Dave Brubeck’s “La fiesta de la posada” was intended to celebrate the restoration of an old Californian Spanish mission. That celebration never happened, but Christmas returns every year, so...
Among a sprinkling of Christmas music, our first hour brings Baroque and late-Romantic fare. We hear an orchestral suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera “Zoroastre,” with Frans Bruggen conducting the Orchestra of the 18th Century. Vincent d’Indy’s lively “Chanson et danses” from 1898 is performed by seven of the members of the Montreal Winds, and ensemble under the direction of Jacque Lacombe. Our second hour brings you the second chance this season to hear Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” Sandwiched between the Sejong Soloists take on Eric Ewazen’s Sinfonia for Strings” and Angela Hewitt’s pianistic artistry in Bach’s French Suite No. 4 is Robert Nelson’s Christmas cantata, “A Nywe Werke Is Come on Honde,” the Moores School Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Franz Anton Krager. Nelson wrote the work for the University of Texas performers we hear this evening, setting Old English and Renaissance Spanish texts, words from traditional lullabies, as well as verses from “Isaiah” and “Luke.”
Brubeck’s Christmas choral pageant, “La fiesta de la posada,” follows the procession of celebrants as they go from door to door, reenacting the search for lodging by Mary and Joseph, the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and culminating with the breaking of the piñata. Brubeck is heard on drums, while Dennis Russel Davies conducts the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and various soloists and choral groups.
We end with “Deserts,” Edgar Varese’s 1954 composition that is widely thought to be one of the first compositions to utilize electronic music, with sections where sounds from a two-track tape are interpolated. Varese, by the way, is today’s Birthday Boy, having been born this day in 1883.
Among a sprinkling of Christmas music, our first hour brings Baroque and late-Romantic fare. We hear an orchestral suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera “Zoroastre,” with Frans Bruggen conducting the Orchestra of the 18th Century. Vincent d’Indy’s lively “Chanson et danses” from 1898 is performed by seven of the members of the Montreal Winds, and ensemble under the direction of Jacque Lacombe. Our second hour brings you the second chance this season to hear Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” Sandwiched between the Sejong Soloists take on Eric Ewazen’s Sinfonia for Strings” and Angela Hewitt’s pianistic artistry in Bach’s French Suite No. 4 is Robert Nelson’s Christmas cantata, “A Nywe Werke Is Come on Honde,” the Moores School Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Franz Anton Krager. Nelson wrote the work for the University of Texas performers we hear this evening, setting Old English and Renaissance Spanish texts, words from traditional lullabies, as well as verses from “Isaiah” and “Luke.”
Brubeck’s Christmas choral pageant, “La fiesta de la posada,” follows the procession of celebrants as they go from door to door, reenacting the search for lodging by Mary and Joseph, the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and culminating with the breaking of the piñata. Brubeck is heard on drums, while Dennis Russel Davies conducts the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and various soloists and choral groups.
We end with “Deserts,” Edgar Varese’s 1954 composition that is widely thought to be one of the first compositions to utilize electronic music, with sections where sounds from a two-track tape are interpolated. Varese, by the way, is today’s Birthday Boy, having been born this day in 1883.
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