On Friday, June 5, at 8 p.m., St. Matthew's Music Guild concludes its 2014-15 season in Pacific Palisades with a program featuring The Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew's in Mendelssohn's Suite from the Incidental Music for Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." The program also includes two choral masterpieces: Franz Joseph Haydn's Te Deum for Empress Maria Theresa and the Gloria by John Rutter with The Choir and Soloists of St. Matthew's Parish. Thomas Neenan conducts.
The June 5 concert will highlight several unique qualities of the St. Matthew's Music Guild and its flagship ensemble, The Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew's. Rutter's Gloria will be heard in an arrangement for choir, brass and organ and will feature the Pardee Memorial Organ at St. Matthew's Church. Yuka Ito will be the solo organist. The organ, with more than 2,000 pipes, celebrates its 30th anniversary in May 2015, and is widely regarded as one of the finest mechanical action organs on the West Coast. It was built and installed by the firm of C.B. Fisk in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
The Chamber Orchestra and the Choir and Soloists of St. Matthew's Parish will be heard in Franz Joseph Haydn's exuberant Te Deum for Empress Maria Theresa. Composed in 1799, it was premiered at the Esterhazy family estate in 1800 to celebrate the arrival of Lord Nelson on a state visit. Roughly contemporaneous with the oratorio "The Seasons," the Te Deum was written in the festive key of C major. It concludes with an intricate and stirring double fugue.
Mendelssohn composed his famous Overture for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1826, when he was only 17 years old. It is often spoken of as the most impressive work ever composed by a teenager. Composed in the classical style, the overture nevertheless contains many romantic and programmatic elements, including the scampering about of dancing fairies, the braying of the donkey Bottom, and the gentle rustling breeze in the garden. The remainder of the incidental music was composed by Mendelssohn just a few years before his premature death in 1847. It includes beautiful, evocative music and concludes with the famous Wedding March that is often heard as the closing musical work at weddings today.
Tickets for the concert are $35 and available at the door or online through the Music Guild's website at www.MusicGuildOnline.org. St. Matthew's Church is located at 1031 Bienveneda Ave., Pacific Palisades. For further information: (310) 573-7422.
