The Monmouth Civic Chorus
Dr. Mark Shapiro, Artistic Director
Close to Perfect, Close to Home
Three Choral Diamonds
in honor of our 60th season
Sunday, May 3, 2009, 4:00 pm
at the Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank NJ
On the Program
The First Walpurgis-Night
Felix Mendelssohn
It
could be described as a 19th-century ''Rite of Spring.'' A little- known gem from this well- known composer, his brief
cantata is a delightful setting of a Goethe poem that retells a quirky confrontation between Druids and Christians. The
atmosphere is right out of Harry Potter or the Brothers Grimm. Mysterious creatures haunt the woods; lightning flashes;
who will prevail?
Sphaera
Guillaume Connesson
MCC
proudly presents the US premiere of a major work by this important emerging composer. He tells us that "With Sphaera,
I wanted to continue my exploration of ancient languages, previously undertaken in my oratorio Athanor, this time
using the Latin poetry of the 17th century poet Richard Crashaw. This
English poet managed to create an extraordinary neo-Latin description of the cosmic sphere, embracing the totality of the
universe, while also reflecting the vastness of empty space. Crashaw deploys classic stylistic procedures (anaphora,
epiphora, parallelism, antithesis) to achieve an intoxicating play of verbal sound."
Stabat Mater
Karol Szymanowski
Like his contemporaries Debussy, Puccini, and Rachmaninoff, the Polish master devoted his life to finding new possibilities
in the best-loved techniques of the classical tradition. The result is a ravishing musical synthesis of folk and
classical styles, a gorgeously appealing, communicative and fresh-sounding sonic tapestry of melodies and chords. Szymanowski's
Stabat Mater is his masterpiece: a songful, passionate outpouring of religious feeling that melds the haunting chant of
Slavic church music with the harmonic sensuousness of impressionism.
This program is funded in part by The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) with support from Cultural Services of the French Embassy, CulturesFrance, Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique (SACEM) and the Florence Gould Foundation.