WaukeshaChoralUnion-AllBeethovenFINALProof

1www.ChoralUnion.org · Waukesha Choral Union

FROM THE PRES IDENT

As President, as well as a singing member of the Waukesha Choral Union, I am honored and privileged to welcome you to the Waukesha Choral Union’s final concert of the 2011-2012 season. We hope that our performance of An

All-Beethoven Concert will bring as much enjoyment to you as it already has for us. We also hope that you

can join us for “Give Us Peace” on May 21st, when we collaborate with the Bel Canto Chorus and the Milwaukee

Symphony Orchestra at the Oconomowoc Arts Center.

Our 2010-2011 season is made possible not only by the hard work and dedication of our singers and musicians, but also by the support of our donors, advertisers, sponsors, volunteers, and all those who attend our concerts. In order to be successful, our organization needs the efforts of all of these participants, just like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.

As a member of today’s audience you are one piece of the puzzle. You can turn that into many pieces by inviting friends, family members, and neighbors to experience the wonderful performances that will make up our 2011-2012 season. Artistic Direc-tor Ernie Brusubardis has selected “Heaven and Nature Sings” as the theme for next season, which will begin with a wonderful concert in the beautiful chapel at Holy Hill. It promises to be yet another enjoyable experience for audience and singers alike.

Tom CustisWaukesha Choral Union President

2 Waukesha Choral Union · www.ChoralUnion.org

ABOUT THE WAUKESHA CHOR AL UNION

As the premiere chorus in the area, the Waukesha Choral Union has beenmusically active in the community for over 50 years. Originally a combinationof the Carroll College student chorus and community singers namedWaukesha Choral Society in 1949, the group became the Town and Gown in1961 and the Waukesha Choral Union in 1974, taking its present form as anauditioned choir in 1978.

MISS ION

The Waukesha Choral Union’s mission is to challenge, enrich, and engage its sing-ing members, audiences, and community through the pursuit of excellence and a variety of programming. The WCU mission includes expansion of the effective-ness of its educational efforts throughout Waukesha County through collabora-tion with schools, area performing artists, and community arts organizations.

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WAUKESHA CHOR AL UNION

Board of DirectorsTom Custis - PresidentDiane McGeen - Vice PresidentTom Hering - TreasurerSusan Wallenslager - SecretaryErnest Brusubardis, III - Ex-officioKristina BoergerTom ConstableReAnn HolmesSarah HolmquistBarbara MillerTom Smith

StaffErnest Brusubardis, III - Artistic DirectorChristopher Ruck - AccompanistJim LaBelle - Marketing Director


ARTISTIC D IRECTOR

Ernest Brusubardis, III, Artistic Director of the Waukesha Choral Union, is a graduate of UW Milwaukee with the Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Music and the Master’s Degree in Music Education with an emphasis on choral conducting. His other choral directorships include the advanced ensembles of Hartford Union High School and the

Brusubardis-Dzimente Latvian Choir, a podium he shares with his father. His expertise in this latter pursuit has earned him the chief conductorship of Latvian Song Festivals in the United States, Canada, and Latvia. As a music theater enthusiast, he conducts the orchestra for the annual productions at Hartford Union High School and boasts a record as music director for community theater productions throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, including Menomonee Falls Patio Players, On the Wall and Off the Wall theaters, Archangel Productions, and shows at the UW Milwaukee and West Bend extensions.

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FROM THE ARTISTIC D IRECTOR

This evening we end our regular season with an all-Beethoven concert.

We begin with a choral arrangement of Die Himmel rühmen, Opus 48, number 4, originally written for solo voice followed by Hallelujah from Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives), Op. 85. It is from an oratorio portraying the emo-tional turmoil of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane prior to his crucifixion. It was begun in the fall of 1802, after his completion of the Heiligenstadt Testament, but was only published in 1811. After a failed suicide attempt, Beethoven wrote this famous testament to his brothers declaring that he would live to complete his artistic destiny regardless of his physical ailments, chief among them, his struggle with deafness. He kept this document in secret with his papers where it was discovered only after his death in 1827.

