This recording pays tribute to one of Canada's foremost artists, the late choral conductor Elmer Iseler. As Ken Winters says in his introduction to this CD: "The work Iseler achieved with his three main choirs...will shine on in memory and through their numerous recordings for many generations to come. Indeed, Iseler's work already represents at the highest level a choral history of music-making in Canada from the 1950s to the turn of the century."

Elmer Iseler (1927-1998) : A Tribute

In his great 1934 essay National Music, Ralph Vaughan Williams said he would define genius as ‘the right man in the right place at the right time’. And if we don’t get hung up on the post-’50s gender fixated perception of the term ‘man’ as ‘male’ instead of reading it as ‘distinct from beast’, we may find Vaughan Williams’ simple, down-to-earth definition quite hard to refute.
It is certainly in the sense of that definition that I think we must declare Elmer Iseler a genius of the choral art in Canada; for if ever we have had ‘the right man in the right place at the right time’ it was Elmer Iseler in Canada in the second half of the 20th century. The work Iseler achieved with his three main choirs (the Festival Singers, founded in 1954; the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, which Iseler directed from 1964 to 1998; and the Elmer Iseler Singers, which he founded in 1978 and conducted until the year of his death) will shine on in memory and through their numerous recordings for many generations to come. Indeed, Iseler’s work already represents at the highest level a choral history of music-making in Canada from the 1950s to the turn of the century.

The young Iseler was in place with his new, trim, vital, elegant Festival Singers at the first music season (1955) of the Stratford Festival. He and his singers were also on hand in 1962 in Toronto when Igor Stravinsky , the century’s supreme composer, visited Canada for his 80th birthday celebrations. At Stratford, the singers premiered Healey Willan’s ‘A Song of Welcome’; at the Stravinsky celebrations, they gave the North American premiere of the Russian-American master’s ‘A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer’, and the broadcast premiere of his ‘The Dove Descending Breaks the Air’. Stravinsky later chose the Festival Singers’ performance of his greatest choral work, ‘The Symphony of Psalms’, prepared by Iseler and conducted by the composer himself, to represent that work in Stravinsky’s CBS (now Sony) definitive recording of all his works.

But it was above all for the choral music of Canada’s own composers as it emerged in a rich, fresh flowering from the matrix established earlier in the century by Healey Willan, Alfred Whitehead, Ernest MacMillan, W. H. Anderson and others, that Elmer Iseler and his three superb choirs were the defining and authoritative voice during the nearly 50 years of his leadership.

For the Festival Singers Iseler commissioned and premiered works by John Beckwith, Robert Fleming, Harry Freedman, Ruth Watson-Henderson, Oskar Morawetz, Jean Papineau-Couture, Harry Somers, Claude Vivier, Charles Wilson and John Wyre. With the singers he also premiered works of Talivaldis Kenins, Derek Healey, Norman Symonds, Alexander Brott and numerous others.

With the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, after assuming the directorship in 1964, Iseler pursued a somewhat less persistently national 20th century program. First Canadian performances of major international works played a larger role here. Mahler’s Symphony No.8, Britten’s War Requiem, Copland’s In the Beginning, Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion and Magnificat, and Tippett’s The Mask of Time stand out in the memory. But Iseler and the choir also commissioned and premiered Canadian works such as John Beckwith’s Place of Meeting (1967) and R. Murray Schafer’s Sun (1982 for the opening of Roy Thomson Hall). And what was constantly apparent was that under Iseler, this large amateur choir, cast in the 19th century mould, had become a radiant and translucent choral instrument, perfectly agile and always in tune, and capable of an enormous dynamic range, from the subtlest unearthly pianissimo to the most intense, galvanic fortissimo, and always at the service of the music.
The Elmer Iseler Singers — Iseler’s youngest, most flexible choir — commissioned and/or premiered works of Beckwith, Tomas Dusatko, Srul Irving Glick, Raymond Luedeke, Jean Piché, André Prévost, John Reeves and Peter Togni. Not long before Iseler’s death I was transported one early evening, when I emerged from a studio in the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, to hear an aetherial performance of an unfamiliar yet beautiful neo-renaissance setting of the ‘Ave verum Corpus’. The music was rising in a magical cloud of soft polyphony into the lofty reaches of the atrium. I looked down into the atrium from the second floor walkway and saw Iseler’s familiar tonsure with its long fringe of pale hair, and his raised arms almost motionless, his whole being rapt and ecstatic in rehearsal as he drew forth this exquisite music from his singers. I descended to the main floor and quietly joined the little group gathered round the platform. During a short pause in the rehearsal Iseler’s wife, Jessye, told me that the setting of the ‘Ave verum Corpus’ was by the young Canadian composer and broadcaster Peter Togni. Togni’s authorship surprised me more than the fact that Iseler had seen and valued this lovely, anachronistic morsel of spiritual music and brought it forth for all of us to share. Togni had written something I’d never have suspected he had in him; but Iseler was doing what he had always done: finding beauty where it lay, without prejudice. After the rehearsal Iseler stepped down from his podium wreathed in smiles, obviously deeply pleased with Togni’s work and his singers’ heavenly performance of it. As I shook his hand I had no idea that this would be my last brief meeting with this genius of the choral art in Canada.
© Ken Winters, 20 June 1999

