Christmas from the 16th to the 21st Century

Last night Herbst Theatre hosted the third program in the current season of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale entitled Six Centuries of Christmas. The original plan was that the span of time would extend to the immediate present with the world premiere performance of a commissioned work by Roderick Williams, but that composition was apparently not completed in time for performance this month. Instead, the six centuries were spanned by two composers with almost exactly the same names: John Taverner (1490–1545) and John Tavener (1944–2013).

This turned out to be an engaging pairing. Each of the two composers had his own way of creating sacred music in a polyphonic setting, but there was a shared rhetoric of intricacy in the play of multiple vocal lines. It is worth noting that, for all of my interest in early music, which has involved several encounters with Taverner, I realized that, thanks to the Church of the Advent of Christ the King, I have been able to enjoy selections of sacred music by both the those composers.

This was only the first of several pairings in the organization of the performance. Two of those pairings were family-related, serving to conclude both the first and second halves of the program. The first of these began with the all-too-familiar canon and gigue coupling by Johann Pachelbel, followed by a Magnificat setting by his son Charles Theodore Pachelbel (who happens to have been one of the first European composers to move to the American colonies, making a career for himself in Charleston, South Carolina). The second pairing began with a sonata for three violins by Giovanni Gabrieli, followed by another Magnificat setting by his uncle Andrea Gabrieli.

The Gabrieli coupling was, in turn, preceded by a Russian coupling. Like the Gabrieli coupling, it was presented in reverse chronological order, beginning with the “Rejoice, O Virgin” movement from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 37 All-Night Vigil. This was followed by the “Cherubic Hymn” from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 41 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

The other composers represented on this program were Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Antonio Vivaldi (a solo violin concerto composed for the Christmas occasion), Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. The program was led from a harpsichord keyboard by Music Director Richard Egarr. Valérie Sainte-Agathe prepared the Chorale. The overall result was a celebratory occasion that was as joyous as it was informative.