Bach Choir intones sacred theme from Honegger
Thomas W. Douglas has made newness a trademark of his tenure with the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh. “Everything I’ve done with them has been a first time,” with Handel’s “Messiah” being the only exception, said the choir’s artistic director since 2004.
Not bad for a chorus that started out in 1934 with the charge of singing only music by Johann Sebastian Bach. It has come a long way: On Saturday and Sunday, the Bach Choir performs Arthur Honegger’s “King David” for the first time at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Oakland.
Honegger was a member of “Les Six,” an important collective of French composers in the early part of the 20th century that also included Milhaud and Poulenc. Composing “Le roi David” in 1921 launched Honegger’s international reputation. The 27-movement work was originally written as incidental music to Rene Morax’s drama of the same name. The success of that endeavor encouraged the pair to create a concert version that connects diverse musical sections with spoken narration.
With all those short vignettes, “you never get bored,” said Mr. Douglas, a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. “They’re all different stylistically.” While Bach Choir prides itself on adding dramatic elements to its performances, this one will have a light staging directed by Seamus Ricci. The chorus will be accompanied by a chamber orchestra made up of freelance musicians.
“It will be sung mostly in English, about 85 percent,” Mr. Douglas said. “I have chosen to have repeated text or sections sung in French just to get the feel of the language, trusting that the translation had just been heard in English. The narrator is completely in English.”
The work maintains its theatricality through the presence of a narrator (Tony McKay, a member of CMU’s drama faculty) and the Witch of Endor (Mukwae Wabei Siyolwe). Other soloists include soprano Joanna Latini, a senior voice major at CMU, and members of the Bach Choir.
The conductor acknowledges that “it’s taken [the chorus] some time to warm up to it. Just aurally speaking, it’s not immediately accessible throughout.” Still, he’s hopeful that audience members will “get it”: Even if the music is new to them, the biblical story of King David won’t be.
“The whole sacred theme is enough to say, “Oh, I know that guy, him and that giant Goliath,’” he said.