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Gaillard Municipal Auditorium June 5 at 7:30pm

SPONSORED BY SOUTH CAROLINA BANK AND TRUST

Joseph Flummerfelt, conductorKatharine Goeldner, mezzo-sopranoTyler Duncan, baritoneWestminster Choir Joe Miller, directorCharleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus Robert Taylor, directorSpoleto Festival USA Orchestra

PROGRAM

Ave verum corpus, K 618 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (175691) From Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces) Giuseppe Verdi (18131901) I. Ave Maria II. Stabat mater INTERMISSION

Requiem, Op. 9 Maurice Durufl (190286) I. Introit (Requiem aeternam) II. Kyrie eleison III. Offertory (Domine Jesu Christe) IV. Sanctus Benedictus V. Pie Jesu VI. Agnus Dei VII. Communion (Lux aeterna) VIII. Libera me IX. In Paradisum

CHORAL/ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

MUSIC

PROGRAM NOTES

Ave verum corpus (Mozart) The first half of this concert presents final works by two of the greatest composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. The exquisite Mozart miniature Ave verum corpus was written only six months before the composers death at age 35. A mere 46 bars, it is a summation of Mozarts ability to say something profound in the simplest possible way. Once heard, its otherworldly melody is never forgotten, and its harmony has a subtlety that invokes a brief moment of sublimity. Composed for Mozarts friend, choirmaster Anton Stoll, for the Feast of Corpus Christi, it is a radically pared down example of Mozarts determination to create a new type of church music based on clarity and emotional directness rather than the learned counterpoint of the Baroque. Mozart wrote Ave verum corpus in 1791, the same year as his clarinet concerto, Die Zauberflte, and other late masterworks commonly regarded as pinnacles of Western music. As Aaron Copland put it, they fill us with awe and wonder, not unmixed with despair. The wonder we share with everyone; the despair comes from the realization that only this one man at this one moment in musical history could have created works that seem so effortless and close to perfection.

Ave Maria and Stabat mater (Verdi) What are we to make of Verdis final works? All are sacred pieces, though Verdi was an ardent atheist. All have unstable harmonies sometimes bordering on atonality, though Verdi was a supreme lyricist. All are strikingly non-operatic, offering only a single, brief vocal solo (in the Te Deum, heard at the 2010 Festival), though Verdi was Italys greatest opera composer. Yet they premiered at the Paris Opera in 1898, and Toscanini conducted the first Italian performance the same year. Verdi, who lived nearly half a century longer than Mozart, wrote these Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces) in his 80s. Like the final works of Beethoven and Liszt, they are not conservative old-person gestures, but spare, audacious leaps into the unknown, as if the artist has nothing to lose and no longer cares what people think. The Ave Maria is the most abstract and austere of the four pieces, so much so that Verdi was ambivalent about programming it with the others. (Toscanini omitted it from the Italian premiere.) Here the orchestra disappears, leaving an a cappella choir to contend with a mysterious scale that Verdi unearthed in the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano. Unmoored from traditional tonality, this sequence nonetheless acts as a cantus firmus, a backdrop over which the rest of the chorus wanders in unsettled chromatic patterns of its own.

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The piece does manage to find its way back to its home key in the final modulation, creating a hard-earned closure. A sense of sublime detachment permeates this Ave Maria (not to be confused with the tragically passionate Ave Maria in Verdis opera Otello). Verdi meant it as a technical exercise, but it comes across as a search for spiritual truth rather than the solution to a harmonic puzzle. It has a rarified purity that has caused many to hear it as an homage to Palestrina, but its fearless instability seems to look forward to an uncertain future rather than back to a glorious past. Indeed, when the Westminster Choir last performed the piece at Spoleto ten years ago, it sounded like the modern work on the program. The Stabat mater is Verdis final work. Setting a familiar 13th-century text depicting the suffering and transfiguration of Mary, it opens with hollow octaves and fifths from the orchestra, and moves briskly through the text (unlike the longer settings of Dvok, Poulenc, and others). It offers serene choral whisperings, sudden apocalyptic outbursts from the brass, mysterious modal chords, chromatic entreaties in the strings, and ambiguous a cappella fragments. A recurring four-note descending pattern provides an anchor, but not a firm one: the piece is content to hover in an enigmatic realm unique to late Verdi where every ray of hope is challenged by a jolt of darkness. At the end, strings float downward and wait for the choir to quietly intone a final vision of Paradise, but the lower brass comes back in octaves like a ghost from the works opening to offer a somber corrective.

