Symphonic personalities

Program

J.S. Bach

Mass in B minor

PART I
• Kyrie
• Gloria

PART III
• Credo

PARTIE III
• Sanctus

PART IV
• Osanna
• Benedictus
• Osanna repetatur
• Agnus Dei
• Dona nobis pacem

Duration: approx. 108 minutes

Media

All the splendour of Bach in one piece. Finely crafted for over 30 years, Mass in B Minor encapsulates the renowned composer’s style. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the work features symmetrical movements, complex architecture, fascinating counterpoint passages and powerful voices that showcase Bach’s genius—a simple mortal at the service of humanity.

Concert presented without intermission

Pre-concert Experience

Works

J.S. Bach

1685 – 1750

Mass in B minor

First performed complete in Leipzig in 1859, conducted by Karl Riedel

Johann Sebastian Bach is the best-known representative of the most prolific dynasty in the history of music. No fewer than 50 professional musicians are counted from forefather Johannes, born in 1555, to his descendant Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst, a grandson of Johann Sebastian who died in 1845, nearly three centuries later!

Johann Sebastian composed a number of timeless masterpieces in nearly every musical genre of his era, instrumental and vocal alike, with the exception of opera. Taken as a whole, his writing is the culmination of the musical baroque and a synthesis of the Italian, German, French and English styles. Bach was a deeply religious man, and sacred music forms the core of his oeuvre of more than a thousand works.

In 1723, Bach was appointed cantor at St. Thomas Lutheran church in Leipzig, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. It was there that he wrote most of his sacred music.

After some 200 cantatas and the sublime masterpieces that are the Magnificat, Saint Matthew Passion, Saint John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, the Mass in B minor comes as an absolute apex. It is, in fact, Bach’s spiritual testament, a kind of religious counterpart to the contemporary Art of the Fugue.

The Mass in B minor is a comprehensive survey that, from number to number, displays the many compositional techniques that Bach had so brilliantly mastered: opera-like arias and duets, stile antico choral polyphony without basso continuo (as was common in the Renaissance), contrapuntal complexity, the varied treatment of choruses – with four, five, six and eight vocal lines – and a similar variety in the use of instruments, including magnificent solos for the violin, horn, flute and oboe d’amore. As a result, not a hint of boredom creeps into this nearly two-hour work. And then there is the most essential: the range and intensity of the feelings that the music inspires!

Bach wrote the mass during the last three years of his life, gathering together pages he had composed for other occasions, in accordance with the ancient practice of musical parody, widely employed in the baroque era, whereby existing pages were recycled and integrated into new works. The Mass in B minor includes music that Bach had written between 1714 and 1733 and altered, magnifying it by degrees as the context required. Some pages, though not most, were newly composed between 1747 and 1749. Ultimately and despite the range of compositional techniques used and the disparate origins of the pieces, Bach miraculously succeeds in maintaining a strong sense of unity.

Conductor & Soloists

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Conductor

The Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, Yannick Nézet-Séguin signed a “lifelong” commitment with the Orchestre in September 2019. In September 2018, he became the third Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera (MET), New York in addition to his ongoing duties as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he has served since 2012. In 2016-2017, he became a lifetime Honorary Member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

After a ten-year tenure with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, he was appointed Honorary Conductor in 2019, a position he holds to this day.

He has worked regularly with many leading European ensembles and enjoyed many close collaborations with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk and Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2008 to 2014. His opera interpretations have been acclaimed in many of the world’s most famous houses, including the Metropolitan Opera (New York), La Scala (Milan), and the Royal Opera House (London), in the Salzburg Festival, as well as in such renowned concert halls as the Musikverein (Vienna), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Festspielhaus (Baden-Baden) and Carnegie Hall (New York).

