Hosanna!

One cloudy afternoon last week, twelve men trudged up into the belfry of Lehigh University's ivied Packer Memorial Chapel, uncased shining trombones and lined up before their director. Sharp at 3:30, the first brassy notes of a chorale blared out across the leafy maples and echoed through the nearby streets of steelmaking Bethlehem, Pa. For the thousands on the'campus below, many of them visitors from all over the U.S., the 50th annual Bethlehem Bach Festival had begun.

Inside the chapel, as the last notes of the heralding chorales died away, the 236 members of the great festival choir filed into their seats in the chancel in back of the orchestra. Boston's E. Power Biggs slid onto his bench at the organ. The soloists, including the Metropolitan Opera's bass, Mack Harrell, took their seats in front. In decorous silence--there is no applause in Packer Chapel--Welsh-born Conductor Ifor Jones strode to the podium. After a darting look around, he lifted his hands to begin the great double-chorused Passion According to St. Matthew that Johann Sebastian Bach had composed 220 years ago as the 44-year-old cantor of St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig.

"Take Thy Rest." Dark-haired, vigorous Conductor Jones had few worries about his soloists (one, Contralto Lilian Knowles, is his wife) or about the great choir before him. Some of the choristers didn't even need scores. Mrs. George W. Halliwell, 82, was a charter member who had been singing in the choir ever since its founder, J. Fred Wolle, came home to Bethlehem 50 years ago from his studies in Munich, determined to dedicate himself and Bethlehem to Bach. Two others had been singing for 47 years, and more than 40 had been in the choir for at least 25 years. Most of them came from Bethlehem and surrounding towns of the Lehigh Valley.

The nearest thing to a conductor's worry was the orchestra. In past years, Jones had had the well-drilled Philadelphia Orchestra in front of him; this time, with the Philadelphia on its first tour of Britain, he had first-class musicians, but it was still a pickup band. Even so, with the last quiet but magnificent "Slumber now, and take thy rest," one listener, a Baltimore lawyer who has been trekking to Bethlehem for 20 years, said appreciatively: "A good Friday; but you know, what we come for is the Saturday."

"Kyrie, Kyrie." Saturday afternoon at 1:30, Bethlehem's Moravian Trombone Choir climbed the belfry again to herald the great music that is the festival's specialty, the B Minor Mass.

Fifty-seven years ago, with the first complete .U.S. performance of the St. John's Passion to its credit, Bethlehem's first Choral Union had broken up when it came to tackling the B Minor, which is technically difficult and emotionally demanding throughout its whole three-hour length. Said Founder Wolle: "They looked it over, and their ardor wilted." They disbanded. Five years later, a more determined group came together, rehearsed it for 14 months, then sang it.

Last week, after rehearsing since September, Bethlehem's choir gave it its 42nd festival performance. With the first full-throated assault of the opening "Kyrie eleison" the choir had its audience--1,100 packed in the church, another thousand on the sunlit lawns outside--thrilling to attention.

There were rough spots: in some phrases of the "Gloria" the French horn and organ got a little out of gear. Some thought Conductor Jones had slowed down his tempo in other difficult places where his orchestra might have too tough a time. But with the great rousing hosannas, and the last powerful words of the "Agnus Dei" no one was likely to go home uninspired or unthankful.

Said one pilgrim when it was over:

"Now we have to come down from heaven."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.