Ludwig van Beethoven was 38 years old and becoming more and more deaf when he was conductor and piano soloist — and, of course, composer — in perhaps the most extravagant concert of his career.
It was in Vienna on Dec. 22, 1808. It started at 6:30 p.m. and lasted four hours. On stage at the Theater an der Wien were vocal soloists, orchestra and chorus.
Four of the pieces — Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6, Piano Concerto No. 4 and the “Choral Fantasy” — were heard for the first time. Two pieces on the program were from the Mass in C Major, which had been premiered one year earlier. They were identified on the program as “Hymn and Sanctus with Latin text, composed in the Church style with chorus and solos” because church music was banned in secular theaters.
Next weekend, the Burlington Choral Society and Orchestra will attempt only a small part of that program. Artistic Director Richard Riley will conduct Beethoven’s Mass in C Major and “Choral Fantasy,” with pianist Claire Black, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at the Elley-Long Music Center in Colchester.
The vocal soloists are soprano Victoria Wacek, mezzo-soprano Nessa Rabin, tenor Neil Cerutti and bass Stephen Falbel. Also on the program is “Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage),” Op. 112, Beethoven’s 1815 cantata for chorus and orchestra, setting poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
“That monumental historic performance of those premieres was just a draw-dropper,” Riley said. “It’s fun to have a reference for these pieces. You don’t typically think of them all as being jumbled together at one point.”
Beethoven’s 1807 Mass in C Major, Op. 86, is not entirely the traditional Roman Catholic Mass.
“Yes, it will get performed at churches, but it’s not a church Mass,” Riley said. “The reason Beethoven wanted it to be performed in that concert was it takes you to a different place. I like the fact that the character of it marries the ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage’ and the ‘Choral Fantasy.’ If it was an indoor church liturgical Mass, then I think the other pieces would be slightly out of that world. But the three together, I think, go very beautifully together.”
The Mass runs about 45 minutes, certainly shorter that the composer’s better-known 90-minute Missa Solemnis, Op. 123.
“It has almost no true focus on the solo bits,” Riley said. “There are soprano, alto, tenor, bass soloists, but it’s almost all ensemble singing. One of those soloists might have a single phrase as a true solo, but it’s almost always with the context of a movement in which the chorus is participating and all the other soloists are participating.”
While Mozart was a devout Roman Catholic, Beethoven was described as a “nominal Catholic.” Thus, his attitude toward the Mass is more personal.
“It was really congruent with that time in the composer’s life and he cared about it all,” Riley said. “What I don’t think he particularly cared about was ‘church music’ — I think he cared about a text that inspired him.”
The 1808 “Choral Fantasy,” Op. 80, is written for solo piano, vocal soloists and orchestra, and anticipates his later Ninth Symphony — the choral writing is very similar to the symphony’s fourth movement. (The “Choral Fantasy” recently returned as the traditional closing work at Vermont’s famed Marlboro Music Festival.)
“It’s a tremendously exciting closure,” Riley said.
Black, the Choral Society’s rehearsal accompanist, also a well-known Burlington soloist and chamber musician, will be the piano soloist.
“What she has in her fingers and her heart and her head is big virtuosic music and this gives her an opportunity to really show her stuff in a way” that our audience doesn’t normally see her,” Riley said. “That’s my excitement in giving her that moment to truly shine in a virtuosic sense.”
The 55-voice Burlington Choral Society will be accompanied by 12 strings, but the wind and brass parts have been arranged for piano by Riley.
“This is not only unique to this repertoire, but it anticipates the concert we’re doing next April when we’re performing the Verdi Requiem in a new arrangement,” he said. “Take away the 70 instrumentalists that Verdi would have imagined and pare it down to six instruments — marimba, piano, horn, double bass, tympani and bass drum.”
It should prove most interesting. No one can say Vermont musicians have no imagination!
Burlington Choral Society The Burlington Choral Society and Orchestra, conducted by Artistic Director Richard Riley, will perform Beethoven’s Mass in C Major and “Choral Fantasy,” with pianist Claire Black, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Elley-Long Music Center in Colchester. Tickets are $25; go online to www.sevendaystickets.com
