Mayfield Festival Choir directed by Jeremy Summerly with the Ripieno Players and soloists Sofia Kirwan-Baez, Alexandria Moon, Francis Melville and Gabriel Tufail-Smith.
It was the Stabat mater that alerted British audiences to Antonín Dvořák’s greatness as a composer. The Stabat mater was performed in London in the early 1880s (in the newly-built Royal Albert Hall), and it had been written sporadically at a difficult point in the Czech composer’s life. Dvořák was in his mid-thirties when he was composing the Stabat mater – at a time when he lost his first three children within the space of two years. Inevitably, this series of bereavements coloured Dvořák’s approach to the setting of this heartfelt 13th-century text. That said, there is no self-pity in the Stabat mater. Tune after glorious tune fills a work that portrays every positive emotion on the spectrum: fear, awe, fervour, patriotism, love, and joy; all of which ultimately lead to triumph in the piece’s closing section.
Because Dvořák is so well known for his symphonies, operas, and Slavonic Dances, it is easy to overlook his sacred music. But Dvořák was working as a church musician in Prague while he wrote the Stabat mater, and his deep religious conviction and unshakeable faith in humanity are evident in every bar of his great oratorio. For this performance, Mayfield Festival Choir will be joined, as usual, by the Ripieno Players and four young vocal soloists, who will be led by the incomparable Soprano, Sofia Kirwan-Baez, whose presence in Mayfield is always greeted with well-deserved high expectations.
Review
“How do you sell a not particularly well-known lengthy oratorio whose subject is Mary witnessing the suffering and death of Jesus? By establishing a rapport with a local audience so that it trusts that anything you put on will be of a certain quality and worth venturing out for on a chilly night. That was my reaction to seeing that St Dunstan’s was packed for this performance that achieved very high musical standards throughout. Jeremy Summerly marshalled the eighty-five strong Mayfield Festival Choir as you would expect from a choral director of his pedigree. […] the Choir had been thoroughly drilled and delivered with style the full range from the many lamenting moments to the blazing fugue in the final moments.” (Jonathan Zoob)
“Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, although a liturgical piece, is at heart the human story of Mary’s grief at her son’s crucifixion. First performed in 1880, it’s a challenging work for an amateur choir, with some unexpected tonal sequences and tricky entrances, but over the past twelve years the Mayfield Festival Choir under Jeremy Summerly has increasingly gained in confidence and precision, and they were well able to do justice to this piece before a packed audience in St Dunstan’s. Jeremy’s patient and charismatic rehearsal style seems to inspire the choir to ever higher standards. The Stabat mater dolorosa movingly captured the suffering of the grieving Mary, and the choir navigated the interplay with the soloists in Sancta mater, istud agas with aplomb. The evocative Virgo virginum praeclara came off beautifully, but the highlight of the choral singing was the glorious redemption music of the finale Quando corpus morietur and the extraordinary fugal amen for choir and quartet of soloists.” (Richard Nabavi)
“This was a triumph! Such a buzz in the audience, everyone wowed by it and saying “So beautiful”, “So powerful”. […] everything is so well organised, everyone plays their part, it feels practised and professional – yet still so friendly and jolly. The programme was beautifully put together too, with so much information plus wonderful illustrations. […] the bar staff so speedy and cheerfully efficient. Just so good all round. Huge well done to you.” (Audience member)