Were I to catalogue the many entries I have written for this blog over the past fifteen years, I am certain I would find that the majority of them concern repertoire. The beauty and emotional power of what composers have written down for us has always been paramount in my own approach to performance, whether singing or conducting: I have wanted to sing well, to understand and pronounce languages well, to conduct well, in order to give authentic life to what composers give us. Proper conducting patterns, beauty of vocal production, singing higher and louder and faster, and many other aspects of the vocal art, have been supports, rather than points of arrival, in my quest to express the composers’ intent.
So my first order of business is, always, selecting a concert’s repertoire. And this is problematic in selecting music for the Advent and Christmas season. There are competing concerns to be addressed. On the one hand, we acknowledge the explicitly Christian nature of these holidays, with the darker music and texts of Advent, as well as the joyful music of Christmas itself, sometimes grand and majestic, sometimes warm and intimate. This religiously-oriented music can be austere, demanding, thought-provoking, nudging Chorale in a direction which excludes some of our constituency. On the other hand, we acknowledge the universal celebration of the passage from dark to light, Yuletide, celebrated with good food and drink, gifts and sometimes excessive merriment, and colored with nostalgia for home, family, and the past. We want all singers and listeners to feel welcome in our audiences, too, not just musically sophisticated Christians. And I want to design a program that is balanced and satisfying, as well as a little surprising.
The net I spread in my search for Christmas music is fairly broad and forgiving. If I sense anything even remotely Christmasy in a text, I call it fair game. This has been particularly true in the current season— repertoire I am hungry to program, after the hiatus caused by the pandemic, I am just shoe-horning it into our program. Most significant along these lines, this year, is our inclusion of three movements from J.S.Bach’s Mass in B minor. Chorale was one week out from a performance of the St. John Passion when things closed down in March 2021, and I have been mourning that loss ever since. Nothing from that particular work would fit into a Christmas concert; so I turned to another of Bach’s Big Three for texts suited to the season: Glory to God in the highest/ and on earth peace to men of good will seemed made to order, as did Give us peace. This is music of the highest possible value and impact; I’m thrilled we are able to include it in this concert. I only wish we could do the entire Mass!
Another piece we are singing which might raise eyebrows on a Christmas concert: the Ave Maria from Act II, scene 2, of Francis Poulenc’s opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites. Originally set for a women’s chorus in the opera, accompanied by orchestra, we are performing it with the orchestral parts sung by the tenors and basses. The opera’s plot, based upon the execution by guillotine of a group of Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution, is hardly Christmasy in nature; but the Ave Maria text, said or sung at many points in Roman Catholic liturgical practice, is associated particularly with the Vespers for the 4th Sunday in Advent. Poulenc’s setting is exquisitely beautiful and haunting, worthy of standing on its own as one of his most affecting choral compositions.
I’ll write more about the repertoire for our coming concert next week.