Panufnik - Universal Prayer - Leopold Stokowski

 

Universal Prayer

Panufnik

Universal Prayer

Leopold Stokowski

Recorded in Westminster Cathedral, London, on September 4-5, 1970 in the presence of the composer

Recording Engineer: Bob Auger

A Dolby System Recording

Cover: Variation within a sphere No 10: The Sun by Richard Lippold

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1956, New York

Photographs of the conductor (during the recording of this work) and of the composer by Camilla Jessel

Sleeve printed and made by MacNeil Press Ltd., London, S.E.I.

Unicorn Records RHS 305

April Cantelo - Soprano

Helen Watts - Contralto

John Mitchinson - Tenor

Roger Stalman - Bass

The Louis Halsey Singers

David Watkins, Maria Korchinska, Tina Bonifacio - Harps

Nicolas Kynaston - Organ

The Universal Prayer

Father of All! in every Age, 

   In every Clime ador'd,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, 

   Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least Understood! 

   Who all my Sense confin'd

To know but this, - that Thou art Good, 

   And that my self am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark Estate, 

   To see the Good from Ill; 

And binding Nature fast in Fate, 

   Left free the Human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done, 

   Or warns me not to doe, 

This, teach me more than Hell to shun, 

   That, more than Heav'n pursue.

What Blessings Thy free Bounty gives, 

   Let me not cast away;
For God is pay'd when Man receives, 

   T'enjoy, is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted Span, 

   Thy Goodness let me bound;
Or think the Lord alone of Man,
   When thousand Worlds are round.

Let not this weak, unknowing hand

   Presume Thy Bolts to throw, 

And deal Damnation round the land, 

   On each I judge Thy Foe.

If I am right, oh teach my heart 

   Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, Thy Grace impart 

   To find that better Way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride,
   Or impious Discontent, 

At ought Thy Wisdom has deny'd 

   Or ought Thy Goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's Woc; 

   To hide the Fault I sec; 

That Mercy I to others show,  

  That Mercy show to me.

Mean tho' I am, not wholly so 

   Since quicken'd by thy Breath, 

O lead me wheresoe'er I go,
   Thro' this day's Life, or Death:

This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot;
   All else beneath the Sun,
Thou knows't if best bestow'd, or not;
   And let Thy Will be done.

To Thee, whose Temple is all Space,
   Whose Altar, Earth, Sea, Skies; 

One Chorus let all Being raise!
   All Nature's Incence rise!

                       – Alexander Pope

From the inside front cover: For some years I had in mind a very deep wish to write a prayer to the God of all religions to the 'Father of All' races and creeds - in which the spiritual content would help to unite the feelings of all people so tragically divided in this disturbed world.

When reading through the works of Alexander Pope, at last I felt I had found the perfect text in his 'Universal Prayer', which, although written over 250 years ago, struck me with its vitality and the strength of its meaning to us now. This indeed was a prayer for all men to the 'Father of All'. Perhaps I was doubly moved to know that these words, for which I had been searching so long, were written by the poet who had lived and worked just a few hundred yards up the River Thames from my own home, where I would myself be composing the music.

The construction of the work was imposed upon me by the classical structure of the poem. Alexander Pope himself declared that 'Order is Heav'n's first law', and this corresponds very exactly with my own long-standing belief, so far as any and every viable work of art is concerned. Composing my Universal Prayer, I designed a symmetrical framework, building up a structure in which the first stanza corresponds with the thirteenth (last) one; the second stanza with the twelfth, the third with the eleventh, and so on-coming to the centre of the work the axis, the seventh stanza, where, in contrast to the humility and the quiet condemnation of hypocrisy throughout the rest of the poem, Pope openly uses his keen blade of irony to strike out against fanatacism.

The stanzas of the poem, sung by the four soloists, are divided by short interludes, sometimes instrumental only, sometimes including the chorus. These interludes are also symmetrically arranged, and additionally a great number of other internal symmetric patterns are to be found within the whole symmetric framework. (Diagram 1)

My Universal Prayer is composed on two Plans: Plan I-four solo voices together with three harps, with precisely indicated rhythm; Plan II - organ and chorus, with no rhythmical indications, giving freedom of musical expression to the individual performer, whether it is the organist, or just a member of the chorus.

For this work, I chose instruments which I felt could add a kind of mystery and colour to the poem, using harps not only for the special quality of their sound, but also because they would never overwhelm the voices of the soloists singing the all-important text. The organ, besides its colouristic attributes, has great additional significance in that it supports the architectural structure of the whole work.

The chorus is divided into just two parts: male and female voices. They sing on one note (B natural) throughout the whole work, using only the first three words of the poem, 'Father of All'. The rhythm is chosen freely by each member of the chorus in order that the individual voices should be heard - my idea is that they represent the multitudes of the world, together and yet free to express their own prayer in their own voice to their own concept of God. At the very beginning, they shout as if to catch God's attention; at the end, with full voice they express their trust in Him. Approaching the axis of the composition, the singing of the chorus changes to unpitched sound, first whispering, then speaking out, as their appeal to God becomes more ugent and intense. After the axis, this intensity reduces in the reverse, mirrored procedure.

With regard to the musical material which I used in the com- position of this work, it is not possible for me to slot it into any particular stylistic classification: this work is neither tonal, nor polytonal, nor composed with the twelve-tone method; it is not serial, nor alcotoric - it is based strictly upon one triad only, from the beginning to the very end of the work, used both vertically and horizontally, with its perpetual reflections. (Ex. 2 & 3) While imposing upon myself this extremely stern discipline and simplicity of sound organisation, for me the dramatic requirements of the poem were of paramount importance, and therefore I kept the technical side very much subservient to the spiritual and emotional content.

A colossal and desperately urgent task stretches ahead, in the search for the unity and brotherhood of all mankind, and my purpose in composing this work was to contribute to this ideal in the only way I could, in my own language as a composer and within the limits of my own power of musical expression.

Andrzej Panufnik, Twickenham, 1971

Andrzej Panufnik, composer of international stature, was born in Warsaw, Poland, on 24th September, 1914. He started composing at the age of nine. In 1936, he received his diploma with distinction for theory and composition of music at the Warsaw State Conservatoire, achieving this in only half the normal time. In 1937-38, he studied the art of conducting with Felix Weingartner at the State Academy of Music in Vienna. He then completed his musical studies in Paris, and in London, returning to Warsaw at the outbreak of World War II.

All the early music of Panufnik is lost: it was burnt. during the Warsaw uprising in 1944. His post-1944 musical output consists of numerous works for orchestra, chamber and vocal music, and works for piano.

Immediately after the war, he was appointed permanent conductor of the Cracow Philharmonic, and later director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. From that time onwards he began his very extensive travels, conducting all the leading orchestras of Europe.

In 1950 he was elected vice-chairman of the International Music Council of Unesco in Paris, together with the late Arthur Honneger.

Since 1954, when he left Stalinist Poland and took up residence in England, he has conducted all the major British orchestras, and for two years (1957-59) he was musical director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He chose to give up this post in order to concentrate more upon composition, traveling occasionally on invitation from leading orchestras across the world.

His most important compositions include Sinfonia Rustica (first prize, Chopin Competition, Warsaw 1949) and Sinfonia Sacra (first prize, Prix de Composition musicale Prince Rainier III de Monaco, 1963), both of which symphonies have been recorded by the Monte Carlo Orchestra conducted by the composer. His Sinfonia Elegiaca was one of several of his more important works with world and American premières given by Leopold Stokowski. Besides these symphonies, four of his other most significant orchestral works, Tragic Overture, Autumn Music, Heroic Overture and Nocturne have been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein.

Andrzej Panufnik's talents as a composer of con- temporary ballet music have been receiving increasing recognition. In 1967, the Joffrey ballet mounted Elegy (choreography by Gerald Arpino) at New York City Center; in November 1968, Cain & Abel (choreography by Kenneth MacMillan) was presented at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and in March 1970, a two-act ballet, chorcography and music received high critical acclaim.

The Universal Prayer was completed in 1969, and its world première took place on 24th May, 1970, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, con- ducted by Leopold Stokowski, who performed this work twice in the same prograinme to an audience of 4,000. It won immediate recognition from both public and press, who found this prayer to be "... the grandest, most awesome kind of music" (New York Times). Stokowski himself said, "... In my opinion, it is a new departure in composition, just as 'Le Sacre du Printemps' of Stravinsky was a new departure... I am hoping that all faiths will realise the greatness of the poem and of the music, and that it will become often performed, like the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven..." (Music, New York). The success of the first performance led to this recording four months later, and further performances followed in the same year, again conducted by Stokow- ski, first at Princeton, New Jersey; and then a special performance at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, for which the chorus was truly universal, consisting of members of all possible religious groups, including Catholics and Protestants, Muslims as well as Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.

Leopold Stokowski has always been an innovator in the science of recording techniques, and he is the only conductor to have recorded in all methods from the acoustically made shellac disc (he made his first records in 1917) to the latest 8-channel quadrophonic system, as in this, his first recording for Unicorn.

Born in London of Polish ancestry, Stokowski com- menced his academic studies at the Royal College of Music. He later became organist at St. James's, Picca- dilly, and took up a similar post in New York in 1905. His ambition to become a conductor was realised in 1908 when he directed his first concert in Paris. His London début came the following year, and he then returned to America to take over the Cincinatti Orchestra. In 1912 he left Cincinatti to commence an association of nearly thirty years with the Philadelphia Orchestra which he built into one of the greatest ensembles the world has known. He gave countless notable first performances, including the American premières of Berg's Wozzeck, Mahler's 8th Symphony, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps.

Always eager to bring music to a wider public – especially young people he appeared in several films, of which the best known is Walt Disney's 'Fantasia'. He has made many orchestral transcriptions of the music of Bach and other composers, and in 1943 published his book 'Music for All of Us'.

When he left Philadelphia he formed the All-American Youth Orchestra, and was later closely associated with the orchestras of the N.B.C., New York City Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Symphony, and New York Philharmonic. In 1955 he became conductor of the Houston Symphony, and in 1962 formed his own American Symphony Orchestra in New York.

Stokowski has done more than any other conductor of his generation to champion new works, and he continues to further the contemporary cause with this première recording of Panufnik's Universal Prayer.