Evento

Remember & Rejoice! - A Te Deum and a Requiem for a Prince

The Lakeville CT-based, national award-winning music organization Crescendo presents choral works of the Italian composer Pietro Torri and the German composer Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel performed by Crescendo's Chorus, Youth Singers and Period Instrument Orchestra. Crescendo's founder and artistic director Christine Gevert will conduct.

Crescendo's performance of the requiem Missa Pro Defunctis will be a U.S. premiere. The work was written by the Italian Baroque composer Pietro Torri to honor his patron of 37 years, prince Maximilian Emanuel, the elector of Bavaria, at his death in 1726. Much is known of Maximilian's life and place in European history while the life of Pietro Torri and his significant works were, until recently, largely lost to history.

Crescendo's Founding Artistic Director Christine Gevert remarks: "Torri's Requiem is a work of great beauty and stylistic variety. Its five voice vocal parts both soli and tutti and the instrumental forces, which include woodwinds and trumpet, feature both the more conservative Renaissance counterpoint and the modern and expressive Baroque concerto style. This is a celebratory work, solemn and mostly upbeat, with many exuberant melodies and dramatic choral passages. Like several other large scale Baroque oratorios, this work was lost, and only performed again in the 1990s by a Belgian group, from whom we obtained a transcription. We are delighted to present this work to the American audiences in concert."

Torri was born circa 1650 in northern Italy and little is known of his education and work until he arrived at the court of Maximilian in Munich in 1688. Torri composed both sacred and secular music, many operas as well as oratorios and instrumental chamber music. He followed his prince to the Spanish Netherlands, to Brussels and France during the War of Spanish Succession and finally back to Munich. After Maximilian's death, Torri became a musician in the Imperial Court serving Charles Albert, Maximilian's son, who was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He served his old patron's son until he died in 1737.

Critics in the time of composer Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel praised him for being "as great as Johann Sebastian Bach." In fact, Bach had great respect for Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel and performed his works. A prolific composer, Stölzel was known to have written a cantata each week as Kapellmeister for the Dukes Frederick II and Frederick III.

In a twist of history, Bach's familiarity with Stölzel accounts for what is believed to be his use of Stölzel's music in exercise books Bach transcribed for his son and his second wife, Anna Magdalena. One of those pieces, long attributed to Bach, is the popular aria Bist du bei mir. Sadly, much of Stölzel's work was lost after his death. He was born in Saxony in 1690, studied at Leipzig University, traveled widely and settled in Gotha (now Thuringia) where he died in 1749.

Crescendo's soloists for this performance will be sopranos Julianne Baird and Alicia DePaolo, countertenor Nicholas Tamagna, tenor John Cox, and bass Kevin Maynor. The Period Instrument Ensemble will include Baroque trumpets, oboes, strings, timpani and basso continuo.

Pre-concert talks are 30 minutes before each concert.

Crescendo's performances are Take Part Culture Card events of the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council.