At 4:00 this Sunday, July 19th, the air-conditioned Market Square Presbyterian Church in downtown Harrisburg will be the setting for the final program of Market Square Concerts’ Summermusic 2026, a program of songs with tenor Curtis Bannister and pianist Mark Markham setting texts that illuminate the Swedish cultural concept of JANTELAGEN which can be defined as “a focus on collective unity and humility over praise of the individual.”
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| Curt Bannister & Mark Markham |
The recipient of the Actors Equity Foundation Roger Sturtevant Award and a Drama League Award nominee, tenor Curtis Bannister has been praised by the Broadway World as a "commanding performer." He has performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Atlant Opera, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Symphony.
Pianist Mark Markham was a recital partner of the legendary late soprano Jessye Norman for over twenty years and is familiar to our audience from his appearances as a piano soloist with the Harrisburg Symphony as well as his performances as a pianist prented by Market Square Concerts including a memorable recital with the late tenor Limmie Pulliam back in 2023.
This concert will take place on Sunday, July 19th, at 4pm at the Market Suqrae Presbyterian Church. Free parking is available at the garage adjacent to the church at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets. You will need to provide the license plate number to a staff person when you enter the church through the atrium in order to activate your validation.
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To explain Jantelagen, I can do no better than quote verbatim the program notes supplied by Curtis Bannister:
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Jantelagen (the Law of Jante) is a Scandinavian social norm that discourages bragging, individualism, and standing out from the crowd for attention. Instead it favors the praising of the collective and all its achievements. Such a practice or mindset can be seen as disingenuous, particularly in the U.S. The need to achieve and be seen as a success is a constructive trait, but many in our American society have found a way – as we often do with many norms from other cultures – to put an emphasis on the need to be singularly successful and elevated. This mindset is the practice of placing self-importance above the ideals that shaped and save the America we love and enjoy today.
I first performed this recital just outside of Washington DC on November 5th, 2024 – the day after the 2024 election. I chose these songs as a collective to express the possibilities of what was to come no matter the electoral results. Once the results were known, this program became a rallying cry for unity, principles, and the need to remember who we are as Americans, where we came from, and the importance of listening before a response or reaction. We as a collective community that make up the United States do not and should not always agree but we should always stand on principle, debate, morality, and the right to agree to disagree. This program is my interpretation of being one among an incredible many to create and achieve greatness. No one achieved greatness alone.
Be the best. Be seen as the best. Be known for being the best even if we are not: in our current social climate, to dismiss humility and replace it with hyper ego can be perceived as a superpower – as a strength before all else while lacking self-awareness. Without self-awareness we feed the dangerous elements of ego. Ego is needed to survive, but when it consumes all, it can be more detrimental than being ignorant; it can cause harm to another for self-benefit and advancement without care or apology. Modesty is seen as a negative vulnerability and conformity as a weakness because it’s not “all about us/me”. Somehow sentiments that exude open-mindedness, community and cooperation are seen as negative in a culture that thrives off of hyperbole and the feat of being irrelevant. But historically, progress (not to be confused with political progressiveness) an clarity of understanding is achieved by community.
America and The American Experiment has made the remarkable feat of reaching 250 years. That’s 250 years of trial and error, victories, embarrassment, maturity and absolution. We did not become the “beacon on the hill” by playing it safe, being selfish and irresponsible, and watching out for self. America was born from the collective agreement and dream of like-minded individuals who believed in peace, freedom, liberation, and the pursuit of happiness away from the “big brother” eye and hand of a singular opinion or rule. Jantelagen is an extension of this ideal in tangible practice. As individuals we are all special, smart, humorous, compassionate and powerful. When such individuals, as we all are, realize and put to action what we can achieve together, while using our common sense and humanity, we will have the honor and right to celebrate another 250 years – as “us,” not as “I.”
