soloists in Bach’s cantata Nur jedem das Seine atSt. James Cathedral, November 12; PWYC. Also onNovember 12, Responsories from the Office of theDead by Victoria, Lassus and Palestrina, along withGregorian Chant will be sung, with soloists RichardWhittall, countertenor, Paul Ziade and JamieTuttle, tenor, and Sean Nix, bass, at Holy FamilyChurch; free.Leslie Bickle, soprano, will give a free noontimerecital at St. Andrew’s Church on November 14.The next Tafelmusik concert will present musicfrom the English Baroque. The director is theviolinist Pavlo Beznosiuk and the singer will be theAmerican soprano Joélle Harvey, who will performarias from Handel’s Rinaldo at Trinity-St. Paul’sShannon MercerCentre, November 19 to 23.Allison Arends, soprano, Christy Derksen, mezzo,Leonard Whiting, tenor, and Jesse Clark, bass, will be the soloists inBach’s Christmas Oratorio at St. Matthew Catholic Church, Oakville,November 22 and 23. There will be another performance of this workon November 28 at Runnymede United Church with soloists MonicaWhicher, soprano, Allyson McHardy, mezzo, Lawrence Wiliford andColin Ainsworth, tenor, and Russell Braun, baritoneOn November 25 Soundstreams presents Vespro della Beata Vergineby Monteverdi and Les Vêpres de la Vierge by Tremblay. The sopranosoloist is Shannon Mercer.The second instalment of the three-part series “International Divas”will take place at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre on November 27. The singersare Eliana Cuevas, Fern Lindzon, Nathalie, Samidha Joglekar, ChloeCharles and Kathryn Rose.On November 29 there are a number of concerts to choose from.The Eastman School of Music Bach Chamber Orchestra and Soloistspresent two cantatas by J. S. Bach, Alles nur nach Gottes Willen andSchwingt freudig euch empor. The soloists are Paulina Swierczek,soprano, Katie Weber, alto, Steven Humes, tenor, andJoel David Balzun, bass at Grace Church on-the-Hill. Aperformance of C. P. E. Bach’s oratorio Die Israeliten in derWüste will have as soloists Emily Ding, soprano, MichelleSimmons, mezzo, Alex Wiebe, tenor, and Geoffrey Keating,baritone, at Bloor Street United Church. The soprano LesleyBouza will perform Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Canteloubeand others at Metropolitan United Church. The soloistswith the Oakham House Choir in Haydn’s NelsonMass are Zorana Sadiq, soprano, Adriana Albu, mezzo,Riccardo Iannello, tenor, and Michael York, bass, at CalvinPresbyterian Church.On December 3 Bach’s cantata Wachet! betet! betet!wachet! will be sung by Erin Bardua, soprano, ChristinaStelmacovich, mezzo, Charles Davidson, tenor, and GrahamRobinson, baritone at St. James Cathedral, PWYC.Pax Christi Chorale performs work by Bach and Martin,in which the soloists are Michele Bogdanowicz, mezzo, Sean Clark,tenor, and Doug MacNaughton, baritone at Grace Church on-the Hill,December 6 and 7.And beyond the GTA: Melanie Conly, soprano, and Bud Roach,tenor, sing Noël Coward, in Grace United Church, Barrie November 9.What may be the first Ontario performance this year of Handel’sMessiah takes place on December 6. The soloists are Jennifer Taverner,soprano, Kimberly Barber, mezzo, Cory Knight, tenor, and DanielLichti, bass-baritone at the Centre in the Square, Kitchener.And looking ahead: Toronto Summer Music has announced thatthe mentors in the 2015 Art of Song program will be the soprano SoileIsokoski and the collaborative pianist Martin Katz. Steven Philcox willcoordinate and will also act as coach (as he did in 2014).Hans de Groot is a concertgoer and active listenerwho also sings and plays the recorder. He can becontacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.22 | November 1 - December 7, 2014 thewholenote.com
