Here’s the complete list of works in St. Martin’s Chamber Choir’s upcoming February concert, “Winter Winds”, together with the section headings:
The Coming of Winter
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Summer is Gone
Gustav Holst – The Autumn is Old
William Byrd – In Winter Cold (TTB)
The Cold of Winter
Benjamin Britten – In the bleak midwinter (s/SSAA)
Michael John Trotta – Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Robert Baksa – Winter (“When icicles hang”)
Claude Debussy – Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain
Winter as Sadness or Old Age
Charles Wood – The Widow Bird
Stanley Hoffman – That time of year
Ned Rorem – The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring
Interval
Winter as Remembrance
Alfred Caldicott – Winter Days
Edward Elgar – Dreams all too brief
Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Unquiet Grave (SSA)
Winter as Play
Tim Krueger – Lied der Alpenjäger (TTBB)
Abbie Betinis – Run, toboggan, run!
Joachim Raff – Winter Carol
arr. Bradley Dunkin – Gloucestershire Wassail
Heralds of Spring
Robert Walker – Celandine
Healey Willan – Rise up my love
A goodly mix of American and British composers, with a Frenchman and German thrown in. Some of you may recall that our season brochure for this year said there would be some Baltic works; I must admit failure here, for, though I perused a number of collections and works from living and past Scandinavian/Estonian composers, I failed to find anything that fit into the section headings as they evolved as you see them above. I had been planning on a piece by Marten Johannsen, and another by Hugo Alfven, for starters; but, when the program started taking shape late last year, those pieces just didn’t fit, and nothing else I found really did so either (lots of things about springtime, as one may imagine from such a cold clime). So I apologize profusely to anybody who had set their hearts on hearing a Baltic-based program.
But the above program is the kind of classic a cappella that I originally formed St. Martin’s to do; and I feel safe in saying that we excel at this kind of repertoire. So, although we’ve done lots of collaborations over the years, and added guest instrumentalists into the mix occasionally, this kind of concert is still the life-blood of the ensemble, and what we do best. Do come and hear it! It may assuage the wintertime blues, perk up the torpor of frozen blood, and fill you with the warmth that comes from exquisite beauty.
Fri. Feb. 17, 7:30pm, Montview Presbyterian Church, Park Hill
Sun. Feb. 19, 3:00pm, St. Paul Community of Faith, 1600 Grant, Denver
For tickets, follow the links above, visit our concerts page, or call the office at 303-298-1970 for assistance.