The Divine Artistry of Johann Sebastian Bach 10 of His Greatest Choruses

by Georg Predota

Johann Sebastian Bach’s music stands as a towering monument in Western music. While countless composers have written exceptional choral music, Bach’s greatest choruses intertwine technical perfection and profound emotional resonance to create moments of transcendent beauty.

Portrait of J.S. Bach

Christmas Oratorio   

Bach’s choruses are not merely perfect technical exercises but living expressions of human devotion, of joy and sorrow, and of awe. Every chorus pulses with intricate counterpoint, vibrant harmonies, and a transcendent ability to connect with something much greater.

To commemorate Bach’s death on 28 July 1750, let us celebrate his life by featuring 10 of his greatest choruses, starting with the opening chorus from the Christmas Oratorio. It bursts forth with an exultant energy that feels like the heavens themselves are rejoicing.

The vibrant timpani rolls and blazing trumpets create a majestic, almost overwhelming wave of sound, as if heralding the arrival of divine light. The choir’s jubilant voices weave through Bach’s intricate counterpoint, each line soaring with unbridled joy and reverence, inviting the listener into a sacred celebration that transcends time.

It’s a moment of awe, where the grandeur of music and spiritual depth converge to proclaim eternal hope.

Reformation Glory

A postcard featuring Johann Sebastian Bach

Composed for Reformation Day, “A might fortress is our God” is one of Bach’s most powerful and intricately constructed choral works. The cantata draws on Martin Luther’s iconic hymn, a cornerstone of the Lutheran tradition that celebrates God’s unyielding strength and protection against spiritual and worldly adversaries.

The opening chorus burst forth with an electrifying energy. The choir enters with a commanding declaration before breaking into intricate counterpoint. This creates a sense of unity and strength, with the unshakable foundation of the hymn melody surrounded by layers of complexity symbolising the multifaceted nature of faith.

The emotional resonance of this chorus lies in its ability to balance grandeur with intimacy. While the intensity of the music evokes the image of a cosmic battle, Bach also projects moments of exquisite tenderness, creating a fleeting sense of warmth and reassurance. This chorus is a spiritual journey with all of humanity united in a final, triumphant cadence.

Plea for Peace   

The “Dona nobis pacem” chorus, which closes Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor, is a profound and awe-inspiring culmination of one of the greatest works in Western music. It emerges as a fervent plea for peace, its majestic simplicity and emotional resonance encapsulating an unbelievable spiritual and musical journey.

Bach employs a double fugue that weaves together two distinct themes. A broad and soaring melody is combined with a more intricate and rhythmic idea, making the tapestry of sound feel both universal and deeply personal.

This fugue structure, with its intricate interplay of voices, showcases Bach’s unparalleled technical skill. Yet, the technical complexity never overshadows the heartfelt supplication of the text. The repeated phrase “Grant us peace” is delivered with a rhythmic insistence that actually feels like a heartbeat, grounding the music in a deeply human appeal.

Jubilant Proclamation

J.S. Bach featured on a stamp design

The opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata BWV 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life), is a radiant and jubilant proclamation of faith, composed in 1723 during Bach’s first year in Leipzig. The chorus bursts forth with an infectious vitality that perfectly embodies the cantata’s theme of wholehearted devotion.

Bach’s masterful interplay of voices and instruments creates a soundscape that feels both majestic and intimate, inviting the listener into a profound expression of spiritual commitment. Structurally, the chorus is a choral fantasia, built around a chorale tune placed in the soprano as long and sustained notes.

The other voices engage in intricate, imitative counterpoint, weaving a web of motivic interplay that reflects the text’s call to every aspect of life to testify to faith. The emotional resonance of the chorus lies in its balance of exuberance and sincerity. The text’s emphasis on holistic devotion is mirrored in the music’s all-encompassing energy, with each vocal and instrumental line contributing to a unified expression of faith.

Splendour and Sorrow    

Composed in 1724 for Good Friday services in Leipzig, the opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion “Lord our Ruler,” erupts with tempestuous energy. One of Bach’s most dramatic and emotionally charged works, its swirling orchestral textures and urgent vocal lines beautifully capture the profound reverence of the Passion narrative.

