Our Easter concerts are always very popular and for this year’s performance of Handel’s Messiah the Linder Auditorium was full to capacity – which at that point was still only 50%! Oh, for the days of yore with a full hall!! Well, wonder of wonders – our prayers have been heard! 50% capacity restrictions are gone, masks are off, we can fill the hall again and sing to the audience instead of into a piece of cloth ????????????????
Messiah is one of the best-known choral works, but it never becomes ‘old hat’ – every time one sings or hears it there are new things to experience, new interesting things which never caught the eye or ear before. It’s such a fantastic multi-layered work. At our concert this was shown not only through the performance but also through the pre-concert talk – a new idea – where the audience could hear about the work and how cleverly Handel used the many ‘tools of the trade’ available to composers – painting pictures, creating moods and stirring up feelings.
The concert was a great success, and it was a very special occasion for Richard Cock as it was the 50th time he conducted the Messiah – what an achievement! He, as always, was on top form guiding the choir, soloists and the Phoenix Orchestra through this great work securing a wonderful performance. The choir did brilliantly well – three hours of singing with a mask on is no joke – and the soloists were equally fantastic; the soprano Brittany Smith especially stood out – she was just stupendous and bass Aubrey Lodewyk, of course, never fails to impress. Aubrey features again in our next concert which will be equally exciting – two works not often performed
G A Rossini’s stAbAt mAteR & R VAuGhAn WilliAms’ fiVe mysticAl sonGs
Sunday July 10 @ 3 pm, Linder Auditorium, Parktown, Johannesburg
Soloists: Hlengiwe Mkhwanazi – soprano, Minette du Toit Pearce – alto, Sipho Fubesi – Tenor, Aubrey Lodewyk – bass The Phoenix Orchestra
Conducted by Richard Cock
Gioachino Antonio Rossini, (February 29, 1792 – November 13, 1868) was an Italian composer noted for his operas,
particularly his comic operas, of which The Barber of Seville, Cinderella, and Semiramide are among the best known.
Of his later, larger-scale dramatic operas, the most widely heard is William Tell. He decided, at age 37, not to write
again for the theatre. The reasons for his musical silence remain only suppositions. Some cite his legendary laziness
as the cause, while others point to the Parisian hostility to his work and Rossini’s resulting sulkiness. Another cause
might have been his jealousy over the Parisian success of the opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. During his
retirement he wrote two religious pieces: the Stabat Mater (1832) and Petite Messe Solennelle (1864).
Stabat Mater is based on the traditional structure of the Stabat Mater sequence for chorus and soloists. In view of
his background of composing mainly comic operas the two religious compositions by Rossini are sometimes criticized
as less serious. Notwithstanding the strong operatic tendencies, especially in the Stabat Mater, this was absolutely
not Rossini’s intention. On the contrary, as we can learn from his note to the manuscript of the Petite Messe, he
composed these works from a real religious feeling: “Here it is then, this poor little Mass. Have I written truly sacred
music, or just damn bad music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much skill, but quite a bit of feeling
– that’s how I’d sum it up. Blessed be thy name, and grant me a place in Paradise“.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (October 12, 1872 – August 26, 1958) was an English composer and founder of
the nationalist movement in English music. His studies of English folk song and his interest in English music of the
Tudor period fertilized his talent, enabling him to incorporate modal elements (i.e., based on folk song
and medieval scales) and rhythmic freedom into a musical style at once highly personal and deeply English.
Five Mystical Songs sets four poems (“Easter” divided into two parts) by seventeenth-century Welsh-born English poet and Anglican priest George Herbert from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems. While Herbert was a priest, Vaughan Williams himself was an atheist at the time (he later settled into a “cheerful agnosticism”), though this did not prevent his setting of verse of an overtly religious inspiration. Like Herbert’s simple verse, the songs are fairly direct, but have the same intrinsic spirituality as the original text. They were supposed to be performed together, as a single work, even though the styles of each vary quite significantly.
Our first concert to a full auditorium in years! Oh yes-it will be full!! Book now to avoid disappointment
Booking is through Computicket – just use this link
Yours sincerely, on behalf of the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg
Kate Pape