Muskegon Chamber Choir
“About Saints”
Saturday, November 5, 7:30 pm
St. Mary’s Church, Muskegon

The Muskegon Chamber Choir, under Music Director David Wikman, will open its 2011-2012 concert season at St. Mary’s Church in downtown Muskegon on Saturday, November 5 at 7:30 P.M. with a program entitled About Saints.

About Saints deals not only with those individuals who are recognized as saints in the most traditional way, that is, by the process of canonization and official recognition an established church, but with what one writer called “the saints unnumbered,”  that is, the whole church.  There will also be songs for and about the faithful departed.

The concert’s music will cover five centuries – ranging from Palestrina in the sixteenth to Stravinsky in the twentieth.  It will open with Vaughn-Williams’ familiar setting of “For all the Saints,” one of the best-known of twentieth century hymns. It will continue with a setting of Ave Maria by Stravinsky.  The text probably dates from the sixth century and has been in use in its present form since 1568.  This will be followed by “Alma Redemptoris Mater” by Palestrina, the great Roman composer of sacred music.  The “Hymn to King Stephen” by Zoltan Kodaly will follow.  Stephen, born in the 10th century, was the first King of Hungary.  The text, written at the beginning of World War II, laments the loss of peace and innocent days in the nation.

The major work of the evening will be “Hymn to Saint Cecilia” by Benjamin Britten on the poem of W.H. Auden.  St. Cecilia, an early Christian martyr, is considered the patron saint of musicians.  Britten was born on St. Cecilia’s Day, November 22, 1913, and had long wanted to do a piece about her. The story of the composition reads something like a novel.  Briefly – Britten started composing the work in the United States in 1940.  When he decided to return to his native England in 1942, U.S. customs inspectors would not let him take any of his music manuscripts with him, fearing that they might contain some secret code that would harm the Allied war effort.  He restarted the piece at sea on his way home and finished it in ashore on April 22, 1942.

After intermission the choir will move away from specific saints to the more collective idea.  Opening will be “Justorum Animae” by Stanford on the text, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.”  Then will come “Blessed are the Faithful” by the 17th century German Heinrich Schuetz.  An American folk hymn, “Saints Bound for Heaven” a Norwegian folk song, “Behold A Host” and another American folk hymn, “I Am Bound for the Promised Land,” will lead to the closing “Come. Come, Ye Saints” an American Hymn that has become closely associated with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

St. Mary’s Church is accessible to the mobility impaired.  

Tickets for the performance are on sale at Meyer Music on Sternberg Road across from the Lakes Mall.  Any remaining will be sold at the door one-half hour before the performance.