Bach’s music masterfully balances awe for Christ’s divine majesty with an undercurrent of sorrow for the impending crucifixion, creating a soundscape that is both regal and deeply human. The orchestra, with its driving strings, plaintive oboes, and pulsing continuo, sets a restless, almost turbulent tone, while the choir’s powerful entrance amplifies the sense of cosmic significance, drawing the listener into the sacred drama.

Bach constructs this chorus as a complex, quasi-fugal edifice, with the voices entering in waves of imitative counterpoint that mirror the text’s invocation of Christ’s eternal glory. He uses dark and expressive minor tonalities with chromatic inflexions and dissonant suspensions to heighten the emotional impact. It all culminates in a radiant cadence, however, as Bach assures us of divine triumph.

Triumphant Awakening  

The Triumphant Awakening of Bach’s opening chorus from the cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, is a radiant and exhilarating call to spiritual vigilance. Inspired by the parable of the wise virgins awaiting the bridegroom, the chorus bursts forth with a sense of urgency and joy.

The majestic orchestral introduction is driven by a lively dotted rhythm, and the soaring melodic lines evoke a divine summons. The orchestra, featuring strings, oboes, and a prominent horn, creates a festive, almost ceremonial atmosphere, with syncopated rhythms and fanfare-like figures that pulse with expectancy.

Here, as elsewhere, Bach seamlessly blends grandeur and intimacy, with the cosmic significance of Christ’s arrival balanced by lyrical moments that evoke personal devotion. As voices and instruments unite in a triumphant close, the music becomes a stirring summons to spiritual awakening, its exuberance and craftsmanship leaving listeners uplifted by Bach’s vision of divine anticipation.

Defiant Joy

Bach’s statue in Leipzig

The opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata BWV 4, Christ Lay in Death’s Bonds, is a gripping and jubilant proclamation of Christ’s victory over death. Based on the Easter hymn by Martin Luther, the stark yet radiant orchestration establishes a tone of both solemnity and exultation.

The text celebrates the Resurrection, and Bach’s music captures this duality with a masterful blend of archaic severity and vibrant optimism. Luther’s hymn melody is woven through the texture in long, sustained notes, serving as an anchor of faith amidst the intricate polyphony of the other voices.

The minor tonality lends a sombre, almost austere quality, reflecting the gravity of Christ’s sacrifice, but Bach infuses it with bright, major-key inflexions at key moments, particularly when the text symbolises the light of resurrection. It is a cosmic affirmation of life over death.

Celestial Joy   

The opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata BWV 1, How Brightly Shines the Morning Star is a jubilant celebration of Christ, who brings divine light to humanity. This chorus bursts forth with an effervescent energy, its orchestral introduction featuring a sparkling interplay that evokes the shimmering brilliance of a starlit dawn.

The text, based on Philipp Nicolai’s 1599 hymn, exudes joy and hope, and Bach’s music amplifies this with a festive, almost dance-like vitality. The choir’s proclamation radiates warmth and devotion, drawing us into a moment of spiritual awe and exultation.

As in his other choral fantasias, Bach presents the hymn melody in long and sustained notes in the soprano, while the lower voice weaves intricate counterpoint that pulses with energy and delight. The festive scale of the music conveys the cosmic significance, while tender vocal interplay evokes personal devotion. It is a radiant testament to Bach’s ability to translate theological joy into sounds of transcendent beauty.

Heavenly Exultation  

The opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata BWV 191, Gloria in excelsis Deo, is a resplendent and jubilant outburst of praise. This chorus radiates with a festive brilliance, its orchestral texture ablaze with trumpets, timpani, flutes, oboes, and strings that create a sonic tapestry of divine celebration.

Bach captures the text drawn from the Latin Mass with an irrepressible energy that feels like a heavenly fanfare. From the opening measures, the orchestra establishes a mood of unrestrained joy, while the entrance of the choir as a unifying and exultant force draws us into a moment of awe-inspired worship.

This masterful choral fugue showcases Bach’s unparalleled skill in blending technical complexity with emotional accessibility. The interplay of voices and instruments is seamless, and the balance between grandeur and heartfelt devotion culminates in a radiant and triumphant universal hymn of praise. What an unbelievable vision of divine glory!

