The Greenwich Choral Society announces a concert, “In Praise of Music: Voices of Exuberance,” featuring Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, The Hymn of Praise along with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region to be presented Saturday, April 6 at 4 p.m., at the Greenwich High School Performing Arts Center.
Mendelssohn wrote his Hymn of Praise for the Leipzig festival commemorating the 400th anniversary of Johann Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type. The musical influence on Mendelssohn was clearly Beethoven’s mighty Ninth Symphony and – as in Beethoven’s great opus – the Hymn of Praise succeeds in its heartwarming depiction of the journey from worldly darkness to unbridled joy.
Toward the Unknown Region is a remarkable marriage of music and text, combining the unmistakable quality of Vaughan Williams’ inspired music while perfectly expressing the noble, humanistic aspirations of Walt Whitman’s poetry.
Tickets are $45 and $38, with special prices for students, and can be ordered online at GreenwichChoralSociety.org or by calling 203-622-5136. (Group sales are available by calling the GCS office.)
