The Bay Choral Guild (BCG) was founded in 1979. Its Artistic Director is Sanford Dole, a founding member of Chanticleer and former Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Its mission has been to provide the Bay Area with a choral repertoire that reaches back to the twelfth century and forward to the immediate present. The group is an a cappella ensemble; but, when appropriate, they will perform works requiring instrumental accompaniment.
That will be the case in two weeks’ time when the anniversary season will begin with festive choral music with accompaniment by trumpets and strings. The instrumentalists will be members of the Jubilate Baroque Orchestra playing period instruments, and tuning will be a semitone lower than encountered on contemporary instruments. The program is entitled simply Handel and Haydn Festival with each composer represented by a single major choral work from the eighteenth century.
The selection by George Frideric Handel will be his HWV 283 setting of the Te Deum canticle in D major known as the Dettingen Te Deum, structured as a sequence of eighteen short solos and choruses. The music was composed to celebrate the British victory at the Battle of Dettingen over the French army commanded by the Maréchal de Noailles and the Duc de Grammont. The battle took place on June 27, 1743, and the celebration was held in the Chapel Royal of St James’s Palace in London on November 27 of the same year.
Lord Nelson, whose name is now associated with Hoboken XXII/11 (painting by Lemuel Francis Abbott, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Joseph Haydn will be represented by his Hoboken XXII/11 Mass setting. Like HWV 283 it was written near the end of the composer’s life (although it is one of six Mass settings that Haydn wrote at this time of his life). Haydn gave Hoboken XXII/11 the title Missa in Angustiis (Mass for troubled times), with Napoleon providing the primary source of those troubles for both Austria, Haydn’s native land, and England, where he had been such a celebrated visitor. In addition, Haydn’s health at the time of this work’s composition would have added to those troubled times. Unbeknownst to Haydn, shortly after he completed this particular Mass setting, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson dealt Napoleon a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile; and his name became associated with the changing of those troubled times, particularly after Nelson himself visited the Palais Esterházy in Vienna in 1800. As a result Hoboken XXII/11 is now more popularly known as the “Nelson Mass.”
The San Francisco performance of the Handel and Haydn Festival program will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, November 18. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. BCG has created a Flipcause event page for advance purchase of tickets online. General admission for such purchases will be $30 with a $25 rate for seniors and $10 for students. The student rate applies to those over eighteen with identification. Those under eighteen who attend with an adult paying either the general or the senior rate will be admitted for free. Ticket prices at the door will be $35 for general admission and $30 for seniors.
No comments:
Post a Comment