R. Murray Schafer (b.1933)

Sun - R. Murray Schafer has acheived an international reputation as a brilliantly innovative composer.
Born in Sarnia, Ontario, he studied composition with John Weinzweig in Toronto and with Peter Racine Fricker in England. In 1972, Schafer created the World Soundscape Project, a series of studies dealing with the sonic environment. He is the author of numerous books on the subjects of music, music education, sound, and literature.

Schafer has composed in all genres, operatic, symphonic and chamber music. Many of his works reflect his interests in oriental philosophy and mysticism, the natural environment, the theatrical aspects of ritual, and the presentation of music-theatre works in settings other than the traditional concert hall.
Sun, for a cappella chorus, was composed in 1982. It was commissioned by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and received its world premiere at the gala opening concert of Roy Thomson Hall on September 12, 1982. “The piece,” writes Schafer, “takes the form of a day in the life of the sun, beginning with the soft light of dawn, rising to the great energy of the noon heat, then cooling to end quietly with the twilight. The text consists of words for sun from around the world, starting in the Far East and travelling, via Asia, Europe and Africa, to the Americas.”

Oskar Morawetz (b. 1917)

Who Has Allowed Us To Suffer? - Oskar Morawetz was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to Canada in 1940. Since that time, he has established himself as one of Canada’s leading and most frequently performed composers. His orchestral compositions have been performed by over 140 orchestras under the batons of such outstanding conductors as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Raphael Kubelik, Sir Adrian Boult, Karl Ancerl and Andrew Davis. His compositions for solo piano have been recorded by Glenn Gould and Anton Kuerti, and his songs by Jon Vickers, Lois Marshall, Maureen Forrester and Louis Quilico, among others.

His From the Diary Of Anne Frank had extremely successful performances in Carnegie Hall, the Prague Spring Festival and in Israel and Australia; his other composition to the words of Anne Frank, Who Has Allowed Us To Suffer? was dedicated to her father, the only member of the Frank family to survive the Nazi death camps. These moving, courageous, hopeful words about suffering and faith were written by the 15-year-old Anne after the most frightening night of two years in hiding when burglars broke in and the family believed that they had been denounced.

Harry Freedman (1922)

Pastorale - Born in Lodz, Poland, and brought to Canada in 1925, Harry Freedman is one of the most often performed of all Canadian composers, thanks to his ability to please performers and audiences alike. His highly individual music is both challenging and entertaining, with its perky, often provocative blend of serial elements, avant-garde techniques and jazz. Freedman’s large output includes many orchestral and chamber works, plus scores for the theatre, ballet and films. Among his many theatrical achievements are included three commissions for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and numerous scores for Stratford Festival Shakespearean productions.

Pastorale was written in 1977, and commissioned by the Department of Music of the University of Prince Edward Island through a grant from The Canada Council. As Freedman himself has said of the work, “It’s in one movement, and uses a text I made up myself, in a language that has no meaning. I don’t like texts; I find that you can’t clearly hear or understand words when they are sung by a chorus, so why bother to set words? So I use my own ‘words’, like ‘Tadachika’, ‘Weondahsay’ and ‘Kawiash’. Many of them are similar to words in the Ojibway language, place names in Ontario, which I used for texts in Keewaydin, Pan and Graphic II. For Pastorale, some words, like ‘Kasagaminiss’, are retained in their original form, but I have no idea what it, or any of the words, means. I just like the way they sound!”

