The Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Chestnut Hill.

by Michael Caruso

The Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Chestnut Hill, will host its final musical event of the season Friday, June 17, 7 p.m. The combined choirs of St. Martin’s Church and Old Christ Episcopal Church, Old City, will perform a musical setting of the Requiem Mass for the Dead in memory of the victims of the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, on the one-year anniversary of their deaths. This musical setting of the Requiem was composed by Parker Kitterman, the music director at Christ Church. In light of the recent carnage in Orlando, Florida, the event assumes an even greater sense of relevance.

Speaking of the score, St. Martin’s music director Erik Meyer said, “Parker’s compositional style is remarkable. At times the piece sounds like Maurice Durufle or Gabriel Faure (two French composers of the post-romantic and romantic eras, respectively), and then it will seamlessly move into a Gospel style. It has the traditional Gregorian chants from the Latin liturgy of the Requiem Mass set against an English translation of the same text sung in the two styles simultaneously.”

I’ve encountered some of Kitterman’s music in joint ecumenical services celebrated by the choirs of his church and mine, Old St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church (Jesuit), Society Hill, under the leadership of our former music director, Normand Gouin. Because of that prior experience, I’m looking forward to hearing this work for the first time.

BALANCHINE & BEYOND

The Pennsylvania Ballet closed out its 2015-16 season with a program entitled “Balanchine and Beyond.” It was performed at the Merriam Theater June 9-12. I caught the June 12, Sunday afternoon matinee and came away all the more impressed with the work accomplished by the company’s new artistic director, Angel Corella. The program of four ballets worked well, not the least because it was exceedingly well danced.

The program was bookended by its finest works: “Adagio Hammerklavier,” choreographed by Hans van Manen to the second movement of Beethoven’s “'Hammerklavier' Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major” to open; and “The Four Temperaments,” choreographed by George to Paul Hindemith’s “Theme with Four Variations for Piano & String Orchestra” to close. In between fell “O zlozony/O composite,” choreographed by Trisha Brown to music by Laurie Anderson, and “Varied Trio (in four),” choreographed by Jean-Pierre Frohlsich to music by Lou Harrison.

That Balanchine’s “The Four Temperaments” should have come across more efficaciously than all the rest came as no surprise to me. Balanchine fashioned his choreography not merely to how the music sounds but to how it feels. He was, thereby, able to open up the emotional essence and structural architecture of the score. He gave his dancers at his own New York City Ballet such clarity of movement, gesture and inflection that it enabled them to project his visualization of the music to their audiences.

All four movements of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata are masterpieces, and they come together to form the greatest piano sonata ever composed. The slow, second movement Adagio could very well be the most profoundly moving piece of music ever composed for the instrument and Hans van Manen’s choreography captures its depth of feeling and releases its soaring spirituality in equal parts. It’s particularly difficult to dance, though, because its incredibly slow pace requires a daunting degree of both muscular control and intense musicality.