BEETHOVEN: MISSA SOLEMNIS

Friday 8 May 2020 / 7:30PM Saturday 9 May 2020 / 7:30PM Jack Singer Concert Hall Showcase

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PROGRAMME

Rune Bergmann, conductor Erin Wall, soprano Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano John Tessier, tenor Robert Pomakov, bass

Calgary Philharmonic Chorus Cantaré Children’s Choir

Beethoven Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 I. Kyrie II. Gloria III. Credo IV. Sanctus V. Agnus Dei 81'

Please note there is no intermission during the performance.

MISSA SOLEMNIS IN D MAJOR, OP. 123

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 to 1827)

In June 1819, it was announced that Beethoven’s friend and patron Archduke Rudolph of Austria would become Archbishop of the Moravian city of Olmütz (Olomouc). The installation ceremony was to take place in Cologne Cathedral in March of the following year. Although Beethoven received no official commission to compose music for the occasion, his close friendship with Rudolph inspired him to do so anyway.

He first made a thorough study of existing church music, from Gregorian Chants and the works of Palestrina, to the Passions of Bach and the Masses of Haydn. The summer of 1819 found him deeply immersed in the creation of the new Mass. When his friend Anton Schindler visited him at his house in Mödling, he found the composer — by then completely deaf — in a disheveled and grumpy state, growling out his themes as he worked them through. Such behaviour testified to the many kinds of turmoil that were besetting him. His finances were shaky, and his health, poor. His difficult relationship with his nephew Karl, whom he had taken as his ward, was causing him a great deal of distress.

His creative activities were a further cause of woe. Symphony No. 9 was stalled in mid creation, and he had reluctantly set it aside for the time being. The new Mass itself was taking shape but slowly. His desire to produce a “true” piece of church music, thereby, in his own words, “awakening religious feelings and making them lasting in both singers and listeners,” quickly caused it to grow, in both size and complexity, far beyond his original plans. This led him to have serious doubts about his ability to finish it in time for Rudolph’s installation as Archbishop.

That summer, he finished the two opening movements in their

Rune Bergmann biography on page 7 Calgary Philharmonic Chorus biography on page 8

essentials. But then he ground to a halt when he came to compose the Credo, the testament of faith in God that was for him the most important part of the piece. His fears regarding meeting his deadline proved accurate. The enthronement ceremony on 9 March 1820 ended up being accompanied by the music of Haydn, Hummel, and others, since Beethoven’s Mass was still far from complete. He continued working on it until the autumn, but then several other compositions (including his last three piano sonatas) drew his attention away from it. He completed the Missa solemnis (Solemn Mass, as it was known by then) early in 1823. With that accomplishment behind him, he also put the final touches on Symphony No. 9.

He made several copies of the Mass. He sent one to the Archbishop, several others to publishers for their bids (such was the demand for a mass from his hand that he considered composing two more to satisfy the requests), and made 10 further copies for sale by subscription to royal patrons at the lofty rate of 50 ducats each. Two from this last batch found their way to Russia. There Prince Galitzin, another of Beethoven’s regular patrons (in time he would commission several of the composer’s late string quartets), arranged for the Mass’s first performance. This took place in St. Petersburg on 26 March 1824.

Two months later, three movements only — Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei — were heard in Vienna, at the same concert where the ninth symphony received its premiere. For reasons of ecclesiastical censorship, they were sung in German and labeled Three Grand Hymns. The Mass’s first complete Viennese performance didn’t occur until 1845, 18 years after Beethoven’s death.

ERIN WALL

Soprano

Acclaimed for her musicality and versatility, Erin Wall sings an opera and concert repertoire spanning three centuries, from Mozart to Strauss. She has sung leading roles in many of the world’s great opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Opéra National de Paris, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and appears in concert with leading maestri and symphony orchestras worldwide. This Season, Wall will perform and record Thaïs with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis, and Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner. She will also make her much-anticipated debut as Elsa in Lohengrin at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu. In concert she will perform the Four Last Songs in Sydney, Berlin, and Jackson, Mississippi, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the Bavarian State Opera and Kirill Petrenko, and the San Francisco Symphony for Michael Tilson Thomas’ final performances as Music Director. Future projects include returns to the Metropolitan Opera, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Melbourne Symphony, as well as debuts with the Gewandhaus Leipzig and the New Zealand Symphony.

SUSAN PLATTS

Mezzo-soprano

Rolex Prize-winning Susan Platts performs the complete repertoire for alto and mezzo-soprano. She has sung at London’s Covent Garden and Royal Albert Hall, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Teatro di San Carlo, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, numerous orchestras in Europe and North America, Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, the Los Angeles and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, and many others. Platts has collaborated with Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Ludovic Morlot, Josep Caballé-Domenech, Christoph Eschenbach, Carlos Kalmar, Keith Lockhart, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Peter Oundjian, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Bramwell Tovey, and Osmo Vänska. She has appeared in recital with the Vocal Arts Society at the Kennedy Center, the Ladies Morning Musical Club in Montreal, and the Frick Collection and Lincoln Center Art of the Song in New York City. Recent performances include her London Philharmonic debut in Wagner’s Die Walküre, her Royal Opera House debut in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Nixon in China (BBC Symphony), Albert Herring (Pacific Opera Victoria and Vancouver Opera), Peter Grimes (Vancouver Symphony), Das Rheingold (Pacific Opera Victoria), and A Quiet Place (Montreal Symphony). Recordings include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and songs by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

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JOHN TESSIER

Tenor

Juno Award-winning tenor John Tessier has garnered international praise for the beauty and honesty of his voice, his refined style and artistic versatility, and his youthful presence. He has worked with such notable musicians as Plácido Domingo, Lorin Maazel, Emmanuel Haim, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, Bryn Terfel, Sir Thomas Allen, Thomas Hampson, Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Deborah Voigt, Samuel Ramey, Bobby McFerrin, John Nelson, Franz Welser-Möst, Donald Runnicles, Robert Spano, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Carlos Alvarez, and Bernard Labadie. Recent and upcoming appearances include performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colon, Oper Frankfurt, Grand Théâtre de Genève, English National Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, New York Philharmonic, Wiener Musikverein, National Symphony, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Royal Liverpool, National de Lyon, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. Tessier is an award-winning professor at the University of Alberta. His discography includes recordings on the Decca, Naxos, Telarc, BIS, Challenge Records, and Dorian labels.

ROBERT POMAKOV

Bass

Canadian bass Robert Pomakov makes a number of important house debuts in the current season, including with Opéra National de Paris as the Bonze in Madama Butterfly directed by Robert Wilson, Den Norske Opera as Gremin in Christof Loy’s production of Eugene Onegin, and Cincinnati Opera as Vodník in Janacek’s Rusalka. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera to cover the roles of Fiesco in Simon Boccenegra and Timur in Turandot. In the 2018/2019 Season, Pomakov had role debuts as Méphistophélès in Faust for his house debut with Vancouver Opera, and Nourabad in Les Pêcheurs de Perles with Santa Fe Opera. He returned to Oper Frankfurt as King René in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and returned to the Metropolitan Opera to reprise the role of Monterone in Rigoletto. Concert performances included his debut with the Victoria Symphony, singing König Heinrich in Act III of Lohengrin, and the New Mexico Philharmonic, as the bass soloist in Verdi’s Requiem. Other notable appearances include the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Ravinia Festival, Phoenix Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Elora Festival, Le Festival de Lanaudière, and Orchestre Métropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.