On Saturday, February 6th, at 7:30p, the Orchestra Seattle & Seattle Chamber Singers present ‘Irreverent Reverence’, featuring concerto competition winner Adrian Steele. This showcase of the Brahms Academic Festival Overture and Faure Requiem, at the First Free Methodist Church, pair two reverent sounding, yet irreverently inspired pieces.
Johannes Brahms never attended college, but was flattered by an honorary degree bestowed by the University of Breslau. With a wicked sense of humor and a love of beer, his ‘Academic Festival Overture’ was a light-hearted response, which incorporated well-known student drinking songs, to the school’s request for a musical ‘thank-you note.’ The academics who had presented the award, calling him ‘first among contemporary masters of serious music’ were, reportedly, less than thrilled.
Gabriel Fauré worked for more than 40 years (over half his lifetime) as a church musician, organist and choirmaster. He viewed this employment as means to a paycheck rather than a spiritual calling. “My ‘Requiem’ was composed for nothing; for fun, if I may be permitted to say so,” he wrote, “Perhaps, instinctively, I sought to break loose from convention. I’ve been accompanying burial services at the organ for so long now! I’ve had it up to here with all that. I wanted to do something else.”
Purchase tickets to this ‘Irreverent Reverence’ through Brown Paper Tickets, and enjoy these two classic, yet unconventional, pieces of music.