PLEASE NOTE: Due to the impending snowstorm, this performance has been rescheduled from Friday, January 19th, to Sunday, January 28th, at 4:30pm.

Come join the Central Jersey Choral Society for our annual Winter Concert. We will be performing Mendelssohn's Lauda Sion & Fauré's Requiem.

Tickets are $20 in advance, and $25 at the door. Children 12 and under are free.

From Chris Loeffler, Artistic Director:

A Forgotten Gem and an Old Favorite

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Lauda Sion, Op. 73

Fauré: Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) composed his Lauda Sion in 1846, the same year he composed his masterpiece Elijah and one year before his death at the age of 38. Published posthumously, Lauda Sion was granted an unfortunate entrance into the musical zeitgeist. Mendelssohn supervised the first performance but all of the performers were unrehearsed and the performers, orchestral and choral, were difficult to hear in the vaulted ceilings of St. Martin’s Basilica in Liége, Belgium. When Mendelssohn’s legacy was tarnished by the “Degenerate Artist” label imposed upon him during the Third Reich, many of his pieces written based on the New Testament, such as his oratorio St. Paul, were set aside in favor of symphonic or Old Testament works like his masterpiece, Elijah. Lauda Sion is one of those works, and Mendelssohn didn’t live long enough after its composition to reestablish its value after the initial ill-fated first performance.

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was two years old when Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy died. He would go on to become one of the most important composers and teachers in Late Romantic Period France. Tonight we present his Requiem in D minor, arguably his most famous and enduring work. In his Mass for the dead, Fauré takes the traditional Latin text and transforms it into a masterpiece of comfort, peace, and blissful salvation. Many other Requiem masses, such as those by Mozart and Verdi, really bring out the terror of confrontation with mortality. Fauré is the gentle shepherd who leads the mourner and the spirit of the departed to comfort and accepting peace.

CJCS Presents: A Forgotten Gem, and an Old Favorite

Lauda Sion (Mendelssohn) & Requiem (Faure)