Fall 2016
Jean Langlais, Messe Solennelle
Oberlin Musical Union
Oberlin College Choir
Oberlin Chamber Orchestra
Tigran Buniatyan, Gerwin Hoekstra, Matthew Buller, organists
Gregory Ristow, conductor
This concert is the US premiere of this version of the Messe, with organ and orchestra. Madame Langlais will be present at tonight's performance, a particular honor.
The complete program:
Francis Poulenc: Stabat Mater, FP 148
I. Stabat mater dolorosa
II. Cujus animam gementem
III. O quam tristis
IV. Quæ mœrebat
V. Quis est homo
VI. Vidit suum
VII. Eja mater
VIII. Fac ut ardeat
IX. Sancta mater
X. Fac ut portem
XI. Inflammatus et accensus
XII. Quando corpus
Stafford Hartman ’10, soprano
Oberlin College Choir
Oberlin Chamber Orchestra
-Intermission-
Incantation pour un jour Saint, Op. 64 (1949) Jean Langlais
Tigran Buniatyan, organ
Scène de la Passion (1931) Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur
Gerwin Hoekstra, organ
Messe solennelle, Op. 67 (1949) Langlais
Kyrie
Gloria
Evan Lindberg, chant incipit
Chant de Paix from Neuf Pièces, Op. 40 (1942)
Matthew Buller, organ
Messe solennelle, Op. 67 (1949)
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Oberlin College Choir & Oberlin Musical Union
Oberlin Chamber Orchestra
----- Stafford Hartman earned a bachelor’s degree in voice at Oberlin in 2010. In the years since she graduated, she has enjoyed a full career of both performing and teaching. Hartman made her professional debut in 2010, as the High Priestess in Verdi’s Aida at Opera Memphis, where she remained an artist-in-residence for two seasons. Additional operatic credits include Ilia (Idomeneo), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Abigail (The Crucible), Cendrillon (Cendrillon), among many others. Most recently, Hartman was the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, and has performed extensive concert and oratorio work throughout the mid-south. For the last four years, Hartman served as the vocal director of musical productions at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. Through that experience, she discovered a deep passion for teaching, which inspired her to return to Oberlin to earn the Master of Music Teaching degree. Stafford also holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Kentucky and an Artist Diploma in opera theater from the University of Memphis. She is a former district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a 2014 winner of the Alltech Opera Scholarship Competition, and a 2016 recipient of the Oberlin Alumni Fellowship.
MU Resources
This concert was Saturday, October 29, 2016
Wikipedia article on the composer
Choralia.net recordings for part work.
Watch this YouTube performance
"It was as an organist that Langlais made his name, following in the footsteps of César Franck and Tournemire as organiste titulaire at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in 1945, a post in which he remained until 1988.[3] He was much in demand as a concert organist, and toured widely across Europe and the United States.
"Langlais died in Paris aged 84, and was survived by his second wife Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais and three children, Janine, Claude and Caroline.
"Langlais was a prolific composer, composing 254 works with opus numbers, the first of which was his Prelude and Fugue for organ (1927), and the last his Trio (1990), another organ piece. Although best known as a composer of organ music and sacred choral music, he also composed a number of instrumental, orchestral and chamber works and some secular song settings.
"Langlais's music is written in a late, free tonal style, representative of mid-twentieth-century French music, with rich and complex harmonies and overlapping modes, more tonal than his contemporary, friend and countryman Olivier Messiaen, but related to his two predecessors at Sainte-Clotilde, Franck and Tournemire."