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Argento’s Evensong: Of Love and Angels

(February 2008)

Dominick Argento’s Evensong: Of Love and Angels recevies world premiere

Dominick Argento’s powerful new work Evensong: Of Love and Angels receives its world premiere this Sunday, March 2, at Washington National Cathedral in D.C. On commission from the Cathedral Choral Society in celebration of its centennial, Argento composed this 40-minute piece for chorus and orchestra in memory of his late wife of 51 years, soprano Carolyn Bailey Argento.

Over the span of nine movements – Threnody, Prece: Phos Hilaron, Psalm 102, The Lesson, Sermon, Meditation, Canticle: Nunc Dimittis, Prayer/Lullaby, Anthem – Argento explores the twilight between the living and the dead with original text as well as passages drawn from scripture and the Book of Common Prayer. Scored for soprano, treble, reader, mixed chorus, and orchestra, the piece begins and ends with the theme C – B – A (Carolyn Bailey Argento); other variants of this theme are used throughout the work, not always in recognizable forms.

Argento writes: “I wished to compose and evening service unified from beginning to end with recurring themes and motives. … On the 180 consecutive mornings I walked into the rehabilitation center, the name Bethseda above the entrance immediately brought to mind the passage in John 5, which speaks of the angel that troubled the water and the sense of hope it quickened in the afflicted who surrounded the pool waiting – like me – for a miracle of healing. I have never counted the angels in our home, but they certainly number in the hundreds. They were my wife’s favorite icon. She collected them wherever we traveled, and any occasion became an excuse to give them as gifts. Throughout her illness, I kept remembering that angel and hoping for a miracle. When I felt I was ready to write Evensong, I wanted it to be, as the title says, Of Love and Angels.”

Photo: Tom Berthiaume

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