La Virgen a Solas

Celesti’anna Jordan, soprano
Vlada Moran, organ

Recorded at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz, February 2025.

Program Notes

La Virgen a solas is a piece I’ve been writing and rewriting since the 1990s. The inspiration for the piece began in the fall of 1997 when I encountered music and text from the Songbook of the Duke of Calabria (1556, also known as the Cancionero de Upsala), a collection of Iberian villancicos from the early 16th century. A group of poems dealing with the Virgin Mary caught my eye. Not only did they focus on her feelings on the night of Christ’s birth, but in many instances were written from her point of view. I immediately thought of my
grandmother, a devout Catholic in a country that adores Mary.

Lily (Floria Liliana was her given name) was a very musical person with a sharp ear, who never trained to play an instrument even though she grew up surrounded by Western music. Both of her parents were conservatory trained musicians in Guatemala in the early 20th century, but she only studied sporadically with her mom when she was a child, and never pursued music professionally.

In the late 1990’s, while in her 60s, Lily began formal lessons on the piano. She was, for all intents and purposes, a beginner. I decided to make her a gift: a simple setting of one of the poems, something she could sing and play at the piano as a Christmas carol. That piece, “No la devemos dormir”, is a two part affair: the right hand of the piano part is the vocal line with the words underneath, the left plays the simplest possible arpeggiated chords below. I faxed it to her just in time for Christmas.

In the fall of 2007 my friend and musical confidant Celesti’anna approached me to compose a piece for her recital. I quickly seized on the idea of using “No la devemos dormir”. I shifted it from common practice tonality A major to D harmonic mixolydian. As its more dramatic sibling I added “Verbum caro, factum est”, another poem from the same set. Under the title La Virgen a solas (a line from “No la devemos dormir”) they were presented as a new gift to my Tita, who always asked for my protection and who herself saved me in ways she never truly understood.

In 2018 our Lily Flor passed away, in her beloved Antigua, Guatemala. This, and all future versions, are dedicated to her: Floria Liliana, the patron saint of our family.