Vesperae longiores ac breviores (1693) - Heinrich Biber (1644-1704)
If you enjoyed the Jubilate Singers’ concerts featuring and Scarlatti's Stabat MaterMonteverdi's Christmas Vespers, this first performance (in the Southern Hemisphere) of the recently published Biber Vespers is one which you should not miss. From the original scores, Brian Clark of Yale University has produced a service of Vespers including music by Heinrich Biber, Rupert Mayr, Emperor Leopoldt and Giovanni Legrenzi. Scored for four soloists, 4-part choir and string orchestra, the Vespers is a work of great power and beauty, with many exhilarating and tender moments and will be performed in the atmospheric church of St Luke’s-in-the-City.
1) Domine ad adiuvandum me festina - Rupert Ignaz Mayr (1646-1712) 2) Dixit Dominus - Heinrich Biber 3) Confitebor tibi Domine - Heinrich Biber 4) Sonata VII - Heinrich Biber 5) Beatus Vir - Heinrich Biber 6) Laudate pueri, Dominum - Heinrich Biber 7) Laudate Dominum - Heinrich Biber 8) Sonata: Annuntiato Mariae - Heinrich Biber 9) Ave Maris Stella – Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705) 10) Sancta Maria, Mater Dei - Rupert Ignaz Mayr 11) Magnificat – Heinrich Biber 12) Salve Regina – Giovanni Legrenzi (c.1620-1690)
Programme note by Brian Clark, musicologist, editor and publisher of the Biber Vespers
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644–17040 was with doubt one of the most important composers at the end of the 17th Century. His virtuosity as a violinist was perhaps the means by which he attained a position at the court of Bishop at Kromeritz in Bohemia. Around 1670, Biber vanished from the court, and made his way to the far more important city of Salzburg, where he is first recorded as a chamber servant to that city’s archbishop in 1671.
Biber steadily progressed to greater things and, by 1679, he had been elevated to the rank of vice-Kapellmeister. Finally, on the death of his predessor, Andreas Hofer in 1683, he became Kapellmeister. By this time, he had been responsible for teaching the choirboys to sing the florid counterpoint for six years (while someone else – extraordinarily as it seems – was employed to teach them the violin). Although Biber’s best-known church pieces are perhaps the monumental Missa Salisburgensis (in 53 or more parts) and Missa Bruxellensis, most of his liturgical music is actually on quite an intimate scale.
The Vespers was written for four voices (solo and tutti), two violins, two violas and continuo. Vesper services take place in the evening and consist of a sequence of prescribed texts. After the call to prayer Deus in adiutorium meum intende, to which Domine ad adiuvandum me festina is the response, come five psalms, each with antiphons (usually in the form of plainchant), then a hymn, followed by the Magnificat, and finally a Marian antiphon (a motet in praise of the Virgin Mary) – of which there are four, one for each of the liturgical seasons). The five psalms, those assigned to the Sundays throughout the year are psalms 110, 111, 112, 113 and 117. In his published set Vesperae longiores ac breviores of 1693, Heinrich Biber supplied settings only of the psalms and a Litany setting. In order to complete the sequence, we have had to look elsewhere. Rupert Ignaz Mayr (1646-1712) published his own Vespers collection in 1706. Unlike Biber, he included the opening Deus in adiutorium meum intende, and this is used here. The hymn Ave Maris Stella was composed by the Hapsburg emperor Leopold I. The Marian antiphon Salve Regina was composed by the Venetian composer Giovanni Legrenzi (c1620-1690), who clearly had designs on a position in Vienna, having dedicated publications to various emperors and sent manuscripts of his oratorios to the city. During the 17th century in particular, it became popular for the psalm antiphons to be replaced by concerted music such as motets and sonatas, while the priest recited the liturgical texts. In this performance, one such antiphon substitute is Mayr’s Sancta Maria, Mater Dei for solo soprano and strings. The others are two sonatas from Biber’s printed collections.
A Christmas Cracker
The Jubilate Singers end-of-year Soiree, an evening of good company and music, held by candlight, cafe'-style, in the stunning St Luke's Church. First-class musical entertainment provided by the choir and friends .
Tickets $10 (includes refreshments at your table). A collection for the Christchurch City Mission was taken.
8.00 pm Saturday 19 December St Luke's-in-the-City (cnr Kilmore/Manchester St)
Jubes's musical programme: Animal Crackers (Eric Whitacre) Preludio in F minor (J S Bach) Allegro from 'Eine kleine nachtmusik' (W A Mozart) Corpus Christi Carol (Trondt Kverno) Ave Maria (Franz Biebl) O Magnum Mysterium (Morten Lauridsen)
Guest artists included David Smith (classical guitar), Georgina Rees-Stevenson (clarinet), Lindsay Leitch (bassoon), Graham Hollobon and others.