Yannick Nézet-Séguin records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon label while continuing his role in the collaborative partnership between ATMA Classique and the OM. His honours include being named Artist of the Year by the prestigious magazine Musical America and receiving the Virginia Parker Award, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award (London), Canada’s National Arts Centre Award (Ottawa), the Prix Denise-Pelletier, awarded by the Quebec government, the Medal of Honor of the National Assembly of Quebec, the Oskar Morawetz Award and Orchestras Canada’s Betty Webster Award, the Rubies Award by Opera Canada; in 2022, he receives the Grammy Award of the Best Orchestral Performance for Florence Price’s Symphony No.3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

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Erika Baikoff

Soprano

This season, Russian-American Soprano Erika Baikoff, made her MET debut in the roles of Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, conducted by Sebastian Weigle, and Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, under the musical direction of Daniele Rustioni.

From 2018 to 2020, Erika was a member of the Lyon National Opera Studio, where her roles included Le Feu/ Princesse/ Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Juliet in Boris Blacher’s Romeo and Juliet. She was also featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s 4^th Symphony with the Lyon National Opera Orchestra, conducted by Daniele Rustioni. In 2021, she sang the role of Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, as part of the Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique. In 2022, she will make her debut at Musikverein Graz as Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco.

Erika is a 2020 Metropolitan Opera National Council Semi-finalist. She is also the first prize recipient at the 2019 Helmut Deutsch International Lied Competition and the 10th Concours Nadia et Lili Boulanger with her duo partner, Gary Beecher. Other awards include the 2019 Career Bridges Grant, 2018 Mondavi Young Artists Founders’ Prize, and 2013 Bouchaine Young Artist Scholarship.

Erika holds a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies from Princeton University and a Master of Music from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

Karen Cargill

Mezzo-soprano

Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and was the winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award. In July 2018 Karen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is currently their interim Head of Vocal Studies.

Concerts this season and beyond include Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Cristian Măcelaru; Mahler Symphony No 2 with Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España and David Afkham, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Rafael Payare, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, and Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Robin Ticciati. Other forthcoming engagements include Beethoven Missa solemnis with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Lieder by Alma Mahler with Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, both with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. With the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Alpesh Chauhan she will perform Schoenberg Lied der Waldtaube and record Wagner Wesendonck Lieder.

Past opera highlights have included the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Metropolitan Opera, New York; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Montpellier Opéra; the BBC Proms and Glyndebourne and Edinburgh International festivals, with roles including Waltraute Gotterdämmerung; Erda Das Rheingold and Siegfried; Brangäne Tristan und Isolde; Mère Marie Dialogues des carmélites and Judith Bluebeard’s Castle, while on the concert platform Karen has worked with conductors including Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Harding, Edward Gardner and Mariss Jansons.

Karen has appeared with her recital partner Simon Lepper at Wigmore Hall London; Concertgebouw Amsterdam; Kennedy Centre Washington and Carnegie Hall New York, and regularly gives recitals for BBC Radio 3. With Simon, she recently recorded a critically acclaimed recital of Lieder by Alma and Gustav Mahler for Linn Records, for whom she has also recorded Berlioz Les nuits d’été and La mort de Cléopâtre with Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Karen is Patron of the National Girls’ Choir of Scotland.

Werner Güra

Tenor

German tenor Werner Güra, born in Munich, received his musical training at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and completed his vocal studies with Professor Kurt Widmer. Furthermore, he was coached by Nicolai Gedda, Professor Margreet Honig in Amsterdam and Professor Wessela Zlateva in Vienna.

After guesting at the opera houses of Frankfurt and Basel, he joined the ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden in 1995, where he sang the important Mozart and Rossini parts of his Fach. Daniel Barenboim invited Werner Güra for various productions to the Staatsoper Berlin and he sang his highly acclaimed Mozart roles at La Monnaie in Brussels at the Opéra National de Paris, and at the Zurich Opera.

