Works by Poulenc, Brahms and Mahler are on the program for a concert by the Handel Society and the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra tonight in Spaulding Auditorium at 8:00 p.m..
In the first half of the concert, the Handel Society and the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra will collaborate under the baton of Handel Society conductor and Music Professor Melinda O'Neal.
They will perform Poulenc's Gloria and Brahms' Schicksalslied, and soprano Susan Narucki is the scheduled guest artist.
In the second half, James Bolle, the orchestra's conductor, will lead the orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G Major with Narucki as soprano soloist.
Poulenc's Gloria, written in 1959, is among a succession of finely crafted, deeply religious works produced by the composer in the last two decades of his life following the accidental death of Pierre Octave Ferroud, a musician who was his close friend.
Poulenc used the traditional Latin text for his Gloria but treated the text as poetry, scanning each line and letting its rhythm dictate the music.
The result is more of a dance than a hymn, a dance celebrating the glory of God, the king who rules heaven, the merciful father and his son, who redeems mankind.
Brahms' Schicksalslied, known popularly in English as Song of Destiny, is considered one of the finest choral-orchestral works of the 19th century.
Based on a text by Friedrich Holderlin, a late 19th-century writer, Schicksalslied deals with the eternal contrast between life and death, the certain and the transitory, the struggles of mankind and the celestial peace of the gods.
Unlike Holderlin's poem, the piece ends on an optimistic note and contains at least one passage, a prelude in E-flat major, that is considered one of Brahms' most beautiful melodies.
Mahler's Symphony No. 4 is part of the group of four that introduce Mahler as the "wayfarer" and follow him on his journey through life and toward heaven.
In the Fourth Symphony, the wayfarer finally comes to accept that it is only through childlike simplicity that one may achieve grace and enter heaven.
Completed in 1910 and premiered in 1911, the Symphony No. 4, like its two predecessors, draws its material from the early 19th-century collection of folksongs called Des Knaben Wunderhorn, or The Youth's Magic Horn.
Mahler emphasizes the theme of youthful simplicity by dispensing with trombones and tuba and using heavier percussion very sparingly.
In the second movement, the concertmaster plays on a violin whose strings have been tuned a whole tone higher, emulating a street fiddler behind whom the dead souls line up to be led away.
The soprano joins the orchestra for the finale, Das himmlische leben or The Heavenly Life, describing a joyful and abundant heaven where fish jump out of the sea into St. Peter's arms, the angels bake, 11,000 virgins dance and angelic voices delight the senses.
