ON the Beat |
Season’s Soundings
“Hallelujah Project” Paves the Way for This Weekend’s Christmas Bounty
This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on December 15, 2022. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
In a world where things have had a habit of going wrong, we have special appreciation when things seem to go very right. And so it went at the Santa Barbara Choral Society’s eighth annual “Hallelujah Project” at the Lobero on Saturday night. Even the rain gods cooperated, lending a splash of wet, wintry atmosphere outside.
In the serious musical center of the variety show was JS Bach’s Cantata 191, “Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the Highest)” a Christmas opus written in 1742, and with material that later appeared in Bach’s legendary Mass in B minor. It is a profound expression of the religious raison d’être of the season, beautifully and fully rendered by the Jo Anne Wasserman-directed chorus and orchestra, right up to the triumphant finale.
