Most Powerful and Profound Musical Experience

"It was my second year of singing in the Bach Festival Choir when we last performed Dvorak's Stabat Mater, and it was performing that piece that caused me to really fall in love with oratorio music. (We sang great music my first year, but I was too busy getting my bearings to really appreciate it.) Performing the Stabat Mater with the Bach Festival Choir was, at that time, the most powerful and profound musical experience of my life. It was the first time I really felt the overwhelming effect that being part of a large ensemble, that's operating in perfect sync, can bring.

While I love many of the movements, the most meaningful to me is the final movement. The text is: Quando corpus moisture, fac, ut ánimæ donétur paradísi glória (When the body will decay, grant that it may be bestowed on [my] soul the glory of paradise.) It would be easy to set this text as something tranquil or ethereal, but Dvorak's setting calls for brassy orchestral fortes, and some truly spine-tingling moments where the orchestra cuts out and the choir is left a capella. Under Dr. Sinclair's direction, these moments where the choir is exposed don't weaken dynamically and, despite the long note values of the choir creating a temptation to become languid, the rhythm is kept steady, driving the energy of the piece toward the final fugue. The end result is that Dvorak turns the final movement, with its potentially sedate text, into an almost rowdy celebration. This is in stark contrast with many of the more gentle, earlier movements, and it is an intensely moving way to end the piece considering the personal tragedies he faced during the composition."

Luke Noles

Bach Festival Choir, tenor | Rollins 2019
Administrative Coordinator, Bach Festival Society of Winter Park