(Durban
Chamber Choirs’ Jacomien de Klerk and Dominique Ingala with His Eminence
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier OFM preparing for Monteverdi’s “Mass for Four
Voices”. Photo by Illa Thompson)
This Saturday (April 14, 2018), Durban is
offered a unique artistic and religious experience – Monteverdi’s Mass for Four Voices sung by the Durban
Chamber Choir and performed in the context of a sacred mass presided over by
his Eminence Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier OFM at the Emmanuel Cathedral.
“Much of the mainstream repertoire of
Western classical music for at least 200 years was commissioned by the Church
and written to be performed as part of a religious service. When we do get a chance
today to hear these pieces performed live, it is usually outside a religious
place or context,” explains the Denis Hurley Centre’s Raymond Perrier.
“But at 17h30 in Emmanuel Cathedral on
Saturday 14 April one of the highpoints of Renaissance music will be sung by
the Durban Chamber Choir in a setting and context comparable to the one for
which it was written almost 400 years ago.
Monteverdi’s Mass for Four Voices
was composed to be used as part of the services in St Mark’s Cathedral in
Venice. Our own Emmanuel Cathedral – though not as ornate as St Mark’s – is
just as imposing, also has a fine acoustic, and is similarly built on a
reclaimed marsh.
“Monteverdi’s music would have been sung
during a Mass conducted entirely in Latin; the Mass that Cardinal Napier will
be celebrating while the Durban Chamber Choir sings will have a lot more
English. And we hope – unlike 1600s
Venice – that Christians of all denominations and people of other faiths will feel
welcome to come and experience this for themselves,” says Perrier.
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was an
Italian composer, choirmaster and string player who was equally at home
composing and performing secular and sacred music. He is acknowledged as one of
the pioneers of opera as an art form, and is known to help the transition from
the musical period of the Renaissance to Baroque. His musical legacy includes
nine books of madrigals, large scale sacred works and three complete operas.
His works have enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning of the twentieth
century. He is now established both as a significant influence in European
musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly performed and
recorded.
And since the Church, now as then, is
committed not only to beautiful music but also to helping the poor, a
collection will be taken for the Napier Centre for Healing: a new after-care
facility for post-rehab addiction patients the centre will open in the
Ekukhanyeni Mission not far from Verulam in the Iqadi region of the KZN North
Coast. The drug rehabilitation centre will be the Cardinal’s legacy project.
A building has been earmarked at the
Ekukhanyeni Mission station not far from Verulam. The building has been
repurposed and renovated, thanks to the generosity of a private donor.
Additional funding and partner support is needed to get the centre up and
running with the appropriate accommodation, staffing, resources and facilities.
The Mass will take place at the Emmanuel
Cathedral at 17h30 on Saturday afternoon as a fund raiser for The Napier Centre
for Healing.
Entry is free and all are welcome to the
sun mass, however guests are invited to donate generously towards the Napier
Centre for Healing, in lieu of buying a ticket. For more information, contact the
Denis Hurley Centre on 031 301 2240. There is safe parking alongside the
Cathedral.
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