At this stage of his career, Werner Güra concentrates his activities on the vocal-symphonic and Oratorio repertoire. He sang on the most prestigious European concert stages and worked with many orchestras including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Vienna Symphoy Orchestra, Freiburger Barock Orchestra, Concentus Musicus Wien, the Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Boston Symphony Orchestras with conductors such Riccardo Chailly, Adam Fischer, Pablo Heras-Casado, Philippe Herreweghe, Manfred Honeck, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Franz Welser-Möst and many others. Werner Güra enjoyed close collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Werner Güra is also much appreciated as Lied interpreter, regularly giving recitals amongst others at the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Pierre-Boulez Hall in Berlin, the Wigmore Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lincoln Center New York and the Schubertiades Schwarzenberg. For Harmonia Mundi France he recorded an impressive number of solo-recordings. Some of them were awarded with prestigious prices. Werner Güra has been teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2009.

Nathan Berg

Bass-baritone

A “tall, majestic bass” with “impeccable technique” and “a palpable presence on stage,” Canadian bass-baritone Nathan Berg has enjoyed a career spannning a vast range of repertoire on the concert and operatic stage.

He has recently earned worldwide acclaim for his portrayals of the title role in Der fliegende Holländer in his Bolshoi Theatre debut, Alberich in Das Rheingold with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Minnesota Opera, Doktor in Wozzeck with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony, for which he won a Grammy Award, and his company debut at Teatro alla Scala in Robert Carsen’s world-premiere production of Battistelli’s CO2.

In the 2022-2023 season, Nathan Berg will return to the LA Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, will debut the role of Melisso in Alcina with Les Violons du Roy, join Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain for Bach’s Mass in b minor, and the New Jersey Symphony for Bruckner’s Te Deum. Mr. Berg also returns to the Metropolitan Opera to undersudy the roles of Balstrode in Peter Grimes, Filippo in Verdi’s Don Carlos and the Marquis de La Force in Dialogues des carmélites.

In the 2021-2022 season, Mr. Berg made his Metropolitan Opera stage debut as The Father in the New York premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, returned to Theater Basel for his first King Philippe in Don Carlos, and debuted the role of Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde with the Taiwan Philharmonic. He also led a residency with Opera Lafayette in Taos, New Mexico, culminating in peformances of Grétry’s rarely-performed Silvain in both New York and Washington, DC.

In his vast range of styles and repertoire, Mr. Berg is in demand by the world’s most distinguished conductors, including Sir Andrew Davis, Hannu Lintu, Roger Norrington, Hans Graf, Donald Runnicles, Philippe Herreweghe, Vasily Petrenko, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Born in Saskatchewan, Nathan Berg studied in Canada, the United States, and Paris, as well as at the Guildhall School of Music, London, where he won the prestigious Gold Medal for Singers.

Chœur Métropolitain

Choir

François A. Ouimet and Pierre Tourville are the chorus masters for the preparation of various programs and the conducting of certain concerts.

Comprising around 100 members, the Choir joins the Orchestre Métropolitain during its regular seasons to perform the great works of the repertoire.

Along with the Orchestre’s musicians under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Choir has delivered memorable performances of Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 in F minor and Wagner’s operas Lohengrin and Parsifal at the Festival de Lanaudière, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, “Lobgesang” and Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. These performances have earned the Choir critical acclaim.

Over the years, the Choir has performed with many internationally renowned singers, including Mihoko Fujimura, Peter Rose, Christian Elsner, Diana Damrau, Renée Fleming, Karina Gauvin, Maria Guleghina, Marc Hervieux, Hiromi Omura, Henriette Schellenberg, Bryn Terfel, Julie Boulianne, Heidi Melton, Andrew Foster-Williams, Karen Cargill, Philippe Sly and other great voices from here and elsewhere.

In addition to its work with the Orchestre, the Chœur Métropolitain began organizing its own Opus series of concerts several years ago, under the direction of Pierre Tourville and François A. Ouimet, at which it has performed, among other works, Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, Duruflé and Fauré’s Requiems, and more recently, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Dvořák’s Mass in D major.

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