All Saints Choirs Take On Beethoven and Vaughan Williams in Spring Concert

A melody that would evolve into the most famous hymn to joy in Western music got its first outing not in a symphony hall, but in a marathon concert in Vienna in 1808, tucked inside a piece Beethoven dashed off as a finale. More than two centuries later, it will be heard again in a Pasadena church.

The Canterbury and Coventry choirs of All Saints Church will perform Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem at their annual spring concert on Sunday, June 7, at 5:00 p.m. The Choral Fantasy, a work for piano, chorus, and orchestra, contains a melody widely recognized as a forerunner to the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The church says the piece has never been performed at All Saints before. Grace Chung, the church’s Associate Organist-Choirmaster, will be the piano soloist.

The program moves from celebration to contemplation. Beethoven composed the Choral Fantasy in 1808 as a grand finale for a concert that also premiered his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The work begins with an extended piano solo — Beethoven himself improvised it at the premiere — before the orchestra and chorus enter with variations on the theme that would, 16 years later, become the foundation of the Ninth Symphony’s finale. The text concludes with an affirmation that when love and power unite, God’s grace descends on humankind.

The second half turns to Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, composed in 1936 as Europe moved toward war. The cantata, scored for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus, and orchestra, draws on poems by Walt Whitman, passages from the Bible, and the Latin Mass to build a sustained plea for peace. It was commissioned for the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society in England and premiered that October, three years before the outbreak of World War II.

Chung, who holds degrees from La Sierra University, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Southern California, serves as Associate Organist-Choirmaster at All Saints, according to the church’s website. In addition to performing, she has had compositions published by Jubal House and Hinshaw Music.

The Canterbury and Coventry choirs, both auditioned ensembles, together comprise more than 100 singers, according to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has performed with them. The choirs have appeared at Walt Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic and have performed for the American Choral Directors Association and the American Guild of Organists. They are led by Weicheng Zhao, the church’s Director of Music and Organist-Choirmaster.

The concert is at All Saints Church, 132 North Euclid Avenue, Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 583-2733 or visit allsaints-pas.org.

The last time Beethoven played the Choral Fantasy’s opening solo, he made it up on the spot. Chung will have a score. The melody, though, is one he spent a lifetime refining — from a song about returned love, to a concert finale, to the most recognized theme in classical music. On June 7, it stops in Pasadena.