St John Passion

HOBART SPECIAL 1

Saturday 6 April 7.30pm There is an art to selling fine homes Federation Concert Hall Hobart Stephen Layton conductor JS BACH Just as an artist plays the perfect note, we position your property in the finest light to showcase its true value. June Tyzack chorusmaster St John Passion Sara Macliver soprano Parte prima To those who value the unique, Sotheby’s International Realty is the local real estate agency that offers unrivalled Jess Dandy contralto Duration 38 mins access to qualified buyers and distinctive properties around Tasmania & the world. Ruairi Bowen tenor Parte seconda Gwilym Bowen Evangelist Duration 65 mins For a complimentary appraisal or any information regarding the Sotheby’s Realty difference on showcasing your Michael Craddock Pilate property to the world, contact our Hobart office on: 6234 2400 or sothebysrealtytasmania.com This concert will be performed without Laurence Williams Jesus an interval. It will end at approximately TSO Chorus 9.30pm. GLOBAL REACH. LOCAL EXPERTISE.

Tasmania Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia and around the world by ABC Classic. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Each office is independently owned and operated. 15 Hunter Street, Hobart. 23 Stephen Layton is Director of the Grammy- June Tyzack became Chorusmaster of the Sara Macliver is one of Australia’s most Jess Dandy studied at Trinity College, nominated choir Polyphony, which he TSO Chorus in 2001 following a career in popular and versatile artists, and is regarded Cambridge and Guildhall School of Music founded in 1986. He is also Fellow and Sydney with Opera Australia and the Opera as one of the leading exponents of Baroque and Drama. She won the London Bach Director of Music at Trinity College Studio of the Sydney Conservatorium repertoire. Sara is a regular performer with all Society Singers Prize 2017 and Oxford Lieder of Music. Under her direction, the TSO Cambridge and Music Director of the Holst the Australian symphony orchestras as well as Young Artist 2018. Opera highlights include Chorus has given performances in Hobart Singers. He was formerly Chief Conductor the Perth, Melbourne and Sydney Festivals, Royal Opera House workshops on new works of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Chief and regional Tasmania, and through her Pinchgut Opera, he Australian Chamber including Philip Venables’ 4.48 Psychosis. She Guest Conductor of the Danish National initiative, collaboration with interstate choirs Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, also covered the role of the Messenger and Vocal Ensemble, Artistic Director and has resulted in performances with Sydney Musica Viva and a number of international was a member of the ensemble in the Royal Principal Conductor of the City of London Philharmonia Choirs, Victorian Opera, companies. Sara records for ABC Classics Opera House/Roundhouse production of Sinfonia, and Director of Music at the Adelaide Festival Chorus, West Australian with more than 35 CDs and many awards to Monteverdi’s Orfeo and played the multi- Temple Church in London. Stephen Layton Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and in Hong her credit. In 2017-2018 Sara sang with the has worked with numerous orchestras Kong with the WASO Chorus and Hong Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney part contralto role in Into the Little Hill for such as the London Philharmonic and the Kong Philharmonic. She has devised and Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Shadwell Opera. On the concert platform Philadelphia Orchestra as well as, recently, directed cutting-edge a cappella TSO Chorus Opera, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, appearances include Mozart’s Requiem the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, programs for a number of festivals, including Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Australian (St Martin-in-the-Fields), Berlioz’s Roméo in the Spiegeltent for Ten Days on the Island, Denmark’s Odense Symphony, the BBC String Quartet, St George’s Cathedral, et Juliette at the Barbican and Salle Pleyel Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Synaesthesia National Orchestra of Wales and Auckland the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and with the London Symphony Orchestra and and Synaesthesia+, and for the TSO, she Philharmonia. He has collaborated with in several programs with the Melbourne Valery Gergiev, Andriessen’s De Staat (Queen directed Bach’s St Matthew Passion. In 2017 the Academy of Ancient Music and Britten Symphony Orchestra; she also sang with Elizabeth Hall) and Steve Reich’s Music for she facilitated a group of TSO choristers Sinfonia. For English National Opera he Bangalow Festival, St George’s Cathedral Large Ensemble at the BBC Proms. Recent to participate in the Mitsingonzert in the conducted Deborah Warner’s production of and Collegium Musicum amongst many Berlin Philharmonie and, this year, in the engagements include the world première Bach’s St John Passion. A champion of new other projects. She recorded a CD of Calvin Palau de la Musica, Barcelona. While on of Stanford’s Mass Via Victrix with the BBC music, Stephen Layton has premièred works Bowman songs which was released last tour, she will conduct the TSO Chorus in a National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, a by composers such as Thomas Adès, Arvo year. In 2019 Sara will sing with the West concert of Australian repertoire featuring a recording of Handel’s Samson with John Butt Pärt and James MacMillan. His recordings Australian, Tasmanian, Queensland and commissioned work by Lisa Cheney. She is and the Dunedin Consort, the première of range from the music of Handel and Bach Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Sydney responsible for the TSO surtitles which this Alex Mills’s Dear Marie Stopes at the Tête-a- with original instruments to Bruckner and Philharmonia, Ten Days on the Island, year include Bach’s St John Passion and Tête Opera Festival and recitals at the Oxford Poulenc, to Lukaszewski, Lauridsen, Whitacre the Peninsula Summer Festival, Brisbane Mendelssohn’s symphony-cantata Symphony and Ešenvalds. His recordings have garnered Camerata and Australian National Academy Lieder Festival. She is also co-founder, with No 2, Lobgesang. two Gramophone Awards, France’s Diapason of Music, amongst others. Sara has been mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries, of Song Path, d’Or de l’Année, the Echo Klassik award in awarded an honorary doctorate from the a walking concert series, founded to promote Germany, Spanish CD compact award, and University of Western Australia in recognition walking and music-making in the context of Limelight Recording of the Year in Australia. of her services to singing. mental health and raising funds for Mind UK.

