Liszt Biennale Thuringia
Chamber Choir of the Weimar University of Music sings excerpts from Liszt's "Christus" Oratorio
As part of the "Liszt Biennale Thuringia", the award-winning chamber choir of the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar can be experienced. Rehearsed and directed by Prof. Jürgen Puschbeck, the choir will sing a concert on Whit Monday, May 29 at 3:00 p.m. in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Weimar.
The occasion is the premiere of Franz Liszt's oratorio "Christus", then exactly 150 years ago, in the Weimar Stadtkirche, conducted by the composer. Admission is free!
The program will include various excerpts from the "Christus" oratorio, including "Paster noster" for choir a cappella, "Tu es Petrus" for choir and organ, and "The Beatitudes" for baritone solo, choir and organ.
The soloists here are Wieland Thurmair-Lemke (baritone), Mirijam Denz (soprano), Dorothea Schmitt (alto), Nikolaas Schmeer (tenor) and Maximilian Thom (bass). The Franz Liszt memorial organ will be played by Weimar organ professor Martin Sturm, who will also improvise on motifs by Franz Liszt. Hellmut Seemann, former president of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, will deliver the address.
The concert will be supplemented by Liszt's "Missa choralis" for mixed choir and organ from 1865 and - to close the concert - Liszt's "Kirchensegen" after Johann Sebastian Bach.
The premiere of the "Christus" oratorio on May 29, 1873, was a national success of distinction in the presence of Cosima and Richard Wagner. Responsible at the time was the founding director of the Grand Ducal Orchestra School, the church musician Carl Müllerhartung, who also served as music director at the Stadtkirche and as director of the Weimar Singakademie. He was considered Franz Liszt's "driving principle" in Weimar.
The chamber choir of the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar consists mainly of students of school music, church music and conducting, but also of students of the Bauhaus University Weimar, the University of Erfurt and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. It was founded in 1926 as a supra-regional madrigal choir by Walter Rein and quickly developed into a top ensemble at the conservatory.
The chamber choir primarily cultivates the a cappella literature of the 16th to 21st centuries. In doing so, the choir deliberately includes works by Thuringian and Saxon composers as well as world premieres. In addition, vocal symphonies are an integral part of the repertoire: Bach's Passions, the Mass in B minor, the Christmas Oratorio, Mozart's Requiem, Bruckner's Mass in E minor, Brahms' Requiem and Liszt's Graner Messe are just a few examples.
Here, as in other projects, the choir has worked with renowned conductors, including Kurt Masur, Fabio Luisi, Max Pommer, Helmut Rilling, Georg Christoph Biller, Ton Koopman, Konrad Junghänel and John Butt. Concerts have been recorded by MDR, HR, BR and ORF, and numerous CDs have been produced. In addition to its concert activities, the Chamber Choir is committed to being a training center for its own choral singing and choral conducting activities.
Complete program of the Liszt Biennale: https://deutsche-liszt-gesellschaft.de
[22 May 2023]