Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
1 April 2008

Roy Goodman, guest conductor
The Winnipeg Singers (Yuri Klaaz, Artistic Director)
Marni Enns, soprano 1; Karis Wiebe, soprano 2;
Kirsten Schellenberg, alto; Floyd Gadd, tenor;
and David Klassen, bass.

 

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Concerto grosso in d major, op. 6, no. 4

1. Adagio : allegro
2. Adagio : vivace
3. Allegro

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Dixit Dominus

1. Chorus and soloists: Dixit Dominus Domino meo
2. Alto solo: Virgam virtutis
3. Soprano solo: Tecum principium
4. Chorus: Juravit Dominus
5. Chorus: Tu es sacerdos
6. Soloists and chorus: Dominus a dextris tuis
7. Soprano duet and chorus: De torrente
8. Chorus: Gloria Patri

The Winnipeg Singers

Intermission
Refreshments are available upstairs in the concert hall.

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
Overture and suite — from Dardanus

Capel Bond (1730-1790)
Concerto grosso no. 5, in G minor

1. Poco largo
2. Tempo giusto
3. Largo andante
4. Con spirito

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Motet — Der Gerechte kommt um

Concert sponsor / The Gail Asper Family Foundation
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio Two 98.3,
CBC Radio One 990 and Golden West Radio
Chamber Chatter sponsor / PricewaterhouseCoopers
Electronic media sponsor / Shaw Cable

 

 

Roy Goodman

Roy Goodman is Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Leader & Conductor of the Bachkoor Holland accompanied by the Royal Concertgebouw Kamerorkest. He has worked as guest conductor with over 100 orchestras and opera companies worldwide [see: www.roygoodman.com].

Goodman is well known for his work as director and founder of the Brandenburg Consort (1975-2001), as co-director/founder of the Parley of Instruments (1979-1986), co-founder of the London Handel Orchestra (in 1981), Principal Conductor of the Hanover Band (1986-1994), Music Director for fifteen years of the European Union Baroque Orchestra (1989-2004), the first Principal Conductor of Umeå Symphony Orchestra & Norrlands Opera Sweden (1995-2001), Music Director of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (1999-2005) and as the first Principal Conductor of Holland Symfonia (2003-2006).

Born in 1951, Roy Goodman achieved international fame as boy-treble soloist with the choir of King’s College Cambridge in Allegri’s Miserere (Decca, 1963). In 1970 he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and completed his studies with a teacher’s diploma, but from 1977 Goodman worked in Europe as a principal violinist — playing as either Konzertmeister or Soloist with Ashkenazy, Brüggen, Ivan Fischer, Gardiner, Herreweghe, Hickox, Hogwood, Jacobs, King, Koopman, Mackerras, Marriner, McCreesh, Norrington, Pinnock and Rattle. He was the first concertmaster of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and during the 1980s he conducted for CD with the Hanover Band the first ever performances on historic instruments of the complete symphonies by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Weber, as well as 14 symphonies by Mendelssohn and 60 symphonies by Haydn. An invitation to conduct a televised Haydn and Sibelius programme with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1989 was the catalyst for his flourishing career as an international conductor. Goodman has directed over 120 CDs ranging from Monteverdi to Copland and has also directed more than forty world premières of contemporary music. In 2006 he made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and returned to San Francisco Opera to conduct a new production of Mozart’s Figaro. Concerts in 2007/08 include the Hallé in Manchester, RSNO in Glasgow and Residentie Orchestra in the Hague, NDR Hannover and SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestras, Graz Symphony, Tampere and Bergen Philharmonics, the Geneva, Uppsala and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, and Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand. Roy Goodman is an honorary Doctor of Music (University of Hull) and an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Music (London). He has three children and four grandchildren.

Yur Klaz

Yuri Klaz was born in Petrozavodsk, Russia, where he was a graduate of the music college and the conservatory of music. He received his Masters degree in conducting at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. In 1982 he became an associate professor of choral music and orchestral conducting at the Petrozavodsk Conservatory. In 1987 Mr. Klaz was appointed the artistic director and conductor of the Chamber Choir of the Karelian Art Centre in Petrazavodsk. Under his direction, the choir led an active concert life and participated in national and international concert tours and competitions in Germany, Finland, Estonia, Ireland, and Norway, where the group received numerous awards.