24 25 Ruairi Bowen began his musical education Gwilym Bowen’s repertoire ranges from London-based Michael Craddock began his Laurence Williams trained at The Guildhall as a chorister at St David’s and St Paul’s baroque to contemporary music. Upcoming musical education with the choir of Trinity School of Music and Drama and graduated Cathedrals. He spent a term singing with engagements include Handel’s Brockes- College Cambridge. His consort work has with distinction and a Concert Recital the choir of St Thomas’ Church 5th Avenue, Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music included engagements with Polyphony Diploma in 2017. He has performed as a New York, before taking up a choral at the Barbican and Gluck’s Bauci e Filemone (with director Stephen Layton), the Marian soloist both internationally and across the scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge. and Orfeo at the Southbank Centre. Recent Consort, Ludus Baroque, The London UK. Recent highlights include: Christus in Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Auckland Recent highlights include Monteverdi’s operatic highlights have included Valletto Choral Sinfonia, Le Concert d’Astrée, Philharmonia Orchestra and Stephen Layton, Vespro della Beata Vergine at the Three in The Coronation of Poppea for Angers- The Cardinall’s Musick, the Gabrieli Consort broadcast on Radio NZ, Haydn’s Nelson Choirs Festival, the world première and Nantes Opéra, Eurimaco/Giove in The Return and the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment. Mass with the Orchestra of the Age of recording of Stanford’s Mass Via Victrix with of Ulysses at the Grange Festival, Lysander He is a founding member of the Gesualdo Enlightenment and John Butt in Bath (he also the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of in Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in Six, an all-male consort whose first recording, performed in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Wales, and a European tour of Bach cantatas Aldeburgh, and Damon in Handel’s Acis English Motets, was released in 2018. the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English and Galatea with the Academy of Ancient He also frequently works with the Amici in December), Mozart’s Requiem with Baroque Soloists, including performances Music. In contemporary repertoire, Gwilym Voices who specialise in performing the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St Martin-in-the- at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Bowen has created the roles of Tamino in works of Bach one to a part and who have Fields, and the world première of Stephen Musikverein, the Barbican Centre and Be With Me Now at the Festival d’Aix-en- recently recorded a disc commemorating the McNeff’s The Walking Shadows with Mark the Chapelle Royale, Versailles. He has Provence, the protagonists in two operas 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. Forkgen and Canticum Choir at St Martin- performed Bach’s St John and St Matthew by Kate Whitley, Unknown Position and Michael Craddock’s operatic performances in-the-Fields. Recent operatic roles have Passions widely around the UK and Europe, 0520, and Smith in Matt Rogers’ and Sally include Smirnov in Walton’s The Bear included the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene while other recent engagements include O’Reilly’s And London Burned. In concert, for Opera Minima and Opera Anywhere, Onegin (Cambridge University Opera Haydn’s Creation with the Esterházy Chamber he has sung repertoire ranging from the Bottom in Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Society), ‘Opera Scenes’ at The Guildhall Choir and London Mozart Players, and a Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion with Dream at Aldeburgh sharing the role with School of Music and Drama, Mr Gedge in Britten’s Albert Herring (Hampstead Garden recital with pianist Anna Tilbrook on Themes John Butt and BBC National Orchestra of Matthew Rose, Yamadori for Opera A La Opera) and Smirnov in Walton’s The Bear of Innocence and Experience, including Wales, to the St. Matthew Passion to Mahler’s Carte’s Madama Butterfly, and Dandini in (Cambridge University Opera Society and music by Tippett and Finzi. Following Song of the Earth to Handel’s Messiah. Rossini’s La cenerentola for the Bedford Park Leeds University Chamber Ensemble) as well this Australian visit, Ruairi Bowen will join Recordings include St John Passion arias with Festival. He sang the dual roles of Alfio/Tonio as Bernstein’s West Side Story. He was a Stephen Layton for the annual Good Friday de Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Bach’s in Hampstead Garden Opera’s Spring 2016 Choral Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, performance of the St John Passion at St Mass in B Minor with the Choir of Trinity performances of Cavalleria rusticana and and sings with choirs including Polyphony, John’s Smith Square with Polyphony and the College Cambridge and the Orchestra of Pagliacci, and in 2013 undertook a tour of The Gabrieli Consort and Philharmonia Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Age of Enlightenment. Born in Hereford, cathedrals with the City of London Sinfonia Voices. He is passionate about introducing perform multiple roles in Purcell’s The Indian Gwilym was a choral scholar at Trinity singing in Fauré’s Requiem, broadcast live on young voices to choral music and has Queen with Le Concert d’Astrée in Lille in College, Cambridge, before studying at the Radio 3. He took part in the London première extensive experience directing children’s and the autumn. Royal Academy of Music. of Tim Watts’ opera Kepler on Trial. youth choirs.

