2019–2020 Performance Schedule
From Verdi's Stabat Mater, performed January, 2017 at St. Catherine of Sienna Church in Franklin Square, NY.
Sunday, May 3, 2020, 3 p.m.
Haydn The Creation
Stephen C. Widom Cultural Arts at
Temple Emanuel Great Neck
150 Hicks Lane,
Great Neck, New York 11024
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) is known as one of the great composers from the Classical period, and his large output of instrumental music was certainly a strong influence on composers of his era and still draws keen interest and enthusiasm from audiences and musicians. At a relatively late time in his career, Haydn was able to return to writing choral works with orchestra, and from 1894 his remarkable Mass settings, The Creation, The Seasons, and The Last Words of Christ all flowed from his pen. Stimulated by his successful trip to London in 1794 and his encounter with Handel's oratorios in that city, Haydn had found new life and new possibilities. The Creation was composed on a libretto prepared in German. Haydn was involved in setting an English language text to this music. The music was premiered in a private concert in Vienna in 1797, and the first truly public performance followed in Vienna in 1798. The piece was an immediate triumph. One contemporary observer wrote that the music has a power of representation that beggars the imagination, and successfully represents the clash of elements, the creation of light, the presentation of the animals, as well as manny other effects. Haydn conducted performances of the work throughout Europe. The work retains its fresh and inventive aura to this day.
Sunday, January 26, 2020, 3 p.m.
Mozart Coronation Mass
Fauré Requiem
Corpus Christi RC Church
155 Garfield Avenue, Mineola, NY 11501
In 1779, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) returned to Salzburg and the employ of the Archbishop Colloredo after 18 months of travel. He composed the Mass in C (K. 317), Coronation Mass, in that year for the ceremonial crowning of an image of the virgin in a church near Salzburg. Noted Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein commented on this work: "New, and perhaps a product of the experiences of the long journey, is Mozart's ability to achieve, by lightning strokes in the midst of apparently conventional music, a note of seriousness, profundity and grandeur, while completely preserving the large outline of the form." The Mass is the 16th setting of the text by Mozart, still only 24 years old. A few other settings of the Mass and Vespers followed in his last two years in Salzburg before the dramatic break with the Archbishop and Mozart's move to Vienna in 1781.
Gabriel Faure (1845–1924) composed his Requiem in D minor, Opus 48, in 1887–1888, and it was first performed in Paris in 1888. Faure presented an expanded version of the Requiem in 1893, and the final version with full orchestra that the Mineola Choral Society will perform in January was first presented in 1900. Composed in an era dominated by the complexity and drama of late Romantic music, Faure was clearly looking for something different in his Requiem, writing music that is consoling and subtle by comparison. Certainly Faure was knew past and present settings of the Requiem text, and was perhaps influenced by the more personal tone of the Brahms Requiem and by the tonality (also d minor) and clarity of the Mozart Requiem. The beautiful melodies and masterful choral writing of the Faure Requiem continue to draw interest and appreciation from performers and audiences, and the piece has taken a firm place in the canon of great religious choral works.
Sunday, December 15, 2019, 3 p.m.
Nassau Pops Symphony Orchestra Christmas Concert
Chaminade High School
340 Jackson Avenue,
Mineola, New York 11501
Our 72nd concert season opens on Sunday, December 15, 2019 when we are once again guests of the Nassau Pops Symphony Orchestra for their Christmas Concert at Chaminade High School. Under the direction of Maestro Louis Panacciulli, the Pops has presented a free Christmas Concert in Mineola for 33 years, and the Mineola Choral Society has always been privileged to be a part of this joyous event. The concert features inspiring and exciting orchestral arrangements of the music of the season, and the Choral Society joins the orchestra in selections from Handel’s Messiah, along with a number of songs and carols.