Christopher Herbert in revolutionary Wall Street concert

Christopher Herbert

On April 21st, Barihunk Christopher Herbert will return to Trinity Wall Street for a concert that's part of a series called "Revolutionaries: The late works of Beethoven & Ginastera." He will be the baritone soloist along with NOVUS NY, Trinity Wall Street's contemporary music orchestra, in both the Ginastera Cantata Bomarzo and Faure's Requiem.

Ginastera played a key role in the unrest that led to the Argentine Revolution of the 1960s and '70s. Having lost an early teaching position for protesting the dismissal of his colleagues, he went on to lose his directorship of the conservatory that he himself had founded, for resisting orders to name it for Eva Perón. Several of his works were banned in his homeland, and he spent much of his life in self-imposed exile.

Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1916 to a Catalan father and an Italian mother. In 1934 he won 1st prize of the musical society El Únisono for his Piezas Infantiles for piano. His next piece of importance was Impresiones de la Puna. As a young professor,  Ginastera taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. In 1946-1947 he traveled to the USA on a Guggenheim fellowship and studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. Returning to Argentina, he co-founded the League of Composers and served as director of the Conservatory of the province of Buenos Aires in La Plata. He then taught at the Argentine Catholic University and also was a professor at the University of La Plata. Among his notable students was Ástor Piazzolla.

Christian Gerhaher sings the baritone solo from Fauré's Requiem:

Five of the seven sections of the Fauré Requiem were completed by January 1888 and performed that month at the Madeleine for the funeral of the architect Joseph Lesoufaché. Fauré continued to work intermittently on the Requiem, and by 1893 he judged the score ready to be published. For the 1893 version a baritone solo, two bassoons, four horns and two trumpets are added to the original scoring. When possible Fauré employed a mixed choir and a female soprano soloist, partly because the soprano lines, particularly the solo in the Pie Jesu, are difficult to sing and demand excellent breath control, easier for adult women than for boys.

You can see the entire Revolutionaries concert schedule HERE. The concert will be available online.