26 27 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

The Passion According to St John, Despite these adaptations made by the BWV245 composer, the changes from one version The simple recitational singing of one to another were relatively minor and did or more of the Gospel Passion narratives not alter the Passion’s basic conception and shape. The text, while consisting during the liturgy of Holy Week dates primarily of the Passion narrative derived The TSO Chorus was founded in 1992 to back at least to the 4th century AD in from St John’s Gospel, also includes present concert performances of opera, and the Western Church. However, the form two incidents from St Matthew’s Gospel of the Lutheran Passion used as a model has since broadened genres to embrace omitted by John, one describing Peter’s by Bach dates from the 17th century. repentance after his denial of Christ, and masses, requiems and symphonies, as well This so-called Passion oratorio was the other the rending of the veil in the as sacred and secular a cappella works. With characterized by the interspersing of non- temple at Jerusalem after Christ’s death. biblical textual material among the verses Marko Letonja, the TSO Chorus returned to In addition, Bach derived poetic material its opera roots in performances of Gounod’s of the Gospel and the use of a highly from two contemporary versions of the dramatic and expressive musical style, Roméo et Juliette (2018), Bizet’s Carmen Passion story by CH Postel and Heinrich including recitatives, arias, choruses, and Brockes, and these form the texts of the (2017), and the Helpmann Award-winning chorales, to heighten the intensity of the opening and closing choruses, as well as performance of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde drama. that of the arias, ariosos and chorales. (2016). In addition to concerts with the Bach composed his Passion According to The two parts of the work are unequal TSO, highlights include performances with St John for his first Holy Week in Leipzig, in length. The first is remarkable for where he served as cantor and music the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, West its rapid pace and sense of forward director of four of the city churches from momentum. This is a result of the Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide mid-1723 until his death. It is the first frequent alternation of recitatives and Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria work the composer conceived on a grand short dramatic choruses presenting the scale while at Leipzig, and was premièred and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. arrest of Jesus, his interrogation by the on Good Friday, April 7, of that year, not Jewish hierarchy, and Peter’s denial, with Under the direction of Chorusmaster June at the church of St Thomas (the principal arias and chorales providing appropriate Tyzack, the TSO Chorus has established a church with which Bach was associated), meditations on these events without notable presence at Mona, with Festival of but in the smaller affiliated St Nicholas in any way impeding the action. The church. Surviving documentary material Voices and in regional Tasmania. In May, the second more extensive part treats the shows that Bach would have preferred trial, condemnation, scourging, way to Chorus will present a concert of Australian a to première the work at St Thomas, but Calvary, crucifixion and death of Jesus, cappella works in Barcelona and participate agreed to the use of St Nicholas providing and is the dramatic core of the work. the harpsichord was repaired and ‘that a in a Verdi Requiem Sing Along with Simon The German musicologist Friedrich little additional room be provided in the Smend provided a compelling analysis Halsey conducting. The Chorus will finish the choir loft, so he could place the persons of this Passion in 1926 by noting the year in collaboration with WASO Chorus and needed for the music’. The work was importance of the various symmetries Principal Conductor, Asher Fisch, performing heard as part of the evening office of which dominate its structure. These Vespers, with a sermon separating its symmetries occur between the Verdi’s Requiem in Perth. Concert highlights first and second parts. Bach performed flagellation and the crucifixion scene, in 2019 with the TSO include Bach’s St John it again, though in altered versions, in and account for the repetition of identical Passion and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 2, both 1725 and c1732. Finally, he made musical material with a different text, a fourth version of the work in 1749 in Lobgesang. as well as the use of closely-related which he basically returned to the original musical material, in the various The TSO Chorus welcomes new members. 1724 form of the work, but with richer crowd choruses. In the middle of this Interested choristers should contact the instrumentation. Such rigorous revision symmetrical structure stands the short and self-criticism is typical of Bach, and but very beautiful chorale ‘Durch dein Chorus Coordinator on 03 6232 4421 or visit thus it is difficult to speak of a definitive Gefängnis Gottes Sohn’ (Through your tsochorus.com.au for more information. version of this, as of many of his works. captivity, Son of God), which, as the Bach

