One Thing Not To Give Up For Lent: Music

For classical music lovers, living in the New York area is both a blessing and a curse. Without a doubt, the city offers the most variety, and the highest overall quality, of classical music in America.

But at what price? Tickets, transportation, parking—and maybe a babysitter, too—turn a night at a concert in Manhattan into a major fiscal commitment, to say nothing of the time and energy spent getting there and back.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the music came to us?

This Sunday, it does.

Singers Anneliese von Goerken and Tracy Bidleman will perform an ambitious program of works focused on the experiences and emotions of the Virgin Mary, an appropriate subject for Lent, which began two days ago with Ash Wednesday.

“The Mild Mother: Meditations on the Sorrows of Mary” is part of the Concerts at series, which brings classical musicians to Pelham several Sundays a year for Manhattan-quality performances at a fraction of the cost.

The program reaches back to the Baroque era of the 18th Century with Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” but also includes two world premieres, including a piece by Jeffrey Hoffman, the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church, who will play the piano and harpsichord.

The “Stabat Mater” combines a medieval Latin text with the style of Italian Baroque opera.

Considered Pergolesi’s best-known sacred work, the piece “beautifully evokes the sorrows of the Virgin Mary beholding her son, Jesus, as he dies on the cross,” said Hoffman, the artistic director of the concert series.

Also included in the concert is “Hermit Songs,” a song cycle by Samuel Barber, best known for his haunting “Adagio for Strings.”

Written for soprano Leontyne Price, the 10 songs in the cycle are based on anonymous medieval lyrics found in Irish monasteries. They include meditations on solitude, motherhood, sensuality and death.

The two premiere pieces, by Hoffman and Charles Callahan, and “The Mild Mother,” a piece by American composer Ned Rorem, round out the program.

Von Goerken, a soprano, has sung such demanding roles as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne Auf Naxos” and the title character in Donizetti’s “Lucia Di Lammermoor.”

Her recent engagements include recitals in New York, Seattle, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Orleans.

Mezzo-soprano Bidleman is also no stranger to challenging roles, having sung the part of Fiordiligi in Mozart’s “Cosi fan Tutte,” the mother in Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” and Micaela in Bizet’s “Carmen.”  

And she has performed as a soloist at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall.

In addition, both women sing regularly with the Christ Church choir on Sundays.

“The Mild Mother: Meditations on the Sorrows of Mary” is at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 13, at Christ Church, 1415 Pelhamdale Avenue, Pelham Manor. Tickets are $30 for adults and $10 for students and are available online at www.concertsatchristchurch.org or at the door.