 1907, he earned his first songwriting credit and changed his name to Irving Berlin. Berlin felt compelled to write music as if his life depended on it; he penned some 1,500 songs, many of them hugely popular. He never learned to read music and only used the black keys on a conventional piano.

“There’s No Business Like Show Business” was written for the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun, where it is sung by the members of the cast of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show to convince Annie to join them. In 1954, it inspired the eponymous film, with Ethel Merman in the lead, singing about the ups and downs and the magnetic appeal of show business. The song has been covered countless times, by artists including Judy Garland, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby, and has since become a fixture in popular culture. Ethel Merman’s original version has been used in films and on television, in HBO’s The Late Shift, Amazon Prime’s The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the Muppet Show, among others; and the rock band Genesis routinely played the Merman recording at the end of their concerts from 1976 to 2007—it is even included on one of the band’s albums.

Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss
Pizzicato Polka (1869)
arr. Alan Mossessey, Avi Esposito
This polka is a joint work by the Strauss brothers, written in 1869 during a summer stay in Pavlovsk; intended as a joke and without lyrics, the voices imitate the pizzicato plucking of the strings.

On this tour, the choir performs a special a cappella arrangement by two of the choristers—a joint effort by Alan Mossessey and Avi Esposito.

Jacques Offenbach
Barcarole—“Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour” (“Beautiful night, night of love”), from
The Tales of Hoffmann
[Jules Barbier)]
Jacques Offenbach was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of a Jewish cantor, and his musical talents were obvious early on. The family moved to France when Offenbach was a teenager to enable him to study at the Paris Conservatory. Offenbach is known as the “father” of the operetta as a genre; he wrote more than 100 operettas and greatly influenced Johann Strauss II, as well as Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). In Orpheus in the Underworld, he poked fun at the society of his time. The Can-Can from the second act is a perennial favorite that is often performed separately today.

The famous “Barcarole” was originally written for Offenbach’s 1864 opera Die Rheinnixen; then re-used in his last opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, where it is sung by Guilietta, Hoffmann’s love interest, and Nicklausse, his best friend, as they ponder the beauty of the night and of being in love in Venice. It is in 6/8 time and evokes the movement of the waves. The piece remains one of the most popular pieces ever composed; it has been transcribed and covered many times and can be heard in countless films, from Disney’s Silly Symphonies (1929–1939) to Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997).

Johannes Brahms
Wiegenlied (Lullaby), Op. 49, No. 4
Hamburg-born Johannes Brahms was a reserved, logical, and thorough man, whose terse manner is reflected in his works. He knew a lot of music and had studied ancient music in some detail. When writing vocal music, Brahms paid close attention to the words; his sacred music is a deeply felt, non-denominational statement of faith.

For a while, Brahms was the artistic director of a women’s choir in Hamburg, for whom he wrote motets, lieder, and folk songs. He made use of traditional folk tunes, sometimes simply arranging them but also crafting his own, such as his famous lullaby, written for the child of Bertha Faber, who had been a chorister in Brahms’ choir. The words are from a 19th-century anthology of songs for children Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). Roses are associated with the Virgin Mary, and cloves were a popular remedy used to ward off infections.

The “Lullaby” received its first public performance in Vienna in December of 1868, with Clara Schumann playing the piano.

Erzherzog Johann Jodler (Archduke Johann’s Yodel)
arr. Jimmy Chiang]
Alpine folk songs have certain characteristics that are easy to recognize. Many include yodels or a chorus or shout similar to yodelling, something used by herdsmen and women to communicate in the mountains.

“Archduke Johann’s Yodel” was written in honor of the eponymous Archduke. Johann (1782–1859), the brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz I, loved Styria and chamois-hunting. To the horror and chagrin of his family, he “fraternized” with the locals to the point of marrying Anna Plochl, a postmaster’s daughter from the town of Aussee. Unsurprisingly, the Archduke was hugely popular with the people.

