Samuel Adler aims at “healing or repairing the world so that by our life’s work we would leave the world a better place when we depart from it.” He is well-known for his ecumenical vision and for building bridges through music. It is this mutual vision and passion that brought Samuel Adler and Gloriæ Dei Cantores together.

Gloriæ Dei Cantores has been building bridges through the international language of music since its founding in 1988. The choir sings in eighteen languages, and has touched the hearts of audiences in twenty-three countries in Europe, Russia, and North America, receiving extensive critical acclaim for its artistic elegance, performance authenticity, and compelling spirituality.

In preparation for this recording, members of Gloriæ Dei Cantores delved into the composer’s works, studying the texts, the compositional style, and the vision. Each choir member brought a distinct perspective, sparking lively discussions and unifying the vision they aimed to portray through the recording. Throughout this process conductor Richard K. Pugsley worked with the choir to bring their study, vision, and emotional connection to the texts and the music to life on the recording floor, bringing forth a message that “speaks to our time.”

Known for his musical intuition and performance authenticity, Richard K. Pugsley has been acknowledged for his “expert conducting” (Classics Today) with “clarity and instinct for high impact moments” (San Francisco Classical Voice), and for his ability to “reveal the details of each composition with a rare sensitivity and luminosity” (New York Classical Review). Pugsley has conducted the internationally recognized Gloriæ Dei Cantores for over twenty years and has been instrumental in promoting and highlighting American composers, winning the Ernest Bacon Memorial award for the performance of American music.

Pugsley’s passion for enlivening the sacred texts of choral literature as relevant and present encounters of sung prayer, spans the traditions of ancient Gregorian chant, to classic repertoire, modern works, and rarely performed choral gems. Gloriæ Dei Cantores’ discography includes the works of over 200 composers, and 150 premiere works on record for the first time.

Pugsley is an avid storyteller as is Adler, aiming to communicate the texts set to music as authentically as possible and in true harmony with the composer’s vision. To Speak to Our Time is a musical journey with all of the emotions that make us human. Travel with us and may Samuel Adler’s music illumine your path.

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Modest about his achievements yet authentically convinced about the role of his music in today’s world, Arvo Pärt is today’s most performed classical composer. For the past forty years, Pärt’s compositions have shown and spoken the influence of multiple layers and global influences – the music of the Orthodox Church, bells, Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, a compositional technique he developed called “tintinnabuli”, and…silence.

The expressive beauty and clarity of his music shines through the joyful dance-like rhythms of Peace Upon You, Jerusalem, and the glorious setting of Mary’s own words in the Magnificat. Pärt’s masterful setting of L’abbé Agathon sets the scene of an ancient 4th century story of the chance (or was it?) meeting of the hermit Agathon and a leper. After several testings of the hermit’s patience and his generosity, the leper reveals himself to be an angel, and blesses the hermit Agathon, and goes on his way.

The final work – one of Arvo Pärt’s largest choral works – is Stabat Mater, written to express the passion, agony, and love of Mary at the foot of the cross of her son.

Gloriae Dei Cantores
Richard K. Pugsley, Conductor

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRveNFr6ld0

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Gabriel V Brass Ensemble dedicates itself to upholding a standard of excellence in music for worship, and to inspiring future generations of musicians. For this recording, the ensemble coordinated with the talented young members of the award-winning Spirit of America Winter Percussion Ensemble. The joy of their work together resonates throughout this program recorded in the stunning acoustics of Mechanics Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts.

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The program includes Resurrection: Lament, The Rising, The Ecstasy, Reflection by Larry King, Sonate der 94ste Psalm by Julius Reubke, Job for Organ, 6. Penitence and Realization by Petr Eben, Symphonie VI Op. 42: 1. Allegro by Charles-Marie Widor, Fantasia Super “Komm Heiliger Geist” BWV 651 by J.S. Bach, and Messe de la Pentecote: V. Sortie (Le vent d’Esprit) by Olivier Messiaen.

The inspiration for all of these text-based works is outlined in the detailed program notes, giving additional insight to the composers’ thoughts and intentions behind the music.

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This recording begins with one gift from the Middle Ages that can be mined as pure gold. Imagine a world where music is rhythmic, percussivedriven— often sophisticated—but linear, like this line of type. Somewhere, someone had the absolutely new vision (even if it was thought to be a reinvention of a classical idea) of moving into the vertical realm. Music acquired an entirely new dimension, and from this evolved multiple-voice writing of all stripes, even the creation of a widely usable system of notating music. Here began Bach and the masters of polyphony; here began Beethoven and the possibility of a symphony; here began every ethnomusicologist’s ability to transcribe folk and tribal sounds from the world; here is jazz, here is pop, here is rock.

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The Feast of the Immaculate Conception was officially proclaimed in 1854, though the faithful had sung songs to honor this tenet of belie f in popular devotion for centuries before. Florid in both melody and text, the Gradual Benedícta es tu features high and lengthy melismas, possibly implying Mary’s relationship with heaven, and her constant encouragement in pointing us up to her Son. Then it comes back to a lower range, reminding us perhaps that God chose an earthly, human vessel—like us—to co-work with him, and fulfill his plan of love and salvation for his people.

The Introit for this Feast, Gaudens gaudébo, weds past and present in many ways. Mary herself sings this song from the womb of her mother, Anne, with the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. Almost from the moment of her conception, it seems, she points the way to Christ with unequivocal joy. Even the tune for this piece, composed in the 1800s, was borrowed from a more ancient melody. So her joy becomes our joy, and that spark of divinity occurring in a moment more than two thousand years ago can happen in our hearts today

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