Delcina Stevenson - Bach: O holder Tag (Wedding Cantata

Описание: THE SONGBIRD: American soprano Delcina Stevenson graduated from Kansas University, but based her career on the West Coast after moving there in 1960. In 1964 she was the winner of the Young Musicians Foundation of Los Angeles annual competition. She attended the Mereola Program and in 1966 won the San Francisco Opera Auditions. She sang with the San Francisco Fall Opera Company for three seasons, and was engaged for the Ojai Festival, Carmel Bach Festival, Hollywood Bowl, and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. In San Diego, she stepped in as Desdemona for Teresa Stratas with only six hours notice in a concert performance of Verdi's "Otello." She became a member of the Los Angeles Vocal Arts Ensemble, formed in 1979.

THE MUSIC: "O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit" BWV 210 is a festive secular cantata for solo soprano by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was composed in Leipzig for a wedding in about 1744. The words center on the relationship of music and marital love, ending in praise of the bridegroom as a supporter of music. It's an extremely long piece of well over 30 minutes if all the da cape repeats are performed. The five movements, each introduced by a recitative, use different instrumentation to ensure variety in spite of only one singing voice. Bach's music is demanding for the soprano with a high tessitura that hovers in the range of High A and regularly rises above that to High Bs and even two High C-sharps (potentially the highest note Bach wrote for soprano?).