Chipperfield Choral Society

Easter Concert

Date April 4th 2009

Venue: The Barbirolli Hall, St. Clement Danes School, Chenies Road, Chorleywood (Start 7.45pm) (click here for map)

Tickets: £10.00 (Children £5) (Programmes £1)

Programme:

Dettingen Te Deum             Handel

Coronation Mass (K317)        Mozart
 

Soloists:

Rhian Mair Lewis - soprano
Anna Huntley _ mezzo-soprano
Peter Crawford - counter-tenor
Robin Bailey - tenor
Peter Braithwaite - bass

Dettingen Te Deum               George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)                                   

This year marks the 250^th anniversary of Handel’s death, so it is fitting that the Chipperfield Choral Society has chosen to perform one of his most exhilarating compositions, the Dettingen Te Deum. The work was written in 1743 to celebrate the victory won by the combined Austrian and British armies over the French at Dettingen near Frankfurt.

Handel was never a regular composer for the church but he nevertheless produced a substantial body of anthems and liturgical settings throughout his career. They were largely devised for public ceremonies (e.g. weddings or funerals) or special occasions (e.g. coronations), all with orchestral or instrumental accompaniment. Often these pieces display music of considerable power and opulence and the Dettingen Te Deum is no exception. Here Handel creates music in grand ceremonial mode as befits the occasion for which it was written. It was first performed at St. James’s Palace in the presence of King George II and in later years has received many large-scale performances. To this day it frequently figures in state services of celebration and thanksgiving, and is often performed on St Cecilia’s Day (22 November) in celebration of the patron saint of music.

The Te Deum is not primarily religious or liturgical but is very much a ceremonial piece with exciting trumpet fanfares influencing the thematic material of the whole work.  Handel was unsurpassed in his ability to strike the appropriate note for festive occasions and it is primarily the air of grandeur he achieves in the Te Deum that catches the ear and ensures its popularity.

The Dettingen Te Deum seems to have been directly influenced by an Italian Te Deum attributed to a Franciscan monk, Francesco Urio, and though Handel is known to have possessed a copy of Urio’s work it is not certain how and when he became acquainted with the piece. There are a number of similarities in the two compositions that have intrigued musicologists over the years, but the inclusion and prominence in the orchestra of three trumpets is significant. As in Urio’s work, the Dettingen Te Deum encompasses a wide range of moods with spirited choruses in both harmonic and fugal styles, but Handel makes especially compelling and effective contrasts between the splendidly festive choruses often accompanied by the trumpets and meditative sections for more lightly accompanied solo voices.

The orchestral prelude to the opening chorus (We praise Thee, O God) gives an indication of the scale of the Te Deum with the trumpet fanfares providing one of the most brilliant examples of the use of three trumpets in all Baroque music. Following the introduction, the chorus enters with a forceful acclamation of praise and is shortly joined by the countertenor soloist who introduces a short and more florid musical theme that the chorus takes up for a while. But in this movement, as in the work generally, the chorus’s music consists basically of compact blocks of sound with the soloists’ sections providing more gentle contrasts.

The countertenor soloist begins the second movement (All the earth doth worship Thee) and is joined in turn by the bass, soprano and tenor, though the chorus is not to be denied for long and concludes the section in a convincing manner.

The third movement (To Thee all angels cry aloud) is gently begun by the soprano soloist, but the gentlemen of the chorus forcefully proclaim the power of ‘The Heav’ns and all the pow’rs therein’. The movement creates a calm interlude and a real contrast to the grandeur of the following chorus, (To Thee Cherubin) in which the character of the music brings to mind, and seems to have much in common with, the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah, composed the previous year. There is also some intriguing musical word-painting in this movement with the word ‘continually’ appearing no less than 80 times in succession. To the chorus’s relief the music eventually draws to a close with a full-voiced confirmation that ‘The heavens are full of thy Glory’.

Several shorter pieces follow, including a bass solo (Thou art the King of Glory) with the members of the chorus again proclaiming their agreement in the later bars, and one for tenor (When Thou tookest upon Thee). Other striking moments to savour in later choruses are the abrupt change of key and several pungent dissonances in ‘When Thou hast overcome the sharpness of death’ and the very sombre eight bars expressing mankind’s fear in the face of judgement ‘We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge’.

