MUSIC

CHORAL/ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

Gaillard Municipal Auditorium June 5 at 7:30pm

SPONSORED BY SOUTH CAROLINA BANK AND TRUST

Joseph Flummerfelt, conductor Katharine Goeldner, mezzo-soprano Tyler Duncan, baritone Westminster Choir Joe Miller, director Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus Robert Taylor, director Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra

PROGRAM

Ave verum corpus, K 618 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91)

From Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces) Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) I. Ave Maria II. Stabat mater

INTERMISSION

Requiem, Op. 9 Maurice Duruflé (1902–86) I. Introit (Requiem aeternam) II. Kyrie eleison III. Offertory (Domine Jesu Christe) IV. Sanctus – Benedictus V. Pie Jesu VI. Agnus Dei VII. Communion (Lux aeterna) VIII. Libera me IX. In Paradisum

PROGRAM NOTES Ave Maria and Stabat mater (Verdi) What are we to make of Verdi’s final works? All are sacred pieces, Ave verum corpus (Mozart) though Verdi was an ardent atheist. All have unstable harmonies The first half of this concert presents final works by two of the sometimes bordering on atonality, though Verdi was a supreme greatest composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. The exquisite lyricist. All are strikingly non-operatic, offering only a single, brief Mozart miniature Ave verum corpus was written only six months vocal solo (in the Te Deum, heard at the 2010 Festival), though before the composer’s death at age 35. A mere 46 bars, it is a Verdi was Italy’s greatest opera composer. Yet they premiered at summation of Mozart’s ability to say something profound in the the Paris Opera in 1898, and Toscanini conducted the first Italian simplest possible way. Once heard, its otherworldly melody is performance the same year. never forgotten, and its harmony has a subtlety that invokes a brief Verdi, who lived nearly half a century longer than Mozart, wrote moment of sublimity. Composed for Mozart’s friend, choirmaster these Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces) in his 80s. Like the Anton Stoll, for the Feast of Corpus Christi, it is a radically pared final works of Beethoven and Liszt, they are not conservative old- down example of Mozart’s determination to create a new type person gestures, but spare, audacious leaps into the unknown, as if of church music based on clarity and emotional directness rather the artist has nothing to lose and no longer cares what people think. than the “learned” counterpoint of the Baroque. Mozart wrote Ave The Ave Maria is the most abstract and austere of the four pieces, verum corpus in 1791, the same year as his clarinet concerto, Die so much so that Verdi was ambivalent about programming it with Zauberflöte, and other late masterworks commonly regarded as the others. (Toscanini omitted it from the Italian premiere.) Here the pinnacles of Western music. As Aaron Copland put it, they fill us orchestra disappears, leaving an a cappella choir to contend with with “awe and wonder, not unmixed with despair. The wonder we a mysterious scale that Verdi unearthed in the Gazzetta Musicale share with everyone; the despair comes from the realization that di Milano. Unmoored from traditional tonality, this sequence only this one man at this one moment in musical history could have nonetheless acts as a cantus firmus, a backdrop over which the rest created works that seem so effortless and close to perfection.” of the chorus wanders in unsettled chromatic patterns of its own.

