Los Angeles Master Chorale
Music to Accompany a Departure | Directed by Peter SellarsFollowing their widely acclaimed collaboration on Lagrime di San Pietro, Peter Sellars, Grant Gershon and singers of the Los Angeles Master Chorale reunite with a deeply personal meditation on what it means to say goodbye in times of struggle. The luminous music of the Baroque composer Heinrich Schütz’s serves as the inspiration for this ceremony of remembrance and devotion.
With its innovative use of solo and choral sections, Music to Accompany a Departure is presented as a ritual of leave-taking for our time. In this ceremony of remembrance and devotion, the music speaks with both quiet emotion and an enormous depth of feeling, with solo voices interacting with a constantly shifting combination of choral forces in this homage to those who have left us. The result is a stirring piece that reminds us that grief and transformation are eternally linked, and that saying farewell can be a source of inspiration and strength.
Program
Heinrich Schütz Musikalische Exequien
I.
Concert in Form einer teutschen Begräbnis-Missa
Concerto in the form of a German Funeral Mass
II.
Motette: Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe
Motet: Lord, if I only have you
III.
Canticum B. Simeonis: Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren
The Song of Simeon: Lord, let your servant now depart in peace
Acknowledgements
Co-commissioned by Stanford Live and generously supported by the Stanford Live Commissions and Programming Fund.