Some readers may recall that the five programs to be presented during the 2023/24 season of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) were announced at the beginning of this past May. Those readers may also recall that the season would begin with the West Coast premiere of Ancestor, a recently commissioned composition. The world premiere was given in England by PBO on July 29, 2022 at the Ryedale Festival, some three centuries later than the “core” of the PBO repertoire.
As has already been observed, Ancestor is a diptych that explores the creation story in two movements, each by a different composer. The first movement, “The Forms,” is by Errollyn Wallen CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), while the second, “The Golden Measure,” is composed by Tarik O’Regan, currently the PBO Composer-in-Residence. Both the context of the composition and its libretto were inspired by the book Woman in the Nineteenth Century, whose author, Margaret Fuller, is the “woman” of the title. The following paragraph provided a “trigger” for the Ancestor libretto:
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. History jeers at the attempts of physiologists to bind great original laws by the forms which flow from them. They make a rule; they say from observation what can and cannot be. In vain! Nature provides exceptions to every rule. She sends women to battle, and sets Hercules spinning; she enables women to bear immense burdens, cold, and frost; she enables the man, who feels maternal love, to nourish his infant like a mother.
Countertenor Tim Mead at the premiere of Ancestor (photograph by Scott Merrylees, courtesy of PBO)
Both composers were inspired by this text. They both found ways to extract from it, paraphrase it, rework it, or just use it as a point of departure. The Web page that provides background material by O’Regan also observes that each of the two of them provided the text for the other. The titles of the two movements are taken from the first words of those texts. Both will be sung by countertenor Tim Mead, and this performance by will conducted by PBO Music Director Richard Egarr. The San Francisco performance will take place on Thursday, October 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page.
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