10/05/2026
With just one week to go until Concert I, we asked our director, Chalium Poppy, to share his thoughts on this powerful opening programme—here’s what he had to say:
Our first concert of the Scholars Baroque 2026 season features works by two titans of the Classical era.
The first is Haydn’s remarkable setting of the Stabat Mater. Aside from The Creation and The Seasons, it is his next largest choral work, comprising 14 movements.
The Stabat Mater was Haydn’s first attempt at a major choral work and, at the time of its composition, it established his fame across the European continent. It predates all his masses and oratorios. In the choral sections, you can clearly hear the influence of Baroque writing, akin to that of Bach and, more importantly, Handel—a composer Haydn later sought to emulate in The Creation. In fact, it is the first of Haydn’s vocal works to achieve an international reputation.
More importantly, the Stabat Mater contains early elements of the late 18th-century artistic movement known as Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”)—a movement (circa 1760s–1780s) that privileged raw emotion, individualism, and subjective experience over Enlightenment rationalism. It is a stroke of genius that Haydn chose as his subject the 13th-century hymn portraying Mary’s suffering during the crucifixion. Never was there a more perfect marriage of artistic expression and music.
Haydn’s music contains a wealth of invention and fine melodies, and includes challenging arias and choruses, all orchestrated with skill, economy, and an ear for colour. And just because the text is sorrowful does not mean that Haydn spares the singers moments of virtuosity—for example, the beautiful tenor–soprano duet “Sancta Mater,” which ends with the soprano soaring brilliantly to great heights, and the furiously dramatic bass aria “Flammis orci.” The final choral fugue, both optimistic and glorious, is made all the more thrilling by the soprano soloist’s two dazzling, ecstatic interruptions.
Pianist Esha Xu is one of our brightest local talents. She achieved great acclaim last year when she won the prestigious and highly sought-after top prize in the Rising Stars Concerto Competition, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488.
The Scholars Baroque are delighted to invite Esha to perform Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 10 in C major, K. 330—a work of unbounded exuberance and grace, and an appropriate contrast to the Haydn choral work.
This sonata dates from between 1781 and 1784, after Mozart had broken with the Archbishop of Salzburg and moved to Vienna. This move, in 1781, was against the express wishes of his father, as was his marriage the following year to Constanze Weber.
The liberating effect of these assertive actions may have provided the emotional foundation for a remarkable outpouring of confident, mature works: the six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, the Haffner Symphony, numerous piano sonatas and concertos, and the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail. His fame grew rapidly.
The early 1780s saw the arrival of significantly improved fortepianos, which had been developing in competition with the harpsichord and clavichord over the previous half century. Around 1780, Mozart acquired one for his own personal use.
The sonata demonstrates an easy mastery of Classical form—structurally simple and beguilingly innocent. Alfred Einstein describes it as “…a masterpiece in which every note belongs—one of the most loveable works Mozart ever wrote.”
Join us for this moving and powerful opening to our 2026 season. Concert I will be performed on Saturday, May 16 at 7:30pm at St George & St John Anglican Church, 30 Domain Road, Whakatāne, and again on Sunday, May 17 at 2:30pm at St Peters Anglican Church, 15 Victoria Road, Mt Maunganui. We would love to share this extraordinary music with you—full details and ticket information are available at www.scholarsbaroque.com
