Newsletter - Past Articles
Daniel Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata (Sinfonia Sacra)
by Christine Montano-Saad, MDC member
November, 2006. Half Notes Newsletter
This season, the Metropolitan Detroit Chorale presents its annual Holiday Harmony concert with traditional carols, contemporary Christmas music, Santa’s visit and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”. The featured centerpiece is Christmas Cantata, American composer Daniel Pinkham’s most famous choral work, composed in 1957, scored for chorus, double brass choir and organ.
In my experience as a longtime teacher, I’ve learned that to best understand the child, one needs to understand the parents. It seems to follow that to best understand and appreciate music, one should understand the composer. This holds true for Pinkham and Christmas Cantata, influenced by his background, mentors and extensive, varied musical experiences.
Born in Lynn, Massachusetts on June 5, 1923, Daniel Rogers Pinkham studied piano as a young boy, and began to write his own music at age six. As a young man, he received a fine private prep school education at Phillips Academy, Andover, where he studied organ and harmony. Eschewing his family’s tradition of wrestling and theology, Daniel continued to pursue music. After attending a Trapp Family concert, he became interested in early music, especially that of seventeenth and eighteenth century European composers. In fact, he has since fostered renewed interest in this period by arranging works by Handel, Purcell, and Schubert, among others. At the age of 17, he entered Harvard as a music major in an accelerated program. He studied with musicians such as Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemuth, Walter Piston, A. Tillman Merritt, and Archibald Davidson. Mr. Pinkham received both his Bachelor (1942) and Master (1944) of Arts degrees from Harvard. Continuing studies included harpsichord with Polish legend Wanda Landowski, organ with E. Power Biggs, and composition with Arthur Honegger, Samuel Barber, and renowned Parisian teacher Nadia Boulanger. Pinkham later mastered carillon as both performer and composer. MDC director Pat Pascaretti notes that Pinkham is known as “the greatest keyboardist of the twentieth century”.
Pinkham began teaching at the Boston Conservatory of Music at the age of 23 and continued his teaching career at several colleges including Boston University, Harvard University and Dartington in Devon, England. In 1958 he became organist and Music Director of Boston’s historic Kings Chapel, holding that position for 42 years until his retirement in 2000. At the same time, he settled at the New England Conservatory of Music where he taught music history and music performance. Pinkham is currently a senior professor in the Musicology Department. His keyboard skills earned him recognition as Dean of the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1990, the same organists’ guild named him Composer of the Year. Pinkham has received six honorary degrees and both Fullbright and Ford Foundation Fellowships.
Daniel Pinkham is an extremely prolific composer, having written four symphonies, numerous cantatas, oratorios, chamber music, electronic music, scores for films and twenty television documentaries. His website catalog lists 676 compositions, including choral, vocal solo, instrumental, orchestral, concerto and stage works. His texts are as diverse as scripture, poetry, an Edgar Allen Poe story set as a one-act opera, and the 1961 inaugural address of President John F. Kennedy. He has even set Robert McCloskey’s 1942 Caldecott award-winning children’s book, Make Way for Ducklings, as a children’s musical play. (continued)
