A very Happy New Year, may it be a year of wonderful musical experiences and memories.
We ended 2022 on a high note! Pun intended! Our Christmas concert on 4th December was absolutely fantastic We had a full house – the Linder Auditorium was bursting at the seams – and the audience was second to none: enthusiastic, jolly and the singing was fabulous! The carols for joint choir and audience were bringing the house down! Especially the two traditional, well-known carols: O, Come All Ye Faithful & Hark the Herald Angles. The carols for choir only were, judging from the look on Richard’s face, performed to perfection. We always know!
Richard was on top form; he had everyone firmly in his grip – choir, orchestra, audience – and guided us all through the concert creating the jolly atmosphere which made it such a success.
The choir members had bought Christmas presents for the children at the Johannesburg Children’s Home. This is a tradition; every year we choose a children’s charity, and each choir member brings a present, so that children who’d otherwise not get spoilt with presents get at least one.
We also traditionally have a collection for a charity. This year it was the Theatre Benevolent Fund, and we collected a whopping R 37 450 – a much needed injection of funds for a very good cause.
All in all, a super afternoon!
Our first concert in 2023 is coming up very soon –
Franz Joseph Haydn
Nelson Mass
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Coronation Mass
Sunday 5th February 2023 @ 3 pm
Linder Auditorium, Parktown
Soloists: Brittany Smith, Monica Mhangwana, Phenye Modiane, Hendré van Zyl
The Phoenix Orchestra
Conducted by Richard Cock
The Nelson Mass is, in the words of a biographer, ‘arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition’. It is a work that was written at a time of intense fear for the future of Austria. In 1797-1798 Napoleon Bonaparte had defeated the Austrian army in four major battles, even crossing the Alps and threatening Vienna itself.
However, the British under Nelson had dealt Napoleon a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile. It’s possible that reports of this victory may have reached Haydn and his audience on the day of the Mass’s first performance in September 1798. Perhaps because of this coincidence, the Mass gradually acquired the name which it still carries today. The title however became firmly fixed when in 1800, Nelson himself visited the Esterhazy court, accompanied by his mistress, Lady Hamilton, where they met the composer.
Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C major was completed on March 23, 1779 in Salzburg. Mozart had just returned to the city after 18 months of fruitless job hunting in Paris and Mannheim, and his father Leopold promptly got him a job as court organist and composer at Salzburg Cathedral. The mass was almost certainly premiered there on Easter Sunday, 4 April 1779. The first documented performance was at the coronation of Francis II as Holy Roman Emperor in 1792. The mass appears to have acquired the nickname Krönungsmesse (Coronation Mass) at the Imperial court in Vienna in the early nineteenth century, after becoming the preferred music for royal and imperial coronations as well as services of thanksgiving. The nickname was included in the first edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works in 1862.
These two great works are not often heard in Johannesburg, so this is a wonderful opportunity for you to add them to your ‘I know that one’ list.
Book now to avoid disappointment – use this link
special ticket prices R170 – R350
On behalf of the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg
Kate Pape