28 29 scholar Robin Leaver has commented, soprano aria is a magnificent depiction ‘is not only the centrepiece of the second of ritualised mourning, its plaintiveness part of the John Passion but also the enhanced by the angular melodic heart and focus of the entire work’. lines, chromaticism and the colouristic Not surprisingly, given the depth of obbligato writing for flutes and oboes. Bach’s faith and his interest in theology, The final chorale stands outside the the text of this centrally-placed chorale Passion story proper and forms a is a concise summation of the Christian serene and ecstatic conclusion to the doctrine of the atonement. work in its meditation on the beatific Other outstanding musical features of vision, depicted by Bach through the the work are the massive opening and consistently high scoring in all the closing choruses framing the drama, voices parts and expressive part-writing. and the richly harmonised chorales Robert Forgacs © 2007 which are spread throughout the work and represent the emotional response This is the first performance of this work by the of the devout believer to the Passion Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. story. Also notable is the delicate and varied instrumental scoring of the arias, which includes obbligato oboes, flutes and violas. In addition, the score is coloured by innumerable musical figures intended to convey the scenes and emotions described, such as the striking Hymn chromatic line depicting Peter’s weeping, the strongly dotted rhythms and wide of leaps in the melodic line reflecting the anguish of his soul, the harsh dissonances and driving rhythms of the crucifixion choruses, the fanfare figures of the mock salutation choruses, the breathless haste Praise of the faithful rushing to Golgotha in the first bass aria with chorus, the rolling of the dice in the casting of lots chorus and the descending instrumental scale For another colossal choral experience, don’t miss passages depicting the rending of the Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 2, Lobgesang. temple veil. The conclusion of the work is marked by Johannes Fritzsch conductor a particular pathos, with the poignant alto aria ‘Es ist vollbracht’ (It is fulfilled) Lorina Gore soprano forming a second climax, for between Stacey Alleaume soprano its opening and closing sections of Paul O’Neill tenor lamentation occurs a middle section of TSO Chorus heroic splendour, as Christ is hailed as conqueror of death with appropriate fanfare figures and coloratura display. Saturday 21 September 7.30pm The sudden return of the opening lamentation, interrupting this splendour, Federation Concert Hall Hobart reveals Bach’s dramatic powers at their greatest. A quietly-contemplative atmosphere dominates the second bass aria with chorus, while the final TICKETS ON SALE NOW TSO.COM.AU | 1800 001 190

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