In 1995, by decree of President Boris Yeltzin, Mr. Klaz was awarded the title, ‘Honoured Artist of Russia,’ and received a silver medal for exceptional achievement in the development of art in Russia.

Mr. Klaz came to Canada in 2000 to become the artistic director and conductor of the Winnipeg Philharmonic choir. In addition to the Philharmonic concert series, he has prepared the choir for performances with the Winnipeg Symphony orchestra, most recently Brahms’s German Requiem in 2003 and Mozart’s Requiem in 2006. He has conducted performances at the WSO New Music Festival every year since 2001. Mr. Klaz made his debut as conductor of the WSO to critical acclaim in a concert featuring The Winnipeg Singers and the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir in 2005. In 2006 Mr. Klaz made his conducting debut with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Mass in C minor (Robert Levin edition) together with combined forces of The Winnipeg Singers and The Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir.

In April of 2003, Mr. Klaz was appointed the artistic director and conductor of The Winnipeg Singers. In the past four years he has conducted the Singers in performances of many major choral masterpieces including Bach’s Mass in B minor and Christmas Oratorio and Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

Mr. Klaz also directs the First Mennonite Church Choir, the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue Choir and the University of Winnipeg Student Choir and continues as conductor of The Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir.

The Winnipeg Singers

The Winnipeg Singers, Winnipeg’s premiere choir, has long been regarded as one of Canada’s finest choral ensembles. The Winnipeg Singers consists of 24 trained voices, performing music that spans the times from the Renaissance to the present. The choir’s mandate is to make a diversity of choral music, performed to the highest standards, accessible to a growing audience. Each year the choir commissions new Canadian works and premieres other new works for its Manitoba audience. It presents a concert series each year, engaging some of North America’s finest musicians as guests. The Winnipeg Singers have performed joint concerts with such diverse organizations as MusikBarock Ensemble, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, and Les Danseurs de la Rivière Rouge. The Singers regularly appear as guests of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and have given concerts and workshops for local social agencies, business firms and high schools.

The Winnipeg Singers can trace its origins to a choir begun in the 1930s by composer and voice teacher W.H. Anderson for radio broadcast on the CBC. His choir, known as The Choristers, performed secular music and on occasion offered public concerts. Filmer Hubble, who conducted the group for a national weekly CBC radio broadcast of sacred music called Sunday Chorale succeeded Anderson in the 1950s. This choir also performed a series of yearly concerts. He was succeeded by a student of W.H. Anderson, Herbert Belyea, also a composer and voice teacher. In the early 1970s, William Baerg was asked by the CBC to form a group of singers which would perform concert broadcasts. This choir, the CBC Winnipeg Singers, was devoted to the exploration of both sacred and secular works from all eras and initiated the form of The Winnipeg Singers as it exists today. In 1973, when the CBC was no longer able to support the choir, The Winnipeg Singers began to produce its own annual concert series Past artistic directors of The Winnipeg Singers include Bill Baerg, John Martens, Wayne Riddell, Mel Braun, Vic Pankratz and Rudy Schellenberg.

The Winnipeg Singers are regularly heard on CBC radio. In 2005 the choir represented Canada at the 6th Taipei International Choral Festival and the 7th World Symposium on Choral Music in Kyoto. While in Japan, the choir performed in Setagaya, a sister-city of Winnipeg, and in Tokyo at the Canadian Embassy. The Singers will release a new CD, Swingle Bells, this season.

Concerto grosso in D major, op. 6, no. 4
Arcangelo Corelli

Born in 1653 in Fusignano, northern Italy, Corelli arrived in Rome in the 1670s, at the dawn of a golden age of Roman music, in which he played no small part. He was soon recognized as one of the foremost violinists and composers of instrumental music in Italy, a reputation cemented by the publication of his 12 trio sonatas, op. 1, in 1681. By 1694 he had published four such collections, each of which went through at least ten printings in Italy alone during his lifetime. Meanwhile, he had gained an international reputation, demonstrated, for instance, by the marketing war that raged in England over his solo sonatas, op. 5 — definitely the hot item of 1700. His works continued to be studied, performed and published throughout Europe (and England especially) even into the 19th century.

