2009-2010 Season

Evening Series

Schoenberg: Prelude, Op. 44 (Genesis)
Haydn: The Creation (Die Schöpfung)
Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 8:00 PM
Emmanuel Church

Pre-concert talk at 7:00 PM

Soloists:
Raphael: David Kravitz
Gabriel: Kendra Colton
Uriel: Matthew Anderson
Eva: Kristen Watson
Adam: Mark McSweeney

The Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music
John Harbison, conductor

Schoenberg composed his powerful “Prelude to the Bible” in 1944 as part of Genesis Suite, commissioned from seven different California émigré composers by Fred Astaire’s music director Nathaniel Shilkret, premiered before a glittering Hollywood audience. Haydn composed his Creation in 1796 on a commission organized by a similar entrepreneur, Baron von Swieten, with twelve aristocratic donors footing the bill for both the composition and a premiere before the elite of Viennese society. The common ground – deep, fervent, unfashionable religious faith expressed in indelible sounds.

Schoenberg: Accompaniment to a Cinematographic (Film) Scene, Op. 34
Haydn: Symphony Concertante
arr. Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra
Haydn: Symphony No. 70
Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 8:00 PM

Pre-concert talk at 7:00 PM
with Allen Shawn, author of Arnold Schoenberg's Journey
Emmanuel Church

Special Offer!
3-course pre-concert dinner offer at the adjacent Taj Boston Café
For more info click here

Soloists: 
Danielle Maddon, violin;
Rafael Popper-Keizer, violoncello;
Peggy Pearson, oboe;
Thomas Stephenson, bassoon
The Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
John Harbison and Michael Beattie, conductors

The geographical origin of these composers is close, and so is their maverick nature.  Vienna must have something to do with it – the coffee, the pastry, the sense of cultural centrality? When Richard Strauss first received Schoenberg’s Five Pieces, 1909, he declared it the first piece he had ever been unable to hear and follow. Today, especially in Schoenberg’s own chamber version, it seems clear, fresh, and beautiful. By 1934 Schoenberg was vividly imagining a powerful role for music in the still-young film industry (his Op. 34). The two Haydn pieces on this program are less often played these days than the Schoenberg. They are equally bold and invigorating – the Symphony (1779) with Haydn’s patented tricks and quirks, the Symphony Concertante (1792) with its masterful illumination of its multiple soloists, the autumnal fire of his late style.