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 plays it cool with Brahms, other Romantics
By Dennis D. Rooney Seraphic Fire, now in its 16th season, has performed to growing acclaim in its South Florida home. Its March 18 program, titled Liebeslieder Waltzes, was devoted to vocal music designed primarily for domestic entertainment. Accomplished amateur singers and players in the 19th century would gather to make music at a time when there were no recordings. … [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 adds richness, variety to sounds of Christmas
There have to be as many ways of exploring the music of the Christmas season as there are ways to celebrate the holiday, from indulging in the sounds of choirboys from a centuries-old English college to using Spotify or YouTube to find brand-new music for the year’s end. In the case of Seraphic Fire, you start with 13 expert singers and an adventurous approach, and you end … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire triumphs in challenging look at American hymnody
In its decade and a half of concertizing in South Florida, Seraphic Fire has occasionally featured concerts drawing on the music of the American church, usually that arising from the Protestant and African-American traditions of the 19th century. In its second concert of the season, the Miami choir again turned to American hymnody, but in the program assembled by guest … [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...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in classical music
It’s always a source of wonder to look over the classical season each year. Few other parts of the country have such an abundant menu of stellar performers, risk-taking groups and leading international orchestras, all of them stuffed into a relatively short season. And if you don’t have three or four options you’re trying to choose from every weekend in January, February and … [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...]