The origins of the 12 concerti grossi, op. 6, are uncertain. The collection — prepared by Corelli in his final years and appearing posthumously — represents his only published works for orchestra. Corelli had long before established himself as an orchestral composer, as testified for instance in a document of 1689: “Concertos for violins and other instruments are called ‘sinfonie,’ and today those of Signor Arcangelo Corelli, the famous violinist… the new Orpheus of our days, are prized and esteemed.” It is likely that some of the op. 6 pieces were composed as early as 1690, and it has further been suggested that he assembled certain of the concerti using individual movements from previous works.

The collection falls roughly into two halves, each reflecting the opposed practices of camera and chiesa, respectively; the present work is of the latter variety. These terms were superceded later in the 18th century, the former type of piece becoming the ‘suite’ of five or more dance movements, the latter giving way to a more codified three-movement plan for concertos.

The first movement opens with a short introduction, followed by a friendly, chattering Allegro. The Adagio paces a doleful processional, leading directly into a short, playful Vivace based on a delightfully assymetric motor. The final movement uses a favourite opening gesture (repeated by Corelli in the finale to the 6th concerto) to extend the offbeat character almost to the end, at which point a battaglia-like coda takes over to finish off the work.

Dixit Dominus
George Frideric Handel

Handel wrote almost all his Latin church music during his first stay in Rome in the spring of 1707, at the age of 22. The Dixit Dominus was the first of three psalm settings that likely were commissioned to form part of a complete Vespers service for the Feast of the Madonna del Carmine.

The young Handel, already one of the most accomplished organists in Europe, had moved from Hamburg “on his own bottom” ( i.e., using his own funds) the previous year, intent on mastering the Italian genres and making a name for himself in the most elevated musical circles. He made good use of his time in Italy: blessed with the patronage of both ecclesiastical and temporal princes, he composed over 100 cantatas, two operas, two oratorios, and several chamber works, all in the space of four years. That the Protestant Handel was even allowed to perform in and compose for the Roman church was itself a testament to the respect he commanded there.

The setting of Dixit Dominus could only have intensified that respect. Handel had so thoroughly mastered the Italian instrumental forms as to be perfectly comfortable cross-fertilizing them with decidedly German harmonic and contrapuntal elements. The result is the present, stunning piece of music.

The hybrid vigour of this work is evident from the outset. The opening ritornello is Italian on top — with violin writing that would not be out of place in a Vivaldi concerto — but German underneath, the harmonic support being considerably more involved than would befit the Italian temperament.

The German characteristics of the work are further brought out in Handel’s pervasive application of typical keyboard techniques. For instance, while the long-note melody that underlines the words ‘donec ponam’ in the first movement is technically a cantus firmus (the text being in Latin), the treatment is clearly that of a chorale melody — the mainstay of Protestant organ playing and service music. Likewise, the fugues that appear throughout the work have a northern severity, with Handel’s heavy reliance on pedal points also betraying the organist-composer (the pedal-point derives its name from the practice of holding a very long bass note with the foot while the hands continue to play faster notes).

One might indeed say that the organ’s influence underlies the whole work; certainly, a good deal of the vocal writing would seem more idiomatic on keyboard. This is especially the case in the closing fugue, where the singers are called upon to make such frequent and sudden changes of direction that one might not be surprised to see them put on their hazard lights. Florid melismata and flagrant tongue-twisters are among the other virtuosic pitfalls that pepper the work as a whole, in both the solo parts and the chorus.

The impressiveness of the singing aside, there are some breathtakingly dramatic moments in this work. Handel does not shy away from the text; when it says that “he shall fill the places with cadavers” you get the feeling he means it.

Overture and suite from 'Dardanus'
Jean-Philippe Rameau

The first forty years of Rameau’s life were spent in comparative obscurity in the French provinces. It was only in the 1820s, with the publication of his groundbreaking treatise on harmony, and his permanent move to Paris, that he rose to prominence. Even so, at the time of his first opera, the fifty-year old Rameau was known mainly as a theorist, and as a teacher and composer of keyboard music.

The premiere of Hippolyte et Aricie caused a sensation, and began a feud between Rameau‘s supporters (‘Ramistes’) and a more conservative faction (‘Lullistes’). The latter group, ostensibly dedicated to the preservation of the norms of French opera as set down by Jean-Baptiste Lully in the 1650s, was at least equally motivated by jealousy and trepidation in the face of Rameau’s enormous capabilities as a composer.

