{"id":8055,"date":"2012-11-29T10:18:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T15:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8055"},"modified":"2012-11-29T10:18:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T15:18:06","slug":"stephanie-martin-on-the-appeal-of-a-josef-rheinberger-break-from-handels-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/11\/29\/stephanie-martin-on-the-appeal-of-a-josef-rheinberger-break-from-handels-messiah\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie Martin on the appeal of a Josef Rheinberger break from Handel’s Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Pax Christi Chorale singing at St Anne’s Church earlier this fall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We have pillaged, with Stephanie Martin’s permission, her thoughts on this weekend’s two performances of Josef Rheinbergerger’s <\/em>The Star of Bethlehem by Pax Christi Chorale:<\/em><\/p>\n

Why on earth have we not sung Josef Rheinberger\u2019s Christmas cantata before?<\/p>\n

Read Wholenote<\/em> magazine and you will stand in thankful awe of the zillion performances of Handel\u2019s Messiah<\/em> in Toronto; yet I mourn the 50-odd Christmases that have passed without any knowledge of Rheinberger\u2019s wonderful work, The Star of Bethlehem<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Pax Christi Chorale is polishing up our performances of this piece for next weekend at Grace Church on-the-Hill, and the more we sing it, the more we appreciate this masterwork of high romantic art: a work that paints the intimacy of the nativity, romanticized pastoral scenes, and the grandeur of an astronomical phenomenon leading the Magi on their quest through the desert.<\/p>\n

It is not only a musical story full of drama and emotion, but also a superbly crafted work from the steady hand of a composer well versed in writing both organ fugues and superb choral pieces. And since it has \u201cErwartung\u201d as the first movement, it has to be cool \u2013 and there\u2019s even a Hallelujah chorus!<\/p>\n

Pax Christi Chorale and family have had a long and happy relationship with Josef Rheinberger, starting a decade ago when we recorded \u201cBleib bei uns\u201d and sang it pretty much by memory as an encore piece.<\/p>\n

We moved on to explore a set of four Latin motets which were equally rewarding to sing, with soaring, rangy melodies beautifully written for every voice part with rich harmonic textures and stimulating imitative counterpoint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rheinberger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my own home, the Rheinberger affair got serious when Bruce Kirkpatrick Hill announced that he was going to embark upon a project to play all of the Rheinberger organ sonatas in various organ recital series across Toronto. He did get through quite a few of them. St. James Cathedral, Yorkminster Park Baptist and Metropolitan United are the places that still support weekly organ recitals, free to the public, and he played on all of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was also handy that Bruce could get away with using Rheinberger\u2019s historic photo as his own publicity shot. The likeness is fairly striking don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be singing The Star of Bethlehem<\/em> in an arrangement for organ and strings by Roger Bergs, the very talented and hard-working organist of Knox Church, Toronto and composer on faculty at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n

Roger\u2019s arrangement is extremely clever and will work very well in our intimate performance venue.<\/p>\n

Our new youth choir director, Jeffrey Newberry, will be bringing along a host of high school music students to enhance the first part of the programme \u2013\u00a0 a wonderful way to connect with the next generation of choral singers. Our soloists Bethany Horst and Michael Robert-Broder will be absolutely stunning.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s official. Rheinberger is the new Handel.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Martin<\/em><\/p>\n

You can check out Toronto composer, York University professor and Pax Christi Chorale artistic director Stephanie Martin’s blog here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For concert details, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have pillaged, with Stephanie Martin’s permission, her thoughts on this weekend’s two performances of Josef Rheinbergerger’s The Star of Bethlehem by Pax Christi Chorale:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,11,76,14,19,36,53,56,63,1,70],"tags":[6450,581,857,997,2585,2825,3114,3123],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/11\/rheinberger.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-25V","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8055"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}