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Mass in C are among the first fruits of his new resolve after writing the testament. He wrote his Mass in C major, Op. 86, to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, II, in 1807, following in the footsteps of Haydn who had written a mass every year to honor the Prince’s wife. The Choral Fantasy was written as a finale to a concert where the same mass, as well as his 5th and 6th symphonies were performed.

Beethoven was known for his piano improvisation skills, so it made sense to have a finale that would use all of the forces from the concert with the composer him-self at the piano. It is with great pleasure that we collaborate with Steven Ayers as he leads us into the choral portion of the Choral Fantasy with the improvisatory section from the beginning of the work.

May Beethoven’s example of resolve and commitment inspire us all to overcome whatever ails us, however great or small.

Sincerely,

Ernest “Ernie” Brusubardis, IIIArtistic Director

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MUS ICAL F INES

Latecomers (Entering between songs)….. $10.00

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WAUKESHA CHOR AL UNION

Ernest Brusubardis, III, DirectorChristopher Ruck, Accompanist

SOPRANOKaren BieszkIndra BrusubardisChristine BudishCaitlin ButtePhyllis CramerPaula CustisCarrie GarciaJennifer GarciaPatricia HummelBarbara MillerRena PettSally SchwarzCarol SlaybaughMary StephaniWendy StippichKathi StoiberJoanna Vanderhoef

ALTOJane DykemaMaureen HairBeth HeflinClaire JohnsonWendy MullerJana OttoJoAnn Portz

Susan RabeColleen ReskeMichele RinkaJudy RosynekMary RuckhSusan TillSue WallenslagerAnne Wandler

TENORDavid BetzoldJohn ClauszTom CustisJeffrey FillianJames Gallup

BASSRichard BlauveltEd ButteNorm GoeschkoJohn GustafsonTom HeringCharlie HummelDean LarsonPaul RempeTom SmithAlan Thompson

AUDITION INFOR M ATION

Waukesha Choral Union is always seeking new members. To schedule an audition please call (414) 297-9310 or email at [email protected]

The 2010-2011 Waukesha Choral Union season, “Putting Together a Community ofSingers,” is sponsored in part by grants from the Arts Alliance of Waukesha Countyand the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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CONTR IBUTORS

The Waukesha Choral Union is deeply grateful to these donors for their meaningful financial support. Their commitment to live, local music will help the WCU remain affordable and accessible to the communities we serve.

Maestro ($2,500 and above)Anthony and Andrea Bryant Family

FundWisconsin Arts Board

Conductor ($1,000 to $2,499)Arts Alliance of Waukesha CountyJoAnn Portz

Soloist ($500 - $999)Tom and Paula CustisRichard and Carol SnookWaukesha State Bank

Chorister ($250 - $499)Alan ThompsonBetty Lou TikalskyTom’s Heating ServiceMary Stephani

Patron ($100 - $249)Tom ConstableMarion A. EalesGE Foundation

John GustafsonPractical ClubRandle DableDick SmithAlan Thompson

Accompanist ($25 - $99)Mark AamotMaureen BestlandErnie and Indra BrusubardisKatherine EbelHildegard FischerHarry and Ingrid GoeschkoNorman GoeschkoJuanita GordenClark GuglerTom and Pat GregoryMary JohnsonCharmaine and James LaBellePeter RoidtSally SchwartzRuth and Glenn Van HaitsmaAnne Wandler

Donations to the Messiah / Creation Project in honor of Fred PortzMark AamotRon AbrahamsonMaryilyn BradleySusan BraunschweigPetrea BrenkleAndrea BryantSusanne CarmanJudy ClarkTom and Paula Custis

Janice DavisJane DykemaRalph FischerSharon GoodrumJuanita GordenTom and Pat GregoryClark GuglerPat HaughneyElaine Hurdle

Allegra JrolfMargaret KtoriedesMary Lou MaroseDick SmithTom SmithDonald TewesSusan WallenslagerMary Ann WolfeRichard and Carol Snook

DONATE TO THE WAUKESHA CHOR AL UNION

OnLine www.ChoralUnion.orgeMail [email protected] 262-549-4863Mail Waukesha Choral Union PO Box 495 Waukesha, WI 53187

Advertise in our next concert programCall 262-901-5325 or eMail [email protected]

Select #918425 Waukesha Choral Union for the Pick’n Save We Care Program

Waukesha Choral Union is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.All donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.


