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Princeton Packet March 10, 2006
The Irish
are coming to Richardson Auditorium, where the Tim Keyes Consort will
perform 'St. Patrick's Breastplate.' Mystical tales abound in Irish history
and mythology, and these extend to saints as well as kings, enchantresses
and fairies. Take, for example, the story of "St. Patrick's Breastplate,"
a powerful prayer attributed to the saint around A.D. 433. The story goes
that St. Patrick became aware of an ambush planned to kill him and his
group, as they traveled to the king's court for a royal conference. It
was during that march that they chanted these sacred words, first known
as the "Lorica" or "The Deer's Cry." As the king's warriors lay in hiding,
ready to kill, they never saw Patrick and his men, just a gentle doe followed
by 20 fawns. "Supposedly they passed right through the king's armies,"
says composer Tim Keyes, who has written a new work titled St. Patrick's
Breastplate. The composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra will be
premiered by the Tim Keyes Consort, under the direction of Mr. Keyes,
at Richardson Auditorium in Princeton March 17. The Watchung-based group
will also present The Irish Blessing, a setting of the well-known prayer
that invokes a spirit of hopefulness on life's journey. To round out the
program, the consort will perform Charles V. Stanford's Symphony No. 3
in f minor, Op. 28, "The Irish." This work is one of Stanford's most popular
symphonic works, yet it is rarely heard in the United States. It's all
part of the consort's Celebration of Ireland, a different way to spend
St. Patrick's day aside from drinking green beer and listening to the
same old songs. Expect to hear plenty of elements of the "olde sod," however,
within Mr. Keyes' original composition. To honor the balance between the
Christianity St. Patrick brought to Ireland, with its ancient ties to
Earth-based religions, St. Patrick's Breastplate is structured around
two main themes. One is hymn-like and the other is based on a Gaelic-style
melody. "Those two thematic pieces are what I built the entire composition
around," Mr. Keyes explains. "In the beginning, the opening tune is heard
in a number of ways, including bagpipes playing in the corridor, so it
sounds like they are coming from afar, out in the fields. "It's written
for orchestral instruments but I used them in a way to sound like traditional
Irish instruments," he continues. "For example the piccolo (sounds like)
the pennywhistle. I have all the double reed instruments playing a 'drone'
sound like the bagpipes. The violins are important because the fiddle
is a very popular Irish instrument - there are Irish jigs and fiddle tunes
throughout. And the percussionists play traditional hand drums, such as
the bohdran." In researching the musical elements of the piece, Mr. Keyes
was aware that Ireland had little if no classical, European musical tradition,
but a rich and ancient history of folk music - much of which was passed
down by ear from parent to child, teacher to student. "At the turn of
the 20th century, collections of all their folk music was put together,
though," Mr. Keyes says. "I went through these and assimilated the stylistic
things that were in the folk music - although this is more sophisticated."
Mr. Keyes was first inspired about 10 years ago to create St. Patrick's
Breastplate by a well-known section of the prayer, "Christ with me, Christ
before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me..." and wrote a hymn, setting
this text to music for his choir. One of the men in the choir wondered
if Mr. Keyes had ever seen the prayer in its entirety and brought it in
for him - all three pages. "This was an Easter Sunday morning and as I
read through the first line, 'I arise today through a mighty strength,'
in my head I heard this gigantic fugue," Mr. Keyes says. "I just started
writing and maybe 45 minutes later I had about a dozen pages of score.
It was so joyful, the whole thing just came alive. I was able to finish
the whole first section quickly, but the rest of it came very slowly."
The title references the protective power this prayer seemed to have for
St. Patrick and his group, much like the breastplates worn by the ancient
Celts. "The Celts wore a piece of armor called the breastplate, which
was very significant for them because it had their coat of arms on it,"
Mr. Keyes says. "In fact, it almost had magical powers. This prayer and
its protection are like St. Patrick's armor, his breastplate. "The prayer
is a conglomeration of all the things St. Patrick had done in the conversion
of Ireland to Christianity," he continues. "There's a lot of drama in
it too, and the dramatic elements gave me an ability to mine that for
the composition." Mr. Keyes is a 1984 graduate in music composition and
music theory from the University of Notre Dame. It was at Notre Dame where
he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 and Six Pieces for Piano, which landed
him a scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival, where he studied composition,
conducting, and performance with Charles Jones, Leonard Bernstein and
Andre Watts. Originally from Humble, Texas, Mr. Keyes is currently the
pastoral assistant for music and liturgy at the Catholic Community of
St. Charles Borromeo in Skillman. An accomplished church musician and
choral director, he has composed a number of sacred music oratories as
well as concerti for varied solo instruments. His violin concerto, Colorado,
was premiered by the Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra in 2004. In addition,
Mr. Keyes formed a music production company called August Productions
and the record company API Records. with his wife, Meg Poltorak Keyes.
A freelance recording engineer, voiceover talent and commercial jingle
writer, Mr. Keyes has been involved in the production and/or recording
of more than
500 commercial master recordings. He is also occasionally
sought by legal professionals to analyze all forms of recorded media including
taped witness statements, wire taps, phone taps and voice identification.
Now in its 10th year of performance and recording, the Tim Keyes Consort
is composed of both professional and amateur singers and instrumentalists
from throughout central New Jersey. One thing that struck Mr. Keyes when
he first read the "St. Patrick's Breastplate" prayer in its entirety was
the way the author - if not the saint himself - had woven references to
nature in one section of the work. Perhaps this speaks to St. Patrick's
acknowledgement of how the ancient, non-Christian residents of the island
revered the heavens, the sea, the forces of nature and, of course, the
land itself. "When St. Patrick converted Ireland, he blended Druid and
Christian beliefs," Mr. Keyes says. "So the prayer also has a blending
of those things. The fourth section references the 'light of Sun, brilliance
of Moon, splendor of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth
of sea, stability of Earth, firmness of rock.' These are all things of
nature."
The Tim Keyes Consort will present A Celebration of Ireland,
includingthe
world premier of St. Patrick's Breastplate, at Richardson Auditorium,
Princeton University, March 17, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25-$30, $10 students.
For information, call (609) 258-8000. On the Web: www.princeton.edu/richaud.
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