ABS to Celebrate Octoberfest with Music

Baritone Christian Pursell (from the ABS event page for the performance being described)

Towards the end of this month, American Bach Soloists (ABS) will present a special event entitled BACHTOBERFEST. Inspired by the Munich Oktoberfest, which is primarily about drinking beer but also provides a generous amount of music, ABS will offer its own celebration with a selection of vocal music in the German language composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Hugo Wolf. The vocalist will be baritone Christian Pursell, accompanied at the piano by Ronny Michael Greenberg.

The Bach selections will be taken from two of his major settings of sacred music: “Quoniam tu solus sanctus” from the BWV 232 setting of the Mass ordinary in B minor and “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein” from the BWV 244 Passion oratorio based on the Gospel of Matthew. For good measure, Pursell will also sing Charles Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” a melodic line accompanied by the C major prelude that begins Book I of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

These sacred offerings will be followed by Ludwig van Beethoven’s secular song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (to the distant beloved), his Opus 98. The Schubert selections will be taken from his D. 957 Schwanengesang collection: “Der Doppelgänger” and “Der Atlas.” Strauss will be represented by the third song in the Opus 27 collection, “Heimliche Aufforderung.” The final selections, “Zur Warnung” and “Der Jäger,” are taken from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder collection.

The entire program will last approximately 90 minutes. The performance will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 23. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. Following the performance, the audience will be invited to join the artists in the outdoor courtyard (St. Mark’s Square) for a selection of German craft beers, pretzels, German wine, and sweet German pastries. ABS has created an event page for purchasing tickets. There are four areas of seating priced at $29, $66, $85, and $99. The event page provides a floor plan that indicates which seats are available at which prices. When the mouse points at a particular area, a window pops up showing the seats that can be selected.