Divine Innocence    

The opening chorus of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, is a monumental and deeply moving introduction to one of the most profound works in Western music. Set in the minor key, this chorus immediately immerses the listener in the Passion’s dramatic and emotional landscape, blending heart-wrenching sorrow with awe-inspiring grandeur.

The orchestral introduction, with its pulsating, syncopated rhythms and mournful string lines, evokes the weight of impending tragedy, with the entrance of the choir imploring the daughters of Zion to join in lamentation.

It’s pure genius, as Bach actually employs two choirs engaging in a dialogic interplay, their voices weaving together in a dense, imitative texture that reflects the communal mourning of Christ’s sacrifice. The emotional power lies in Bach’s ability to balance raw sorrow with transcendent majesty, setting the stage for the Passions’ profound exploration of sacrifice and salvation.

Bonus Chorus

It’s impossible to design a playlist of Bach’s 10 greatest Choruses without the serene devotion of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Part of Cantata BWV 147, it is one of Bach’s most beloved and enduring works as it exquisitely balances simplicity with sophistication.

The choir’s straightforward presentation of the chorale melody, with its clear, hymn-like phrasing, anchors the movement in a direct expression of faith, while the orchestra’s continuous, lilting triplet figures add a layer of delicate complexity, symbolising the constant presence of divine grace.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s 10 greatest choruses stand as towering testaments to his unparalleled genius, blending technical virtuosity with profound emotional and spiritual resonance. His mastery of counterpoint, innovative orchestration, and expressive harmonies creates a timeless dialogue between faith and artistry, affirming Bach as one of history’s greatest musical architects.

On This Day 18 July: Kurt Masur Was Born

by Georg Predota

Kurt Masur, 1968

For well over three decades, Kurt Masur was one of the world’s most celebrated conductors, having established an international reputation as “a sensitive and innovative interpreter of the Classical and Romantic repertoire, specifically Mendelssohn, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.” He was also known as the most prominent musician from communist East Germany. Masur never joined the Communist Party, and he was a thorn in the side of communist leadership. Masur declined repeated offers to leave East Germany, and instead became actively involved in the cause for freedom. In 1989, growing anti-government protests shook the city of Leipzig, and Masur publically criticized the violence by riot police against the demonstrators. On 9 October 1989, he read a public appeal for freedom of discussion in the socialist state. His appeal is widely regarded as helping convince Leipzig police to disregard orders from Berlin and allowed the protests to continue. “In the same century that saw two world wars, I was witness to a peaceful revolution,” he told reporters. The Berlin Wall fell in 1990 and led to the reunification of Germany, with Masur mentioned as a possible candidate for the German presidency. He declined, “I am a musician, not a politician,” he said. “I was only one among many people who overcame their fear.” 

Interior of the Gewandhaus, 1886

Kurt Masur was born on 18 July 1927 in the city of Brieg, Silesia, now Brzeg, Poland. His father was an electrician, and he was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps. However, it became clear early on that his true passion and happiness lay in music. He taught himself to play the piano as a young child, and initially studied piano and cello at the Landesmusikschule in Breslau. Once he returned from conscription to the Second World War, he entered the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig and studied composition and piano. However, Masur quickly specialized in conducting, “despite suffering from a nervous stutter.” He discontinued his studies in order to take up the position of répétiteur and staff conductor at the Halle Landestheater in 1948 and was subsequently first Kapellmeister at the city theatres of Erfurt and Leipzig, and conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Komische Oper of East Berlin. In 1970 Masur received the crowing appointment of his early career: music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a position he would hold for 26 years. 

Kurt Masur laying the foundation stone of the current Gewandhaus

In the early 1970s, Leipzig was the industrial center of the communist run German Democratic Republic. The city’s main concert hall, the fabled Gewandhaus had been completely destroyed during the Second World War, and it had not been rebuilt nor restored. During his first year of tenure in Leipzig, the Gewandhausorchester was housed in a convention hall near the city’s zoological garden. Masur recalled, “When the music was quieter you could hear the lions roar…we were on the verge of embarrassing ourselves.”

Modern Gewandhaus, 1981

Masur made it his mission for his orchestra to be taken seriously, and he wrote to Erich Honecker, the leader of the GDR’s ruling Socialist Party. Masur campaigned for a new concert hall and recognizing the cultural and symbolic importance of the Leipzig Orchestra, the GDR leader authorized the construction of a new venue. The “Neue Gewandhaus” was opened in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the orchestra taking up residence in the original Gewandhaus, on 9 October 1981. While in Leipzig Masur was credited with restoring a vanished glory to that ensemble and city’s musical life, “and made recordings of Beethoven (including a complete cycle of the symphonies), Mendelssohn, Bruckner, and Brahms, praised for their clarity, unforced expressiveness, and warm, cultivated sonorities.”  

Kurt Masur and his family, 1981

Despite the political challenges, Masur was allowed to take his orchestra on international tours, culminating in a performance at Carnegie Hall in 1974. The visit turned out to be prophetic as Masur was named the music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1991. As in Leipzig, Masur was charged with rebuilding the orchestra from the ground up. The ensemble, once considered one of the premiere American orchestras, “had devolved into a lackluster group: critically skewered, internally contentious and lacking clear artistic vision.” A critic wrote, “Before Mr. Masur arrived, the Philharmonic’s reputation was justly at a low point. Audiences were disenchanted. The players had long been unhappy; recording engagements were hard to come by, and radio broadcasts were nonexistent. Symphonic music was becoming less important to the culture of New York. The orchestra’s status had so fallen that the director’s post was rejected by major maestros.” A former concertmaster explained in 2012, “He was just so demanding and intense, and by the sheer intensity of his personality, it sorts of transformed most of us.” Masur’s tenure with the New York Philharmonic represents “one of its golden eras, in which music-making was infused with commitment and devotion, with the belief in the power of music to bring humanity closer together.” Masur once famously said, “If every school would hire two more music teachers, we would need two fewer police officers on the streets.”

Debussy’s Wives: Rosalie Texier and Emma Bardac

By Georg Predota

Debussy

As far as women were concerned, Claude Debussy was a bastard! “There was a woman at each crossroad of Debussy’s life,” Marcel Dietschy writes. “Certainly women of all ages seemed fascinated by him, and they attached themselves to him like ivy to a wall.” In turn, he drove two women towards attempted suicides with revolvers, and was completely incapable of selfless love for anyone except his daughter. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Once he had separated from Gaby, he was deadly afraid to be alone. And so he found Rosalie Lilly Texier, a beautiful mannequin, whom he first met in the spring of 1899. “She is unbelievably fair and pretty, like some character from an old legend,” he writes. “Her favourite song is a roundelay about a grenadier with a red face who wears a hat on one side like an old campaigner, not very provoking aesthetically… She does not have much up top.” Gaby warned Lilly of Debussy’s extracurricular activities, and although Lilly hesitated before saying her “I do,” the couple got married on 19 October 1899. Apparently, Debussy had threatened to kill himself if she refused to marry him. Erik Satie witnessed the happy occasion, and Debussy paid for the wedding breakfast with proceeds from a piano lesson he had given that morning. 

Debussy and his wife Lilly

The dedication to “Sirenes” from his Nocturnes reads, “This manuscript belongs to my little Lilly-Lilo. All rights reserved. It is proof of the deep and passionate joy I feel at being her husband.” The couple enjoyed three years of happiness, with Lilly devotedly supportive of Debussy, jealously guarding his privacy and remaining content to live in poverty in his shadow. By all accounts, she was “affectionate, practical, straightforward and well-liked by Debussy’s friends and associates.” However, he soon found her unstimulating and overly possessive. And one slowly increasing source of disappointment was her inability to bear children. By 1903, married life had begun to lose its luster. He secretly admitted that her “voice and shrill laughter grated on his nerves.” At age 30 she was aging prematurely, developing jowls and her eyes becoming ever more “doe-like.” Still childless and sometimes short of money, in his correspondence with others Lilly became “my poor wife.” Debussy was clearly bored with Lilly.    

Debussy and Emma Bardac

Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac was no stranger to extra-marital affairs. Her liaison with Gabriel Fauré had inspired the song-cycle La bonne chanson in the early 1890s. Debussy first met her on 1 October 1903, and their friendship developed rapidly during the early months of 1904. Thanking her for some flowers, Debussy wrote “I am made profoundly happy by your thought… Forgive me if I have kissed all these flowers as though they formed a human mouth.” Bardac was sophisticated, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. On 15 July, Debussy put Lilly on a train to her parents in Bichain, and secretly took Bardac to Jersey for a holiday. For all the passion, Debussy still had to tell Lilly that he was moving out. Lilly threatened suicide at least four times, but on the eve of their fifth wedding anniversary, she went to the Place de la Concorde, pointed a revolver at herself and fired. She survived, but the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. Mary Garden reports, “And laying underneath Lilly’s left breast was a round dark hole where the bullet had gone in, without touching anything vital… That little token of her love for Claude Debussy stayed with her until she died in 1932.” Debussy never visited Lilly at the clinic, nor did he pay her bills. By now, he was a public figure and Lilly’s attempted suicide received coverage in every newspaper in the city. The scandal alienated a number of friends, with Fauré refusing to speak to him. By 2 August 1905 his divorce from Lilly was finalized, and since Paris had become unbearable for Debussy and Emma, they left for England.   

Debussy and Chouchou

Before departing, Debussy wrote to a friend, “You should know how many people have deserted me. It is enough to make one sick of everyone called man… Morally, I have suffered terribly… I don’t know, but I’ve often had to smile so that no one should see that I was going to cry.” Emma was by now seven months pregnant, and Claude Emma Debussy — known to all as Chouchou — was born on 30 October 1905 back in Paris. Debussy was besotted with his Chouchou, but life wasn’t entirely idyllic, as Emma’s uncle, the financier Osiris, had disinherited her in his will. The Lilly scandal still haunted them, and it even reached the stage in a thinly disguised melodrama by Henry Bataille called La femme nue. Debussy married Emma on 20 January 1908, but once again, married life was not agreeable. Emma was frequently ill, constantly possessive and extravagant, and far less easy to pacify than the devoted Lilly had been. Debussy frequently retreated to the sanctuary of his study and wrote notes to Emma in preference to actually having a conversation. During a matrimonial crisis in 1910, Emma actually wrote to her lawyer to enquire about a trial separation as she came to despise his “inaction, continued indiscretions, moral cowardice, self-pity and much-vaunted hypersensitivity.” Debussy, of course was acutely aware of his failings as he wrote, “in everyday life I stumble over the smallest pebble, which another man would send flying with a light-hearted kick.” Art, it seems, was his one and only lover.

Slave Pianist Sensation: “Blind Tom”

By Georg Predota 

“Blind Tom,” as he was generally known, was born into slavery in Columbus, Georgia in 1848. He was sold with his family during infancy to General James Neil Bethune, a country lawyer and newspaper publisher. The blind child was considered mentally impaired, but one day he crawled to the piano and started playing one of the pieces the General’s daughter was practicing. The General quickly recognized the musical aptitude of his young charge—not to mention the possibility of making serious money—and started Tom on lessons.

Blind Tom at the piano

By the tender age of five, Tom apparently composed his first tune and barely a year later he was performing publically throughout Georgia. Recognizing the commercial value of the autistic savant, Blind Tom was hired out to the travelling showman and concert promoter Perry Oliver. He was advertised as “a gorgon with angel’s wings,” emphasizing the transformation from animal to artist. A member of the audience wrote, “Before the audience’s very eyes, Tom would stop twitching and rocking. His blank open-mouthed expression would vanish. He would sweep his hands over the keys with the air of a master and draw the most beautiful, heartfelt music from the instrument. I am astounded. I cannot account for it, no one can, and no one understands it.”

Blind Tom and General Bethund

Blind Tom’s Wellenklange

Tom had the ability to reproduce complex musical scores after a single hearing, and over time his repertoire included several thousand works. Besides American and European vernacular music, he also played pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Liszt, and well as over a hundred of his own compositions! A good number of his compositions, at Tom’s insistence, were published under the pseudonyms, “François Sexalise,” “Prof. W. F. Raymond,” “J.C. Beckel,” and “C.T. Messengale.”

His legendary performances were soon the talk of the nation—he had also been taken on a European concert tour—and he was summoned to the White House to play for President James Buchanan. Tom’s annual earnings from his concerts amounted to a staggering $100,000 dollars, making him the most highly paid pianist of the 19th century! Blind Tom’s life and incredible musical ability caught the imagination of various authors, including Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Willa Cather who wrote, “Tom is a human phonograph, a sort of animated memory, with sound producing power.”