More rousing trumpet fanfares open the last part of the work. ‘Day by day we magnify Thee’ is a movement for the choir alone, expressing eternal and incessant praise. Here there are interweaving melodic lines with words such as ‘magnify’ singled out for special treatment. The chorus ‘And we worship Thy name’ begins as a traditional baroque-type fugue before reverting to a more harmonic style, and after a prayerful final bass solo ‘Vouchsafe O lord’, the orchestral trumpets restore the exultant character of much of the piece in the short introduction to the last movement, ‘O Lord, in Thee have I trusted’. The countertenor soloist begins, but within two or three phrases his affirmation of trust in the Lord is usurped by the undeniable chorus, who with increasing intensity take over with relish, and bring the work to a triumphant conclusion. 

With its mixture of brilliance and gravity, vivid word-painting and music of considerable power, this 266-year-old Te Deum well deserves its prime position in the repertoire of choirs and choral societies today, and will long continue to be a firm favourite for singers and listeners alike.

Mass in C (Coronation) K317            Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart       (1756 – 1791)

After a disappointing European tour in early 1779 Mozart, at the age of 23, was forced to return to his native Salzburg and back into the service of his patron, Archbishop Colloredo, whom he disliked intensely. During the tour, which had started promisingly, he failed to establish himself as a composer to be reckoned with in the wider European musical world, and had also suffered cruel blows of fate. He learnt that his first love, Aloysia Weber, had refused to marry him, but that paled into comparative insignificance when his mother, who accompanied him on the tour, died when they were in Paris. Back in Salzburg, bitterly disappointed and frustrated, his relationship with his patron deteriorated considerably and that with his all-controlling father, Leopold, hardly fared much better. Nevertheless Mozart was reinstated as the court organist and for a while diligently pursued his duties, which included playing for the court, in the chapel and the cathedral, as well as instructing the choirboys. But one thing was becoming clear to him, unsettled as he was, that in spite of the possible financial difficulties, the life of a freelance musician based in Vienna might suit him better than a secure job with a patron, whose demands and whims were sometimes difficult to accept, and whose satisfaction (and remuneration) was hard to earn. Two of the sometimes coarse-tongued Mozart’s more repeatable comments at the time, ‘The Archbishop will not pay me enough for this slavery in Salzburg’, and ‘The Archbishop had better not start to lord it over me – I might just thumb my nose at him’, hardly improved the relationship with his employer. However he continued to fulfil his duties for a while, but more and more half-heartedly, so much so that eventually his patron’s patience was exhausted and Mozart was decisively dismissed from his Salzburg post in 1781.

Before that happened and in the space of a year, he produced a series of fine works, one of which was the Coronation Mass in C. It was completed in March 1779, just two months after his return to Salzburg, and probably first performed on Easter Sunday of that year. The origin of the title ‘Coronation’ is somewhat obscure. Some authorities claim it was to commemorate the crowning in 1751 of a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary celebrated annually at the shrine of Maria Plain near Salzburg. Others maintain it bears the title because a performance of the Mass took place at the 1791 coronation of Leopold II in Prague. Whatever the truth, the work is written in a grand style and though, surprisingly, violas are not included in the orchestral accompaniment, the addition of oboes and horns adds colour in many sections. The ceremonial character of much of the chorus’s music suggests the work was certainly written for a special occasion of some sort.

The initial bars of the opening ‘Kyrie’ are slow and majestic but soon the tempo quickens and soprano and tenor soloists enter with an important musical idea that Mozart cleverly recycles (though at a much faster tempo) in the final movement ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’. The second movement, ‘Gloria’, is for the most part appropriately festive and is similarly shared between soloists and chorus. It neatly falls into three sections with the minor key ‘Qui Tollis’ as the central part. The ‘Credo’ is neatly constructed in the form of a double-decker musical sandwich, with the initial thematic material for chorus very much emphasising the note and key chord of C major, alternating with the two filler episodes for the four soloists ‘Et incarnatus est’ and ‘Et in Spiritum’.  The forceful ‘Sanctus’ for the chorus is supported by a decorative and repetitive orchestral bass line which leads into a powerful ‘Hosanna in Excelsis’. The Benedictus follows, initially for the soloists and then with the traditional choral repeat of the Hosanna. Breaking with tradition, Mozart then brings back the soloists for a repeat of their opening music and all is rounded off with a second and final repeat of the Hosanna.

