Musica Sacra gives Christmas favorites the deluxe treatment at Carnegie Hall

United States Various, ‘Classics for Christmas’: Kathryn Lewek (soprano), Mariko Anraku (harp), Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra / Kent Tritle and Michael Sheetz (conductors). Carnegie Hall, New York, 17.12.2025. (RP)

Bach – ‘Gloria in excelsis’ (from Mass in B minor)
Randall Thompson – ‘Alleluia’
Corelli – Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op.6 No.8, ‘Christmas Concerto’
Handel – Selections from Messiah; Harp Concerto in B-flat major, Op.4 No.6
Poulenc – ‘O magnum mysterium’ (from Quatre Motets pour le Temps de Noël)
Helena Paish – ‘While Mary Slept’
Adam – ‘Cantique de Noel’
Rachmaninoff – ‘Bogoroditse Devo’ (from All-Night Vigil, Op.37)

For fans of the Holiday Channel on WQXR, New York City’s classical music station, this was the concert for you. Live is better, however, and if Kent Tritle leading the Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra in ‘Classics for Christmas’ at Carnegie Hall didn’t put you in the holiday spirit, what would?

Musica Sacra is one of New York’s finest professional choruses. Tritle, who wears many hats, including organist of the New York Philharmonic, director of music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and teacher at The Juilliard School, has led the ensemble since 2008. Musica Sacra is noted for its annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, and the composer’s music was at the heart of the program.

The concert began with the joyous, buoyant strains of the ‘Gloria in excelsis’ from Bach’s Mass in B minor. Brilliant trumpet playing in the opening measures tipped the balance in favor of the orchestra, which overpowered the chorus in the initial section. With the softer, clearer ‘Et in terra pax’, all was in order with light, fleet counterpoint from both chorus and orchestra.

Randall Thompson, a mid-twentieth-century American composer noted for his choral works, was commissioned to write a loud and festive choral work to open the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood in 1940. With war raging in Europe and the US’s neutrality precarious, Thompson instead composed a meditation on a single word, ‘Alleluia’. Tritle and his singers transfixed the audience with shimmering waves of sound, whose depths of emotion culminated in the resonant, final ‘Amen’.

A return to the Baroque found Tritle leading the Musica Sacra Orchestra in Corelli’s ‘Christmas Concerto’. With a full cohort of strings, this was a resplendent reading of the concerto, instilled with both joy and mystery. The counterpoint was played with precision and verve, while the delicate beauty of the ‘Pastorale’ was enriched by sounds evoking shepherds playing on their pipes. Concertmaster Jesse Mills, Principal Second Violin Robert Zubrycki and cellist Arthur Fiacco, Jr. brought elan and excitement to the performance.

Soprano Kathryn Lewek joined Tritle and his forces in the Christmas selections from Messiah. Lewek is chiefly known in New York and worldwide for hundreds of performances of the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Handel asks for subtler vocalism from the soprano soloist in Messiah than the Queen of the Night’s fiery coloratura, multiple high-F’s and dramatic intensity. Lewek demonstrated that the former arrows are also in her artistic quiver. After the soothing strains of the ‘Pastoral Symphony’, Lewek sang the recitatives telling of the Birth of Christ with an abundance of sparkle and excitement. Her voice was supple and light, but there was no lack of dramatic thrust. ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion’ was the final Handel selection, with Lewek indulging in the virtuosic coloratura for which the aria is famous. It was not all high-octane drama, however, as Lewek sang ‘He shall speak peace unto the heathens’ in soft, haunting tones, and her ornamentation in the aria’s final measures was dispatched with lightness and grace.

Two short a caopella followed, the first of which was Poulenc’s ‘O magnum mysterium’ from Quatre Motets pour le Temps de Noël. Tritle crafted a performance of this exquisite choral gem that released a magical atmosphere from the rich, low tones of the lower voices to the soprano’s silvery lightness floating above. Now 23, British singer and composer Helena Paish’s carol ‘While Mary Slept’ was published when she was 18. It is an undulating progression of melodies and harmonies, including sharp dissonances, which evoked the Christmas miracle in haunting, timeless washes of sound.

For absolute beauty, the highlight of the concert was Mariko Anraku performing Handel’s Harp Concerto in B-flat major with the Musica Sacra Orchestra. Anraku is Associate Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and has appeared internationally in concert and recital. She drew marvelous, awe-inspiring sounds from her instrument, which were enhanced by Carnegie Hall’s fabled acoustics. Testaments to the magic she created were the smiles that flashed spontaneously on the faces of orchestra players and audience members alike as she played.

Anraku’s playing added beauty and vibrancy to Adolphe Adam’s ‘Cantique de Noel’, known in English as ‘O Holy Night’, with Lewek as soloist and Michael Sheetz conducting. Lewek floated out Adam’s melodies in soaring, seamless legato lines, displaying a more intimate aspect of her artistry while the chorus and orchestra provided majesty.

A contemplative mood filled Carnegie Hall with ‘Bogoroditse Devo’ from Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil. It relates the story of the Archangel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive and give birth to the Son of God. The performance’s virtues were the sense of wonder and calm achieved by the utmost simplicity and purity of means.

One final Messiah chorus, ‘Worthy is the Lamb’, concluded the concert, and Tritle led it at a fast clip. There was more elegance than bombast, however, especially from Tritle’s command over the dynamics of choir and orchestra alike. With most of the audience on its feet as the final ‘Amen’ sounded, the Hallelujah Chorus followed as an encore. The concert ended as it began, jubilant and triumphant.

Rick Perdian

Featured Image: Kent Tritle (conductor) with the Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra © Brian Hatton