Rachmaninoff's Vespers

The season ended on a fantastic note!  This past weekend, we performed Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, sung entirely in Russian and a cappella.  I have to say that this was the most challenging piece of music I have ever performed.  Not so much because of the language, or the notes itself, but the music itself really demands the use of a wide range of emotions, dynamics and tempi, and, therefore, MEMORIZATION OF THE MUSIC AND TEXT.  Why is the latter so important?  I’ll try to explain below.

First of all, I can’t say that I’m very familiar with Rachmaninoff (I think all I’ve really heard is Sleeping Beauty and now this piece) or any other 20^th century composer for that matter, but there really is a depth and colure to these pieces that is quite different than, say, Classical pieces from Handel, Hayden or Mozart.  In my limited experience, I would generally sum up Classical music and even those before that period to say that rhythmic accuracy is the cornerstone of musicality. Having performed primarily Latin Renaissance polyphony and a few Classical pieces, I can definitely attest to that.  However, pieces from the Romantic era and thereafter lean toward a tendency to move and undulate with varying tempi and put less emphasis on metronomic tempo throughout.  Precisely the reason why one must have the music MEMORIZED so that your head is out of the notes and looking at the conductor at ALL TIMES. 

I admit, I did slack off a bit on learning the piece because I thought I would have an easier time learning due to my previous Russian language study in high school (yeah, I realize that was a billion years ago, don’t remind me).  The pronunciation of the text came to me easily enough, but just the fact that the words and phrases were so unfamiliar from the basic Romance language was still a significant hurdle.  I did eventually manage to get about 82.65% of the music down so that my head was out of the notes during the performance.

Ah, the performance!  It was truly the best that we had ever performed.  Up until that night, there were about 2-3 pieces which we had not sung entirely through without stopping multiple times.  There really is a saint watching over musicians, I think.  I’ve heard of numerous incidences (and this can be applied to any kind of a performance) where things may seem like the entire production is coming apart even until the dress rehearsal, only to pull together a fantastic performance at the very last minute.  We weren’t that bad, but our rehearsal the week before was light years apart from our final performance for the better.

Anyway, now the season is over and we already have 3 pieces to go over during summer break so that come September, we’ll be focusing on making music and not sight reading!  It’s been such a fun experience so far and I’m really looking forward to the next season!

Mozart Requiem concert review

I'm happy to report that the performance went really well!  We had a packed house and 3 standing ovations!  I'm just sorry that there was only one performance.

Getting ready for this piece was quite an adventure.  Anything composed by Mozart is easy to learn and such a pleasure to perform.  There's such an air of familiarity about his pieces even if you've never heard it before.  Once you've performed it, it just settles into your very being and becomes a part of you DNA.  I guess that's part of his genius.

NPC is worlds apart from other groups that I've sung in.  First of all, everyone learns the notes so quickly!  In other groups, we spent more time learning the notes, and only a few rehearsals on polishing and making the piece sound like music.  There's also a lot less yelling from the director in NPC.  Go figure.   Also, the concert hall is HUGE!  I could not see a darn thing out in the audience.  Apparently, my mother was waving quite energetically at me, but I didn't notice a thing even though I was staring in their general direction during intermission.

It's incredible to me how everything gets thrown together at the last minute and still ends up sounding amazing.  We had our first rehearsal with the orchestra and the soloists the night before the event.  When I got there, about a third of the choir was down by the orchestra and the rest were squeezed up on the second tier because the hydraulics on the choir risers had broken.  No one made any fuss and we went on with dress rehearsal with the idea the the choir might be performing in less than optimal conditions.  That's another amazing thing about musicians - they just pull together and make the best of a situation and concentrate on making a great performance.  I've never seen any musician act like a "prima donna".  Perhaps it's because I don't spend all day with them but I've sure seen prima donnas in other places outside of music.

The soloists were beautiful as usual.  However, when you're performing, you can't listen as intently as you'd like because then you'll forget to come in on your own part.  The best thing about being a soloist, I think, is that they get to wear whatever they want.  The female choir members have to wear a simple black dress and the men wear a tux.  I have to say though that I'm very glad that I joined as late as I did because the earlier versions of the concert dress are not very flattering.  I mean, we all look like nuns but there were at least 3 different versions of concert dresses running around that night.  The concert dress from the other choir I was in was so voluminous, it was like walking around with a tent strapped to your waist.  I think there was enough fabric in the skirt for three more people.

Anyway, the next concert is Rachmaninoff's Vespers which is really cool since I'll actually be able to use my Russian again.  That is, if I don't get cut during the next round of auditions.  Pedja says that we have to reaudition sometime in May so I'm not looking forward to that ordeal again.  I wonder what he'll be checking for this time?  Well, no sense worrying about that now.  I've made it this far and I got to sing Mozart's Requiem with the NPC!!!

Blah blah blah blog...

OK, so I'm starting this blog thing.  Not quite sure how this is going to work out, but it appears that I'm slowly overcoming my paranoia of putting more and more of myself out there in the great big electronic abyss.  Is that a good thing?  Who knows, but for now, it appears that my internal monologues do form complete sentences.  Lets see if I, or anyone else for that matter, can follow my train of thought.