Requiem (Durufl)Maurice Durufls Requiem is one of the most transporting large-scale works in the modern choral-orchestral repertory. Its fusion of spirituality and sensuality has proven irresistible over the past 65 years, making Durufl a prominent name in 20th-century music even though he composed only a handful of other, relatively obscure, pieces. Written in 1947 for mixed choirs, mezzo-soprano, baritone, organ, and orchestra, the Requiem displays an astonishing variety of textures, including soaring fugues, simple chord structures, haunting vocal solos, and mystical offstage choirs. Unlike the settings of Berlioz, Verdi, and Britten, it is never bombastic or operatic. The vocal solos are few but memorable, especially the heartrending Pie Jesu. Durufls Requiem was inspired by the 1890 Requiem of Gabriel Faur, who also composed a soulful Pie Jesu. Like Faur, Durufl knew that the old church modes fit uncannily well with modern French harmonies, and like his predecessor he created a requiem full of hope and humanity rather than hell and damnation, eschewing the Dies irae (Day of Wrath), often the centerpiece of concert requiems. Durufls sound world is very much his own. His harmonies are mistier and more unmoored than Faurs, and he explores a greater variety of sonority and emotion. The sounds are by no means confined to the ethereal: the big climax in the Sanctus delivers a frisson no matter how may times one hears it, and the luxurious dissonance in Domine Jesu Christe reminds us this is a mid-20th century work even though its spirit goes back much further. This Requiem is a combination of Gregorian chant and French impressionist harmonies. Many modern choral works use medieval chant as a backdrop, but few have the staying power of this one. The materials couldnt be more basic, but the work comes across as profoundly individual. As Russell Platt put it in Elegant Theft, a March 2012 New Yorker Culture Desk post, Durufl had his own silent collaborators on this work: the anonymous monks and

church musicians who, in the medieval era, composed the treasure chest of Gregorian chants that are a permanent part of Christian service musicWhatever his means, Durufl unquestionably made a unique art work with a powerful personal stamp. Durufl himself commented on how he used Gregorian themes: Sometimes I was inspired by [the text], and sometimes left it altogetherfor example, in certain developments suggested by the Latin text, especially the Domine Jesu Christe, Sanctus and LiberaI strove above all to be influenced by the particular style of the Gregorian themes, thus conciliating, as far as possible, the Gregorian rhythms fixed by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes with the demands of modern practice. In this performance, modern practice is immediately visible in the massed forces onstage. Joseph Flummerfelt presents the work in full orchestral dress, something done all too infrequently. It is often performed with organ accompaniment only or strings and optional brass, depriving the listener of Durufls seductively colorful orchestration: the tenderly flowing strings in the Introit, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei; the screaming trumpets in the Domine Jesu Christe; the rich cellos in the Pie Jesu; the liquid brass concluding the Agnus Dei; the elegant (and unmistakably French) winds in Lux aeterna; the plaintive trumpet at the end of Libera me; the massed eruptions in the Sanctus; and the otherworldly harp and high strings reaching for the heavens in the concluding In Paradisum. The final mysterious seventh chord in the depths of the orchestra after so many bright sonorities ends the piece on a profoundly satisfying note.

Program notes 2012 Jack Sullivan

JOSEPH FLUMMERFELT (conductor) has long been recognized as one of the worlds great choral conductors. In 2004 he was named Conductor of the Year by Musical America. He has collaborated with other eminent conductors and the worlds major orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and many American orchestras. Choirs prepared by

Flummerfelt have been featured on over 45 recordings, including Grammy Awardwinning releases of Mahlers Symphony No. 3 and Samuel Barbers Antony and Cleopatra. Among his many recordings with the Westminster Choir, a Delos release of choral works by Brahms, Singing for Pleasure, was chosen by The New York Times as a favorite. His last recording with the choir, Heaven to Earth, also received great critical acclaim. Maestro Flummerfelt made his conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1988, and in 2001 he led the Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir in the world premiere of Stephen Pauluss Voices of Light. He has also appeared with numerous symphony orchestras both nationally and internationally. From 1971 to 2004 Joseph Flummerfelt served as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He has been one of the artistic leaders of Spoleto Festival USA since its founding, and for 23 years was the Maestro del Coro for the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has been at the center of the choral life of the New York Philharmonic for over 40 years and is founder and conductor of the New York Choral Artists. His many honors include the Prix du President de la Rpublique and a Grammy for the New York Choral Artists recording of John Adams Pulitzer Prizewinning On the Transmigration of Souls, as well as two additional Grammy nominations and four honorary doctorates.

