Reflection + Wonder
$25/$20/$10 (youth free)
Johann Sebastian Bach — Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225
Samuel Barber — Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24
Edward Elgar — The Music Makers Op. 69
Charles Ives — The Unanswered Question
Clinton Smith, conductor
Karin Wolverton, soprano
Sarah Larsen, mezzo-soprano
Ives: The Unanswered Question
Fauré: Après un rêve, Op. 7, No. 1
J.S. Bach: Singet dem Herrn, BWV 225
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Elgar: The Music Makers, Op. 69
Clinton Smith notes that Ives' The Unanswered Question provides "quite an experience for the audience. The strings' slowly changing chords represent the ethos, or the continuum of the universe, while solo trumpet asks the question seven times. With ever-increasing frenetic energy, four flutes represent human beings reacting to the question of existence that cannot be answered." Fauré's Après un rêve, "a gorgeous meditative piece originally for voice, depicts a dreamer's longing for someone encountered in the dream." Bach's motet for double chorus is a treasured favorite of the Chamber Singers.
Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 sets to music excerpts from an ode to childhood by James Agee, remembering the summer before his father's death. Barber dedicated the work to his own father, casting a solo soprano "as a young child who sometimes acts as an adult" to "paint the nostalgia of childhood."
Elgar's The Music Makers quotes from a number of the composer's previous works, most notably the "Nimrod" movement of the Enigma Variations. In their first entrance, the chorus sings, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams." Indeed, notes Clinton, "the performers of OSSCS are the music makers and this rarely performed masterwork provides the perfect anthem with which to conclude our initial season together."