Album Notes

L' Esprit du Temps: Cantata for Mixed Choir, Children Choir, Soprano Solo, Organ, Piano and Strings.
Music by Leslie Melcher / Lyrics by Rev. Dr. Fred Anderson and Leslie Melcher
Conductor: Charles Pilling / Choirmaster: Jane Brockman
Soprano: Mary Ellen Callahan
Choirs: Central City Chorus, The Children’s Choir of Central Presbyterian with the help Musica Sacra (Richard Westenburg)
Strings: Jackie Carrasco – Violin I / Lisa De Luca, Violin II / Mary Woolen, Cello
Pianist: Kenneth Bovven, Organ: Walter Hilse, John Carbone, Contrabass
New York City's Central Presbyterian Church has an impressive musical legacy. The famous composer Charles Ives was its choirmaster from 1901 to 1911. This is where he premiered his early works, such as his Organ Piece for Communion Service (now lost) and wrote several organ works that went into his Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting and conducted the premiere of his cantata The Celestial Country.
In October of 1994, Melcher was commissioned by Central Presbyterian to write a composition celebrating the Church's 175th anniversary. The proceeds went to the Cornell Children's Fund. The work, "L'esprit du Temps" (The Spirit of our Time), was completed September 1996 and premiered on October 26th 1996 in New York City. This CD is a recording of this performance.
The Spirit of our Time stems from 4 notes centered on B-flat. The original motif slapped Mr. Melcher one afternoon on the corner of East 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue as he was carrying his groceries. The challenge - says the composer - was to create a liturgical work that was true to form (a Cantata loosely based on Psalm 127), true to the occasion, true to our times and true to the mystical dimension in ourselves. Although the piece may at times sound rather typical of what could be considered "Church Music", its true foundation borrows more from a fusion of Blues, Modern Classical, Rock, Electronic and Jewish folk melodies. From bar progressions (Bb-Db-Eb), elaborate rhythms to secondary elements that imitate rock-like electric guitars to ostinati, delays, syncopations, silence and half tone intervals, The Spirit of our Time owes as much to today's music than to the tradition. By examining the church and its architectural floor plans, Melcher created a musical structure in imitation of the architectural and spatial areas of Central Presbyterian. This is why the work is divided into six movements as each one corresponds to six prominent sections of Central Presbyterian Church. In 2003, Melcher was detained for hours by the Canadian customs for having blue prints of an old church building they suspected he might bomb. He had quite a hard time explaining the very dubious officers the musical significance of the documents...
As such The Spirit of our Time is a distant relative of spatial descriptions in narrative works such as Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition or Saint Saens' Le Carnival des Animaux. The composer was struck by the way each part of the church flowed into the next, yet remained an entity unto itself. By constructing the six parts of the work to reflect six parts of the church, the composer has given the piece a formal sense of direction as one can travel along with the music through time and space, through the church, through the spirit of our time into the Spirit that lies within us all. In the very place where Composer Charles Ives composed and performed his early works, The Spirit of our Time was received with standing ovation. Acknowledgments and praises from peers as well as famous musical luminaries were abundant.
However, L'esprit du Temps was never performed again.
The composer would like to thank Mr. Charles E. Basket, without whom this work would have never seen the light. L'Esprit du Temps is dedicated to him with heartfelt gratitude.