soar

Sunday, October 2, 2005 at 7 pm

Take it to the max. We’re upping the ante on surround-sound with music for multiple choirs. Launching our 42nd season, Music Director Grant Gershon and the Master Chorale explore every spatial and sonic possibility of the Disney Concert Hall. Voices echo and reverberate. Toss phrases back and forth. Join forces in huge heart-stopping moments.

Eight choirs strong, we celebrate the 500th birthday of Thomas Tallis, the father of English church music. With Chorale members spread throughout the Hall and each part written out separately, Spem in alium is a tailor-made test for the Hall’s acclaimed acoustics. Voices enter one by one with the words “Spem in alium” (I have never put my hope in any other) until a sudden, crashing entry for all eight choirs culminates with a monumental 40-voice chord.

Johannes Brahms turned to eight-part double-chorus writing for his fiendishly difficult Fest-und Gedenksprüche Op. 109 (Festive and Commemorative Sayings). Composed for the “cori spezzati” or separate choir lofts of St. Mark’s Basilica, Giovanni Gabrieli’s motets exploited every effect possible for multiple choirs. Inspired by French surrealistic poetry, Francis Poulenc’s double chorus Figure Humaine is a passionately humanistic work celebrating freedom, written during the darkest days of World War II. “I wanted this act of hope to be performed only by human voices,” Poulenc wrote to a friend. “Pity that it’s so difficult to perform!”

Gramophone called the Chorale’s singing under Grant Gershon’s baton “sonically exhilarating.” Stay tuned. We’ve only just begun.

Download a guide to the season: chorale-seasonguide0506.pdf, 1.1MB