Historic Sung Mass at St Luke's - Director of Music Phillip Gearing with his superb orchestra and choir, For a full screen photograph, please left click on the image and wait a little. Then to get back to the newsletter, click on Return (up top far left).Every now and again – too rarely really – you come across something so exquisite and emotionally engulfing, you almost gasp for breath. And it was so at St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Toowoomba when a routine 9.30 Communion Service, with its regular ageing congregation, was transformed from the Christian “ordinary” into a breath-taking return to the early 1800s and the song of the Mass (in G Major) of the young Franz Schubert.
This was not a concert performance – but a Communion Mass. Schubert wrote this, his second Mass, in only six days during March 1815. He was then only 18 – it was the song for worship of a young man, no more than a boy really.
Under St Luke’s stunning stained glass windows in front of the austere altar, Phillip Gearing, Director of Music, superb organist, and respected USQ Senior lecturer with his 10 musicians and St Luke’s choir reached to the heights of the arches
How such a small musical force could create such compelling sound and lyricism is in itself an almost spiritual mystery. Assisted of course by rigorous rehearsal and personal gifts. Schubert’s youthful trios had exquisite sound -- with Amy Seligmann’s pure young soprano, Nick Kirkup’s tenor, and guest singer Dominic Walsh also singing the solos.
Thirteen years later, Schubert wrote his last and much grander Mass – E flat major – for the dedication of the Holy Trinity Church of Alsergrund – but sadly did not live to hear it performed in October 1828, He died aged only 31.
I have heard CDs of the Mass, one of the finest with Claudio Abbado, the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera chorus. This is a huge performance – too huge I feel for Schubert’s gentle song.
But with the innate youth of the G Major Mass, Gearing’s perfection at St Luke’s has an intensely intimate reach which Abbado’s magnificence somehow misses.
The St Luke’s little orchestra – Capella di Luca - was made up of school music students, USQ music students and community members brought together for the performance. They should be recognised and praised:
First violin, Lisa Dalgleish; second violins, Eileen Munro and Michael Poulton; violas, Kylie Johnston-Leek and Phillip Poulton; cello, Julie Crozier; and bassoon, Del Jensen; first trumpet, Nicholas Kelly; second trumpet:, Sam Hathway; and timpani, Jamie Nuss
Phillip Gearing shares his belief of music’s place in liturgy on the St Luke’s website http://www.stlukestoowoomba.org.au/. Here is part of it …..
“We know from the Bible that God also values music. In the book of Chronicles we learn that the musicians engaged for the temple were skilled musicians, and that their participation in the temple activities was integral to the worship. Job 38:7 tells us that music was involved in the very act of creation.
This was not a concert performance – but a Communion Mass. Schubert wrote this, his second Mass, in only six days during March 1815. He was then only 18 – it was the song for worship of a young man, no more than a boy really.
Under St Luke’s stunning stained glass windows in front of the austere altar, Phillip Gearing, Director of Music, superb organist, and respected USQ Senior lecturer with his 10 musicians and St Luke’s choir reached to the heights of the arches
How such a small musical force could create such compelling sound and lyricism is in itself an almost spiritual mystery. Assisted of course by rigorous rehearsal and personal gifts. Schubert’s youthful trios had exquisite sound -- with Amy Seligmann’s pure young soprano, Nick Kirkup’s tenor, and guest singer Dominic Walsh also singing the solos.
Thirteen years later, Schubert wrote his last and much grander Mass – E flat major – for the dedication of the Holy Trinity Church of Alsergrund – but sadly did not live to hear it performed in October 1828, He died aged only 31.
I have heard CDs of the Mass, one of the finest with Claudio Abbado, the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera chorus. This is a huge performance – too huge I feel for Schubert’s gentle song.
But with the innate youth of the G Major Mass, Gearing’s perfection at St Luke’s has an intensely intimate reach which Abbado’s magnificence somehow misses.
The St Luke’s little orchestra – Capella di Luca - was made up of school music students, USQ music students and community members brought together for the performance. They should be recognised and praised:
First violin, Lisa Dalgleish; second violins, Eileen Munro and Michael Poulton; violas, Kylie Johnston-Leek and Phillip Poulton; cello, Julie Crozier; and bassoon, Del Jensen; first trumpet, Nicholas Kelly; second trumpet:, Sam Hathway; and timpani, Jamie Nuss
Phillip Gearing shares his belief of music’s place in liturgy on the St Luke’s website http://www.stlukestoowoomba.org.au/. Here is part of it …..
“We know from the Bible that God also values music. In the book of Chronicles we learn that the musicians engaged for the temple were skilled musicians, and that their participation in the temple activities was integral to the worship. Job 38:7 tells us that music was involved in the very act of creation.
“At St Luke’s we aim to reflect these attributes in selecting good quality music and in striving to sing “with the spirit and with understanding”, that is, to perform the music with technical accomplishment as well as an awareness of the importance of our ministry to the congregation of worshippers.”
Franz Schubert, at the end of his 31 creative years, left worldly property of the tiniest value but a huge mass of the loveliest music – more than, if it were not for the devotion of fine musicians like Phillip Gearing, that our small world would ever have the chance to come to know.
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