In October 1954 Leo Sowerby received a hastily penned note from his good friend and fellow composer, Samuel Barber: "[Fritz] Reiner is doing a big chorus number of mine in March in Chicago and I wish I knew how to write for choir the way you do, damn it; so please come and help me to correct the mistakes!" Sowerby (1895-1968) had written the first of his nearly 200 choral scores at the age of fifteen, and his final composition, when he was seventy-three, was an anthem for choir. Forsaken of Man (1939) thus stands near the midpoint of his career.

On an afternoon early in February 1935, Leo Sowerby had just finished practicing for an organ recital he was about to give at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel, when Edward Borgers, a 19-year-old junior at the University, approached, asking the composer to look at an opera libretto he had written. "I never write opera," Sowerby said, with his characteristic brusqueness. Nevertheless, he thrust the manuscript into his briefcase. This was the inauspicious beginning of a friendship that eventually produced two cantatas, Forsaken of Man (1939) and Christ Reborn (1950).

Late in 1938 Sowerby suggested to Borgers that they collaborate on a cantata for performance on Good Friday. By that time, Borgers had completed degrees in both music and English, with a special interest in drama. The two men worked out the cantata together, although Borgers was by then teaching in northern Michigan, while Sowerby continued to work in Chicago.

The libretto of Forsaken of Man generally follows the Gospel of Matthew's account, but with liberal insertions from the other three Gospels. Dr. Borgers chose the selections from the Gospels, and then wrote the chorus's role, as commentary on the story.

Forsaken of Man is divided into four parts, with a brief Prologue and Epilogue. Although this is unusual for a cantata, the form has precedent in both drama and opera. In all four parts, which are approximately equal in length, the title of the work is the governing motive. In Part I, the disciples implicitly forsake Jesus, in their failure to understand his teachings. In Parts II and III, Jesus is rejected first by Judas, then by Peter and the other disciples. Finally, in Part IV, "all the people" turn against Jesus as he is brought before them by Pilate and led off to be crucified. The climax of Part IV and the entire cantata evoke the ultimate despair in Jesus's final cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Sowerby's music underscores the painful progression from misunderstanding to actual desertion by one traitorous disciple, the group of trusted disciples, the masses and, as it seemed in the agony of the crucifixion, possibly even by God.

The Prologue remains solidly in the key of D minor, despite the use of chromaticism. Part I progresses through several related keys by way of orderly modulations. In the next two parts the modulations are increasingly adventurous, and travel to more distant keys. Key signatures are omitted entirely in Part IV, and there are sections of tonal ambiguity. Only at Jesus's final cry, however, is tonality itself abandoned. After a dramatic pause, it is restored in the Epilogue.

The dramatic story is propelled by the Evangelist, a role given to a tenor (as in J.S. Bach's St. Matthew and St. John Passions). The Evangelist stands outside the action, narrating in the past tense, mostly in a declamatory, recitative style. The action itself is in the present tense, and is carried mainly by seven soloists, each playing the role of a specific character in the Biblical accounts. Of these, the major role by far is that of Jesus, assigned to a baritone (again paralleling Bach's Passions).

The chorus has a twofold role: Within the action it is called upon for various group scenes - an argument among the disciples; a council of priests and Pharisees; and the mob at Jesus's trial and crucifixion. The chorus also stands outside the action; in words created by the librettist, it reflects on the larger meaning of the events taking place and, by implication, invites the listener to do so. The Epilogue involves the listener directly, as the chorus asks three questions. A quiet organ coda continues the minor mode of the Epilogue, as if awaiting a response. Only in the final measure is there a glimmer of hope, as the work is allowed slowly to resolve to a major chord.

As is characteristic of Sowerby's choral compositions, the music of Forsaken of Man is always subordinate to the text. Phrase structures, melodic lines, harmonic progressions and larger formal considerations all serve the libretto. Imitative counterpoint is introduced to dramatize the text, for example, in the strict canon written for the argument among the disciples in Part I and the canonic murmuring of the disciples ("Lord, is it I?") in Part II.

The most conspicuous features of Sowerby's music are his singular harmonic structures and progressions, even while remaining within the bounds of tonality. Sowerby's natural musical language is counterpoint, but the voice-leading of the individual horizontal melodic lines is not adjusted in order to produce traditional vertical harmonies. Chordal structures follow one another in a manner that defies easy analysis. Yet one familiar with his writing can hear that the seemingly discordant notes are in fact resolved in their individual melodic lines, although those resolutions may be greatly delayed.

Forsaken of Man received two simultaneous first performances on Good Friday evening, March 22, 1940. One was at St. James' Episcopal Church in Chicago, with Leo Sowerby as organist-choirmaster, and the other in that city's Hyde Park Methodist Church, under the direction of Mrs. Mary Ruth Craven. The work is dedicated to the Right Reverend George Craig Stewart, then Episcopal Bishop of Chicago and long-time friend of the composer.

 - Ronald M. Huntington