Heavenward

The Anglistenchor warmly invites you to two concerts on Saturday, January 24 at 7:00 p.m. at Johanneskirche in Heidelberg-Neuenheim, and on Sunday, January 25 at 7:00 p.m. at Christuskirche in Heidelberg-Weststadt.

Entitled Heavenward, the current programme reflects humanity’s striving and longing for heaven. The path to God, his peace and his security is illuminated from a wide variety of musical perspectives, leading the listener through the highs and lows of the journey of faith.

The concert opens majestically with Josef Rheinberger’s Dein sind die Himmel, celebrating God as Lord of heaven and earth.

In direct contrast to the eternity of God, Rudolf Mauersberger’s Herr, lehre doch mich then focuses on the finiteness of human life. In Im Himmelreich ein Haus steht, Max Reger provides a direct answer to transience by comforting people with the promise of a house with God and giving them hope.

In Gustav Holst’s Nunc dimittis, the servant of the Lord experiences fulfilment through him after his eyes have seen salvation, so that he can now die in peace. The text refers to The Canticle of Simeon from the Gospel of Luke, who, after seeing the Lord in the temple, recognises him as the promised Messiah.

Ernst Pepping’s motet Jesus und Nikodemus draws on the Gospel of John and describes a night-time conversation between the two about rebirth, the Spirit and the light. Here rebirth is seen metaphorically as spiritual renewal – birth from the Spirit – as a necessity for seeing and entering the Kingdom of God. Heaven is seen not only geographically, but as a spiritual reality. Theologically, the text contrasts with Nunc dimittis, where Simeon attains fulfilment by seeing the Lord; here, Nikodemus begins to understand the necessity of his own reflection and rebirth in order to walk the path to the Kingdom of God.

Ich wollt, dass ich daheime wär also expresses the longing and search for eternity, with home symbolising the kingdom of heaven and security in God.

The concert is thematically completed by Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell – a musically varied collection of six motets based on texts by British poets such as Donne, Vaughan and Stevenson, written between 1916 and 1918 during the last phase of the composer’s life. Farewell describes the end of the journey of faith, the beginning of which is described in Jesus and Nikodemus, but also a homecoming that can be done without fear, therefore with certainty and peace.

The musical director is Alexander Albrecht.