Saturday, April 30, 2011Shattuck Auditorium, Carroll University

Waukesha Choral UnionErnest Brusubardis, III, Conductor

Christopher Ruck, Piano

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

Die Himmel rühmen, Opus 48, No. 4

Christ on the Mount of Olives, Opus 85 Hallelujah

Choral Fantasy, Opus 80Steven Ayers - piano

Intermission

Mass in C major, opus 86KyrieGloriaCredo

Sanctus (Benedictus)Agnus Dei

Ami Bouterse – SopranoJillian Bruss – Mezzo-sopranoAlexander Gmeinder – Tenor

James Barany – Bass

ALL-BEETHOVENCONCERT


GUESTS SOLOISTS

Steven Ayers, Piano, received his training from Indiana Univer-sity, majoring in piano, where he received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, as well as a Performer’s

Certificate. He attended the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and began work on his doctoral degree at UW-Madison. After several years of teaching piano post-grad-uation, Steven and his wife welcomed their first son, prompting Steven to look for a somewhat more stable source of income. He became a CPA at that time and spent 17 years helping others with all things tax related. However, three or four years ago, Steven began to feel as though he was missing the music in his life. So with both sons now grown and in college, he began to shift his career back to his love for making music. This led him to a job as a finance advisor for the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He began to once again teach piano lessons and accom-pany string players, and has been on the faculty since 2005. Then Steven saw a job listing for a Company pianist for Milwau-kee Ballet. He decided to apply—and after an audition consisting of sight read-ing some music from (what else?) The Nut-cracker, and playing a piece of music that he had prepared ahead of time, Steven got the job and joined the Company. He also serves as accompanist for the String Academy of Wisconsin.

Ami Bouterse, SopranoAmi Bouterse has performed soprano favorites in opera and musical theater such as Die Zauberflute, Le nozze di Figaro, Gianni

Schicchi, The Wizard of Oz, The Mikado, Phantom of the Opera, and Into the Woods. Venues include Skylight Opera Theatre, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, New York Japan Society, Operafestival di Roma, Dorian Opera Theater, and Milwaukee Opera Theater. Recent concert performances include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem and

Litany for the Altar of the Blessed Sacra-ment. An international recitalist, the Atlantic Center for the Arts featured Ms. Bouterse at its New Arts Song Festival in Florence, Italy. Other recital venues in-clude the Sopelana (Spain) Music Festival, Lake Geneva Chapter of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Milwaukee Civic Music As-sociation. Award highlights include those sponsored by the Gerda Lissner Founda-tion in New York, MET District Council Auditions, multiple first place awards at various National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) auditions, and winning a Milwaukee Civic Music Association debut recital. Ms. Bouterse is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin- Parkside where she teaches private voice and other related courses, including directing the Opera Workshop. She received voice and opera theater performance degrees respectively from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Jillian Bruss, Mezzo-soprano,has performed both here and abroad in opera, oratorio, and recitals. She has performed with the Florentine Opera in

both main stage and outreach programs, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Dallas Opera, Milwaukee Choral Artists, Milwaukee Youth Symphony, Waukesha Choral Society, MasterSingers, Bel Canto Chorus, Milwaukee Choristers, and Lutheran Acapella Choir. In 2006, Jillian took a recital concert of American composed and arranged songs to the countries of her grandfathers, Denmark and Norway. She is the General Manager of the Mil-waukee Opera Theatre and conductor of the women’s ensemble Women of Note. She also teaches private voice in her home studio in Elm Grove, at Pius XI high school, and at UW Parkside. Jillian holds a Master’s degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois – Cham-paign Urbana, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from UW-Stevens Point.


