New Classical Tracks: Thanksgiving Memories

Cantus — A Harvest Home (Cantus 104)

Every time the nine men of Cantus perform, they give voice to shared human experience. That's what you'll hear on their newest recording, A Harvest Home, which offers highlights from their annual Thanksgiving concert.

Tenor Aaron Humble says the seed for this program stems from the ensemble's home base in Minnesota. "Minnesota still has ties to [its] roots in agriculture and the idea of harvest, and Thanksgiving being part of that season, really resonated with us," he says. "We found music that relates to that, and that idea of harvest and abundance and being thankful is something that we as Americans identify with, but also something that we need to be more purposeful about really appreciating — that we are experiencing abundance when other people in the world are not, and that we should take time to give thanks for that."

A Harvest Home opens with the familiar hymn, "For the Beauty of the Earth." It's an original arrangement by tenor Paul Rudoi. "Every year when we were creating the program 'Thanksgiving with Cantus,' we were thinking of different pieces that would fit the theme, and this title came up," Paul says. "We didn't have an arrangement. I volunteered to make an arrangement and that's how it came about. I always loved this hymn, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to stretch my skills as a composer and as an arranger for Cantus. And it ended up a great arrangement for us — so I was really happy with that." "The Pasture" is one of seven country songs called "Frostiana" by American composer Randall Thompson. Each is based on a poem by Robert Frost. Aaron and Paul agree it was a perfect fit for Cantus. "We just took that piano score and found a way to sing the score and have a trio of guys sing the original parts," Aaron explains. "It's the only movement of 'Frostiana' that's written just for men's voices without the sopranos and altos. So it's a little on-the-fly adaptation that we did and we've come back to it several times because it just seems to work so well.

"There's a debate about what is the relationship of the narrator and the person the narrator is speaking to. Is it a love poem? Is it a father and son? A mother and daughter, mother and son? … but just this idea of, 'I'm going outside to do this simple task and I don't really want to be away from you for that long.' It's just so sweet."

"I should say — this is by far my favorite song that we've done in the past three years," Paul adds. "It just works so perfectly for Cantus — this piece kind of flowed out of us and I was really happy that we were able to put it on the disc."

Like many Americans, Aaron grew up singing the classic Thanksgiving hymn, "We Gather Together." "My favorite story about that song — my first arrangement was for my sister and me," Aaron recounts. "My sister was playing the flute and I was playing the euphonium — the least versatile instrument. And my mother was a pianist and we put it together for church. It's a song that we all sing. Unfortunately, there are some congregations that have stayed away from it because the text is a little aggressive. For most of the piece, there's a new text that I wrote for the arrangement so that it would be more universal, to jibe with our modern idea of living in a global community."

"A Harvest Home" concludes with a piece Cantus commissioned from composer Byron Adams. Aaron says "Eventide" is based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. "And the Longfellow connection pulls in Minnesota and the Hiawatha story and Dvořák's fascination with Native American culture and African American spirituals, to honor that tradition," Aaron says. "At the close of the piece, Byron worked in main theme of 'Steal Away.' And that's how the piece closes out. It's so beautiful. And there's this element of nostalgia that runs through the piece. And I think that that is a bittersweet part of holiday time. It is this time of celebration and coming together for family but we also think about those we've lost. And that's something that is really universal — the holidays are a time when we remember those who meant so much, who are no longer at the table with us."

The men of Cantus give voice to this shared human experience on their latest recording, A Harvest Home.

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