Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993 TAG: 9304160249
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
REQUIEM FOR ALL
In 1989, Craig Fields went to Jon Polifrone and asked if the Virginia Tech music professor would compose a choral work for the Blacksburg Master Chorale."He said, yes, he'd think about it," recalls Fields, the chorale's conductor and Polifrone's colleague on the music faculty.
"Two weeks later he came in and said he had begun writing a requiem. . . . I said, `Great, as long as it's not yours or mine.' "
On Saturday, the premiere of Polifrone's "Requiem: For those we love" will be presented by the Master Chorale, the University Concert Choir, the Montgomery County Boy Choir, a 40-member orchestra assembled for the event and soloists Emily Lodine, mezzo soprano; Jeffrey Ambrosini, baritone; and Gary Fulsebakke, tenor.
The performance will be at 8 p.m. at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $10 for the general public and $5 for students and senior citizens.
The work will be recorded on the Tech campus over the two days following the concert.
A requiem, or Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead, is "a milestone in any composer's life," Fields says.
Requiems generally follow the normal Mass with the Gloria and Credo - the joyful parts - omitted. Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz and Faure are among the composers whose requiems often are performed as part of the classical music repertoire.
Like most, Polifrone's work uses an ecclesiastical Latin text. Like some, notably Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem," his also uses poems in English. Where Britten inserted works by Wilfred Owen, Polifrone includes five poems from Helen McGaughey, a teaching colleague from years ago at Indiana State University.
"It's like a song cycle interrupted with the requiem," Polifrone says. "I've stuck them in at the best moment, dramatically. . . . I hope the seams don't show."
It's love poetry, but he's not sure for whom the poems were intended - a lover, the poet's father or a higher being like Christ.
They will be sung by Emily Lodine, a mezzo soprano from Chicago, supported by a small chamber group.
Fields lauds the final work as "a personal, evocative journey of one person's view of mortality."
Highlights include a duet at the end by Lodine and Fulsebakke, a Roanoke tenor, which yields a "really touching" effect, he says.
"Requiem" denotes sorrow, but musically, Polifrone's work ranges from beautifully solemn to energetic, with an especially spirited Dies irae ("Day of wrath").
Polifrone says the idea of a requiem came to him after he began composing for Fields.
"I teach a course in music history, and I've been sort of interested in the approach to the requiem.
"Some have written traditionally - the passing of the soul and what happens, that kind of thing. Brahms turned it around. His opening line was, `Blessed are they that mourn,' which changes the whole idea."
Some composers, like Mozart, dashed off their requiems. Polifrone's took about two years - "a good, long time," he says, "but not as long as copying parts and getting it orchestrated."
"The logistics have been more than I bargained for."
The result is 149 pages of orchestral score, with a running time of about an hour and 15 minutes.
While the composer was creating the music, Fields was seeking money to produce a performance. Grants from the Tech department of music and the College of Arts and Sciences were matched by a university Creative Match Grant. Other money was put up by the Master Chorale and the New River Valley Friends of the Roanoke Symphony (the symphony is not involved in the production, though the orchestra will include many RSO players).
The financing total is about $13,000, including the recording sessions. The performance is sponsored by the department of music and the Master Chorale.
\ Polifrone, 56, came to Virginia Tech in 1980 from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is Tech's composer-in-residence, teaching composition and a survey of music.
He composed his first piece at age 10 or 11. Subsequent works included two operas, "The Kentucky Story" and "Ruth's House" - "a great little opera for a soprano who wants to be the center of attention throughout."
Though he composed choral music earlier in his career, in recent years he has concentrated on chamber works. At the moment, he is working on his fifth string quartet, titled "Ariel." It will include a sung version of a poem by Sylvia Plath.
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