Mass for the Endangered
Composer, Sarah Kirkland Snider
Text by Nathaniel Bellows
Video art by Deborah Johnson
"Breathtaking beauty." -- The New Yorker
"A prayer for endangered wildlife and their imperiled environments...elegiac and affecting." -- Wall Street Journal
Sarah Kirkland Snider's "Mass for the Endangered" is a six-movement work performed by English vocal ensemble Gallicantus, led by Gabriel Crouch. The work is a celebration of, and elegy for, the natural world.
Snider explains, “The origin of the Mass is rooted in humanity’s concern for itself, expressed through worship of the divine—which, in the Catholic tradition, is a God in the image of man. Nathaniel and I thought it would be interesting to take the Mass’s musical modes of spiritual contemplation and apply them to concern for non-human life—animals, plants, and the environment. There is an appeal to a higher power—for mercy, forgiveness, and intervention—but that appeal is directed not to God but rather to Nature itself.”
This emphatic articulation of purpose, sung by and for other humans, seems to be reaching beyond environmentalism and toward morality at large.--The New York Times
[Mass for the Endangered] ...conveys its urgent ecological message with power and beauty.--BBC
Jointly released by New Amsterdam and Nonesuch
I Kyrie
1. Kyrie
Kyrie Eleison
On earth, air, and water,
have mercy.
On stone, tree, and flower,
have mercy.
World have mercy.
Kyrie Eleison
Give mercy to all wing and paw,
mercy to all creed and claw,
on flower, seed, leaf, and root.
Give mercy to all broods and tribes,
mercy to all nests and prides;
to tide and spring, squall and breeze,
to those who plead for calm and peace,
not hunted, hounded, poisoned, fleeced.
To barren, poisoned land:
Forgive us.
To the vanished, and the left:
Forgive us.
World forgive us.
Mercy on this refuge,
this braided boundless stone.
Mercy for their old,
mercy for their young.
And mercy now
for what we've done.
Kyrie Eleison
— Nathaniel Bellows
II Gloria
2. Gloria
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Et in terra pax
hominibus bonæ voluntatis.
Laudamus te; benedicimus te;
adoramus te; glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi
propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, Rex caelestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens.
Domine Fili unigenite Jesu Christe.
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei,
Filius Patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
suscipe deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dextram Patris,
O miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus Sanctus,
tu solus Dominus,
tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe.
Cum Sancto Spiritu
in gloria Dei Patris.
Amen.
III Alleluia
3. Alleluia
Sea of cradle, foundling,
current, cold and quelled as morning.
Braid of vapored ashes,
shadowed creche, collapsing.
Contour, carve, corrode—
breathe through camphor, coal,
seed each breeze with gold.
Poison, parch, pollute—
plow the coast, the dune,
flow toward constant moon.
Alleluia
Hearth of stone, of tar, of lava,
shelter shielding mother.
Oh, save us mother!
She who is sleeping,
Is she who will wake.
Fracture, foist, defoul—
shatter cliff and shoal,
sand each stone to whole.
Harbored, held, unharmed—
she’ll wake, rise, rejoin,
her daughters and her sons.
Alleluia
— Nathaniel Bellows
IV Credo
4. Credo
We believe in stone and moss,
sand and grass. Land limned on loam,
haven to the harmed and the whole,
the lesser and the left, the spirit housed
in the opposite.
We believe in all
who are offset.
We believe in the blessing of wing,
angelic, ingenious—every
soaring thing. We believe in the holy
pelt and fin, hoary hide and shell.
The armor of every beast is blessed,
adorned in their own regalia.
Mercy, now,
on all animalia.
Take no tooth or tusk, steal no
heart, hair, or husk.
Et expecto…
No shark robbed of its fin, no mink
denied its skin
resurrectionem mortuorum
et vitam venturi saeculi…
No bath in bowls of salted blood
And I await the life of the world to come…
no cove for corpse, no reddened veldt.
A flora fashioned, valued, known
to heal the mind and mend the bone.
We believe in all who are at risk.
We believe in all who are voiceless.
We believe in all who are helpless.
We believe in all who are at risk.
Lay down the spear, lay down the hook,
lay down the gun, the knife, the net.
No majesty in poison. No virtue in
the snare. No salvation in a strangled spirit.
We believe in songs at daybreak,
cries and calls at dusk.
