E-Mail This Article to a Friend An awakening James Primosch’s Matins for the Cantata Singers, plus NEC’s La Calisto BY DAVID WEININGER

Over the course of their 40 years, the Cantata Singers have built their considerable reputation mostly with performances of Bach. But they’ve also commissioned and premiered a series of important works by living composers, including Andy Vores and John Harbison. Next week’s concert represents a sort of microcosm of the group, with the first performance of Matins — a work for oboe, strings, and chorus commissioned from James Primosch by the Cantata Singers and oboist Peggy Pearson — flanked by performances of Bach’s Cantatas No. 76, "Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes," and No. 187, "Es wartet alles auf dich."

At the time he received the commission, Primosch says, he had two poems in mind to set: "God’s Grandeur," by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and "Matins," the last section of a long poetic sequence by Mary Oliver. While trying to decide which one to use, he noticed a subtle link between them. "The end of the Hopkins has this kind of dawn-like image, with the glow in the Eastern sky," he explains over the phone from his home in Philadelphia. "The first line of the Oliver, by turn, is ‘Now we are awake.’ So I decided to do both when I realized that a thread of connection could be drawn between the sunrise at the end of Hopkins and the awakening that begins the Mary Oliver poem."

That took care of the work’s text and direction. But what about sharing the program with two works by the West’s greatest composer? "Well, of course it’s intimidating," he laughs. "But it’s also welcome, because to be on a program with those pieces is such an honor." Bach also worked his way into Matins in ways both overt and subtle. The piece, Primosch explains, has no vocal soloists, "the way you would in the arias and recitatives in a cantata. But I do have the oboe, and in some sense the oboe kind of takes over as a vocal soloist, as well as playing its obbligato role." (Later in our conversation he calls Pearson "utterly fantastic. She’s just a genius of the oboe.")

A clearer nod to Bach comes in Primosch’s use of counterpoint. "My music is nowhere near as contrapuntally masterful as Bach’s, but there are nods in that direction. In the Hopkins there’s this line that says, ‘Why do men then now not reck his rod?’ And it sounded like a fugue subject to me. So there are Bachian things that happen that I’m sure are there because I was aware of this being first of all for the Cantata Singers and that the program itself would focus on a couple of cantatas."

Primosch writes in a variety of styles; asked to reflect on his musical language — never an easy task for a composer — he quotes a musician with whom he’s worked before. "An interviewer said, ‘So, what’s his music like?’ And she said, ‘It’s tonal, but not in the way you’d expect.’ And I was pleased with that comment — that my music has something to do with certain patterns of structure and coherence, but it’s also fresh, I would hope." Matins, he says, "has its acerbic moments, but it’s a little more on the tonal side than some" — a decision based on the quality of the poems themselves. "I’m trying to do something that reflects and serves the text but also has its own life and enters into a dialogue with it."

Both the Hopkins and the Oliver poems are manifestly concerned with God’s presence in creation, and Primosch is happy to call his setting a work of sacred music. In fact, that’s familiar ground for him. "A lot of stuff I do with text is on text that has spiritual or sacred themes. Even in instrumental pieces, there are associations with the sacred sometimes. It’s an important thing for me, and what’s important to you shows up in your art."

The Cantata Singers perform works by Primosch and Bach at 8 p.m. next Friday, January 23, at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street in Boston. Tickets are $20 to $48; call (617)267-6502.

UNHAND ME, DAMN JUPITER! Bringing back forgotten operas is all the rage around here, and NEC Opera Theater is the latest entrant with a rare revival of La Calisto by the Venetian composer Pietro Francesco Cavalli. Callisto is your average young nymph trying to repel the amorous advances of Jupiter, who in this case is out to bring more than jollity. Can she hang onto her chastity and honor? You’ve got four chances to find out. Evening performances are January 23 and 24 at 8 p.m.; matinees are January 24 at 2 and January 25 at 3 p.m. All of them take place at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street in the Theater District, and tickets are $15; call (617) 585-1260.