On Tuesday, May 24th at 7 pm, St. Bartholomew’s Conservancy will present the Philadelphia Orchestra in a gala concert featuring our celebrated pipe organ. There are so many reasons that this is an event you won’t want to miss.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the great orchestras of the world and, although they were directed by past St. Bartholomew’s Organist & Choirmaster Leopold Stokowski for many years, this is their first appearance at St. Bart’s. The 82 members of the ensemble will be led by guest conductor David Robertson. Because neither Carnegie Hall nor any other major concert hall in New York City has a symphonic pipe organ, it is surprisingly rare to hear a world-class orchestra here together with a real pipe organ to provide the range, color, and impact that so much of the symphonic repertoire demands.
In a nod to our common music director, the orchestra will offer Leopold Stokowski’s famous version of Bach’s Fugue in G minor, arranged for full orchestra. And, to include a work by another famous St. Bart’s musician, Amy Beach’s Prelude on an Old Folk Tune for organ will be heard for the first time in a version with orchestra, commissioned for the occasion.
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo will appear, courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera, singing an aria by Handel, as well as the beloved Pie Jesu from the Fauré Requiem. The organ will be heard alone in just one work, Duruflé’s Scherzo (reminiscent of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by his teacher, Dukas) and will be featured in the Sinfonia from Bach’s Cantata 29, with strings, trumpets, and timpani - one of the most celebratory and joyous movements in all of Baroque music.
Two works on the program are for organ with the full brass section of the orchestra. For a Canzona by Gabrieli, they will be arranged in three choirs around the chancel, with the organ echoing from its 4 locations (in front, behind, and above the listener). This polychoral repertoire originally sounded from the many balconies in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, a building to which ours makes homage through architectural elements including the dome, apse, golden mosaics, and more.
The Toccata from Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante, written for Stokowski and his Philadelphians, and widely considered to be among the greatest works ever written for organ and orchestra, is sure to be one of the most thrilling musical moments of the evening. Capping the entire program, and bringing us to a grand finale, is the final movement of Organ Symphony of Saint-Saëns.
In anticipation of the Gala, the Conservancy has commissioned a series of six videos about Stokowski, the pipe organ at St. Bartholomew’s, the Parisian Belle Epoque and Gilded Age New York, composer Amy Beach, muralist Hildreth Meière, and more.
The purpose of the event is to raise funds for the continuing restoration of the exterior of the church, specifically the West Façade. It is an enormous honor for me to serve as organist for the occasion and I very much hope you can join us.