In quell and coo, drone and hum,
in hovel, hollow, river, pond.
We believe in listen. We believe
in wish. And to be worthy of
their gift: this chance to look
within ourselves and change how
we have lived, to change
how we have lived.
We believe in all who are offset.
We believe in all who are outcast.
We believe in all who are voiceless.
We believe in all who are stranded.
We believe in all who are stalwart.
We believe in all who are fearless.
Expecto vitam venturi saeculi …
We believe in all who are dauntless.
And I await the life of the world to come…
We believe in all offset, outcast, voiceless,
stranded, stalwart, fearless, dauntless,
promised.
We believe in all who are silenced.
We believe in all silenced.
We believe in all who are promised.
We believe in all promised.
And I await…
— Nathaniel Bellows
V Sanctus
5. Sanctus/Benedictus
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Domine Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Osanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit
in nomine Domini.
Osanna in excelsis.
VI Agnus Dei
6. Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi
Lamb of God,
of longing, loss,
have mercy on us.
Accept, embrace
these sins—release
the callous,
the conquering,
replace this
hardened wrath,
with calm.
Lamb of God,
in calling, call,
grant them peace.
The deepest sleep
of safety, the unencumbered
yawn. To bathe and breed
with no threat or risk—
trade our sins,
our trespasses,
for bliss.
Let, allow, admit, accord:
The slumbering of gods
The wandering unbound
The hunted hunting whole
The grazing under moon
The breathing boundless breath
The freedom found in self
The feeling life is whole
The meaning known, unknown
Lamb of God,
of goodness, gold,
share your mercy.
Enslaved by sordid
time—the inward-turning
eye, in scarcity, with
lie. They who take our
basest acts—Lamb of
God—no punishment
no cruel attack.
They who rise from
all we lack—Lamb of
God—give wonder, wish,
give kindness back.
Agnus Dei
— Nathaniel Bellows
Recently called a “significant voice on the American music landscape” by the Philadelphia Inquirer and “an important representative of twenty-first century trends in composition” by New York Classical Review, composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” by the New York Times, “groundbreaking” by the Boston Globe, and “poignant, deeply personal” by the New Yorker. With an ear for the poetic and the architectural, Snider’s music draws upon a variety of influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling.
Photo by Willamain Somma
Sarah Kirkland Snider, composer
Recently deemed one of the "Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music" (The Washington Post), composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “poignant, deeply personal” (The New Yorker).
Her works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, eighth blackbird, The Knights, Roomful of Teeth, Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo, percussionist Colin Currie, and tenor Nicholas Phan, among others. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Forward Into Light, an orchestral commission inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement for the New York Philharmonic, and an opera on 12th-century visionary/saint/composer Hildegard von Bingen, commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects.
Penelope and Unremembered, her first two LP song cycles, earned critical acclaim from NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Pitchfork, among others. In fall 2020, Nonesuch and New Amsterdam Records released Snider’s third LP: Mass for the Endangered, a 2018 work for chorus and ensemble performed by English vocal ensemble Gallicantus, to wide critical acclaim. In naming the album to its Best of 2020 list, NPR proclaimed: “Snider must be recognized as one of today's most compelling composers for the human voice." Her music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc.
Nathaniel Bellows, text
is a writer, visual artist, and singer-songwriter, based in New York City. He is the author of two novels—On This Day and Nan—and a collection of poetry, Why Speak?. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, The New Republic, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, and many other magazines, periodicals, and websites. He has performed his music in the US and abroad, and is a graduate of Middlebury College (BA) and Columbia University (MFA).
nathanielbellows.com
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Deborah Johnson, visual artist
Deborah Johnson, aka CandyStations, is an interdisciplinary artist and designer specializing in stage design and performance visuals. She has worked with artists including Sufjan Stevens, M83, Sofi Tukker, St. Vincent, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Annie B. Parson, Ray LaMontagne, Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Bang On A Can, and Wilco, with performances at Coachella, Disney Concert Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Museum of Modern Art, MASS MoCA, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, The Fillmore and Wiener Konzerthaus. She has also created site-specific performances and installations at SXSW, Sundance, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 92Y Tribeca, MoMA, Chicago’s Millennium Park, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and completed residencies at MASS MoCA, The Experimental Television Center, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts.
candystations.com
GALLICANTUS
Originally commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street, this recording features the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus conducted by Gabriel Crouch.
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