GUEST SOLOISTS (cont )

Alexander Gmeinder, Tenor, is currently a fifth-year senior at Lawrence University, where he is pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance. Alex

studies in the voice studio of Kenneth Bozeman. At Lawrence he has played the drunken neighbor in The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Ouf in Emmanuel Chabrier’s operetta L’Etoile, the title role in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, and Vašek in The Bartered Bride by Smetana. In December, Alex performed the role of Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus with Candid Concert Opera in Madison. Recent concert works include Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Mass in Time of War, Bach’s Magnificat, Mendelssohn’s Magnificat, and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy in C. He also recently performed Beethoven’s Mass in C at Lawrence University. This past summer Alex studied at The Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, NY. While at Chautauqua

he performed the title role in Carissimi’s Jephte. He will be attending the Chautau-qua Institute again this summer and hopes to attend graduate school in the fall.

James Barany, Bass,has performed comprimario and supporting roles with the Florentine Opera, including the Herald in Rigoletto, Yakuside in Madama Butterfly

and “Man #1” in Elmer Gantry. James has also performed with the Florentine Opera Chorus since 2005 as a Bass- Baritone in the productions of Aida, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Macbeth, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Madama Butterfly,The Magic Flute, Semele, Tosca, Elmer Gantry, Rigoletto, Rio De Sangre and L’ italiana in Algeri. James has also performed for Waukesha audiences as Sancho in Man of LaMancha at the Waukesha Civic Theatre.

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COMPOSER ’S CORNER

Moodiness and MoonlightLudwig van BeethovenBorn in Bonn, Germany, 1770 Died in Vienna, Austria, 1827

German composer who was the dominant musical figure of the nineteenth century – particularly famous for his nine symphonies

From: Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (And What the Neighbors Thought)Written by Kathleen Krull, Illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt

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MUSIC – NOT COOKING, GOOD MANNERS, OR FASHION – was Ludwig van Beethoven’s whole life.

His father began giving him piano lessons before he was four years old. Young Beethoven was so small he had to stand on the piano bench in order to reach the keys; his father rapped his knuckles whenever he made a mistake. Neighbors re-called him as a tiny boy weeping in front of the piano. When he was a little older, his father roused Beethoven at midnight to show him off to friends he brought home from bars.

By the time he was twelve, Beethoven was an organist at court. He was already publishing music and earning a salary that kept his family going when his father, an alcoholic, cold no longer take care of them. At age sixteen, he caught Mozart’s attention: “Keep our eyes on Him,” the older composer is said to have urged people. “Someday he will give the world something to talk about.”

Beethoven had a difficult childhood but he could be playful. One day he bet a church singer that he could throw him off stride by playing variations as he ac-companied the singer on the organ during the service. The singer accepted the challenge, but Beethoven won the bet: The singer was distracted. And Beethoven did get in trouble.

Eventually, he became known as the greatest pianist of his time. He could play so beautifully that his listeners wept – and when they did, he would burst out laughing. “You are fools!” he would say. Yet if people talked while he played, he would stalk off in a huff. If he didn’t like the audience, he wouldn’t perform at all.

His talent and powerful personality attracted many friends, but his moodiness could make it hard to stay friends with him. He insulted everyone. For an over-weight violinist, he wrote a song called “Praise to the Fat One.” On his brother’s business card – which read “Johann van Beethoven, Landowner” – Beethoven scrawled “Ludwig van Beethoven, Brain Owner.”

Once he became angry with a prince who was important to his financial health, telling him, “There are and there will be thousands of princes. There is only one Beethoven.”