NOTES from VIENNA and CHICHESTER
Written for full “wind-band” & orchestra, the Harmonie-messe is full of vitality and strength, as is the Te Deum, which uses the same orchestration.
Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, written for the Three Choirs Festival in 1965, has the choir singing words from the psalms in Hebrew, and features a boy soprano and tenor soloist, as well as the interesting combination of organ, harp and percussion accompaniment.
Saturday, 17 October 2009 at 2.00 pm St Luke’s Church
Te Deum (Haydn) Chichester Psalms (Bernstein) Harmonie-messe (Haydn)
Jubilate Singers and Orchestra Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Tickets: $25 & $20 (concession) – available from Ecclesia Bookshop, Peterborough St, tel 3663098 (Jenny) or at the door
Other music at St Luke’s Church over their 150th Anniversary Weekend
16 October (Frid) 6.00 pm A Grand Old Lady performs with Taonga Pūoro
A unique fusion of traditional Māori instruments and pipe organ
Horomona Horo (pūkaea, pūtōrino, kōauau, pūtātara and others) Grant Hutchinson (St Luke’s 100-year-old organ) $15/$10
18 October (Sun) 6.00 pm Solemn Mass with Schubert
Jubilate Singers and Orchestra 150th Anniversary Service
Schubert Mass in G Cantique de Jean Racine (Gabriel Fauré) Locus iste (Anton Bruckner)
ILLUMINA - Music of Light
Saturday, 8 August 2009 at 8.00 pm ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square.
Lux aurumque (Eric Whitacre) Lumen (Gregorian chant) O nata lux (Thomas Tallis) Lux aeterna (David Hamilton) Christe, qui lux es de dies (Robert Whyte) Hymn to the Creator of Light (John Rutter) Surge, illuminare (Jeremy Woodside) premiere * Nunc dimittis (Gustav Holst)
Hail, gladdening light (Charles Wood) Te lucis ante terminum (Thomas Tallis) An Evening Hymn (H Balfour Gardiner) * Bring us, O Lord God (William Harris) Christmas Lights (Simon Preston) Jeremy Woodside (Organ) * Illumina (Gareth Farr) percussion - premiere **
Jeremy Woodside (organ) * Helen Charlton (soprano), Jeremy Thin (vibraphone), Scott Chappell (crotales/drum) **
Music for Passiontide II Sunday, 5 April 2009 at 2.00 pm St Luke’s Church, Christchurch
O vis aeternitatis (Hildegard von Bingen) The Lamentations (Thomas Tallis) O Vos Omnes (Pablo Casals) The Reproaches (John Sanders) Stabat Mater (Giovanni Pergolesi)
Soloists: Sue Densem (soprano) & Louisa Pilkington (contralto) Jubilate Singers and Ensemble led by Natalia Lomeiko Martin Setchell (organ)
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
The Christmas Vespers (Claudio Monteverdi) Sunday, 21 December 2008 at 2.00 pm St Luke’s Church, Christchurch
Jubilate Singers & Chamber Orchestra (led by Cathy Irons) Soloists from the Choir Martin Setchell (organ), David Smith (lute)
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
North meets South Sunday, 26 October 2008 at 2.30 pm ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square
I saw the Lord (John Stainer) Combined choirs * Three Widow’s Songs (Anthony Ritchie) Jubilate Singers ** O Lord, rebuke me not (William Croft) Musica Sacra * Songs of Farewell (excerpts) (Hubert Parry) Musica Sacra * Viri Galilei (Patrick Gowers) Combined choirs * Requiem (Gabriel Fauré arr John Rutter) Combined Choirs **
Musica Sacra (Auckland) & Jubilate Singers Jubilate Orchestra led by Cathy Irons, John Wells (Organist) Soloists: Ian Tetley (Baritone) and William Yaxley (treble)
Directed by Indra Hughes & Grant Hutchinson
A French Collection Sunday, 20 July 2008 at 2.30 pm ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square
Missa Solennelle (Jean Langlais) * Apparition de l'eglise eternelle (Olivier Messiaen) * Litanies à la Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame de Roc-Amadour (Francis Poulenc) * Calme des nuit (Camille Saint-Saëns) Les fleurs et les arbres (Camille Saint-Saëns) Baisez-moi! (Josquin Des Prez) Il et bel et bon (Pierre Passereau) Madrigal (Gabriel Fauré) Les djinns (Gabriel Fauré) Trois chansons de Charles d'Orléans (Claude Debussy) Dieu! Qu'il la fait bon regarder Quant j'ai ouy le tabourin Yver, vous n'estes qu'un villain