Beat by Beat | Choral SceneOf Requiemsand VespersBENJAMIN STEINThis year is the centenary of the First World War, which beganin June 1914. We commemorate the 1918 armistice date ofNovember 11, commonly known as Remembrance Day, witha mixture of hope and horror, knowing now that what was called“the war to end all wars” was merely the beginning of the bloodiesthundred years in recorded history.WWI was the century’s grimmest – and last – example of theconfluence of 19th-century battletactics with 20th-century industrialweaponry. The carnagethat resulted came about in partbecause soldiers and their leadersalike clung to a notion of braveryunder fire that lost its meaning inthe metal rain and poison air thatthe new weapons created.In wartime, music brings solacefor the devastated, becomesa marshalling tool for furtherconflict, and on occasion,strengthens those voices raisedin protest and in question againstthe imperatives of war. Phil Ochswrote at the height of the USA’sconflict in Vietnam, “It’s always theRobert Cooperold to lead us to the war/It’s always the young to fall.”Several concerts commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of all whoserved, and lived and died, and endured during that time. For othersnot mentioned here, please consult the listings.On November 8 and 9 the DaCapo Chamber Choir performs threeelegiac works in a concert titled “There Will be Rest.” The repertoireincludes Barber’s Agnus Dei (the choral setting of his famousAdagio for Strings) Elgar’s Lux Aeterna, and Canadian Eleanor Daley’sRequiem setting.On November 9 That Choir also performs Eleanor Daley’s Requiem,as well as works by Whitacre, Mealor, Clausen, Górecki and Runestad.On November 11 the Orpheus Choir performs “The End ofInnocence: Readings, music and images in commemoration of thecentenary of the Great War.” Conductor Robert Cooper states, “WWIwas a turning point for Canada, transitioning from a British colony tonationhood. We want our audience to feel that emotional experiencewith a greater appreciation of Canada’s impact in the First World War,through the medium that we so value – choral music.” The concertincludes texts from the Canadian archives, read by actors, to recreatethe voices of soldiers and nurses serving on the front lines, and theirfamily and friends reaching out to them from home.Vespers: The phrase “Setting the Mass” is something of a classicalcomposer’s shorthand for the much longer “daring to claim your placeamongst the pantheon of the greats by setting the same texts theydid.” The Latin Mass text is considered by many the greatest test of acomposer’s sensitivity to text and command of musical form.A close second to the Mass text is the Vespers, the set of prayersintoned during evening services,most often within Catholic,Orthodox and Lutheran churches.These prayers draw togetherdisparate elements of Christianworship, combining the Magnificatfrom the Gospel of Luke with Latintranslations of psalms from theHebrew Scriptures.These Hebrew texts normallyhave appended to them a GloriaPatri – glory be to the Father, andto the Son, and to the Holy Ghost– which can make an Englishtranslation of the complete prayerjarring from a Jewish point of view.And yes, this paragraph is what isknown as a kvetch.But I digress. The Vespers textshave elicited beautiful settings by composers over the centuries –Mozart wrote two settings that I prefer to all his masses. But thesetting that has emerged as a masterwork comparable to the canon ofmass settings of the common practice era is Monteverdi’s Vespro dellaBeata Vergine 1610.Because there is little information about the 1610 Vespers, as it iscommonly known, we have no idea how, or even if, the work was everperformed. Its offbeat structure and orchestration has led to speculationthat the piece was a kind of compositional resume, used to showRobert Cooper, CM, Artistic DirectorEdward Moroney, AccompanistGreg Rainville, Assistant ConductorTickets:; senior; student416 530 4428www.orpheuschoirtoronto.comBMOFinancial GroupFinancial GroupOrpheus Choir’s season sponsorBMO Financial Groupan Ontario government agencyun organisme du gouvernement de l’OntarioThe End of InnocenceNovember 11, 2014 7:30 p.m.Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale RoadThrough music, words and images, remember the pride,passion and pathos of ‘the war to end all wars’,in a nostalgic and heartfelt commemoration of the100th Anniversary of the Great War.Guest Narrators: Bethany Jillard, Mike Shara,Stratford Festivalthewholenote.com November 1 - December 7, 2014 | 23