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The piece does manage to find its way back to its home key in the church musicians who, in the medieval era, composed the treasure final modulation, creating a hard-earned closure. chest of Gregorian chants that are a permanent part of Christian A sense of sublime detachment permeates this Ave Maria (not service music…Whatever his means, Duruflé unquestionably made to be confused with the tragically passionate Ave Maria in Verdi’s a unique art work with a powerful personal stamp.” opera Otello). Verdi meant it as a technical exercise, but it comes Duruflé himself commented on how he used Gregorian themes: across as a search for spiritual truth rather than the solution to “Sometimes I was inspired by [the text], and sometimes left it a harmonic puzzle. It has a rarified purity that has caused many altogether—for example, in certain developments suggested by to hear it as an homage to Palestrina, but its fearless instability the Latin text, especially the Domine Jesu Christe, Sanctus and seems to look forward to an uncertain future rather than back Libera…I strove above all to be influenced by the particular style to a glorious past. Indeed, when the Westminster Choir last of the Gregorian themes, thus conciliating, as far as possible, the performed the piece at Spoleto ten years ago, it sounded like the Gregorian rhythms fixed by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes “modern” work on the program. with the demands of modern practice.” The Stabat mater is Verdi’s final work. Setting a familiar 13th-century In this performance, “modern practice” is immediately visible in text depicting the suffering and transfiguration of Mary, it opens with the massed forces onstage. Joseph Flummerfelt presents the work hollow octaves and fifths from the orchestra, and moves briskly in full orchestral dress, something done all too infrequently. It is through the text (unlike the longer settings of Dvořák, Poulenc, and often performed with organ accompaniment only or strings and others). It offers serene choral whisperings, sudden apocalyptic optional brass, depriving the listener of Duruflé’s seductively colorful outbursts from the brass, mysterious modal chords, chromatic orchestration: the tenderly flowing strings in the Introit, Kyrie, and entreaties in the strings, and ambiguous a cappella fragments. Agnus Dei; the screaming trumpets in the Domine Jesu Christe; the A recurring four-note descending pattern provides an anchor, rich cellos in the Pie Jesu; the liquid brass concluding the Agnus Dei; but not a firm one: the piece is content to hover in an enigmatic the elegant (and unmistakably French) winds in Lux aeterna; the realm unique to late Verdi where every ray of hope is challenged plaintive trumpet at the end of Libera me; the massed eruptions in by a jolt of darkness. At the end, strings float downward and wait the Sanctus; and the otherworldly harp and high strings reaching for for the choir to quietly intone a final vision of Paradise, but the the heavens in the concluding In Paradisum. The final mysterious lower brass comes back in octaves like a ghost from the work’s seventh chord in the depths of the orchestra after so many bright opening to offer a somber corrective. sonorities ends the piece on a profoundly satisfying note. Program notes © 2012 Jack Sullivan Requiem (Duruflé) Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem is one of the most transporting large- JOSEPH FLUMMERFELT (conductor) has scale works in the modern choral-orchestral repertory. Its fusion of long been recognized as one of the world’s spirituality and sensuality has proven irresistible over the past 65 years, great choral conductors. In 2004 he was named making Duruflé a prominent name in 20th-century music even though Conductor of the Year by Musical America. he composed only a handful of other, relatively obscure, pieces. He has collaborated with other eminent Written in 1947 for mixed choirs, mezzo-soprano, baritone, conductors and the world’s major orchestras, organ, and orchestra, the Requiem displays an astonishing variety of including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, textures, including soaring fugues, simple chord structures, haunting the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and many vocal solos, and mystical offstage choirs. Unlike the settings of American orchestras. Choirs prepared by Berlioz, Verdi, and Britten, it is never bombastic or operatic. The vocal Flummerfelt have been featured on over 45 recordings, including solos are few but memorable, especially the heartrending Pie Jesu. Grammy Award–winning releases of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Duruflé’s Requiem was inspired by the 1890 Requiem of Gabriel Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. Among his many recordings Fauré, who also composed a soulful Pie Jesu. Like Fauré, Duruflé with the Westminster Choir, a Delos release of choral works by Brahms, knew that the old church modes fit uncannily well with modern Singing for Pleasure, was chosen by The New York Times as a favorite. French harmonies, and like his predecessor he created a requiem His last recording with the choir, Heaven to Earth, also received full of hope and humanity rather than hell and damnation, great critical acclaim. Maestro Flummerfelt made his conducting eschewing the Dies irae (Day of Wrath), often the centerpiece of debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1988, and in 2001 he led concert requiems. Duruflé’s sound world is very much his own. His the Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir in the world premiere harmonies are mistier and more unmoored than Fauré’s, and he of Stephen Paulus’s Voices of Light. He has also appeared with explores a greater variety of sonority and emotion. The sounds are numerous symphony orchestras both nationally and internationally. by no means confined to the ethereal: the big climax in the Sanctus From 1971 to 2004 Joseph Flummerfelt served as Artistic Director delivers a frisson no matter how may times one hears it, and the and Principal Conductor of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, luxurious dissonance in Domine Jesu Christe reminds us this is a mid- New Jersey. He has been one of the artistic leaders of Spoleto Festival 20th century work even though its spirit goes back much further. USA since its founding, and for 23 years was the Maestro del Coro This Requiem is a combination of Gregorian chant and French for the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has been at the impressionist harmonies. Many modern choral works use medieval center of the choral life of the New York Philharmonic for over 40 chant as a backdrop, but few have the staying power of this one. years and is founder and conductor of the New York Choral Artists. The materials couldn’t be more basic, but the work comes across His many honors include the Prix du President de la République and as profoundly individual. As Russell Platt put it in “Elegant Theft,” a Grammy for the New York Choral Artists’ recording of John Adams’ a March 2012 New Yorker Culture Desk post, “Duruflé had his Pulitzer Prize–winning On the Transmigration of Souls, as well as two own silent collaborators on this work: the anonymous monks and additional Grammy nominations and four honorary doctorates.