Clifford Ford (b.1947)

Mass - Born in Toronto, Clifford Ford began to study voice, piano and organ at the age of ten, and later studied composition with John Beckwith and John Weinzweig. In 1971 he was one of the founding members of the Arraymusic group of young Toronto composers. While he was still in his twenties, his music had already been performed by such major ensembles as the Toronto Symphony, the Festival Singers of Canada, and the York Winds.

Ford’s Mass was composed in 1976 on a commission from Elmer Iseler for the Festival Singers. Ford writes, “My musical remembrances as a boy soprano in a Toronto church choir were of the great choral works of the renaissance and Tudor England and it was this that was the single most important influence on me when I approached the Mass... The work is predicated on the use of typical melodic shapes from the Renaissance used in a more contemporary style — that is, stepwise motion, the cambiata figure, suspension and resolution, etc. Such archaic devices lent themselves effectively to such 20th century devices as mass structure and the incorporation of non-western musical material.”

André Prévost (b. 1934)

Ahimsâ - André Prévost, one of Canada’s most highly esteemed composers, was born into a family of musicians in Hawkesbury, Ontario, and spent his youth in Saint-Jerôme, Québec. Among his many music teachers were Jean Papineau-Couture, Clermont Pépin, Olivier Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux, Aaron Copland and Zoltan Kodaly. Prévost has produced a substantial body of orchestral, choral and chamber works, distinguished by his dramatic use of sonority and colour superimposed upon solid architectural frameworks.
Ahimsâ, for mezzo-soprano, chorus, flute and string quartet, was commissioned by the Toronto International Festival with a grant from The Canada Council. The text of Ahimsâ is derived from three poems of Fernand Ouellette, Naissance de la paix, Guerre ou paix, and Le mal de la paix, rearranged by the composer. ‘Ahismâ’ is the Sanskrit word for non-violence, and was the word chosen by Gandhi to describe “the foundation of the quest for truth”. The score bears the date “January, 1984” and the following dedication: “To Mstislav Rostropovich and to Arto Tchakmakdjian, two artists whose creative efforts are an eloquent testimony of their deep commitment to the work for peace”.

The Artists

Elmer Iseler Singers - The Elmer Iseler Singers were founded in 1979 and immediately took its place as one of Canada’s leading choirs. They have since won a wide following, thanks to their many recordings and appearances on the CBC, and their annual tours throughout Canada and the U.S.A. The group also forms the professional nucleus of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

Sandra Graham - Mezzo-soprano Sandra Graham was born in Toronto and studied at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, the Banff School of Fine Arts and in West Germany. She has appeared with many of Canada’s leading orchestras including the Toronto and Montreal Symphony Orchestras and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. She has been heard in both opera and lieder recitals in Germany and Canada.

Robert Aitken - Robert Aitken, one of the world’s great flutists, was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia. He has toured extensively as a soloist throughout Canada, Europe and the Far East, and has made numerous recordings for such labels as Centrediscs, CBC Records and BIS. In 1971, he co-founded Toronto’s New Music Concerts, for which to this day he serves as Artistic Director, and as a frequent conductor and soloist, performing the premieres of a long list of Canadian compositions.

Lawrence Cherney - Oboist and English horn player Lawrence Cherney was born in Port Colborne, Ontario. He was Principal Oboe of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra (1967-69), oboist and English horn Player in the National Arts Centre Orchestra (1969-72), and a founding member of the York Winds (1972-82). He has two full length recordings on the Centrediscs label, Tongues of Angels (CMC-CD 4793) and The Charmer (CMC-CD 5395).

Orford String Quartet - Canada’s gift to the roster of internationally celebrated string quartets, the Orford String Quartet, was founded in 1965, and till its final performance in 1991 was extremely successful in its touring of Canada, the U.S.A., Europe, the U.S.S.R., Latin America, Australia and the Far East. The Orford’s recordings of the complete Beethoven Quartets received three Grand Prix du Disque awards, and its landmark recording of the first five Schafer string quartets entitled Schafer: 5 (CMC-CD 39/4090) won two JUNO awards.