|
 |
|||||||||
and more music for Christmas |
Brighton
Orpheus Choir conducted by Stella Hull soloists: |
 Antonín Dvořák (1841 - 1904) |
Te Deum By the last 20 years of his life, Dvořák's music and name had become internationally known. He had earned many honours, awards and honorary doctorates. In 1892, he responded to an invitation to move to America to work as the artistic director for the National Conservatory of Music in New York. The $15,000 he was offered was nearly 25 times what he had been earning in Prague. The Te Deum was the first performance he gave in America, when the new work had its premiere on 21 October 1892 in Carnegie Hall, with Dvořák conducting a choir of 250 singers. The Te Deum is a joyous, extroverted and optimistic setting of traditional Christian texts. It opens with a chorus and soprano solo. The second movement Tu Rex Gloriae features a bass solo with the chorus, which stands alone in the following Aeterna fac. In the final movement Dignare Domine the chorus is joined by both soloists. |
|
| Song of Destiny Brahms wrote the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) based on an extract from a Hölderlin poem. It was whilst visiting the naval seaport of Wilhelmshaven that Brahms was captivated by a poem he discovered by Friedrich Hölderlin entitled Hyperions Schicksalslied. Almost immediately he was deep into its composition. The Schicksalslied was first performed in 1871. The title can equally be translated as Song of Fate. Written during the three years after the German Requiem, it has sometimes been described as a "mini-requiem". As with the Requiem his focus is more humanistic than religious. Hölderlin's text contrasts the sublime contentment of the Olympian gods with the terror and powerlessness of humanity buffeted by fate, as the waves break at the foot of a cliff. His poem ends on a note of resignation. Brahms, however, chooses to end the Schicksalslied with a return to the heavenly radiance of the introduction - hope and consolation for the living may yet be found here on earth. |
 Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) |
|
 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) |
Benedicite Vaughan Williams' Benedicite was composed in 1929 for the jubilee of the Leith Hill Musical Festival in Dorking, Surrey. Vaughan Williams himself conducted the first performance of the work in 1930. The Benedicite is first a setting of the well-known canticle from the apocryphal Song of the Three Holy Children which begins "O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him for ever". Then it incorporates a poem by John Austin (1613-1669) "Hark, my soul, how everything / Strives to serve our bounteous King; ...." Vaughan Williams said he had started to write the Benedicite after reading Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, which had greatly excited him. His wife Adeline wrote that it sounded very fierce! The Benedicite is scored for soprano soloist, chorus and orchestra. Fantasia on Christmas Carols |
|