This feud rose to fever pitch with the 1739 production of the tragédie en musique, Dardanus, with the composer even coming to blows with one of his more vociferous critics. While the opera had a run of 26 performances, some of the criticisms eventually hit home. When Rameau revived the work in 1744, many of the sillier plot points were eliminated, as was a good deal of music; critics and musicians alike had complained that the original version was “so laden with music that for three whole hours the orchestra players have not time to sneeze.”

Of course, that perceived defect is a positive boon when presenting a suite of movements from the opera, as is the diversity of instrumentation, colour and emotion found in the dances and airs of this work. It should be noted that the dances in such a suite are not abstract, stylized movements of instrumental music; the baroque French opera was a total experience incorporating music, drama, staging and especially dance.

The opera opens (naturally) with an overture, and closes with a chaconne. The form of the French overture had not changed since its establishment by Jean-Baptiste Lully in the 1650s: a slow first section with sharply dotted rhythms, followed by a faster, fugal section. Although Rameau would later break away from this norm (the first composer to do so in 80 years) in Dardanus he still hewed closely to the Lullian model.

Concerto grosso no. 5, in G minor
Capel Bond

Capel Bond was born in 1730 in Gloucester where he served his apprenticeship with the cathedral organist. At the age of 19 he got his first professional post as organist of St. Michael and All Angels in Coventry, at that time the second largest parish church in England. In Coventry he organised subscription concerts and directed the Music Society in performances of large-scale works, including Handel’s Messiah. He later extended these activities to nearby Birmingham, founding a music festival there in 1767.

Bond’s only surviving works are the Six Concertos in Seven Parts (1766) and Six Anthems in Score (1769). The concerto grosso was a popular form in England, ideal for amateur orchestral societies, which would play the less challenging ripieno parts, and hire professionals for the soloistic concertino. The most frequently played works in this genre were by Corelli, Geminiani and Handel, but the demand for concerti was so great that after 1750 several provincial composers in England were also able to take advantage of the market. Bond’s collection met with considerable success, with subscriptions from across the country prompting a second edition, and the works continued to be performed into the 19th century.

The four concerti grossi in this collection (the remaining pieces being a trumpet and a bassoon concerto) all follow the model of Geminiani, opening with a slow introduction leading to a fugue, and followed by one or a pair of additional movements, usually dances. The introduction of the 5th concerto in G minor, with its dotted rhythms and forward-leading flourishes, recalls the French overture; the fugue is modeled on one of Handel’s. The extended 3rd movement (Largo andante) has the stately air of a sarabande, with the memorable lift of the opening material recurring with gratifying frequency. The finale (Con spirito) is a fast minuet in the style of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas, the latter having been popularised in England through the concerto arrangements of Charles Avison.

Motet — 'Der Gerechte kommt um'
Johann Sebastian Bach

The motet Der Gerechte kommt um has rather a complicated history. It dates from late in Bach’s life, at a time when his focus as a composer had shifted from vocal to instrumental music. It is not an original composition but is, rather, a reworking of the Latin motet Tristis est anima mea by Johann Kuhnau, who was Bach’s immediate predecessor as Kantor of the Leipzig Thomas-schule. Kuhnau’s setting also appears to have been based on a previous composition, perhaps by the Italian Antonio Lotti. Finally, Bach’s version in turn was passed down to the present day as part of Carl Heinrich Graun’s ‘pasticcio Passion’ of the 1740s.

In resetting Kuhnau’s music, Bach added the accompaniment of two oboes and a string group, and made other changes to accentuate the text (as is the case with most of Bach’s motets, this is a Biblical passage in German). The oboes set the tone of lamentation at the outset of the work, with a sobbing offbeat figure that provides a reluctant motor for the first two sections. The voices enter with a mounting cascade of longer cries, each voice overlapping the other, and sing of the indifference of the world to the death of the righteous. The second section is more energetic, with the movement of the voices illustrating the journey of the departed souls away from the evil of the world. Finally, a grand pause follows the word ‘Friede’ (peace), and the oboes give up their agitation to join the rest of the ensemble in ushering the righteous to their holy and deserved rest.

 

 

MCO's 2008/09 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio Two 98.3, Golden West Radio & Shaw Cable. MCO's Chamber Chatter newsletter
is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Heartstrings gala
sponsor: Mackenzie Financial Corporation.

© 2008 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra