Hopkins Center for the Arts

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Dartmouth College Glee Club

Louis Burkot, conductor

Titans of the 18th Century

in Praise and Contemplation

with special guests
The Arcadia Players
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano

Saturday, FEBRUARY 2 • 8 pm
Spaulding Auditorium
$18 • Dartmouth students $3

Click to download PROGRAM NOTES

It is believed that J.S. Bach wrote an astounding 295 sacred cantatas, enough for the Church's entire five-year cycle. Nearly a third of these are lost, but his Cantata 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Praise God in All Lands), is perhaps his best known and one of the rare ones written for a soprano solo. This soaring and uplifting work, with text from Psalms 26 and 138, as well as words possibly written by Bach himself, praise the Creator but also the soprano—at a time when women were forbidden to sing in the Church. When Joseph Haydn composed his Missa in Angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times or Nelson Mass) in 1798, Austria was under attack by Napoleon. The terror of those foreboding times is reflected in this powerful, emotional masterpiece. Written in D minor, this setting of the Catholic Latin Mass is both heartfelt and explosive.