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Archived News Spring, 2005: ACS is Proud to Present our Spring Performance, Music for Royal Occasions, Tuesday May 3rd at Athens First Presbyterian Church. The Athens Choral Society invites you to our Spring concert "Music
for a Royal Occasion" on Tuesday May 3rd at 7:30 pm at Athens First
Presbyterian Church, 185 Hancock Ave. in downtown Athens. We will be
performing Mozart's Coronation Mass and Handel's Four Mozart: Kyrie Of the sacred works that Mozart composed in Salzburg none is as well known or as popular as the Mass in C K. 317, popularly referred to as the Coronation Mass. The music is celebratory in nature, and would befit a coronation or Easter Day service perfectly. The soloists are continually employed either as a quartet, in pairs or in solo lines that contrast with the larger forces of the choir. The most stunning examples are the central hushed section of the Credo, and later when the Hosanna section of the Benedictus is well under way, the quartet begins the piece again, seemingly in the wrong place! Handel: Zadok the Priest Handel's first commission as a naturalized Britsh citizen was to write the music for the coronation later that year. The four anthems Handel composed for the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline on 11 October 1727 have never lacked popular favour. Zadok the Priest (with words adapted from the first chapter of the First Book of Kings) opens with a tour de force that no degree of familiarity can stale. The long ritornello, based on rising violin arpeggios over richly spaced repeated chords for lower strings and woodwind, prepares the way for a resplendent climax at the entry of the voices in 7 parts together with the trumpets and drums. The words of Zadok the Priest have been sung at every coronation since that of King Edgar in 973AD, and Handel's setting has been sung at every one since 1727.
* *For entire story, see press.htm
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