Spring Break
Chorale wows Boston Crowd
by Kate Roller
Theater | 11/13/07
Posted online at 9:23 PM EST on 11/12/07
/ Last updated at 12:10 AM EST on 11/12/07
On Friday night at Jordan Hall, The Cantata Singers, one of Boston's premiere choral ensembles, performed pieces written by three composers-two German, one Italian-whose lives and work were indelibly marked by the rise of fascism and the devastation of the World Wars.
Kurt Weill's angry anti-war Legend of the Dead Soldier, Luigi Dallapiccola's cry for freedom, Songs of the Prisoners and, finally, Carl Orff's famous Carmina Burana were all written after the end of World War I but before the Allies' victory in World War II-a dark and disturbing time in Europe, which produced dark and disturbing art. These works, despite their beauty, are no exception.
The most overtly political piece is Weill's Legend of the Dead Soldier, which sets to music a poem written by longtime collaborator Bertolt Brecht. The poem, written shortly after Brecht's service in a German army hospital during the last throes of World War I, is a vicious satire of war, telling the story of a dead soldier whose corpse is dug up, reanimated and shoved back into the front lines to fight and die all over again.
Weill sets the poem to a very heroic, anthem-like imitation of Schubert and Schumann's German Romanticism-he knew that the best satire should be delivered with a completely straight face. It is a disturbing setting of a disturbing text, and it was clear that some in the audience weren't quite sure what to make of it. Still, the applause was enthusiastic.
It was followed by the haunting, apocalyptic Songs of the Prisoners, which takes its text from prayers composed by three historical prisoners: Mary, Queen of Scots; ancient Christian philosopher Boethius; and Italian religious radical Savonarola. Dallapiccola began composing the piece immediately after hearing the radio address in which Mussolini launched his anti-Semitic crusade. He wrote much of it while in hiding with his Jewish wife, and his music clearly conveys the trapped helplessness of the imprisoned and their indomitable will to endure.
Kurt Weill's angry anti-war Legend of the Dead Soldier, Luigi Dallapiccola's cry for freedom, Songs of the Prisoners and, finally, Carl Orff's famous Carmina Burana were all written after the end of World War I but before the Allies' victory in World War II-a dark and disturbing time in Europe, which produced dark and disturbing art. These works, despite their beauty, are no exception.
The most overtly political piece is Weill's Legend of the Dead Soldier, which sets to music a poem written by longtime collaborator Bertolt Brecht. The poem, written shortly after Brecht's service in a German army hospital during the last throes of World War I, is a vicious satire of war, telling the story of a dead soldier whose corpse is dug up, reanimated and shoved back into the front lines to fight and die all over again.
Weill sets the poem to a very heroic, anthem-like imitation of Schubert and Schumann's German Romanticism-he knew that the best satire should be delivered with a completely straight face. It is a disturbing setting of a disturbing text, and it was clear that some in the audience weren't quite sure what to make of it. Still, the applause was enthusiastic.
It was followed by the haunting, apocalyptic Songs of the Prisoners, which takes its text from prayers composed by three historical prisoners: Mary, Queen of Scots; ancient Christian philosopher Boethius; and Italian religious radical Savonarola. Dallapiccola began composing the piece immediately after hearing the radio address in which Mussolini launched his anti-Semitic crusade. He wrote much of it while in hiding with his Jewish wife, and his music clearly conveys the trapped helplessness of the imprisoned and their indomitable will to endure.
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