Concert Overview
Parallel lives, shared stories, and transatlantic musical traditions intertwine in this revelatory choral drama. Set 250 years ago, Crossing the Deep is an immersive concert experience exploring the connections between sacred music written by Classical composers in Europe, like Handel, and Negro spirituals written by enslaved Africans in America to help cope with the brutal conditions of their bondage. The profound stories told by these traditions—often using the same texts—resonate with each other, underscoring the characters’ common humanity. At the same time, their juxtaposition illuminates how the stories diverge, prompting important questions about struggle, oppression, faith, and hope. Join us for this one-of-a-kind emotional journey, a tribute to the universal power of music.
Q+A WITH ANTHONY TRECEK-KING, RESIDENT CONDUCTOR
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
H+H Makes Enlightening Connections by Elisa Birdseye
The Handel & Haydn Society gave what may be one of the most important concerts in its illustrious history. This past weekend at the John F. Kennedy Library, “Crossing the Deep,” rife with physical and emotional metaphor, paired 9 of Handel’s Chandos Anthems, written during his residency at the home of the Duke of Chandos between 1717 and 1719, with Negro Spirituals whose texts reflected on many of the same themes. The electrifying combination, as enlightening as it was unexpected, should dispel forever the notion that period music performed on period instruments is merely a museum outing.
This concert arose out of conversations that ensued among H+H staff following the discovery that Handel had held shares in trading companies involved in the transatlantic slave trade. To try to untangle the threads of the 18th & 19th century world economy and find clean hands would be nearly impossible. What can be done is to accept the reality and the inequality, the human tragedy that resulted from the selling of humans. The ramifications have come down the centuries to our own lives. We can be better, and we must be better. But better has to come with knowledge, acknowledgement, acceptance, and repair, in whatever form that may take. For musicians, there is no better way than by making music. Read more
Boston Globe
Handel and Haydn Society’s ‘Crossing the Deep’ troubles the waters of early music by A.Z. Madonna
With its juxtaposition of Handel anthems and Black American spirituals, the program by conductor Anthony Trecek-King and countertenor Reginald Mobley asked audiences to sit back and reflect.
“That title has to be from a spiritual, right?” Such was one of my first thoughts upon learning about “Crossing the Deep,” the final concert of the Handel and Haydn Society’s 2022-23 season. The program promised a juxtaposition of Handel’s “Chandos Anthems” and Black American spirituals. Sacred musical traditions are flush with water imagery, and spirituals especially so: “my home is over Jordan,” “God’s gonna trouble the water,” “Jordan River is deep and wide,” etc. I’m likely not the only one who initially assumed that “Crossing the Deep” was an explicit reference to a song. However, upon Googling the phrase, most of the results had something to do with this concert and the inspiration behind it. So, possibly not the title of a spiritual, but definitely a poetic and memorable turn of phrase with multiple layers of meaning, much like the concert itself.
All at once, the “deep” evokes the stylistic divide between Handel’s florid Anglican anthems and the orally transmitted spirituals; the River Jordan; the Atlantic Ocean across which so many enslaved Africans were forcibly transported; the intangible border between life and death; the tangible borders between bondage and freedom. Rather than sit back and relax, “Crossing the Deep” asked listeners to sit back and reflect. Read more