We are delighted to announce dates and programmes for our 2019/2020
season. All four concerts will be given at St Matthew’s Church in
Northampton, and the works date from a relatively short period of
time: 1819 to 1882. Also, by chance, the composers begin with B …
Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, and Bruckner … four of the great
composers of the Romantic period. We are delighted to welcome back
two guest orchestras and five vocal soloists to accompany the
performances of the Beethoven and Berlioz, to a wonderful wind
ensemble for the Bruckner, and to a super pair of pianists and a
pair of vocal soloists for the Brahms.
The Grande Messe des morts (or Requiem) by Hector Berlioz was
composed in 1837. Lasting just under ninety minutes, the work was
designed for performance in massive concert halls with Berlioz
scaling up the performers to fit - he suggested that alongside 80
sopranos and altos there ought to be 60 tenors and 70 basses! Our
performance is given in a new edition by our Musical Director,
designed specifically for the spaces of St Matthew’s Church.
Alongside the choir (of our own proportions!), tenor soloist, and
orchestra, you will hear all sixteen timpani and four brass
ensembles - one in each corner of the building. In the words of Guy
Dammann: "If your sense of awe lacks an existential dimension,
Berlioz's great Requiem will restore it. Being enveloped by the omnidirectional swell of sound at the onset of the
Tuba Mirum, or
dangled on the yo-yo of hope and despair that the Lacrimosa spins
with such masterful theatricality, are not experiences one forgets."
Brahms’s masterpiece is called a ‘German' Requiem because Brahms set
texts from the Lutheran Bible, rather than the more commonly used
liturgical Latin text of the Mass for the Dead. This was his first
major success, the soprano solo adding remarkable tenderness and
sorrow, feelings prompted by the death of his mother in 1865. This
performance of Ein Deutsches Requiem (1865-68) will be sung in the
original German, and will be our first opportunity to utilise the
new grand piano in St Matthew’s Church, the purchase of which we
helped to fund. Brahms himself arranged the work for soprano and
baritone soloists, choir, and piano duet. To put Brahms’s
masterpiece in context, we will hear music which inspired him -
Bach’s Passacaglia in C minor, originally for organ solo, but
arranged by Max Reger for piano duet - and music which was inspired
by him - Reger’s Requiem (again, not a setting of the Latin text,
but of a short poem by Friedrich Hebbel.
To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven,
the choir and joined by four virtuoso soloists and orchestra to
perform his undisputed masterpiece - the Missa solemnis (1819-23).
Beethoven composed the Missa Solemnis for the enthronement of his
great friend and pupil Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz –
completing it three years after the enthronement ceremony. There is
nevertheless a theatricality to the work that has led many
commentators to suggest that it is more appropriate to the concert
hall than the church. With four soloists and a choir, some have even
suggested it should be regarded more as a short opera than anything
else. A modern critic wrote: To those for whom Beethoven’s music is
an important reason for living, the Missa Solemnis belongs at the
centre of their experience – a work to respect, certainly, but still
more to love. Indeed, Beethoven wrote these words on the manuscript:
From the heart - may it return to the heart.
One of Bruckner’s most remarkable works, the Mass in E minor
(1866-82) was composed for the dedication of the votive chapel in
the (then) new Linz Cathedral. It is composed for the unusual
combination of eight-part chorus and fifteen wind instruments;
indeed the choice of wind instruments is itself unusual - oboes,
clarinets and bassoons (but not flutes), with horns, trumpets, and
trombones. It is based strongly on old-church music tradition, and
particularly old Gregorian style singing. The Kyrie is almost
entirely made up of a cappella singing for eight voices, the
Gloria
ends with a fugue, as in Bruckner's other masses, and in the
Sanctus, Bruckner uses a theme from Palestrina’s Missa Brevis. In
the climactic moments all voice parts reach the very highest points
in their voices, in remarkable sequences of suspensions and
resolutions. Alongside the Mass, which lasts around 45 minutes, the
choir sing a selection of Bruckner’s unaccompanied motets, and our
Musical Director performs a selection of his organ works.