MUSICCHORAL/ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

TYLER DUNCAN (baritone) has sung Dandini in La Cenerentola for Pacific Opera Victoria; Papageno in Die Zauberflte in Utrecht and Rotterdam; Demetrius in Brittens A Midsummer Nights Dream at the Princeton Festival; and the High Priest in Idomeneo at the Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Other engagements include Mahlers Symphony No. 8 with the Toronto Symphony

and Bachs St. Matthew Passion with the Montreal Symphony. A founding member of the Vancouver International Song Institute, Duncan has given recitals and concerts in Europe, South Africa, and across North America. His recordings include a DVD of Messiah, CDs of Carissimi motets and Blows Venus and Adonis, and an upcoming release of Bachs St. John Passion. Duncan has won the Pro Musicis International Award and prizes from the Naumburg, Wigmore Hall, ARD, and New York Oratorio Society competitions. He made his Spoleto Festival USA debut in Flora, an Opera in 2010, returning last season as The Speaker and First Priest in Die Zauberflte.

KATHARINE GOELDNER (mezzo-soprano) has established an international reputation as one of todays finest mezzo-sopranos, with an elegant combination of warm, rich vocal tone and assured artistry. Recent engagements have included Mahlers Das Lied von der Erde at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the title role in Carmen and Pitti-Sing in The Mikado with Lyric Opera of Chicago; Erika

in Vanessa with RSO-Vienna; and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos in Oviedo, Spain. Her many roles at the Metropolitan Opera have included the Schoolboy in Lulu, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Ascanio in Benvenuto Cellini, Nicklausse in Les contes dHoffmann, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and most recently Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena. Goeldners concert performances have included Haydns Paukenmesse with Viennas Hofburgkapelle and Beethovens Ninth Symphony with the Vienna Symphony, both conducted by Georges Prtre; Mendelssohns Elijah with the Bilbao Symphony; and K.A. Hartmanns Erste Sinfonie and Eislers Deutsche Sinfonie with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester.

ROBERT TAYLOR (director, Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus) also serves as Director of Choral Activities at the College of Charleston, Director of the CSO Chamber Singers, and Founding Artistic Director of the Taylor Music Festival and Taylor Festival Choir. His ensembles have performed throughout the U.S., Great Britain, and Ireland, and have been featured in numerous festivals and concerts,

including annual appearances with Piccolo Spoleto. His professional ensemble, the Taylor Festival Choir, records for MSR Classics and Centaur Records. Taylor has collaborated with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and with Joseph Flummerfelt and the Westminster Choir in numerous masterworks. He holds a doctoral degree in choral conducting from Louisiana State University, a masters degree in vocal performance from Sam Houston State University, and a baccalaureate in music education from the University of Central Arkansas.

CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CHORUS

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MUSICCHORAL/ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

SOPRANO

Susanna AgrestPatricia BenzienJudith BurnsGail CorvetteMaryileen CumbaaErin DanlyLibby DavisTammy DorocniakGaye DuPreeDebbie FoxCrystal JavauxDonna MastrandreaLouisa MontgomeryMary MoserMartina MuellerKay NickelJesse OwensTessa PayneBeverly RawlsMyrtle StaplesMeta Van SickleMalina YablinskySophia Zimmermann

TENOR

Terry GoansStephen GurryBob HillMark JavauxMark LazzaroHank MartinRichard RathmanTheresa RobardsMcIver WatsonCurtis Worthington

ALTO

Anne BorelliSharon BowersCeleste CarlsonSusan ChevesJoan CunninghamMichelle DawesPhyllis DickinsonJulie FenimoreSue FindlayGretchen HorlbeckJudith JohnsonJanice KislingElsie KohlenbergSusan McAdooChriste McCoySally NewellMarianne NubelDonna PadgetteJoyce PeachFaith PecorellaTerry RitchenCynthia RosengrenCharlene StricklinCharlene WhalenBobbye Wilson

BASS

Art BumgardnerJoe GamboaRick GoldmeyerTom GrahamLee KohlenbergWei-Kai LeiTony MazurkiewiczWalter MoserGary NicholsRichard PekhrunEd RitchenRichard SaundersPaul SchwarzJohn SieglingStuart TerryDon Wallace