Fit for a Cathedral
May 6 & 10, 2011

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The PCSO closes its season in the glorious environs-and opulent acoustics-of St. Mary's Cathedral. Orchestral music essentially began in the church and we perform three works written with spacious buildings in mind. Giovanni Gabrieli was master of music at the cathedral St. Marco in Venice where he penned many canzonas for wind instruments, which imitate vocal motets. The English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, collected many hymns and folksongs on his travels around the British countryside. He knew his ravishing work for string orchestra, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), would be premiered in Gloucester Cathedral and it possesses a mesmerizing musical mysticism. Anton Bruckner was a devout Catholic and as an organist, was accustomed to playing in a resonant space. This aural image was transferred to his orchestral writing and his epic symphonies have often been called "Cathedrals in Sound." The heaven-eclipsing Ninth Symphony (1896) was his final work, it was left unfinished at his death-the closing Adagio serving as a moving "farewell to life."