New Amsterdam Singers to Perform Martin's Golgotha in 2016

The New Amsterdam Singers (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present Golgotha, a 90-minute oratorio for chorus, orchestra, organ, and soloists by the Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) in its first New York City performance since 1952, on Sunday, March 13, 2016, at 3:00 p.m., as part of the Trinity Wall Street concert series, at Trinity Wall Street Church, 74 Trinity Place. The soloists will be soprano Meredith Lustig, alto Avery Amereau, tenor Dann Coakwell, bass Tyler Duncan (Jesus), and bass Kevin Deas.

Golgotha - whose name refers to the site outside of Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was crucified - was written between 1945 and 1948 and premiered on April 29, 1949; it received its U.S. premiere in 1952 by Paul Boepple and The Dessoff Choirs. In 10 musical tableaux, the work relates the story of Christ's Passion, from the entrance into Jerusalem until the Resurrection, with texts from all four of the Gospels and writings of St. Augustine.

The youngest of 10 children of a Calvinist pastor, Frank Martin was born in Geneva and was improvising at the piano before starting school. At the age of 10 or 12 he attended a performance of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion and was deeply affected. He went on to study mathematics and physics at the request of his parents, but also worked on composition, piano, and harmony with his first music teacher, Joseph Lauber, and later in the 1920s, with Émile Jacques-Dalcroze from whom he learned about rhythm and musical theory. In 1945 he discovered "The Three Crosses," an engraving by Rembrandt, in the Netherlands, where he was then living, which inspired him to compose his own version of the Passion story.

"Once I had seen these etchings, I was positively haunted by the idea of realizing an image of the Passion with my own resources," explained the composer while working on the score. "I would have liked to concentrate this whole terrible and magnificent drama in a very short work, just as Rembrandt had done on his modest little rectangle of paper. But...I had no choice but to come round to the idea of an oratorio, which was capable by its very dimensions of creating the framework and atmosphere necessary for the expression of a subject of this kind." Anthony Tommasini, writing in The New York Times, stated that "Golgotha may be Martin's masterpiece," noting his skill and mastery of orchestral coloring and harmonic writing.

Frank Martin's many works include orchestral and choral compositions; monologues for baritone and piano or orchestra; a symphony; concertos for piano, harpsichord, violin, and cello; and major scores for theater. Ernest Ansermet championed his music from 1918 on, conducting recordings of many of Martin's works.

The New Amsterdam Singers also have long championed the music of Frank Martin. In 1990 the chorus celebrated Martin's centenary with an all-Martin concert that included his Mass for Double Chorus, which the ensemble has sung twice since 1990, and Songs of Ariel, which NAS performed again in 2014.

Further details of the New Amsterdam Singers' 2015-16 season will be announced at a later date.

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