Handel Society and 50-Member Children S Chorus Sing Bach Masterpiece
“It’s something you have to listen to at least once in your life”:
Handel Society and 50-member children’s chorus sing Bach masterpiece
HANOVER, NH—Even though it’s considered one to the greatest works by one of the greatest composers in Western music, Johann Sebastian Bach’s majestic St. Matthew Passion isn’t often performed.
Little wonder: how often can one produce a work that’s two-and-one-half-hours long and requires three choruses (one of them of children), a double orchestra and six soloists?
For the Handel Society of Dartmouth College, the answer is once about every 30 years—and this spring is the next opportunity, in performances on Saturday, May 18, 7 pm, and Sunday, May 19, 2 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins Center. Tickets are $20-29 for adults and $10-13 for students ($5 for Dartmouth students).
Robert Duff, conductor, believes this is a work that speaks to our society today, transcending time. “The culmination of Bach’s work exceeds all expectation through its novel and compelling treatment of the subject, his employment of so many musicians, and his creative adaptation of the Gospel narrative,” he said. “This innovative work remains accessible and compelling to singers and audience alike.”
“It’s something you have to listen to at least once in your life,” said Kristen Colwell, a Dartmouth senior and music major who sings with the Handel Society and has been its student manager. “Some people consider it the greatest piece in Western classical music. The fact that it is thought about like that, it’s something to check out, for sure.”
The 100 singers of the Handel Society are divided into two choruses that sometimes sing “antiphonally”—as if in dialogue—and other times together. In addition, the production includes a 50-member children’s chorus, directed by Rebecca Luce, music teacher at Hanover’s Ray School and a choral director for the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon. The singers range in age from 8 to 14 and are from several Upper Valley communities. Luce previously contributed a children’s chorus to a 2008 Handel Society of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
Duff’s own daughter is in the children’s chorus, one of two children in that group with parents in the Handel Society. “Becky Luce is one of the most talented music educators in the elementary setting within the state of New Hampshire,” Duff said. “Her teaching has impacted thousands of students in their developing appreciation for music.” Several students of Luce were among a select group, chosen from 900 applicants, that performed in the National ACDA Children’s Honor Choir in Dallas, Texas in mid March.
Composed in the 1720s to be performed as part of Holy Week services in Leipzig, Germany (where Bach was a school music teacher and composer for the town’s four churches), St. Matthew Passion tells the story of the last three days of the life of Jesus Christ as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. The work is in two parts, the first including the Last Supper and the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane; while the second—darker and softer—describes the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus.
The musical textures range from complex counterpoint to simple hymns, with movements for the full choruses as well as for smaller groups of voices, and arias by soloists representing specific characters such as Jesus, Judas, Peter and Pontius Pilate. The Evangelist, a role for tenor voice, is the principal storyteller and narrator, moving the drama along through a kind of half sung, half spoken recitative.
English tenor Ian Bostridge has been so taken with Bach's music that he has made the role of the Evangelist a staple of his repertoire, he told NPR. "I think the St. Matthew Passion is one of the greatest pieces of music in the western repertory," Bostridge says. "And to start one's journey toward understanding that piece is a very important point in anybody's life."
In the Handel Society production, the Evangelist is sung by the young, exciting Bach tenor Derek Chester (“beautifully shaped and carefully nuanced singing”—The New York Times), who also sang the Evangelist’s role in the Handel Society’s 2010 performance of Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium (Christmas oratorio) and was tenor soloist in the Society’s 2011 Handel’s Messiah. The other soloists include Brenna Wells, soprano, and Reginald Mobley, countertenor, both previous soloists with the Handel Society; and Dann Coakwell, tenor and Douglas Williams, baritone.
Ironically, the St. Matthew Passion slipped into obscurity after 1729; and Bach’s entire reputation went into eclipse for decades following his death in 1750. In 1829, composer Felix Mendelssohn’s production of the work revived interest not only in the Passion but also the whole of Bach’s work—a recognition that has continued to this day.
Download high-resolution photos and Word version of press release
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help the Dartmouth community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. During the 2012-13 season, the Hop celebrates its 50th anniversary with heightened programming that emphasizes the Hop’s missions of mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts. The Hop’s 50th celebration is one of the major elements in Dartmouth’s designation of 2012-13 as the college’s Year of the Arts.
* * *
CALENDAR LISTING:
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion by the Handel Society of Dartmouth College
More than 280 years after it was first heard during Good Friday services in Leipzig, Germany, Bach’s soulful and dramatic retelling of the Biblical Gospel of St. Matthew remains one of the most moving works of the choral repertoire, at once monumental and intimate. Dartmouth’s 100-member town-gown choral ensemble divides into two choruses to perform this work, and are joined by a dynamic orchestra, six stellar guest soloists and a 50-member children’s chorus under the director of Upper Valley Music Center choral director Rebecca Luce.
Saturday, May 18, 7 pm
Sunday, May 19, 2 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
Tickets $20/22/29; Dartmouth students $5; all other sudents $10/13
Information: Hopkins Center Box Office, 603.646.2422 or hop.dartmouth.edu
* * *
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
693.646.3991