Pastoral garden of songs

It’s no secret that most composers have written music celebrating the arrival of spring and the renewal of life in all its forms.

The well is deep and Greenwood Singers have dipped into centuries of sheet music for their spring concert titled Pastorale: Music Inspired by Life in the Countryside this Friday at All Saints Anglican Cathedral.

Many songs in the 15th century – French chansons, Italian frottolas and early madrigals – concerned themselves with love in the open air, and the pleasures of rural life.

Later courts of the 18th century enlarged the theme of amorous shepherds and nymphs cavorting with shepherdesses in Arcadian fields and glades into a social pastime.

“Madrigal literature is full of nature’s songs with shepherds frolicking with sheep. And it’s no wonder. Most of the writers were living in crowded cities beside stinking sewers. They were idealizing country life without thinking how hard people had to work,” says Greenwood founder and musical director Robert de Frece.

He has programmed a gently exuberant concert that bookends the Renaissance’s pastoral works of Josquin des Prez and Luca Marenzio with a medley from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway country hit Oklahoma.

Sandwiched in between is Johannes Brahms’ romantic Zigeunerlieder and American composer Randall Thompson’s Frostiana (Seven Country Songs) with text borrowed from Robert Frost’s poetry.

Frost and Thompson were friends with deep respect for each other’s contributions. The great American poet went as far as forbidding any other settings.

“Randall really understood how to set music to poetry. He was so respectful of the poet that the music flowed naturally. It is totally symmetrical,” said de Frece.

And Edmonton director-actor-instructor Jim DeFelice will do a read of Frost’s poems. DeFelice actually met Frost twice while he was a student at Tufts University in Boston.

“He was so excited to do this, he waived his fee. Here we have a well-regarded actor who actually met Frost. It just makes the concert even more special,” said de Frece.

Earlier in the 19th century, Brahms borrowed inspiration from Hungarian gypsy songs for the 11-song cycle Zigeunerlieder.

“Hugo Conrat translated a book of gypsy poems and Brahms used the poetry as text. He was inspired by the love, the passion, the dancing, said de Frece. “They are wonderful songs, soft and romantic for choir and piano.”

St. Albert soprano Linda Gibson and Morinville alto Laura Rankin are vocalists in the choir.

“This concert gives you a perspective on how people thought about the country in songs from Renaissance to today,” said De Frece. “We still like to think about the beauty of the country, and it is something that has infected the minds of composers for centuries.”