A policeman arrested Beethoven one day for acting suspiciously. By this time the composer was very well known, and the policeman refused to believe that the “great Beethoven” could look as he did. The fashionable hairstyle of the day

Waukesha Choral UnionErnest Brusubardis, III, Music Director

2010-2011 Season

Purchase tickets from Waukesha Choral Union Members, at all Waukesha State Bank locations

online www.ChoralUnion.org or phone 414-297-9310

UPCOMING CONCERTS

A COLLAGE OF CAROLSFriday, December 9, 2011, 8:00pm St. Luke’s Church, WaukeshaSunday, December 11, 2011, 3:00pm St. Catherine’s, OconomowocMESSIAH Sunday, March 25, 2012, 3:00pmShattuck Auditorium, Carroll UniversityAWAKENING AND RENEWALSaturday, May 5, 2012, 8:00pmShattuck Auditorium, Carroll University

THE HUMAN AND THE DIVINESaturday, October 15, 2011 8:00pm Basilica at Holy HillWith Hartford Union High School Concert Choir

GIVE US PEACESaturday, May 21, 2011 7:30pm Oconomowoc Arts CenterWith Milwaukee Symphony Orchestraand Bel Canto Chorus

2011-2012 SEASONHEAVEN AND NATURE SINGS

COMPOSER ’S CORNER (c o n t.)

was careful pigtails, but Beethoven let his thick hair grow long and wild. He also couldn’t be bothered with clean or stylish clothes. When his clothes became too dirty and disgusting, his friends took them away during the night and brought new ones. Beethoven never noticed the difference.

Even Beethoven admitted that he was not physically attractive: “I cannot love what is not beautiful – or I should be loving myself.” He was short, with a huge head and hairy hands. His face was scarred from smallpox, and he had sad, near-sighted eyes. In later life, his ears were stuffed with pieces of cotton wool soaked in some yellow fluid. Only his protruding teeth were always clean: he constantly rubbed them with his napkin.

One of his favorite foods was macaroni and cheese. He also liked red herrings, a mushy soup of bread and eggs, and strong coffee that he made himself – exactly sixty beans to the cup. He was notorious for his bad cooking, and for his behavior in restaurants. Once he got so mad at a waiter that he dumped a plate of veal and gravy on the man’s head – and laughed. He had a loud laugh and a loud, annoy-ing voice. And he liked to spit. He sometimes left restaurants without paying and sometimes he wrote music on the bill.

“I am never alone when I am alone,” Beethoven said. He usually got up early in the morning to compose, then later walked through the streets of Vienna, muttering, growling, and stamping his feet. He carried bulging notebooks of music with him at all times. His handwriting was so messy that almost no one other than himself could read it.

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COMPOSER ’S CORNER (c o n t.)

In the afternoon, he’d go to a coffeehouse to gossip and read the newspapers. Sometimes he worked all night, by moonlight, going without food or sleep. More to keep awake than to get clean, he would pour pitchers of water over his head, which annoyed his downstairs neighbors when the water flooded the floor and leaked through their ceiling. When a group of boys peeked in his ground-floor window one time, they caught him working in his underwear. His room was even more shocking: dirty laundry, half-eaten food, rusty pens, scribbled papers every-where; there was even a full chamber pot under the piano. His landlords didn’t like him, and he had to move once or twice a year.

Beethoven would have been difficult to live with. (One woman who rejected his proposal of marriage called him “ugly and half crazy.”) He always had to have his own way. He never married, but he was always in love, often with a woman who was already married or engaged.

The saddest thing about Beethoven’s life was his gradual deafness, beginning in his late twenties. But he was used to writing music he couldn’t hear. As a child he had been too young to play the compositions he wrote. As his hearing grew worse and worse, he lived inside his head more than ever and kept on writing music with no loss of energy. He broke strings on his piano trying to pound loud enough so that he could hear the notes. Frustration made him more moody, even at times suicidal.

Beethoven conducting an orchestra was a sight to see. He would leap into the air during the loud parts, waving his arms toward the skies, sometimes shout-ing without being aware of it. Then he would crouch low during the quiet parts, almost creeping under the music stand. Audiences loved his music. In his last public performance, he began to cry when someone turned him around to make him aware of the roaring applause that he couldn’t hear.

He died of liver failure at age fifty-seven. The legend is that he roused himself from his bed at the end during a violent thunderstorm and shook his fist at the sky, defiant as ever.

Mozart’s Requiem (the same work Mozart had thought he was writing for his own funeral) was played at Beethoven’s funeral. It was a sad day for Vienna: one out of ten people who lived there came to pay their respects.

