“… music is a spiritual food for which there is no substitute…” — Zoltán Kodály
We begin our fourth season with a moving tribute to moral courage exemplified by Zoltán Kodály’s sublime masterpiece Missa Brevis, for organ and chorus. Zoltán Kodály was not only a great Hungarian composer and educator, he was also a courageous public figure of the 20th century. Indeed, courage and spiritual nourishment are at the core of his 1944 masterpiece Missa Brevis, composed for chorus and organ while he was in hiding with his Jewish wife during the Nazi occupation of Hungary in WWII. The piece was premiered in the cloakroom of the Budapest Opera House during the Russian bombardment of Nazi positions in Budapest in February of 1945. In the midst of the Holocaust, the 60 year-old Kodály sought comfort in a choral form rooted in a spiritual meal. The notion of the liturgy as a meal lies at the heart of both the Western Roman Mass and the Eastern Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. And both liturgies have their ritual roots in the Jewish tradition of the Passover meal.
The Mystical Supper: Sacred Food amid Spiritual Famine will be performed on Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 4pm in the magnificent nave of The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. In addition to Kodály’s stirring masterpiece, the Chorale will perform a cappella motets from the Russian Orthodox tradition, including works by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Gretchaninoff, and others. To contextualize this profound, compassionate and ultimately exultant music, a pre-concert moderated panel discussion of music scholars and historians is planned.
The Chorale will “drive the cold winter away” with a seasonal blend of reverence and merriment in two performances of Noel! Noel! The concerts will feature Stephen Paulus’s Nativity Carols, ancient carol texts set for oboe, harp, and chorus, as well as Steve Heitzig’s hauntingly evocative little tree from a text by e.e cummings. The program will include several holiday favorites and audiences can lift their voices in song with a spirited sing-along led by Maestro Colohan. The first performance of Noel! Noel! will be presented on December 16 at 4pm in the beautiful acoustic of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church. The program will be repeated on December 23rd at 4pm in the exquisite surroundings of one of Washington’s architectural masterpieces – John Russell Pope’s National City Christian Church.
Our season will conclude on March 3, 2013 at 4pm with a return to The National Presbyterian Church. The Splendid Silent Sun, taken from a text by poet Walt Whitman, will explore the contrasting and transcendent themes of light and dark, finite and infinite, nature and man as seen through the eyes of some of America’s most celebrated poets and composers. The centerpiece will be the premiere of an exciting new work by composer and conductor Donald McCullough, commissioned by the WMC in partnership with Words&Music, Inc., a Virginia-based vocal chamber music ensemble. Other featured composers will include Daniel Pinkham, Cecil Effinger and Adolphus Hailstork.
We hope you will join us for a season of unforgettable performances that promises to affect both the head and the heart.