FARMINGTON — The UMF Community Chorus, under the direction of Bruce McInnes, will present their annual spring concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 28 in Nordica Auditorium, UMF Merrill Hall. The program is a combination of deeply moving music by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn.

The concert will open with the only two completed sections of the “Credo” from Mozart’s Grand Mass in c minor. The Mass, composed in Vienna in the early 1780s, is one of Mozart’s sublime masterpieces — powerful and stirring, yet tender and ethereal. Sadly, like his other major choral work, the Requiem, the Mass in c minor was left incomplete at the composer’s death.

Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang (“Elegiac Song”), Op. 118, is scored for string quartet and four voices. This brief and deeply moving elegy is one of Beethoven’s least known compositions and is not often performed.

Described as arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition, the “Lord Nelson” Mass was written in 1798. By this time Haydn had finished writing symphonies and, having been deeply moved during his last trip to England by the great oratorios of Handel, concentrated his efforts on his two great oratorios and the last six masses.

The title originally given to this Mass by Haydn was “Mass for Troubled Times.” It’s told that on the day of the first performance, Haydn and his audience learned that Napoleon, Austria’s mortal enemy, had been dealt a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile by British forces led by Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson. The composition’s nickname endured when in 1800, Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton visited the Esterhazy Palace.

Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and free for children and UMF students with I.D.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.