OCTOBER 2005

A Season of Historical Innovation

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The holiday season features the perennial favorite, Handel’s Messiah (Nov. 27, Dec. 2 and 4), along with two additional programs. The Holiday Sing (Dec. 3) is an opportunity for audiences to sing along with the Handel and Haydn Chorus in yuletide favorites like Silent Night and selections from Messiah. In addition, a Handel and Haydn Brass Ensemble, the Back Bay Ringers handbell choir, and the Handel and Haydn Youth Chorus will perform. Grant Llewellyn celebrates his Welsh roots with the Christmas in Wales choral concert (Dec. 18 and 21). “We tried to find a balance of Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, British, and American repertoire. To tie it all together, I will narrate A Child’s Christmas in Wales, a work by our most famous poet, Dylan Thomas,” says Llewellyn. (read the full interview with Grant Llewellyn) Also on the program are pieces by Ives, Walton, and Rorem.

Warm up your winter with performances of Beethoven’s boldSymphony No. 5 and his Violin Concerto (Jan. 13, 15), played by Richard Tognetti, Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. As for Beethoven’s 5 th, Llewellyn believes, “It’s that high octane bite in the first movement that I’m confident we can get, despite the challenge of playing on period instruments.”

In recognition of Mozart’s 250 th birthday, the Society will give performances of three\ programs dedicated to the capricious genius. Audiences can hear the Mozart Soirée (Feb. 3 and 5) wind ensemble program which includes the famous Serenade in C Minor along with arrangements of favorite operas. “The Serenade was written for a particular wind ensemble called the Harmoniemusik ensemble, popular in Vienna in the 1780s. This is some of my favorite music in the world, and some of the most wonderful music that was ever written for oboe,” says Stephen Hammer, Handel and Haydn’s principal oboist and designer of the concert program. (read an interview with Stephen Hammer about period oboe and the Mozart Soirée concert)

Highlighting famous arias and choruses from Idomeneo and The Magic Flute, Happy Birthday Mozart (Feb. 17 and 19) spotlights some of the composer’s best work on the grand Symphony Hall stage.

Pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout returns to perform Mozart’s Concertos No. 9 and 24 in Classical Masters: Mozart and Haydn. The concerts also include Haydn’s programmatic symphonies, Morning, Noon and Night (Mar. 10 and 12). Innovation is the theme of the season, and that spirit carries over into a concert of Italian Baroque Concertos by Corelli, Vivaldi, and Handel (Apr. 7 and 9). Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions of the musicians throughout the concert.

To close the season, Handel and Haydn presents Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (Apr. 21 and 23). This monumental work requires double-orchestra, double-chorus, and soloists, which include James Gilchrist as the Evangelist and Dominique Labelle, soprano. “One of my responsibilities here as Music Director has been to challenge our musicians, and there is no greater challenge than the Bach St. Matthew Passion,” says Llewellyn. But it is the music that Llewellyn wishes to convey: “It’s important that everyone who comes to these performances has the opportunity to take away the scale, the depth, the elegance, and the beauty of the music. I believe it has significance for all of us.”

- Christina M. Frangos