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TYLER DUNCAN (baritone) has sung CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHORUS Dandini in La Cenerentola for Pacific Opera Victoria; Papageno in Die Zauberflöte in SOPRANO ALTO Utrecht and Rotterdam; Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princeton Susanna Agrest Anne Borelli Festival; and the High Priest in Idomeneo at Patricia Benzien Sharon Bowers the Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Judith Burns Celeste Carlson Germany. Other engagements include Mahler’s Gail Corvette Susan Cheves Symphony No. 8 with the Toronto Symphony Maryileen Cumbaa Joan Cunningham and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Montreal Symphony. A Erin Danly Michelle Dawes founding member of the Vancouver International Song Institute, Libby Davis Phyllis Dickinson Duncan has given recitals and concerts in Europe, South Africa, and Tammy Dorocniak Julie Fenimore across North America. His recordings include a DVD of Messiah, CDs Gaye DuPree Sue Findlay of Carissimi motets and Blow’s Venus and Adonis, and an upcoming Debbie Fox Gretchen Horlbeck release of Bach’s St. John Passion. Duncan has won the Pro Musicis Crystal Javaux Judith Johnson International Award and prizes from the Naumburg, Wigmore Hall, Donna Mastrandrea Janice Kisling ARD, and New York Oratorio Society competitions. He made his Louisa Montgomery Elsie Kohlenberg Spoleto Festival USA debut in Flora, an Opera in 2010, returning last Mary Moser Susan McAdoo season as The Speaker and First Priest in Die Zauberflöte. Martina Mueller Christe McCoy Kay Nickel Sally Newell KATHARINE GOELDNER (mezzo-soprano) Jesse Owens Marianne Nubel has established an international reputation Tessa Payne Donna Padgette as one of today’s finest mezzo-sopranos, with Beverly Rawls Joyce Peach an elegant combination of warm, rich vocal Myrtle Staples Faith Pecorella tone and assured artistry. Recent engagements Meta Van Sickle Terry Ritchen have included Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde Malina Yablinsky Cynthia Rosengren at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Sophia Zimmermann Charlene Stricklin the title role in Carmen and Pitti-Sing in The Charlene Whalen Mikado with Lyric Opera of Chicago; Erika Bobbye Wilson in Vanessa with RSO-Vienna; and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos in Oviedo, Spain. Her many roles at the Metropolitan Opera have included the Schoolboy in Lulu, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, TENOR BASS Ascanio in Benvenuto Cellini, Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Terry Goans Art Bumgardner Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and most recently Giovanna Stephen Gurry Joe Gamboa Seymour in Anna Bolena. Goeldner’s concert performances have Bob Hill Rick Goldmeyer included Haydn’s Paukenmesse with Vienna’s Hofburgkapelle Mark Javaux Tom Graham and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Vienna Symphony, Mark Lazzaro Lee Kohlenberg both conducted by Georges Prêtre; Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Hank Martin Wei-Kai Lei the Bilbao Symphony; and K.A. Hartmann’s Erste Sinfonie and Richard Rathman Tony Mazurkiewicz Eisler’s Deutsche Sinfonie with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester. Theresa Robards Walter Moser McIver Watson Gary Nichols ROBERT TAYLOR (director, Charleston Curtis Worthington Richard Pekhrun Symphony Orchestra Chorus) also serves as Ed Ritchen Director of Choral Activities at the College Richard Saunders of Charleston, Director of the CSO Chamber Paul Schwarz Singers, and Founding Artistic Director of the John Siegling Taylor Music Festival and Taylor Festival Choir. Stuart Terry His ensembles have performed throughout the Don Wallace U.S., Great Britain, and Ireland, and have been featured in numerous festivals and concerts, including annual appearances with Piccolo Spoleto. His professional ensemble, the Taylor Festival Choir, records for MSR Classics and Centaur Records. Taylor has collaborated with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and with Joseph Flummerfelt and the Westminster Choir in numerous masterworks. He holds a doctoral degree in choral conducting from Louisiana State University, a master’s degree in vocal performance from Sam Houston State University, and a baccalaureate in music education from the University of Central Arkansas.

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