The Mastersingers of Wilmington present a concert asking big questions and featuring a masterwork by Brahms this weekend.
Conductor David Schelat says the ensemble’s program centers around the theme of the Road Home, including what happens after death.
“The concert is called 'The Road Home,'" he said. "And indeed, that's the final piece in the first half. That's the title of it. It talks about how we're going home and it's rather ambiguous about what that means. And so people can interpret it how they want.”
Arguably the biggest, and most familiar, work on the concert is the Brahms German Requiem, which Schelat calls, "one of those mountaintop pieces for choruses."
"It's intimate. It enables the singers to be able to sing very quietly, and so then the dynamic variability is enormous from a very loud sound to really quite a soft whisper.“Conductor David Schelat
“The first movement is geared toward comforting those people who remain on Earth after someone dies and the final movement kind of talks about the comfort of those people who have departed and in between, it's beautiful and moving." Schelat said.
While normally performed with a large chorus and a full orchestra, Mastersingers of Wilmington will present it in a smaller, cozier form with just 32 singers and two pianists, in an arrangement by Brahms himself for the piece's English premier.
"It's intimate," Schelat said. "It enables the singers to be able to sing very quietly, and so then the dynamic variability is enormous from a very loud sound to really quite a soft whisper.“
The concert will also present a number of works by American composers
The Mastersingers of Wilmington take the stage at 3;00 Saturday afternoon at First and Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. Tickets are available at market street music d e dot org and at the door.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