Martin Setchell (organ) *, Jean Rutherford (piano)
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Love and the Land
Saturday 10 November 2007 at 7.30 pm (Baring Square Methodist Church, Ashburton) Sunday 11 November 2007 at 3.00 pm (The Heritage Chapel, Barbadoes St, Christchurch)
Choral Songs (Edward Elgar) My love dwelt in a Northern Land The Prince of Sleep Serenade The Shepherd of the Rock (Franz Schubert) Elizabeth Emeleus (soprano), Keith Spragg (clarinet), Barry Brinson (piano) Five English Folk Songs (Ralph Vaughan Williams) The dark eyed sailor The springtime of the year Just as the tide was flowing The lover's ghost Wassail Liebeslieder Waltzer (Johannes Brahms) John Pattinson (conductor), Alison Holden & Richard Oswin (piano) Sleep (Eric Whitacre) Five Childhood Lyrics (John Rutter) Monday's Child The Owl and the Pussy-cat Windy Nights Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Sing a Song of Sixpence
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Music of Hope and Consolation
Sunday 12 August 2007 at 2.00 pm ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square
Messe a Quatre Voix for two organs, soloists & choir (Camille Saint-Saëns) Te Deum (Jean Langlais) Rejoice in the Lamb (Benjamin Britten) Conducted by Martin Setchell Agnus Dei (Samuel Barber) Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Ralph Vaughan Williams)
Soloists: Louis Cooke (treble), Louisa Pilkington (soprano), Robert Cross (countertenor), Fernand Kenel (tenor),Valeriy Maksymov (bass) Martin Setchell & Paul Ellis (organ)
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Music for Passiontide I
Saturday, 24 March 2007 at 8.00 pm Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament (Barbadoes St, Christchurch)
Cantata no 4 "Christ lag in Todes Banden" (J S Bach) Eleanor Sim (soprano), Louisa Pilkington (contralto), Frank Carter (tenor), Howard Harvey (bass) Chorale: Christ lag in Todes Banden (J S Bach) Chaconne for solo violin and voices (J S Bach arr Helga Thoene) Cathy Irons (violin), Anna Partridge (soprano), Louisa Pilkington (contralto), Frank Carter (tenor) Te Deum a 8 (Domenico Scarlatti) Stabat Mater a 10 (Domenico Scarlatti)
Jubilate Singers & Orchestra (leader Cathy Irons)
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Vivaldi: Gloria & Mozart: Solemn Vespers Sunday, 19 November 2006 at 2.30 pm Pre-concert talk at 2.00 pm by John Pattinson ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square
Gloria (Antonio Vivaldi) Ave verum corpus (W A Mozart) Vesperae Solennes de Confessore K 339 (W A Mozart) Eleanor Sim (soprano), Louisa Pilkington (contralto), Frank Carter (tenor), Howard Harvey (bass) Jubilate Singers & Orchestra
Directed by Grant Hutchinson
Renaissance - Choral Masterpieces of the Golden Age Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Barbadoes St, Christchurch Saturday 26 August 2006 at 8.00 pm Pre-concert talk at 7.30 pm by John Ritchie
Chapel of St John of God Sunday 27 August 2006 at 3.00 pm
Cantate Domino (Claudio Monteverdi) Videte Miraculum (Thomas Tallis) Hodie Christus Natus est (Jan Peeters Sweelinck) Hodie Beata Virgo (Giovanni a Palestrina) Mein junges Leben hat ein End’ (Jan Peeters Sweelink) Grant Bartley (organ) Kyrie from Mass for Five Voices (William Byrd) Crucifixus (Antonio Lotti) Ricecare (Andrea Gabrieli) Grant Bartley (organ) Miserere mei (Gregorio Allegri) Ehre sei dir, Christe (Heinrich Schütz) Gloria in excelsis Deo (Thomas Weelkes) O, clap your hands together (Orlando Gibbons) Suite: Entrée - Courante - Chant de ballet (Robert Ballard) Jonathan le Cocq (lute) Loquebantur variis linguis (Thomas Tallis) Ave Maria (Robert Parsons) Tu solus qui facis mirabilia (Josquin Desprez) Beatus Vir (Claudio Monteverdi)
Debut concert with conductor Grant Hutchinson
Archives - download a list of Jubes' concerts from 1977 to 2006
BAROQUE VESPERS
