NMPAS celebrates the Winter Solstice with duo of concerts

The New Mexico Performing Arts Society is bringing in the holidays with its Winter Solstice Concerts in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Blending two major works by Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as motets and choral settings, the concerts will take place at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in Santa Fe and St. Michael and All Angles Episcopal Church in Albuquerque on Friday, Nov. 24, and Sunday, Nov. 26.

Artistic director Franz Vote will lead members of the New Mexico Bach Society and Orchestra. He has divided the concerts into choral and orchestral sections.

The program will open with Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 4,” known for its joyful and buoyant virtuosity. The violin takes center stage in an extended statement.

“The usual association is Christmas, but it’s not limited to Christmas,” Vote said of the solstice.

The motet series features “Veni Jesu” by Luigi Cherubini, the “Magnificat” by British Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Ave Maria,” “In the bleak mid-winter” by Gustav Holst, “Ave verum corpus” by Franz Liszt, Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s “Heilige Nacht” and “O Magnum Mysterium” by Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria.

“I didn’t know whether to call them Christmas carols or anthems or selections,” Vote said. “Motets are a more dignified” description.

The music ranges from the Renaissance to more contemporary composers.

The Liszt piece may be surprising to those accustomed to his romantic flash.

“If you ever listen to his later piano music, it’s very different,” Vote said. “He gave up all the pyrotechnics.”

The musicians also will perform Bach’s little-known “Mass in A.”

“He didn’t finish it,” Vote said. “He only did the Kyrie and the Gloria.

“None of these pieces are very long,” he continued. “They’re basically 3-to-5 minutes long. I always like to look for the lesser-known.”

The concert ends with Victoria’s “O Magnum Mysterium.”

“It’s somewhat difficult to arrange,” Vote said. “It’s trying to get the women’s voices to work because the male voices are what he wrote it for. This is the unorthodox side of me.”