The Sing-Akademie zu Berlin kindly invites you:

Saturday, 5th July 2008, 8:00 p.m.
Gethsemane Church, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg (Stargarder Str.77)

PARADISE LOST!

An Oratorio Concert -
To Celebrate the Quartercentenary of John Milton (1608-1674)

Programm:

Anthems & Madrigals – John Milton the Elder (1563-1647)
Lute Songs – Henry Lawes (1595-1662)

Miltons Morgengesang – Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814)
Das verlorene Paradies – Friedrich Schneider(1768-1853)

Blest Pair of Sirens – Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
On Time (World Premiere) – Luke Bedford (* 1978)

Choir and Orchestra: Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Men of the State- and Cathedral Choir Berlin, Kammersymphonie Berlin
Soloists: Yeree Suh, Judith Kamphues, Jan Kobow, Sebastian Noack
Speaker: Will Tosh
Director: Kai-Uwe Jirka, Maren Glockner
Entrance: 10/5 Euro.
Free entrance for each guest who knows 10 verses by John Milton from memory:

„Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit/ Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/ Brought death
into the world, and all our woe,/ With loss of Eden…"

Nobody knows who Shakespeare really was. However, in the year of his quartercentenary it is certainly known that John Milton (1608-1674) was one of the greatest poets writing in English. Unconsciously, his work seems to be familiar even to those who have never heard his name. Because long ago the epic poem Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, became part of our collective memory.
The history of music, too, was influenced by the Puritan poet and political philosopher. Without Milton’s poetry, we would have neither Handel’s Samson nor Haydn’s Creation.
The Sing-Akademie zu Berlin will devote a concert to Milton’s presence in music. This concert will also reveal a rarity from the history of the oldest mixed choir in the world, which was founded in 1791. In 1808, Johann Friedrich Reichardt published the hymn Miltons Morgengesang and dedicated it to the ‘Berlinische Singakademie’, which the composer knew well from his time as Berlin’s Hofkapellmeister. The work for symphonic orchestra and choir, written after a passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost, made a great impression in Berlin. As late as 1835, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy had it performed at a music festival and found it ‘so romantic and poetic that it moves and pleases me every time anew’. This work, especially composed for Sing-Akademie, will be performed together with unknown works by John Milton the Elder (the poet’s father, a composer), and lute songs by Milton’s friend Henry Lawes as well as a world premiere by our contemporary Luke Bedford. This young English composer, next year’s composer-in-residence at London’s famous Wigmore Hall, is considered to be one of the most promising English composers of his generation. He studied at the Royal School of Music in London and received the Paul Hamlyn Artist’s Award. Since that year, he has been under contract with Universal Edition. Recently, he has composed works for the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra Wales, and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. For the planned concert, he will write a piece for choir and orchestra on John Milton’s poem ‘On Time’. Further information:

www.sing-akademie.de

On Time

FLY envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more then what is false and vain,
And meerly mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t'whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.

Sing-Akademie zu Berlin
Chausseestraße 128/129
10115 Berlin

030-20912930
info@sing-akademie.de