From Monteverdi to Harbison
The Brattleboro Music Center’s Blanche Moyse Chorale, under the direction of Mary Westbrook-Geha, will perform a holiday concert entitled "From Monteverdi to Harbison", on Friday, December 7 in Greenfield, Massachusetts and Sunday, December 9 in West Brattleboro, Vermont.
During the Chorale’s holiday concert Ms. Westbrook-Geha will lead the chorus in performing a variety of music in celebration of the season of sacred light. Selections include Claudio Monteverdi’s Magnificat for double chorus, John Harbison’s O Magnum Mysterium in small and larger settings, Morten Lauridsen’s O Nata Lux, Heinrich Schütz’s Meine Seele erhebt den Herren also known as Deutsches Magnificat SWV 494 for double chorus, in addition to six carols by Alfred Burt and Randall Thompson’s Alleluia. The audiences will be invited to join in singing traditional carols at the conclusion of the concert.
Ms.Westbrook-Geha has chosen the Monteverdi Magnificat and the Schütz Deutsches Magnificat for the program out of adoration for both, having discovered them simultaneously while in high school and having had her first opportunity to perform the Schütz with the amazing choir at Emmanuel Music in Boston.
“Originating from the Latin word for magnify, the Magnificat is the name given to the words of Mary in Luke’s Gospel, beginning “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”, explains Ms. Westbrook-Geha. “According to the gospel, Mary, while pregnant with Jesus, visited her cousin Elisabeth, who was at the time pregnant with John the Baptist. In response to Elisabeth’s salutation Ave Maria, she spoke the words of the Magnificat.”
Claudio Monteverdi’s Magnificat for double chorus is the earliest music being performed in this concert and the least well known of the four Magnificats Monteverdi composed between 1610 and 1640. An Italian composer and ordained priest, Monteverdi brought about a change to the musical style of his time marking a transition from Renaissance to Baroque music. Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) is considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Monteverdi and generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach.
Conductor Westbrook-Geha first experienced the two Harbison settings of O Magnum Mysterium when she sang with Emmanuel Music premiering the works and ultimately recording them for Koch International. Westbrook-Geha comments, “I am always stunned by their beauty, and in the larger setting, can’t help but hear the influence of the Stravinsky Mass.”
John Harbison (born 1938) is one of America’s most prominent composers and is known for his expressive range and creativity. His works include symphonies, string quartets, operas (including The Great Gatsby which was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera) and his cantata The Flight into Egypt, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1987. Harbison, considered a talented commentator on the art and craft of composition, wrote his own libretto for Gatsby and was highly praised for his poetry even as a youth.
“O Nata Lux by Morten Lauridsen,” Mary comments, “is an incredibly beautiful setting of a profoundly beautiful text, and combines into a lovely ethereal group with the pieces of the other two American composers on the program.”
The performance will conclude with six carols by Alfred Burt including Carol, Caroling; O Hearken Ye; Ah, Bleak and Chill the Wintry Wind; Come Dear Children; Some Children See Him; and Jesu Parvule before the audience is invited to join in singing traditional carols.
The Chorale will perform on Friday, December 7, 8:00 p.m. at Second Congregational Church at 16 Court Square (on the Common in the middle of town) in Greenfield, Massachusetts; and on Sunday, December 9, 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Church at the West Village Meeting House in West Brattleboro, Vermont. Tickets are $15 generous, $12 general and are available at the door or from a Chorale member. The Blanche Moyse Chorale is a program of the Brattleboro Music Center, for more information contact the BMC at (802) 257-4523.