Program Notes

I. We Look for You (Evensong – Raag Hamsadhwani)
II. The Year’s Midnight (Matins – Raag Malkauns)
III. The Unexpected Early Hour (Lauds – Raag Ahir Bhairav)

This set of three carols, on new texts by poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, traces a journey through the solstice, the longest night of the year. The texts follow the canonical hours of Evensong, Matins and Lauds, and the music maps onto Hindustani raags for those same hours (Raag Hamsadhwani (p*/d), Malkauns (p/d) and Ahir Bhairav (p/d) ). This set is a meeting of cultures, and of the many ways we honor the darkness, and celebrate the return of light.

(*please note that the way Hamsadhwani is spelled in Devanagari the Hindi pronunciation link is not correct – but it gives the correct pronunciation.)

Recording

Here is a selection from three recordings of A Winter Breviary available on Spotify:

Also check out these beautiful recordings of A Winter Breviary for brass quintet, arranged by Gaudete Brass

Resources

For a deep dive into this work, please read poet Rebecca Gayle Howell’s post on the Oxford University Press Blog.

For further deep dives into most of the raags in Reena’s work, a great resource is Joep Bor’s Raga Guide, which gives a concise description/transcription of each raag, and has accompanying audio for each raag.

Premiere/Performances

The Unexpected Early Hour was recorded by the BBC Singers and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on December 24, 2021. The first live performance of The Unexpected Early Hour was by the Los Angeles Master Chorale on December 8, 2021.

Press/Reviews

Reena is an expert in merging Hindustani and Western classical styles. For A Winter Breviary, we created a story that moved according to the Christian canonical prayer hours, housed in the corresponding raags for those same hours. (In Hindustani music, raags are ancient melodic frameworks that have different moods or colors associated with them, though that’s really an oversimplification. They are aligned with the turns of the day.) Anyway, that kind of dovetailing of traditions and techniques happens when we’re on the phone together and one of us says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we…?” When we let go of control and listen, when we just follow it into our joy, that’s when innovation happens. And we know we can trust ourselves and each other in that process, so we have a lot of fun making something that is larger than either of us.

-Rebecca Gayle Howard, Living in This Quiet: A Conversation with Rebecca Gayle Howell (Molly McCully Brown)