Musical Notese Possibly the most famous notes of all time are the first four notes of

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – three short beats followed by one long beat. Some people think they represent the knocking of Fate at one’s door.

e The last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is choral music set to Schiller’s poem Ode to Joy. The music has inspired people ever since it was written. It was played, for example, during the Chinese student protest in 1989, and when Germany’s Berlin Wall came down in 1990.

e Beethoven dedicated the famous Moonlight Sonata to eighteen-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. He was in love with her – but he was also in a tight spot. He needed to take back another dedication he had made to her and give it to someone else. The famous piano piece called Für Elise may actually have been meant as Für Therese – a pupil who ended up refusing Beethoven’s proposal of marriage.


PROGR A M NOTES

Die Himmel rühmen, Opus 48, No. 4

Beethoven’s Gellert Lieder were composer during a tumultuous time in the com-poser’s life. In 1801 we find Beethoven’s first mention of his growing deafness. The probability that his deafness was incurable tempted Beethoven to withdraw from society. During the same year, however, the composer writes of “a dear charm-ing girl who loves me and whom I love. ... “This was certainly the sixteen-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, a student of Beethoven and the dedicatee of the Moonlight Sonata, written in 1801. In 1803, Guicciardi married Count Wenzel Gallenberg, a young composer of ballet music. Myriad setbacks in Beethoven’s life may have induced his temporary attraction to religious subjects such as the Gellert poems of Op. 48.

Published in Vienna by Artaria in 1803, the Six Songs were dedicated to Count Johann von Browne (1767-1827), one of Beethoven’s chief early patrons.

Die Himmel rühmen (The Heavens extol the Glory of God) was published as the fourth of the Six Songs, Op. 48. The song is a majestic description of nature’s dec-larations of the glory of God. Octaves or block chords in the piano part trace the vocal line, which is more instrumental than vocal in conception. Marked “majestic,” the voice and piano begin by outlining the tonic triad, creating a military atmo-sphere. A quick modulation to G minor at “Vernimm, o Mensch, ihr göttlich Wort!” prepares us for the appearance of E flat major two measures later. As the poem describes, “Wer trägt der Himmel unzählbare Sterne?” (Who bears the heavens’ innumerable stars?), Beethoven slowly returns to the tonic, C major.


PROGR A M NOTES (c o n t.)

Hallelujah

Christ on the Mount of Olives, Op. 85, is an oratorio portraying the emotional turmoil of Jesus in the garden of Geth-semane prior to his crucifixion. The libretto in German is by the poet Franz Xaver Huber. It was first heard on April 5, 1803, and revised by Beethoven in 1811 for publication.

The work is a dramatic oratorio rather than a religious choral Mass or a dramatic opera, and is a much more humanistic portrayal of the Christ passion than other settings, such as those by Bach. It concludes at the point of Jesus personally accepting his fate, placing the emphasis on his own deci-sion rather than the later Crucifixion or Resurrection.

Although the work enjoyed immediate public success following its premiere, it has since drifted into obscurity, and is now rarely performed, being commonly regarded as falling below Beethoven’s usual standards of excellence. Howev-er, the finale chorus has enjoyed some popularity on its own, usually being rendered as an Hallelujah.

Choral Fantasy, Op. 80The Fantasia was first performed in December of 1808, which also saw the premières of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies as well as a performance of portion of the C major Mass. To con-clude this memorable concert program, Beethoven wanted a “brilliant Finale” that would unite in a single piece the different musical elements highlighted in the concert night: piano solo, chorus and orchestra. The Fantasia op. 80, was thus written expressly to fulfill this role. Beethoven himself played the piano part and the opening solo offers an example of his improvisational style (at the premiere he did, in fact, improvise this section).