– Curtis Bannister
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When it comes to writing about various works on these concerts, if you follow the blog with any regularity, you know that I essentially delve into what I call the music’s biographical background as well as (at least for this particular creative moment) the composer’s. Sometimes, programs are constructed with some sense of order – a theme, a thread that permeates the selection of the music – or perhaps there’s a historical juxtaposition (for instance, writing about Dvořák’s “American” String Quintet and Arthur Foote’sPiano Quintet on last Wednesday’s program, written just a few years apart and very much to the heart of the question, then very contemporary, of “What Is American Music?”), but in this case, none of my usual options make much sense. I will offer some recordings to familiarize listeners with some of the music, but that won’t be necessary for all of them. Still, the biographical context of the Strauss songs, I think, may enhance the listener’s appreciation; whereas, with some of them, it hardly matters. I mean, I can go on and on about, say, Bernstein’s West Side Story, but for a “curtain raiser” to the topic of the program – “Something’s Coming” – is all that that important? Going from Bernstein to Barber may not seem so much of a stretch but keep in mind that Bernstein was a curious figure in American Music, an artist with… how to put this… many feet in many different fields: conductor, pianist, lecturer, but even as a composer, a composer of music that straddled various definitions, both “popular” and “serious” (terms Bernstein would’ve hated). As I’ve often mentioned the definition of “popular” versus “classical music” a high school music teacher I knew back in 1970 gave her class, “Classical Music was the music nobody liked” (she also told them “John Philip Sousa was the greatest American composer”) but I digress.
Both Bernstein and Barber struggled with acceptance (as did most composers: think Beethoven and Brahms, for that matter). Bernstein wanted to write “serious” music that was appreciated by the “serious” composers he championed at the New York Philharmonic but which, in many cases, often came up short in the approval of both his desired audience and the audience-at-large. What was wrong with being the composer of West Side Story or The Chichester Psalms? Samuel Barber, who was treated like an anachronism in a musical universe largely populated by serialists and the avant-garde, was often dismissed, like Bernstein, for writing tonal music when tonality as such was “soooo last century.” Of course, now, the shoe has moved completely over to the other foot, but that’s another story...
Bernstein wrote West Side Story, a Broadway musical (and one of the most enduring ones in the repertoire) in the mid-1950s. Barber wrote his song cycle The Hermit Songs in 1953, but the one on our program today – usually described as an “art song” to distinguish it from a “pop song” – Sure on This Shining Night was composed in 1934 around the time he graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and four years before he wrote what would become the Adagio for Strings. One of his most frequently performed songs, it is a fine example of his lyrical romanticism yet combines a keen sense of classical structure, “carefully crafted interplay between the voice and piano that emphasizes canonic imitation” (which sounds dreadfully academic, but is an example of a composer who can be both “romantic and classical” at the same time: again, think Beethoven and Brahms). Given the multiverse that is Modern Music today with all the different styles available to the listener, there has become a more open, shall we say “diverse” awareness of the “different kinds of musics” whether we pigeon-hole it or not, and that today we think of “Wagner and Brahms” as just two more Romantic Composers from the 19th Century, regardless of the intense animosity between them and their adherents in their day, simply based on the difference of their musical styles.
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Two of the three Strauss songs on the program set texts by the Scottish-German poet, novelist, and anarchist John Henry Mackay whose father, a Scottish insurance broker, had died when the boy was two years old, so his German-born mother returned to her home in Hamburg, where Mackay grew up. While his novels explored various political and social themes (he also wrote “sports novels”), his poetry attracted composers like Strauss and Schoenberg. Since some of his poems, because of their “socialist content,” attracted the attention of the German censors, he had many of his poems published in Switzerland instead.
Both are from the Op. 27 set, written when Strauss was not yet 30. Heimliche Aufforderung ("The Secret Invitation") was composed on May 22, 1894, and given to his wife, the soprano Pauline de Ahna, as a wedding present. During their American tour in 1904, she sang it to conclude her Carnegie Hall debut recital. This particular song describes a man among party-goers wooing a woman he then invites to join him for a later tryst.
Here is soprano Jessye Norman, in this case with pianist Geoffrey Parsons:
The more famous Morgen! (“Tomorrow!”), composed the day before Heimliche Aufforderung, concludes Strauss’ original set. Mackay’s poem describes how “the sun will shine tomorrow, uniting us as we descend to the beach, looking into each other’s eyes: upon us will sink the mute silence of happiness.”
