• Friday, November 14, 1997 • 8 pm • First Presbyterian Church, Boulder
• Sunday, November 16, 1997 • 2 pm • St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Denver

PROGRAM

Antonin Dvorák's Mass in D Major

This concert is the recreation of the world premiere of Dvorák's Mass in D Major, op.86, which took place on September 11th, 1887, in the castle chapel at Luzany, south-western Bohemia. Despite it's length, and expansive layout, the Mass in D was conceived for performance on a modest scale. It was commissioned by Prague architect Josef Hlavka, and intended for the dedication services of his estate Marian chapel. Dvorák conducted the first performance himself; the solo parts were sung by Hlavka's wife Zdenka, Dvorák's wife Anna, Rudolf Humml and Otakar Schwenda, with Josef Klicka playing the organ. As in the original performance of the work, a small choir (our own Boulder Chorale Ensemble) will sing the solo parts, accompanied only by organ.

At the advise of his publisher, Simrock, Dvorák orchestrated the organ accompaniment of the Mass in 1893. The vocal parts and the musical substance of the accompaniment of the first version were kept unchanged. The work's first fully orchestrated performance took place at the Crystal Palace, London, on the 11th of March, 1893.

Dvorák's tuneful, folk-like melodies create in the Mass a heartfelt presentation of this familiar sacred text. Dvorák himself wrote to Hlavka about the Mass:

I have successfully completed the work [the Mass in D], and I am very pleased with it. I believe it is a work which will fulfill its purpose. It could be called: faith, hope, and love of Almighty God, with thanks for the great gift which has permitted me to bring this work in praise of Him who is highest and in honor of our art to a fortunate end. Do not be surprised that I am so pious - an artist who is not, cannot achieve anything of this nature. Have we not found examples in Beethoven, Bach, Raphael and many others? I also thank you for giving me the stimulating spark to write a work in this form, for I should hardly ever thought of it; up to now I had written works of this kind only in large dimensions and with large forces. This time, however, I have written for only modest dreams, and still I dare to claim that my work has been successul.

This Mass holds an unusual place in Dvorák's choral output. It is neither a work by romanticist wrestling with questions of belief, nor a work whose musical qualities are those of the size of Dvorák's Stabat Mater or . The mass does not necessarily comply with the ideals of the German Cecelian movement, whose aim it was to resore Catholic church music to its original state of purity. Rather, the Mass is a personal affirmation of Dvorák's own faith. It serves in its liturgical context to express worship of God by lyrical mediation, rather than dramatic directness.

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