Westmoreland Symphony's season finale combines sacred and secular

Apr. 18—The Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra's season-ending concert will juxtapose the sacred with the secular.

It also might take a bit of divine intervention to pull off, said Artist Director Daniel Meyer, who will conduct the program beginning at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg.

The program opens with the secular, Igor Stravinsky's "Danses concertantes," and concludes with Ludwig von Beethoven's "Mass in C."

For the Beethoven work, the orchestra will be joined by the WSO Chamber Choir and four soloists.

"We may be tempting fate, but ('Mass in C') was a work we wanted to perform last year but had to cancel because of covid," Meyer said. "We had some cases among the choir and had to quickly retool our plans for that weekend and perform a Beethoven symphony instead.

"The choir had done so much work already in preparing the piece that I wanted to give them another chance to perform it," he said.

"Mass in C" was Beethoven's first foray into composing a Mass, a form already essentially perfected by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn. Beethoven's work was an 1807 commission from Hungarian Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy II, who wasn't pleased with it.

"I'm not sure why that was," Meyer said. "It's so beautiful and so vibrant. For a first outing, to have Beethoven step in and write a masterpiece at first go is pretty astonishing. It's perhaps not as famous as his (later Mass) 'Missa solemnis,' but I think it's just as inspired."

Personal, private prayer

One of Beethoven's inspirations is in never setting the same text in the same way, Meyer said.

"The same text, like 'Lord have mercy,' could be in supplication or it could be screaming with fists pointed toward the sky," he said. "Both are legitimate in Beethoven's world, and it's a very human reaction to a very established liturgical tradition.

"Beethoven humanizes and personalizes this prayer, so it's a public prayer that becomes very personal and private."

Stravinsky composed "Danses concertantes" in 1942 as a work for chamber orchestra. It was choreographed for ballet in 1944 by the renowned choreographer George Balanchine.

"Part of programming the Stravinsky was to offer a counterpoint to the Beethoven," Meyer said. "In being neoclassical, it makes a nice counterpoint to Beethoven, who is firmly working in the classical tradition in writing a concerted Mass.

Though Stravinsky was commissioned to write an orchestral work, Meyer said, "he thought it would later turn into a ballet, and that's exactly what happened.

"There's definitely a balletic flair, there's a pas de deux and different movements that certainly lend themselves to dance," he added. "It's a great vehicle for the solo woodwind players, and we use a smaller complement of strings."

The WSO Chamber Choir comprises about 80 voices, most from Westmoreland County and many of them music educators. Featured soloists are mezzo-soprano Corrie Stallings, tenor George Milosh, soprano Julia Swan Laird and bass Evan Lazdowski.

Swan Laird and Lazdowski are Pittsburgh Opera resident artists, and Stallings is a former resident artist. Milosh is a member of the Pittsburgh Opera chorus.

"We really have a gem in (the resident artist) program because, every two or three years, a new cast of wonderful opera singers just embarking on their careers make their way through it," Meyer said. "We try to capitalize on that at least once a year by inviting some of those singers to join us."

Tickets to the WSO season finale are $18-$63 and are available by calling 724-837-1850 or online at westmorelandsymphony.org.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .