Concerts
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Read The New York Times glowing review of last season's Benjamin Britten concert.
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Fauré: Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine
& Requiem (1605) (Officium Defunctorum) - T. L. de Victoria
Friday, 12 November at 7:30 PM
Gabriel Fauré is considered the foremost French composer of his generation; the Cantique and Requiem are his most celebrated works of sacred music. The stirringly beautiful Cantique de Jean Racine was Fauré’s first major composition, written when he was just 19 and still a student at the Niedermeyer École de Musique Classique et Religieuse.His setting of words by the 17th century dramatist and poet, Jean Racine, won him first prize for composition.The Requiem, first performed in 1888, was not composed to the memory of a specific person, but in Fauré’s own words,…for the pleasure of it. After all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ…I wanted to write something different. Indeed, Fauré’s Requiem differs in many ways from a traditional Requiem mass. Rather than taking a predominantly fearful or mournful tone, the work reflects his belief that death releases one into harmony with all creation. Two of its most sublime movements, Pie Jesu and In Paradisum, are not part of the traditional liturgical text, but were added by the composer. The overall mood of gentle serenity is enhanced by his omission of the Requiem texts Dies Irae and Tuba Mirum, both expressing the terror of the Day of Judgment.
The program also features the Requiem of 1605 (or Officium Defunctorum), a masterpiece of the late Renaissance by Spanish composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria. With its restrained and fluent counterpoint, the Requiem is Victoria’s last and greatest work composed for the funeral of the sister of King Philip II of Spain.
Best known to Metropolitan Opera audiences for his recent roles as Angelotti in Tosca and the Ghost in Hamlet, David Pittsinger has also been praised for his performance as Emile de Becque in the Tony Award-winning production of South Pacific at the Lincoln Center Theater. Yet no role thrills him as much as the prospect of singing this concert alongside his son who is a member of the Saint Thomas Choir School.
Performer(s):
• The Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys
• Orchestra of St. Luke's
• David Pittsinger, bass-baritone
• John Scott, conductor
Dates, Times & Tickets:
11/13/2010 at 7:30 PMFriends of Music may qualify for complimentary tickets for this concert.
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Handel's Messiah
Tuesday, December 7 & Thursday, December 9 at 7:30 pm.
No work of sacred choral music has won the hearts of audiences and performers like Handel’s Messiah. Since its 1742 premiere, Messiah has been a centerpiece of Christmas and Easter celebrations around the world. At Saint Thomas, it is a much-loved Christmas tradition. The New Yorker notes that "The Saint Thomas Choir offers a Messiah of impeccable musicality and taste."
In her review, New York Times music critic Vivien Schweitzer writes:
"The annual Saint Thomas version (of Messiah) is a king among the innumerable performances in New York, admired for the pure sound of the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys and the spirited playing of Concert Royal, a period-instrument ensemble."
We invite you to herald the joyous holiday season with a performance of Messiah in the glorious setting of Saint Thomas Church.Performer(s):
• The Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys
• Concert Royal
• Elizabeth Weisberg, soprano
• Daniel Bubeck, countertenor
• Rufus Müller, tenor
• Matt Boehler, bass
• John Scott, conductor
Dates, Times & Tickets:
12/7/2010 at 7:30 PM12/9/2010 at 7:30 PMFriends of Music may qualify for complimentary tickets for this concert.
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Ceremony of Carols (Benjamin Britten) & Dancing Day (John Rutter)
Thursday, December 16 from 5:30-6:30 pm
Scored for the unusual pairing of treble (boy soprano) voices and harp, Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols is a sequence of nine carols based on texts by anonymous 15th and 16th century writers. Deeply felt, both elegiac and energetic, it is a masterpiece for boys’ voices.In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini wrote:
The 24 boys of St. Thomas’s respected choir school were ideal performers. The angelic voices of the young trebles blended perfectly with the richer voices of older altos, some of whom were almost twice as tall as their youngest choirmates. The boys are already complete musicians who hold pitch true even in close-spaced harmonies and are not rattled when contrapuntal lines become crisscrossed in agitated passages. For all the sweetness in the music, Britten also conveys rambunctious, boyish energy, which this performance captured, with the fine harpist Anna Reinersman and Mr. Scott conducting.
John Rutter's Dancing Day is a cycle of traditional Christmas Carols. The work celebrates Christmas with a tapestry of familiar carols and old texts dating back as far as the 14th century. Several of these songs are “people’s music”—merry medieval dance tunes with religious texts having one foot in the church door, and with their dance melodies one in the village square. This amalgam of secular experience and religious story retell the central event of Christmas with vivid imagery and affecting simplicity. Through them all runs the sense of wonder and danceable joy.