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LEAD TO MCA!The Milwaukee Choral Artists’

2011-2012 Season

Northern LightsOctober 22, 2011, 7:30 PM

St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church1615 Wauwatosa Avenue, Wauwatosa

Southern Skies & Western Winds

February 18, 2012, 7:30 PMUnitarian Universalist Church West

13001 West North Avenue, Brookfield

Eastern VoyagesApril 14, 2012, 7:30 PM

Fox Point Lutheran Church7510 North Santa Monica Blvd., Fox Point

S P E C I A L P E R F O R M A N C E C O L L A B O R A T I O N

A Present Music Thanksgiving

November 20, 2011St. John’s Cathedral

812 North Jackson Street, Milwaukee

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PROGR A M NOTES (c o n t.)

The premiere performance seems to have been a rather troubled one; according to the composer’s secretary, “it simply fell apart,” a result most likely attributable to insufficient rehearsal time. Because of a mistake in the execution of the piece, it was stopped half way through and restarted.

The Choral Fantasy includes a sequence of variations on a theme that is widely felt to be an early version of a far better known variation theme, namely the one to which Beethoven set the words of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy in his Ninth Symphony.

Mass in C major, opus 86Each year, in honor of his wife’s name-day (September 8), Prince Nikolaus Esterha-zy, II, commissioned a new mass to be sung at his residence in Eisenstadt, Austria. In 1807, the commission fell to Beethoven.

The Mass in C Major was first performed on September 13, 1807, under the composer’s direction. While Beethoven seems to have been quite pleased with the work, his first effort in the genre, Prince Esterházy was not, describing it as “un-bearably ridiculous and detestable.” The composer was undeterred, however, and the mass received a more positive response after an 1812 performance. At the time of the work’s publication, Beethoven considered dedicating it to Napoleon, but finally decided upon Prince Ferdinand Kinsky, possibly as an intentional snub to the ungrateful Esterházy.

That Beethoven wished to set the mass text “in a manner in which it has rarely been treated” is evident right from the opening of the Kyrie, which begins with unaccompanied bass voices. A passage in the Sanctus, scored for voices and tympani only, must have been equally startling to contemporary audiences. Much like Haydn before him, Beethoven further divided main sections of the mass into smaller units, allowing for a progression of keys and tempi.

Beethoven reduces the choral texture to unison or octave singing for particularly profound passages of text, including “Quoniam tu solus sanctus” (Thou alone are holy), “Deum verum de Deo vero” (True God from true God) and “sub Pontio Pilato” (under Pontius Pilate). As in the Fifth Symphony, the contrast between C major and C minor is a salient feature. The texts associated with these keys imbue the contrast with particular meaning: C minor implies anguish, C major, relief. This is especially evident in the Agnus Dei, where the C minor of “miserere nobis” (Have mercy on us) gives way to a “dona nobis pacem” (Grant us peace) in C major.


THE L AST WORD

10 SIMPLE WAYS PARENTS CAN GET MORE ART IN THEIR KIDS’ LIVES

1. Enjoy the arts together. Sing, play music, read a book, dance, or draw with your child at home.

2. Encourage your child to participate in the arts and celebrate their participation in or out of school.

3. Explore your community’s library and read “the classics” together—from Mother Goose to Walt Whitman.

4. Read your local newspaper to find out about attending local arts events like museum exhibits, local plays, festivals, or outdoor concerts.

5. Tell your child’s teacher, principal, and school leadership that the arts are vital to your child’s success and an important part of a quality education. Find out if your school has sufficient resources for arts education, including qualified teachers and materials. If not, offer to help.

6. Contact your local arts organizations to inquire about the arts education pro-grams they offer either during school hours or after school. Volunteer to donate time, supplies, or help with their advocacy efforts and connect these services to your child’s school.

7. Attend a school board or PTA meeting and voice your support for the arts to show them you care and make sure the arts are adequately funded as part of the core curriculum in the school budget.

8. Explore your child’s dream to sing, to dance, to draw, to act—and encourage them to become the best they can be through the arts.

9. Be an arts supporter! Contact your elected officials—lawmakers and school board members—to ask them for more arts education funding from the local, state, and federal levels..

10. Sign up to become an activist on the Americans for the Arts website, www.ArtsUSA.com. You will get news updates and alerts about arts education.

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