As we move further past the high-water mark of minimalism, the stature of its major practitioners can be seen more clearly in our rearview. A performance Saturday night of the Passio, a 1982 setting of the Passion according to St. John by the eminent Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, now 82, brought something particular about Pärt’s work into high relief: He is the purest and … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s ‘St. Matthew Passion’ simply glorious
By Robert Croan You don’t have to be a believer to be moved – overcome with emotion, even – by J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Although Bach composed this work for a Lutheran Good Friday service in 1727, repeating it with revisions in subsequent years, it has survived as a concert work. Patrick Dupré Quigley, director of Seraphic Fire’s splendid South Florida … [Read more...]
Lang’s ‘Little Match Girl Passion’ makes moving impact in Seraphic Fire performance
By Robert Croan In prefatory remarks to Seraphic Fire’s January concerts, director Patrick Dupré Quigley told audiences that the featured work, David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, is such a strong piece that no other contemporary choral work could stand up to it on the same program. Instead, Quigley balanced the 40-minute oratorio with three Renaissance motets. … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire opens with brilliant, vigorous Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi was a man ahead of his time, a trailblazer in the then-new form of opera and a composer who approached his mostly vocal output with fealty to the words and a concern for their expressive power that was paramount. To begin its 16th season of concerts, the Seraphic Fire choral group presented about an hour’s worth of excerpts from Monteverdi’s 1640 … [Read more...]
World premiere Easter work, Schütz stand out at Seraphic Fire
By Robert Croan Bach’s jubilant, elating Easter Oratorio (BWV 249) was the featured item in advance announcements of Seraphic Fire’s Easter weekend concerts (seen Friday night in Fort Lauderdale’s Sanctuary Church), but in the event, two shorter works on the first half of the program — one brand-new, the other older than Bach — provided the event’s most rewarding moments. … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire returns with mastery to Bach’s six motets
Back in the early days of Seraphic Fire, the Miami concert choir took on the challenge of all six motets by J.S. Bach. The performance I saw 12 years ago was very fine, but effortful: The difficulty of the music took its toll on the singers, and it was noticeable by the end of the concert. The group has done one or another of the motets individually since then, but this … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s 15th anniversary concert masterful, eclectic
The South Florida classical music scene was rather different 15 years ago than it is today, and while in some aspects of those pre-recession days it was more robust, in one thing in particular there is no comparison. Today, there has been substantial growth in the appearance of smaller arts organizations, with chamber orchestras, chamber music series and even opera companies … [Read more...]
French requiems get deep Seraphic Fire treatment
The idea of putting two requiems back to back on one program might seem to promise an overdose of despair, but when the two funeral pieces in question are among the two best-known such works by French composers, it’s a notion that makes more sense. For the second concert of its season, the Miami chamber choir Seraphic Fire offered the requiems of Gabriel Fauré and Maurice … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire opens 15th season with impressive premieres
For this, its 15th season, Seraphic Fire is going all-in with contemporary music and at the same time returning to some of the monuments of its past. The first concert in its series, as presented Oct. 22 at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale, offered two world premieres, one by the choir’s founder, Patrick Dupré Quigley, and the other by one of the country’s … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire closes season with radiant Byrd
By Robert Croan At the start of Seraphic Fire’s concert of English cathedral music Saturday night at Fort Lauderdale’s All Saints Episcopal Church, director Patrick Dupré Quigley spoke to the audience, explaining that there would be 75 minutes of uninterrupted music, and asking that the listeners not look at the printed program during that time. “Just let the music wash … [Read more...]