While most of the recordings that surface on YouTube use an orchestration, here is a video (with score) of mezzo-soprano Janet Baker and pianist Gerald Moore:
The poem is by the Austrian poet Hermann von Gilm whose day-job had been being a lawyer in Vienna; he had died the same year Strauss was born, 1864. Gilm’s original title was Habe Dank (“Have thanks”), the poem’s refrain, but Strauss changed it to “Zueignung.” The lover is tormented by their being parted, but after he’d drunk “the blessed draught” (how very Tristan-like) he finds the evil spirits banished and, comforted, “sinks into your embrace – have thanks!”
Here is tenor Jonas Kauffman with pianist Helmut Deutsch
(Incidentally, here is a 1921 recording with baritone Heinrich Schlusnus and the composer at the piano!)
Maurice Ravel may be better known for his orchestral and solo piano works but he wrote a number of songs throughout his career, including two sets of songs in 1914 based on “traditional melodies” (usually implying folk songs), one pair of Hebraic Songs (Deux mélodies hébraïques or “Two Hebrew Songs”), the other “Five Popular Greek Songs.” The first of two Hebrew songs is a setting in Aramaic of the Kaddish with its central theme of the magnification and sanctification of God’s name and often associated with mourning, a prayer that is one of the central elements of the Jewish liturgy. It hardly sounds like Ravel, the composer of… well, what else was he writing around 1914? The Piano Trio, for one, and he also began work on what would become Le Tombeau de Couperin; and two years earlier he’d written the ballet Daphnis et Chloe (Bolero, his most famous, if not infamous, piece would be written in 1929). In Ravel’s uncharacteristic setting, the accompaniment is almost minimalist, the whole focus on the singer and the words of the prayer. By not setting it in French, perhaps Ravel was thinking the audience would need to follow the translation in the program – did they do that in 1914? – so they would be forced to face the words of the prayer, thus, Believers or not, they were made part of the community.
In this recording, cantor Azi Schwartz sings Ravel’s setting of the Kaddish text with pianist Fadi Deeb, recorded at the Jerusalem Music Center in 2010.
Part of that side of American Music that encompasses everything from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Bernstein to Sondheim and many more (and many different styles) in between, community is certainly a part of the other songs in this set: Adam Guettel, born a hundred years after Richard Strauss, “is known for his rich, operatic style and for writing major Broadway musicals such as Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza, and Days of Wine and Roses. His work often blends storytelling with lush, dramatic music, and “Build a Bridge” fits this tradition – combining emotional depth with melodic beauty.”
Here, Audra Macdonald sings “Build a Bridge,” part of Guettel’s Myths & Hymns collection, a series of concert pieces drawing on themes and melodies from his stage works. It’s “a lyrical, reflective piece that uses the metaphor of building a bridge to convey emotional and spiritual connection,” expressing “longing and determination to overcome obstacles (‘the water’s wide,’ ‘battle the tide’) to reach someone or something important. The repeated call to ‘build a bridge’ symbolizes creating a connection across distance, time, or difference. It’s both a personal plea and a universal metaphor for hope, perseverance, and unity.”
Stepping outside the program’s continuity (since I already blew that as a concept with the Strauss songs, anyway), the second half of the program opens with another Guettel song, “Awaiting You,” from the album “Myths and Hymns” released in 1999.
"In his song cycle, Myths & Hymns,” Concord Theatricals writes, “Guettel paints an emotional landscape of faith and yearning that embraces a boundless spectrum of ideology and spirituality. ...The musical vocabulary sweeps from romantic art song and rock to Latin, gospel and R&B. Myths & Hymns elucidates our fantastic desire to transcend earthly bounds, our intrinsic need to connect with something or someone greater in our restless search for enlightenment.” Here is “Awaiting You” with Billy Porter:
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Alas, between the heat, the oppressive air quality as I try to finish this, and the joint cantankerousness of my back and my computer, I’m going to have to cut this short if it’s to be posted before the concert… Well, I’d said I wasn’t planning on covering every song: some of them may be more familiar than others and their context within the program’s theme, Scandinavian or not, fairly obvious – if we’re talking about building bridges to connect to a greater community, of course you’re going to include Sondheim’s “No one is alone” from Into the Woods (sung here by Bernadette Peters) or a true Broadway classic from 1945, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel (“When you walk through a storm, keep your chin up high – and don’t be afraid of the dark… Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone…” You only need to see the words and you’ll be able to sing along!).