Anton Schosser, a 19th-century official from Upper Austria, wrote the text with Anna Plochl in mind, expressing fierce pride in both his homeland and the archduke. The melody may well be older, perhaps originating in the Tyrol; it has all the typical characteristics of a melancholy Alpine yodel.

Zoltán Kodály
Túrot eszig a cigány (Chewing cheese curds)
“Túrot eszig a cigány” is an animated piece for four-part children’s choir, based on a Hungarian folk song. It begins with the altos ominously delivering the initial phrase, before the sopranos start developing a melody, relating the events. To go by the text, this kind of cheese seems addictive and should probably be served with a health warning.

The second part, which depicts little Janosh picking roses, is rather more lyrical; it offers a short respite before the manic chewing begins again.

Mykola Leontovich
Shchedryk (New Year’s Carol)
The original Ukrainian “Shchedryk” is a shchedrivka (New Year’s carol) traditionally sung on Malanka or Shchedry Vechir (“bountiful evening”), the Ukrainian New Year’s Eve (January 13). Like most songs of this genre, “Shchedryk” looks to the year ahead; it longs for swallows and an early spring, invoking dreams of a luscious wife for the farmer, wealth in general, and a rich harvest. Leontovich’s composition is based on an old tune with supposedly magic powers. It was first performed in Kiev in 1916.

“Shchedryk” was performed across Europe and North America in the 1920s by the Ukrainian Republican Capella Choir, conducted by Leontovich, and attracted the critics’ attention. Today, it is hugely popular in the United States and Canada, with a Christmassy English text and under its alias, “Carol of the Bells.”

TRADITIONAL
Oh, Shenandoah
arr. Gerald Wirth
“Oh, Shenandoah” started life as a work song or shanty, with roots going back to the 18th century. It may have originated among the Franco-Canadian trappers and fur traders (“voyageurs”), who plied their trade along the Missouri River and, in so doing, spread the song, which eventually made its way to the sea as a work shanty on whaling boats. In 2015, the tune was made the official state song of Virginia, with a new text (“Our Great Virginia”).

The name “Shenandoah” refers to an elected Oneida chief, Skenandoa (c. 1706–1816), whose name might either mean “deer” (Oneida: Oskanundonha) or “hemlock.” During the American Revolution, the Oneida (“People of the Standing Stone”) fought alongside the colonists.

Rolf Løvland
You Raise Me Up
In 2001, inspired by the “Londonderry Air” (aka “Danny Boy”), Løvland wrote an instrumental piece called “Silent Song.” It was intended for the Irish-Norwegian band Secret Garden and was first performed at the funeral of Løvland’s mother. Løvland later asked Irish writer Brendan Graham to add the lyrics; the song became “You Raise Me Up” and was popularized through iconic performances by Josh Groban and Susan Boyle, among others.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Mervyn Warren
“Joyful, Joyful (Ode to Joy),” from Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
arr. Roger Emerson
Beethoven’s famous “Ode to Joy” is based on a poem penned by Friedrich von Schiller, one of Germany’s foremost poets. It is a celebration of the joy of friendship and the brotherhood of man, written by Schiller for a circle of his personal friends in 1785. Almost 40 years later, Beethoven used the poem in his Symphony No. 9. Grammy winner Mervyn Warren reworked Beethoven’s famous tune into a gospel-inspired celebration of the love of God and the joy of life.

Johann Strauss II
An der schönen blauen Donau (Blue Danube Waltz), Op. 314
arr. Gerald Wirth
Austria’s unofficial national anthem is dedicated to the Vienna Männergesangsverein (Men’s Chorus); it was first performed in February of 1867 at the chorus’ Carnival Ball. The composer was absent, as he had a court engagement. The original text was slightly silly; it was meant to poke fun at the fact that many carnival balls had been cancelled that year; “Viennese, be joyous! O-ho! Why-o?” This fitted the occasion but did not survive beyond the carnival. There were several attempts at improving the poetry, until Franz von Gernerth, a lawyer, wrote this version in 1889. His maudlin, flowery, and somewhat patriotic description of the Danube remains today’s standard version.
—©Tina Breckwoldt