This weekend, Dartmouth's Handel Society will challenge its audience's expectations with two consecutive concerts. The Society has dedicated this spring's repertoire to the contrasting pair of Composers Beethoven and Benjamin Britten.
Under the direction of Richard Duff, the Society regularly performs choral-orchestra music of many composers from the past 300 years, and their impressive accomplishments to date make it clear that this weekend's performances are not to be missed. They have sung at Carnegie Hall, been the guest of the New York Pops Orchestra, and have worked with both the New Hampshire and the Vermont Symphony Orchestras. They have also toured Germany, Italy and Austria several times.
Professor of philosophy John Hubbard founded the Society in 1807, with the intent to "promote the cause of true and genuinely sacred music." Although they did not seek to play Handel's work alone, they chose his name for their group because they thought he personified the genre of baroque classical music on which they focused. Today they have 85 members from all over the Connecticut/Upper Valley region.
This weekend, the Dartmouth Handel Society will perform in good company, as they will collaborate not only with the Hanover Chamber Orchestra, but also with an array of community talents. Vocalists Anne Harley, Erma Gattie Mellinger (of the music department), William Hite and Mark Andrew Cleveland will sing, and English department professors Cleopatra Mathis and Peter Saccio will narrate, making for a richly varied performance.
The various musicians involved will be the first in both New Hampshire and Vermont to perform Britten's "The Company of Heaven." The piece was chosen for the performance this weekend in honor of the 30th anniversary of the composer's death.
The BBC commissioned "Heaven" for Michaelmas in 1937 as part of a series of assignments for holidays that year. At that time, the young Britten was working in the film unit of the General Post office, where he met W.H. Auden and other influential contacts that eventually led him to the BBC. Ellis Roberts, who had also worked the BBC's other holiday oratorios, compiled the text for the piece. The text includes passages from Christina Rosetti, Emily Bronte, William Blake and John Bunyan.
Beethoven's stunning "Mass in C Major" follows the Britten selection. Written almost exactly 200 years ago (the same year, interestingly, that the Handel Society was founded), the Mass represents the earlier portion of Beethoven's musical legacy. The composer's choral work, which includes the 1803 Oratorio "Christ on the Mount of Olives" as well as the Mass, is not as well known as his later symphonies. Written at the midpoint of the composer's career, however, the Mass was still considered very important at the time it was written.
Commissioned for Beethoven by Prince Nikolaus Esterhzy in the tradition of annual masses written by Haydn and Hummel before him, the Mass broke with tradition in its opening of the Kyrie with voices alone, as if to emphasize the human spirit in direct dialogue with God. Unlike other music for solemn high masses, Beethoven's creation bore a "tenderness" of tone that allowed the listener to engage more personally, proving that the composer was moving already toward the romanticism of his middle years.
Audiences will hopefully find these concerts the perfect musical remedy for the lack of sensory stimulation that days of rain have lately brought to Hanover, and those few brave students who dare commit the sacrilege of pursuing high culture during Green Key weekend will certainly be rewarded by a good show.