The final movement, ‘Agnus Dei’, introduced by the soprano soloist, illustrates how little distinction was made in Mozart’s time between religious and secular music. Those familiar with Mozart’s operas will notice how the opening of the soloist’s melodic line brings a clear reminder of the Countess’s aria ‘Dove sono’ in The Marriage of Figaro and not only does Mozart bring back the soprano soloist’s opening ‘Kyrie’ theme in the final ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’, but it too bears a striking resemblance to an aria in another opera Così fan tutte. The ‘borrowing’ of musical material from previous compositions and also occasionally from other composers’ works was quite common in the 18^th century and not frowned upon as it would be today. The brisk tempo (Allegro con spiritu) and mostly loud dynamic level of the concluding bars of the ‘Dona nobis pacem’ somewhat belie the final plea for peace, but undeniably bring the work to an exciting conclusion.

Writing to his father from Vienna in 1783, when he was desperately endeavouring to make a living as a freelance composer, Mozart asked him to send several earlier pieces that he hopefully thought might impress prospective influential patrons. The Coronation Mass was amongst those requested. Obviously it was a work he thought of highly. What his former employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg thought, is very much a matter for speculation.

RHIAN LEWIS: Soprano

Welsh-born RHIAN LEWIS studied at the Royal Academy of Music, with Beatrice Unsworth, Audrey Hyland and Clara Taylor and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has won many awards and is also a ‘Live Music Now’ artist. She has since travelled widely as a guest soloist and taken part in master classes with many prominent musicians.

Rhian is currently a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Chorus. She has sung the Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel, Emmie in Albert Herring, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Lidocka in Paradise Moscow by Shostakovich, and has covered Zerlina in Don Giovanni for British Youth Opera.

Her oratorio work includes Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C Minor, Schubert’s Mass in C Major, Fauré’s Requiem, Rutter’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah and Dixit Dominus, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Haydn’s Creation Mass and In Praise of by Geoffrey Bush.

Future engagements include covering the role of Nanetta in Falstaff for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the BBC National Chorus of Wales in St David’s Hall, Cardiff.

ANNA HUNTLEY: Mezzo-soprano 

ANNA HUNTLEY is currently studying with Russell Smythe at the RCM’s Benjamin Britten International Opera School, having graduated with a first class honours degree from the Royal Academy of Music. She has won a number of prizes and awards and is a Live Music Now! Artist and has participated in master classes with a number of prominent musicians.

Anna’s oratorio performances have included Handel’s Samson, the Bach B Minor Mass and Vaughan-Williams’s Serenade to Music. Concert highlights have included Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and solo recitals at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Winchester Festival and the Tilford Bach Festival. Stage work to date includes Glyndebourne Festival Opera Chorus, Cis (Albert Herring) for British Youth Opera, Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) and Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri) at the XXIV Festival Internazionale de Musica Cinque Terre and Irene (cover) in Handel’s Atalanta for the London Handel Festival.

PETER CRAWFORD: Countertenor

Countertenor PETER CRAWFORD was a student at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School, where Delia Meehan first conducted him as a trumpeter in the orchestra and Big Band! Since then he has studied singing at Trinity College of Music and St John’s College, Cambridge. He studies with Timothy Travers Brown and sings in a variety of ensembles, including the Blossom Street Singers, Syred Consort and St Albans Cathedral Choir as well as the Monteverdi Choir, touring with repertoire as varied as Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Bruckner, Duruflé and Schütz. He is also a founding member of the Choir of London, which frequently tours Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and is performing La Bohème in the West Bank this coming June.

