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May 17, 2013
Concert Review: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir keeps Missa Solemnis light, when perhaps it could have used more weight
2012-13 Season
Every season the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir undertakes a Big One, or even a Really Big One, such as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, presented Wednesday evening in Koerner Hall under the baton of Noel Edison. It was a clear-headed and articulate performance that lacked something in Missa Solemnity.
May 16, 2013
Hats off to the Mendelssohn Choir for tackling Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis
2012-13 Season
It is notoriously difficult to perform. Which is why we should thank conductor Noel Edison, his Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Festival Orchestra, for having the courage to mount this important, if rarely heard, work. And by and large, on Wednesday evening the group of hundreds of musicians and singers acquitted themselves quite well.
May 15, 2013
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis Program Notes
2012-13 Season
When you come right down to it, Beethoven didn’t compose a lot of choral music. There are three early works – the under-rated Mass in C, the rarely-performed oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives and the Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80. Of course, there are choruses in the opera Fidelio before his last two choral masterpieces – the finale to the Symphony No. 9, and the great Missa Solemnis.
May 14, 2013
Preview: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir wrestles with the beast that is Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis
2012-13 Season
On Wednesday night, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, soloists, orchestra and conductor Noel Edison perform one of the monuments of early 19th century choral music, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. The performance reminded me yet again of what a monster this piece is. Beethoven spent four years writing, finishing it in 1823 (he died in 1827).
May 6, 2013
Solemnis Spirit
2012-13 Season
The Missa Solemnis is infused with the same spirit as the Ninth Symphony and other late period Beethoven – a musical expression of faith locked in combat with doubt. Extremes of mood convey an almost desperate sense of Beethoven’s desire to connect to the world around him. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is perhaps the only group in the region that can marshal the forces for such a mammoth work.
April 5, 2013
A wondrous variety
2012-13 Season
The 2013 Good Friday concert at St. Paul’s Basilica featured the Mendelssohn Singers, the 70-voice choir formed in 2003 from the ranks of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. As in previous Good Friday concerts, music from various eras was sung (in this case from the 16th to the 21st centuries) and once again the choir used various spaces within the church to wonderful effect.
March 29, 2013
Sacred Music for a Sacred Space 2013 Program Notes
2012-13 Season
Except for a couple of years at the Dresden Court, Antonio Lotti (c.1647-1740) spent his career in Venice, working his way up from singer to organist to maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s Basilica. Lotti was an innovative composer of almost thirty operas, but in his sacred music he tended to rely on the great traditions of Renaissance polyphony. J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel and Felix Mendelssohn all knew and admired his music. Today he is known almost exclusively for his many settings of the Crucifixus text from the Credo of the mass. Why he wrote so many has remained a mystery but it may have been for insertion into mass settings by other composers.
February 13, 2013
Matthew Halls leads Toronto Symphony in masterful Beethoven Ninth
2012-13 Season
Whatever it is that makes one of the most iconic pieces in the symphonic repertoire sound exciting, conductor Matthew Halls produced with the help of the Toronto Symphony, Mendelssohn Choir and soloists at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday night.
February 13, 2013
Toronto Symphony Orchestra captures original energy of Beethoven’s Ninth
2012-13 Season
Matthew Halls conducts Beethoven’s Ninth for the first time in his career — and captures much of the excitement its first audience must have felt.