University Chorus: “Das Lied Von Der Erde”
Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
Garrett Rigsby, conductor
Mahler-Schoenberg-Riehn: Das Lied von der Erde
Agnes Vojtko, mezzo-soprano
Jonathan Nadel, tenor
Gustav Mahler’s original melody and words are set by Schoenberg in this chamber music arrangement, which Schoenberg began in his Society for Private Musical Performances about ten years after the original was written. Schoenberg himself would not finish the arrangement, and in 1980 Rainer Riehn finished it. ”The Song of the Earth” is not what the modern-day Earth Day lovers might expect. Mahler wrote this magnificent work after his daughter had just died, and after finding out he had a terminal health condition. In fact, Mahler would never hear his work performed. The orchestration lends itself well to a chamber treatment. Mahler’s original featured solo flute, horn, and violin at times.
Bruckner: Locus iste and Virga Jesse
Anton Bruckner was a devout Catholic, and that may have influenced his decisions to write approximately 40 motets, several masses and symphonies. He was an Austrian composer whose contemporaries were Liszt and Wagner. Bruckner admired Wagner’s work, and it is rumored that Bruckner’s seventh symphony features a cymbal clash that was to have taken place at the exact moment Wagner died. Virga Jesse dates from 1885 and Locus iste dates from 1869, and was written for the dedication of the new chapel in the cathedral in Linz, Austria. Both are for a cappella chorus.
Brahms: Neue Liebeslieder Walzer
Unlike the two Bruckner motets on the program, Johannes Brahms’s Neue Liebeslieder Walzer are written with a very specific piano accompaniment in mind—in fact a piano duet. As the name might imply, Brahms wrote an earlier set (eighteen to be exact), his opus 52. His later opus 65 was a collection of songs he had written, once contemplating orchestrating them with an orchestral accompaniment. However, Brahms elected to instead make them accessible for house concerts. These vocal waltzes are playful, charming, and set to Eastern European folk poems. In the words of the Brahms scholar David Brodbeck, the Liebeslieder Walzer are “quintessential Brahms,” and are unlike his more serious work, including his symphonies, requiem, and Alto Rhapsody.
Rheinberger: Abendlied
The text for Josef Rheinberger’s Abendlied is very simple: “Stay with us, for evening shadows darken, and the day will soon be over” (from the book of Luke). To put the text in perspective, it is helpful to know that it took place on the road to Emmaus (not Damascus) in the troubling period after Jesus’s crucifixion. It is what Luke says to invite a stranger on the road to dinner—the same stranger that would turn out to be the resurrected Jesus. A student of the Munich Conservatory of Music, Rheinberger has contributed significantly to the organ and sacred music repertoire of the latter half of the 19th century.
University Chorus
Jeffrey Thomas, conductor