Recent solo engagements include Vivaldi’s Gloria, Swayne’s Passiontide Motets, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s Vesperes Solemnes de Confessore, Carissimi’s Jepthe, Britten’s Canticles 2 and 4 and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Peter may also be heard singing the countertenor solos on the Naxos recording of Tavener’s Lament for Jerusalem, which he performed for the opening of the British Library exhibition ‘Sacred’.

ROBIN BAILEY: Tenor

 ROBIN BAILEY was born in Deal, Kent and is currently in his fourth year at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Penelope Mackay.  He is also a member of the international award-winning a cappella group Voces8, who have recently toured Spain and Italy and made their debut at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Concert Orchestra. 

 Most recently he has appeared in Mozart’s Requiem at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields with the Brandenburg Sinfonia, Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Cambridge Philharmonic Society and Mendelssohn’s St.Paul with Burgess Hill Choral Society.  Operatic roles include Lippo in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene with Greenwich opera, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore with Hampstead Garden Opera, and Count Belfiore in scenic extracts from La Finta Giardiniera at the Royal Academy of Music. Robin is supported by the Josephine Baker Trust.

PETER BRATHWAITE: Bass

Manchester-born baritone PETER BRATHWAITE was a chorister at Truro Cathedral, graduated from Newcastle University and now studies with Russell Smythe at the Benjamin Britten International Opera School (RCM).

He has sung Nelson in Porgy & Bess (Opera National de Lyon) and Elder Son in Charpentier’s Filius Prodigus (Newcastle Early Music Festival) and covered Belcore (British Youth Opera). He was a soloist in Carmen Jones at the Royal Festival Hall, has taken part in master-classes with prominent musicians and performed under Martyn Brabbins, Harry Christophers and Sir David Willcocks.

Concert engagements include Mozart’s Requiem (Newcastle Cathedral); Bach’s Ich habe genug (Sommarmusik Festival, Sweden), St John Passion (London, Glasgow & Gothenburg) and cantatas (Haddo House, Aberdeen); Haydn’s Nelson Mass; Stainer’s Crucifixion (Varberg, Sweden) and recitals for the Austrian Cultural Forum and Bloomsbury International Concert Series. Future engagements include Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (BBIOS) and performances with Opera de Lyon and at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Chipperfield Choral Society

SOPRANOS

Stella Andrews, Heather Ball, Phoebe Boyce, Mandy Boyd, Coral Bratchell,        Terry Bull,  Mary Brosnan, Charlotte Clifford, Rosie Clifford, Wendy Dailey,         Vicky Fern, Shona Gentry, Jenny Habib,  Velma Hammond, Patricia Hill,      Elizabeth Holliday, Tessa Hollingsworth, Hazel Jameson, Diana Jefkins,           Sheila Malin, Rita Musk, Libby Newman, Mimi Nichols, Stephanie Pattinson,       Rosie Peazer, Myra Pritchard, Audrey Robinson, Carol Rose, Elizabeth Smith, Madge Stevenson, Popsi Stokes, Barbara Thomas, Fiona Vaisey, Sarah Whalley, Rita Wilson.

 ALTOS

Lesley Baker, Ruth Bardou, Sue Barnard, Jill Bourner, Pat Bromley, Joyce Burke, Anne Cattle, Gill Chapman, Sandra Chipperfield, Trish Clements, Gill Cooper, Felicity Craigen, Rosemary Daines, Heather Dare, Jane Deal, Frances Freebrey, Sherry Gardener, Gay Jarrad, Dinah Johnson, Patti Ling, Chris Lloyd,           Margaret Mayhew, Dulcie Miller, Wendy Morgan, Judy Newton, Frances Onians, Margaret Smith, Janet Taylor, Vera Thornton, Lucy Williams, Anne Wyburd.

 TENORS

John Back, Robert Cattle, Stephen Collier, Geoffrey Flanders, John Jefkins,        Tom Kingston, Benny Michel, John Swallow, Alan Taylor, Lawrence Wood.

 BASSES

The Orchestra

For More Information Contact:

Chipperfield Choral Society
Chipperfield, Hertfordshire, UK
Internet: Secretary@chipperfieldchoral.co.uk

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Last modified: 28-Jun-2010