Next CBS Program to Explore Aspects of Loss

The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame (painting by Georges de La Tour on the Web page for the concert being announced)

The full title of the next program to be presented by the California Bach Society is On Leaving: Music for Parting and Passage. If the overall theme reflects on loss, longing, and transcendence, the plan is that the music will offer comfort, harmony, and hope. Yuko Tanaka will be the organist, there will be one vocalist, tenor Corey Head, and three instrumental soloists: Stacy Pelinka on flute, David Morris playing Baroque cello, and Farley Pearce on violone.

The program will begin with Max Reger’s setting of the poem by Matthias Claudius whose first line is "Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit" (Man liveth and endureth but a short time). This is the first of the eight motets in his Opus 138 collection, inspired by the motets of Johann Sebastian Bach. This will be followed by the motet for four unaccompanied voices “Ecce quomodo moritur justus” (see how the just dies), composed by Jacob Handl (Jacobus Gallus) for his Opus Musicum II collection. The first half of the program will then conclude with a motet that is by Bach, the BWV 229 “Komm, Jesu, komm” (come, Jesus, come).

The second half of the program will begin with “Na Ishod” (on leaving) by the Ukrainian composer Galina Grigorjeva. This five-movement composition was inspired by Orthodox chant, complementing the German and Latin selections in the first half of the program. However, the program will conclude by going “back to Bach” with the performance of another one of his motets, “Jesu, meine Freude” (Jesus, my joy) BWV 227.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 27. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is located 1111 O’Farrell Street. Individual tickets are available for general admission at $40 with discounted rates for seniors and students. Tickets may also be purchased an advance until midnight of February 26 through a Web page, in which case general admission will be only $35.