More recently he has been the subject of scholarly studies, documentaries, novels, poems, motion pictures and even a 2013 song by Elton John entitled, “The Ballad of Blind Tom.”

On This Day 9 May: Anne Sofie von Otter Was Born

by Georg Predota  

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 9 May 1955, Anne Sofie von Otter is one of the finest singers of her generation. Internationally recognised as a concert and recital singer of exceptional gifts, von Otter has built an incomparable catalogue of recordings. Her ever-evolving repertoire and versatility have seen her branch out into the world of opera, jazz, rock, and pop songs. 

Beatles and Cat Stevens

Anne Sofie von Otter

Her father Göran von Otter was a Swedish diplomat in Berlin during World War II, and Anne Sofie grew up in Bonn, London, and Stockholm. She knew absolutely nothing about classical music and cared even less. “I couldn’t tell the difference between a tenor or a bass, or between Bach and Mahler,” she explained in an interview. Growing up in comfortable surroundings, von Otter took obligatory piano lessons, but she was really into pop and rock music.

She loved the Beatles above all, but also Cat Stevens, Judy Collins and Crosby, Stills and Nash. “It was the nice tidy pop,” she greatly enjoyed. “The Rolling Stones were not for me.” Later, a friend introduced her to fusion jazz, which she thought was very daring at the time. However, she really loved the ballet, especially the Tchaikovsky ballets she attended in Stockholm and later in London, where her father was the Swedish Consul General for five years.

Dashing Music Teacher

Von Otter’s biggest dream as a child was to become a ballerina, and she did take dance classes.
As she once disclosed, “I was terribly disappointed when I realized that I could not do it.” Singing wasn’t even on the radar until her last two years of high school in Sweden when a dashing young music teacher took over the chorus, “and I just had to sign up.” She didn’t know anything about singing and had no experience of going to the opera. “It took me a while to understand,” she remembers, “that I had a gift for singing.”

However, as von Otter explained in an interview, “I always wanted to use the voice in a natural way, so classical singing, with all that it implies, for me was very strange. I didn’t like vibrato. It was horrifying. Whenever I sang in my teens it was with my natural voice.” Von Otter became a dedicated choir singer, learning to read music and different styles, from Baroque to Contemporary. She certainly never had any fantasies about becoming an opera singer at all, as she was “very self-conscious, nervous, and very shy.” 

Studying Under Vera Rózsa

Vera Rózsa

Von Otter sang in a number of choruses, always in the soprano section. “But it was killing my voice,” she said. “I wanted to be a soprano, and it was hurting, so what could I do?” She started taking singing lessons and her singing teacher told her, “You are not a soprano, you are a mezzo.” She won a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and studied with the legendary Hungarian teacher, Vera Rózsa. Her insight into a singer’s voice and technique was famous, and after listening for just a couple of bars, she immediately knew what exercise was needed.

For von Otter, the contrast between Rózsa’s high-energy and the more laid-back approach of her Swedish singing teachers was striking. Rózsa quickly undid some of the damage to von Otter’s voice, and she instilled in her the mantra that a good singer needs, “artistic temperament, concentration, dramatic ability, personality, good taste, and total devotion to the profession. An artist needs a heart on fire and a brain on ice.”

Shift to Opera

Rózsa organised a repertoire of operatic roles for von Otter and suggested that she audition for a position in an opera house. Von Otter was not enthusiastic, as “I didn’t want to be a soloist. I wanted to sing and I didn’t mind people hearing my voice individually but I would rather be up the back of a choir than have them look at me because that was embarrassing.” She certainly did not want to be in the spotlight, and the transformation to the stage did not come naturally.

At that time, von Otter still made a living from singing in a number of choirs in Stockholm, including the cathedral choir, the radio choir, and the Bach choir, and she made enough money to survive. She never dreamt of standing on the operatic stage, but her manager and agent, a little against her will, urged her to audition, and she was quickly snapped up by Basel Opera, making her debut in 1983. “I got my first job,” she recalled, “and indeed it was good for me. It developed me as a performer and my understanding of what I was singing about.”

