Joseph Haydn’s grand “Mass in Time of War,” with chorus and full orchestra, is the centerpiece of New Hampshire Master Chorale’s final concert of its 19th season, on June 19, at 4 p.m. in the restored Colonial Theater in Laconia.
The program also includes two contemporary pieces by the young Black composer Joel Thompson. “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed” commemorates the killing, by police or vigilante, of seven unarmed Black men. “America Will Be!” celebrates the nation’s diversity and looks toward a day when America’s promise of freedom and equality will be realized.
Tickets are available at coloniallaconia.com and nhmastchorale.org. $32 Adults, $27 Senior and free for students K-Undergraduate.
Master Chorale Director Dan Perkins chose this program a year ago, before the war in Ukraine and recent mass killings of unarmed Americans.
“As we got closer to spring 2022, current events seemed to match up with what we’re singing about,” Perkins said.
The Master Chorale, a select group of 30 singers, is known for bringing audiences thought-provoking, socially conscious programs and a high level of music-making.
The coming concert falls on Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. The performance of the Joel Thompson works reflects the Master Chorale’s pledge, in 2020, to perform works “that promote an anti-racist agenda.”
Samantha Searles, a journalist and actress who has reported on gun violence and prevention, will give a pre-concert talk. The audience will see projected images from #LastWords, an art project by journalist and film-maker Shirin Barghi that illustrates the last words of the men commemorated in Thompson’s piece.
Thompson wrote “Seven Last Words” in 2014 because he felt the need to respond to the killings of unarmed Black men. It features the last recorded utterances of seven men, in seven brief movements in different musical styles.
Initially, Thompson put the composition aside because he “didn’t think anybody would listen to it, even want to hear it.” But after unarmed men kept dying in similar circumstances, giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement, Thompson’s piece has begun to find an audience.
Thompson’s “America Will Be!” is an uplifting antidote to “Seven Last Words.” It draws on a 1936 poem by Langston Hughes that celebrates the founding ideals of America as “a homeland of the free.” Hughes’ words are interwoven with quotations of Emma Lazarus’ great poem, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, that welcomes immigrants: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses/Yearning to breathe free.”
The piece, commissioned by a Florida high school with an internationally diverse study body, includes aspirational statements from its students in no fewer than 11 languages – a reflection of the nation’s diversity
The song closes with an acknowledgment that the nation’s founding principles remain unrealized, but concludes with the confident hope that America yet “will be!”
Haydn’s “Missa in Tempore Belli (Mass in Time of War)” speaks to a time that, like the present day, was permeated by anxiety over a war with no discernible end.
Haydn, a towering figure of music’s classical period, wrote this Mass in 1796, as Napoleon’s soldiers were steadily advancing on the Austrian Empire in his campaign to conquer most of eastern Europe. Vienna, where Haydn worked under his patron Prince Nicolaus II Esterhazy, lay close to the front.
Despite these ominous circumstances, “Haydn is ultimately joyful,” Perkins said. “He has a way of speaking that, even though he’s writing it during a time of political strife and turmoil, the music is uplifting, spirited and triumphant.”
What gives this Mass its unique signature is its ending passages, in particular the Agnus Dei – Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…have mercy. Under this choral prayer comes the rumble of a distant drum, the famous passage that gives this Mass its nickname “kettle-drum mass.”
The Agnus Dei ultimately explodes into a militaristic fanfare that accompanies the chorus in a forceful Dona nobis pacem – Grant us peace!
Richard Knox is a Master Chorale baritone who lives in Sandwich.