Handel’s “Messiah” is a Christmas tradition throughout the world, but Grace Church in Rutland may be presenting the only performances in Vermont this year. And to its annual performances, the church is adding a Christmas cantata by Handel’s colleague Johann Sebastian Bach.
“It’s wonderful music to celebrate the season, and coming through this unbelievable year, almost two years at this point,” explains Alastair Stout, Grace Church’s minister of music.
Grace Congregational Church will present Handel’s “Messiah” (Part 1, the Christmas portion, and the “Hallelujah” Chorus), and J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV 133, at 3:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5. Stout will conduct the Rutland Area Chorus, Festival Orchestra and vocal soloists: soprano Evangelia Leontis, mezzo-soprano Amy Frostman, tenor Ryan Mangan and bass Zebulun McLellan.
Tickets are required, but free; the audience size will be limited and masks are required, all because of COVID-19 considerations.
Bach’s 1724 Cantata BWV 133, “Ich freue in dir (I Rejoice in You),” will open the program. (A cantata is a composite form of a number of movements usually for a Protestant church service.) The six-movement cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra comprises a chorus, two recitatives, two arias and a chorale (hymn).
“I think it contrasts Part 1 of the ‘Messiah’ really, really beautifully in quite a few fun ways,” Stout said. “For example, in ‘Messiah,’ the bass is the soloist who takes us down to the depths of people in darkness in that movement; in the cantata, it’s actually the soprano that takes us through the darkness in her aria.
“I love the fact that Bach’s God and faith is this wonderful foundation that’s anchoring us — and that’s lost in her aria at the end there when she talks about these things: ‘Those that don’t have Jesus, their souls and hearts are as hard as rocks,” Stout said. “I love that contrast where in the ‘Messiah’ we’re going low with the bass and with the Bach we’re going high — but we’re working with the darkness in people’s lives.”
The cantata begins brilliantly with a chorus in D Major.
“So we’re going to open the concert with these bright fantastic sounds,” Stout said. “And then the cantata mellows and softens and becomes much more personal as it goes on, and it ends with quite an introvert beautiful chorale — which is gong to be a sweet sound when we’re focusing on the baby Jesus.”
And that will lead into to the opening of “Messiah.”
“I think it’s going to give a nice shape to the concert,” Stout said. “It’s going to start big and it’s going to end big and in the middle it’s going to be this wonderful, sweet, very personal moment — which you find in both pieces.”
The instrumentation for the Bach includes two oboe d’amores.
“So there’s that beautiful rich sonority, and the first violins become these angel figures in the cantata,” Stout said. “It’s just a really fantastic piece. The more I study it and work with the chorus on it, the more it delivers, opens and shows its secrets — and I think that’s really fantastic.”
Stout hopes to perform a Bach cantata every year for the Grace Church Christmas program. (Bach wrote more than 200.)
This year’s concerts will introduce two new soloists, who will perform in both works. (Soprano Allison and tenor Cameron Steinmetz were not available.) Leontis teaches voice at Castleton University and Keene State College. The new tenor is local, Ryan Mangan.
“I’ve done a lot of work with him over the last year and a half,” Stout said. “We’ve performed two or three song cycles together. He’s just a real up-and-coming star.
Due to the pandemic, there will be no dancers this year, and the chorus is smaller at 55 with the orchestra slightly smaller.
“With the smaller chorus, to be honest, I’m finding it to be more manageable to work in the nuances, and the kind of stylistic features that I want to see in the piece,” Stout said.
“Coming out of COVID, that awful year, there has been a real sense of hope and joy for us at Grace Church to see this all come together this year,” Stout said. “It’s going to be great, I think.”