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If we’re talking about what makes America in these past 250 years, we would be remiss if we completely overlooked the Black Experience and the role of the Negro Spiritual and the influence they’ve had on American Music (and society in general) both popular and “serious.” The song “Strange Fruit” may be familiar thanks to Billie Holiday’s performances, both music and lyrics written by Abel Meeropol in 1934. It portrays “lynched African Americans as ‘strange fruit’ hanging from Southern trees, using stark imagery to contrast the natural beauty of the landscape with the horror of racial violence.”
Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” was to be the first movement of his instrumental suite, Black, Brown, and Beige, blending jazz, gospel, and spirituals in an attempt to tell the African American story through music, a work he premiered at Carnegie Hall in January of 1943. The lyrics “express a heartfelt prayer for divine guidance and protection, particularly reflecting the African American experience. Repeated appeals to "Lord, dear Lord above" ask God to "look down and see my people through," combining personal faith with collective hope. Biblical imagery and folk wisdom are woven throughout, with references to celestial permanence and moral guidance, such as the Golden Rule.”
In this recording, Duke Ellington performs with Mahalia Jackson.
There are books about the history, the meaning, and the significance of the African American or Negro Spiritual, musical expression that gave hope to a life in slavery, religious or social (the two intertwined). Their melodies have become familiar to audiences of all races, their lyrics sometimes less so, and the comprehension of them perhaps even less: tragedy as entertainment is always difficult, and sometimes the unbearable sadness and incomprehensible hopefulness may be uncomfortable (but then, Art is supposed to challenge us, to open us to experiences beyond ourselves).
Only one example is a song called simply “O Freedom.” “Oh freedom over me! And before I’d be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.” In this performance of one of many arrangements is the American tenor, George Shirley, raised in Detroit, who was the first African American tenor to sing a lead role at the Metropolitan Opera, singing Ferrando in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte in 1961. He would sing major roles for the next 11 seasons. (Point of note: the first African American singer in any major role at the Met was contralto Marian Anderson with her belated debut as Ulrica in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera in 1955. Time, moving slowly, has continued to move slowly in too many areas of equality in this nation of ours.)
With Dvořák’s quintet on the second program of Summermusic 2026, I mentioned briefly the Bohemian composer’s influence as a teacher in New York City in the 1890s where his advice to his American students was to look to American folk music for inspiration, just as he, a Bohemian (or Czech) composer looked to his own ethnic roots for inspiration. The problem was, none of his students really could say what “American folk music” was since they all came from Europe with English or German or Italian folk music in their blood – and one, at least, Henry T. Burleigh, had the Negro Spiritual in his heritage. In fact, he introduced his teacher to these songs. The story goes that Burleigh, a native of Erie, PA, putting himself through school while working as the Conservatory’s janitor, was singing in the hallways one night as he cleaned, and Dvořák, the school’s director, happened to hear him and asked him to sing more of these for him. Burleigh later wrote “I sang our Negro songs for him very often, and before he wrote his own themes, he filled himself with the spirit of the old Spirituals.” Dvořák himself said, speaking about musical styles, “in the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.”
While there is much that can be argued for and against Dvořák’s “Americanisms” in the works he wrote will in the United States, the famous “Largo” Theme in his “New World” Symphony may or may not be inspired by any specific Negro Spiritual (or capturing the essence of them in general), but in 1922, another Dvořák student, William Arms Fisher, added Spiritual-like words to Dvořák’s English horn melody to create the song “Goin’ Home,” speaking of the Chicken-or-the-Egg Conundrum.
But we forget Burleigh also studied composition with Dvořák: he didn’t just empty his waste baskets and sing for him. In all, Burleigh, well-known as a singer, also wrote between 300-400 songs of his own, some of them arrangements of spirituals, but most of them original, “serious” – there’s that word again – compositions. One of them is a setting of Langston Hughes’ “Lovely, dark and lonely one.” Hughes, one of the most famous African American poets and leader of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote the poem, originally titled simply "Song," in 1925; Burleigh published his setting of it ten years later. Here, it’s performed by tenor Roderick George and pianist Katie Franklin.
And while the program concludes with Strauss’ Zueignung which I discussed above, we’ll close this blog post for now and look forward to seeing you Sunday afternoon at the concert!
– Dick Strawser
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