In June 2005, Richard and Katherine Huffman of Anchorage were killed by a grizzly bear while traveling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On Saturday night, music composed in their memory received its Alaska premiere in a concert by the Alaska Chamber Singers.
The piece, "Eternity Passing Over — An Arctic Requiem," by Seattle-area composer John Muehleisen, drew a positive reception from the crowd at Our Lady of Guadalupe church.
The (mostly) a cappella work is in three sections, performed without a break. It opens excitedly with the first lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur," expressing the awe felt at being in glorious nature by outdoors folks like the Huffmans. That energy continues with similar sentiments conveyed in lines from "Men of the High North" by Robert Service, sprinkled with adjectives like "wild," "proud," "fierce" and "amazing."
But then there's a sudden shift with Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H." The music becomes more somber and reflective, a mood that remains through the end. The famous line "Nature, red in tooth and claw" is contained in these verses, a clear reference to the bear.
Short phrases from the Latin Mass for the Dead are introduced in the second part, which is primarily built around the poem "Rest" by John Henry, Cardinal Newman. That theme extends into the third and final movement with more poetry, including Richard Crashaw's specifically pertinent "An Epitaph Upon Husband and Wife Who Died and Were Buried Together" and another poem by Robert Service, "Heart O' the North," from which the title "Eternity Passing Over" is taken.
The piece, which had its debut with the Seattle Pro Musica last year, was commissioned by former Anchorage resident Shannon Polson, daughter of Richard Huffman. She is a singer, as was her father, and wrote a memoir that mixes her experience traveling to the place where the attack took place and performing Mozart's Requiem. Muehleisen's score makes references to Mozart, Bach, Gregorian chant and an Athabaskan lament, none of which are particularly easy to note. The choir is accompanied from time to time by an Inupiat drum, though used in a way more like a tambour, with regular changes in tempo, not the traditional heartbeat rhythm.
Many of the details regarding the piece were explained by Polson and Muehleisen prior to its performance. The information was good, but the talk took twice as long as the music. The chorus, conducted by David Hagen, performed the pleasant, though not notably melodic, music beautifully, earning a standing ovation from most of the audience. Soloists Gabrielle Wibbenmeyer, Kathy Jin Hagen, Jim Powell and Bruce Wood all made commendable contributions.
The rest of the program consisted of settings of Shakespeare, folk songs and traditional sacred Americana by various composers. The evening opened with the first of Samuel Barber's "Reincarnations." Numbers 2 and 3 were in the program but cut, ostensibly to make time for the discussion of "Eternity Passing Over."