Performer(s):
• The Choristers of Saint Thomas Choir
• Anna Reinersman, harp
• John Scott, director
Dates, Times & Tickets:
12/16/2010 at 5:30 PMFriends of Music may qualify for complimentary tickets for this concert.
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Bach B Minor Mass
Friday, February 18 at 7:30 PM
Some days ago I began to study Bach’s Mass in B minor again…The Kyrie, the Qui tollis, the Incarnatus and the Crucifixus are among the most divine things ever conceived and realized by the human mind…Every day, the human beings who cover the earth’s five continents ought to offer up this invocation to the Eternal Father, a formidable voice, to redeem their sins! What a marvel!
---Arturo Toscanini (1933)
The Mass in B Minor, one of Bach’s greatest compositions, is actually a compilation of his “best” sacred music compiled during the final years of his life, between 1746 and 1748. The whole is a synthesis of the most important musical styles of the time, ranging from the sixteenth century fugal writing characteristic of Palestrina (stile antico) to the contemporary galant style of the Dresden court with its coloratura writing. Bach transformed it all into a work of great spiritual significance. It is unlikely that Bach heard a performance of the complete Mass in B Minor. It was not until 85 years after his death that a performance of the complete work was given by the Berlin Singakademie and not until ten years later, in 1845, that all four sections of the work were published by Simrock in Bonn. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem performed the American premiere of the complete Mass in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on March 27, 1900.This is your opportunity to hear Bach’s masterpiece in the magnificent Gothic splendor of Saint Thomas Church.
Performer(s):
• The Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys
• Concert Royal
• Yulia Van Doren, soprano
• Meg Bragle, mezzo-soprano
• Jay Carter, countertenor
• Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor
• Jesse Blumberg, baritone
• Craig Phillips, bass
Dates, Times & Tickets:
2/18/2011 at 7:30 PMFriends of Music may qualify for complimentary tickets for this concert.
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The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, UK
Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 PM
The Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, directed by Andrew Nethsingha, is one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world – known and loved by millions from its recordings, broadcasts and concert tours. The Choir has sung services following the Cathedral tradition of the Church of England since the 1670s. Its renowned “continental sound” sets it apart from most other English cathedral choirs – there is brilliance and vigor as well as control and discipline. The Choir will perform a varied program of sacred choral works from the 16th century to the present.
Performer(s):
• John Challenger & Frederick James, Organ Scholars
• Andrew Nethsingha, Director
Dates, Times & Tickets:
4/14/2011 at 7:30 PMFriends of Music may qualify for complimentary tickets for this concert.
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Symphonie de la Passion - P. de Maleingreau
Organ recital:
Monday, April 18 from 6:30-7:15 PM
No tickets or reservations required - donation suggestedBelgian composer and organist Paul de Maleingreau (1887-1956) was an accomplished musician in his day, having been professor of organ at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, and the first organist in Brussels to perform the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Maleingreau’s compositional style has influences ranging from Franck to Debussy, from romanticism to impressionism, but in fact his music is in a very personal idiom.
Symphonie de la Passion, Op. 20, was written in 1920 and published three years later. It is dedicated to the celebrated 15th Century Flemish painter Rogier Van der Weyden, whose art inspired Maleingreau. The Symphony contains four dramatic movements that vividly depict various scenes from the Passion of Christ. Like many of Maleingreau’s compositions, the work draws heavily on Gregorian chant; Christus factus est and Vexilla Regis are among the featured Passiontide chant themes. This is a rare opportunity to hear Maleingreau’s immensely powerful Symphony, which remains a noteworthy part of the programmatic organ repertory.
Performer(s):
• Frederick Teardo, organ
Dates, Times & Tickets:
4/18/2011 at 6:30 PM - 7:15 PM -
Vivaldi Stabat Mater & Bach Cantata, BWV 82
Tuesday, April 19 from 6:30-7:30 PM
No tickets or reservations required - donation suggestedVivaldi’s intricate writing for strings is evident in this work; the weeping string motifs present a moving counterpoint to the lyrical vocal line, vividly evoking the suffering of Mary at the foot of the cross.
Bach’s Cantata, Ich habe genug, scored for baritone, oboe and strings, was written in Leipzig for the Feast of the Purification in 1727. The Purification commemorates an incident recorded by St. Luke in which Mary takes the baby Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to offer ritual sacrifices encountering the aged Simeon on whose canticle the libretto is based. The work expresses a yearning for death and the hereafter through its life-affirming music.
Performer(s):
• Ryland Angel, countertenor
• Scott Dispensa, baritone
• The Sinfonia Players
• John Scott, continuo
Dates, Times & Tickets:
4/19/2011 at 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