5 May 1891: Opening Night at Carnegie Hall

by Georg Predota  

New York audiences and music lovers were treated to a momentous occasion in May 1891. Specifically, they witnessed the inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall, a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 5 May 1891. Carnegie Hall would soon rise to become one of the most prestigious venues in the world of music.

Carnegie Hall in 1895

The vision of a dedicated Music Hall was the brainchild of Leopold Damrosch, conductor of the Oratorio Society of New York and the New York Symphony Society. His son Walter, who met the businessman Andrew Carnegie during his studies in Germany, carried Leopold’s vision forward. Eventually, he was able to convince Carnegie to donate 2 million dollars and the Oratorio Society and New York Symphony bought nine lots at the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 57th Street.

Andrew Carnegie

They approached architect William Burnet Tuthill, a talented amateur cellist and board member of the Oratorio Society to design the Music Hall. Tuthill had engaged in extensive studies of European concert halls, and he brought his experience with acoustics to bear on the Carnegie Hall project.

“Old Hundred” arr. Vaughan Williams 

Designed in a modified Italian Renaissance style, the cornerstone for the Music Hall was laid by Carnegie’s wife Louise on 13 May 1890. Within the next 12 months, the original five-story brick and limestone building “containing a 3,000-seat main hall and several smaller rooms for rehearsals, lectures, concerts, and art exhibitions,” began to take shape. Andrew Carnegie said, “It is built to stand for ages, and during these ages, it is probable that this Hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.” The Recital Hall opened in March 1891, and the Oratorio Hall in the basement opened on 1 April 1891. The Music Hall officially opened on 5 May 1891, starting a five-day Opening Week Festival.

William Burnet Tuthill

Contemporary reports write of “horse-drawn carriages lining up for a quarter-mile outside, while inside the Main Hall was jammed to capacity.” Conductor Walter Damrosch led the New York Symphony Orchestra and the Oratorio Society on Opening Night, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had been engaged for a guest appearance. He was apparently paid $5,000 for his service, which in today’s money equates to roughly $150K. 

A contemporary eyewitness reports, “People are swarming everywhere trying to get into this magnificent hall. The architecture is absolutely gorgeous with a façade made of terra cotta and iron-spotted brick. I manage to get inside where the main hall is jammed to capacity. I look around to see that the magnificent architecture extends to the inside as well. I looked up at the boxes to see the Rockefellers, Whitneys, Sloans, and Fricks families. I find my seat, smooth my dress, and sit down.”

Carnegie Hall Opening Festival poster

The program opened with the hymn “Old Hundred,” a tune from the second edition of the Genevan Psalter. It is considered one of the best-known melodies in the Western Christian musical tradition, and it was the first work transmitted by telephone during Graham Bell’s first demo at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1876. Bishop Henry Codman Potter delivered a lengthy speech praising Carnegie’s philanthropy. Walter Damrosch entered the stage and the hall erupted in applause. The New York Symphony played “America,” and Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3. A member of the audience reported, “The acoustics are even better than I could imagine.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Marche solennelle 

Then it was Tchaikovsky’s turn. In his diary, he writes, “In a crowded carriage I reached the Music Hall. Illuminate and packed with the public, it made an exceptionally striking and grandiose impression…The pastor gave a long and, it was said, exceptionally tedious speech, and after this, there was a very good performance of the Leonore Overture. Interval. I went downstairs. Excitement. My turn came. I was received very noisily. The march (Marche solennelle) went off beautifully. A great success! I listened to the rest of the concert from Hyde’s box. Berlioz’s “Te Deum” was rather tedious; it was only at the end that I really began to enjoy it.”

Ticket from the Opening Night at Carnegie Hall

Tchaikovsky was also less than enthusiastic about the review he read in the papers the next day. As he records in his diary, “Tchaikovsky is a tall, gray well built interesting man, well on the sixty?!!! He seems a trifle embarrassed and responds to the applause with a succession of brusque and jerky bows. But as soon as he grips the baton his self-confidence returns.”

Carnegie Hall at night

Tchaikovsky was rather annoyed and added, “It makes me angry that they not only write about music, but about me personally. I cannot bear it when they comment on my embarrassment, and marvel at my brusque and jerky bows.” Tchaikovsky did not have much time to ponder the review, as he was in the audience at the second concert, which featured Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah.”