Matthew Whitehouse at St. James' Episcopal Church, May 22, 2008
Whitehouse opened his program with one of his own works - 'A Fantasy
on the Exsultet' - a large piece with a variety of episodes,
some of them quite virtuosic, which he played easily. Compositionally,
he has developed a style that is both powerful and yet quite listenable.
The subtitle (from the Exsultet, "...for darkness has been
vanquished by our eternal King", set an astronomical theme for much
of the rest of the recital; the next piece was Myron Roberts' "Nova",
which dealt with the death of stars. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C
major (BWV547) followed, and was given a solid performance. After the
intermission were two pieces by the late Petr Eben, 'The Dance of
the Shulammite' and 'The Wedding in Cana' from Eben's 'Four Biblical
Dances'. A hymn followed, sung by the congregation: "A Hymn of Glory
Let Us Sing", to the plain chant tune "Jam lucis orto sidere" ("The
star of day has risen" - another astronomical reference). For this
Whitehouse had only the melody, and after the singing demonstrated
that he has mastered the art of improvisation - an art not much
practised in the U.S., although widely in Europe. I remember
that Whitehouse - as a high school student - was already pointed
in this direction. One could open the hymnbook at random, point to a
tune, and he could do a creditable improvisation on the spot. Even now,
in his position as organist for St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in
Sierra Vista, AZ, he continues to improvise on a weekly basis. The
final work - again by Whitehouse - brought the astronomical theme to
a glorious conclusion with "Nebulae", which portrays the birth of stars.
Part of this birth process involves the appearance of a supernova,
which - as Roberts' piece indicated - follows a star's death. Thus
one may infer a theme of death and resurrection here.
Whitehouse's final composition is in a long tradition of attempts
by composers to depict various natural phenomena in music. For me,
one of the most succesful of these is Haydn's 'The Creation', in
particular the passage (for baritone): "Upheaved from the deep,
th'immense leviathan, sports on the foaming wave". Just as this
passage reflects a vivid imagination on the part of the composer,
so did Whitehouse's 'Nebulae'. His program notes were very helpful
in following this work, as they also were in the opening 'Fantasy'.
Similar notes would have been useful with Roberts' 'Nova', although
Whitehouse's spoken comments were helpful. All in all this was a
truly exciting evening, and I look forward to hearing more from
this young organist as his star continues to ascend.
-Glenn A. Gentry