Listen Live: Stravinsky Evensong

 

We'll be singing selections from our upcoming annual concert ( an homage to Igor Stravinsky) at Evensong today -- all the anthems will be by Stravinsky, and there will be modern works by other composers for the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, and the Preces and Responses. You can hear it streamed live on Radio Ville Marie at 4:00 p.m. (Click on the link in the upper right where it says "'Nous ecouter en direct.")

And if you're anywhere near Montreal next Friday evening, we'd love to see you at the concert!

Poster above by yours truly.

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Comments

[Roderick Robinson]

I will make an effort to listen to you. Strange that the composer of Rites of Spring wrote such anthems which, prior to reading your blog, I wot not of. I did acquire a cheap and horrible LP of The Symphony of Psalms when we lived in the USA but which somehow failed to make the trip back. Is Stravinsky hard on choirs? I ask because I recall the Leonard Bernstein TV lectures on music in which he urged everyone to buy Histoire du Soldat (which I did) mainly on the basis of a fiendishly difficult time signature at some point. Also, do you ever take solos?

[Beth]

Hi Roderick -- I hope you were able to listen. I'm home now, drinking a martini after a long day of intense concentration - but it all went very well. What I find really satisfying and exciting is the point when the choir, after struggling a bit to learn the notes, decides they like the music, and what was before a "blueprint" becomes actual music -- becomes musical, and fluid, and playable-with. That happened at Thursday's rehearsal and deepened today. Once the singers can sing with confidence and happiness, so much more is possible, and so much more comes through.

I was an occasional soloist with my old choir in Vermont, but here in the city we have eight paid professional soloists/section heads -- people who who sing with the opera and symphony and various other groups and are highly trained. It's, shall we say, music on a different level! Like me, most of the other (non-paid) singers are skilled amateurs with some voice training, and perhaps an instrumental or longstanding choir background; you have to be able to sigh-read well. We have fun but it's also challenging because we go through so much repertoire, very quickly. I feel very fortunate to be able to sing works like today's; it must be rare, for instance, for the various parts of Stravinsky's Mass to be sung in the context of an actual service. I find that quite moving.

[Roderick Robinson]

Oh gosh. A martini. A martini straight up. A martini straight up with a twist. A Tanqueray martini straight up with a twist. A Tanqueray and Noilly Prat martini straight up with a twist. I can't go any further than that in wishing you the best martini in the world. You deserve it. And I'm going to stop asking amateurish questions.

First, a confession. I was misled by the November 2 date on the poster and now I've missed the transmission. You can guess my state. However in riffling through my repertoire of suitable phrases, none is decorous enough for use in free cyberspace. Let's go back a few years and say: I am beside myself. What's good enough for Jane Austen...

Second, I don't really know why I am so surprised. In the seemingly private re-comment service you provide me with you have already supplied enough hints - nay, direct statements - about the level at which your choir operates. Now I have the full picture. I was going to say the obvious parallel in the UK would be the sort of choirs run by the cathedrals or the commercially viable "others" like Kings College. But actually it's more elevated than that. I live in a cathedral city (Hereford - one of the participants in the Three Choirs Festival, with Worcester and Gloucester) and I'm not sure poor impoverished Hereford could run to eight paid professionals.

What you're talking about is choral music at a level that's as high as an amateur could aspire to. You talk about fun and I accept the word as a kind of shorthand. In my youth I shared a London apartment with a professional musician and I'm aware of the understatement musicians use about their craft. Fun indeed. But a long way beyond just getting the notes right. It would be banal of me to say I envy you because in a sense I envy anyone who's put in the hours (or years) to arrive at such a level, whether it's music or accountancy. I experience my own pale shadow of what you will be familiar with when someone says they envy me my French. Time out for an ironic smile. My French should be a heck of a lot better given I've been messing about with it for about three decades.

A more accurate observation would be I envy your application even though that's merely a measure of the priorities you set out for yourself many years ago. Leaving very little time for telly, I would say. I also enjoyed the "blueprint" analogy when it comes to rehearsals because (another things amateur amateurs don't really understand) it's proof that rehearsals never become a chore and have their own excitement.

All this merged rather fortuitously with my own activities. I am within the final 8000 words of finishing my novel, Blest Redeemer, with 142,000 already written. Music forms the whole of the unexpected (I hope) climax and I've been trying to put myself in the correct frame of amateur experience for this. I needed a piece of choral music which I could "learn" as my central character will "learn" it. I chose the Glagolitic Mass and being unable to acquire the version recommended in the BBC's Building a Library series (on the Naxos label) I'm making do with one by Simon Rattle and the CBSO, etc. Your generous re-comment somehow fitted in even though the sort of choir I have in mind will be several levels below yours.

Anyway it's a privilege to share music with you and in particular the frisson I get from the phrase "must be able to sight-read well". Inevitably as a skill-less amateur I over-dramatise, likening it to schussing a steepish slope and finding an unavoidable bosse straight ahead. Nah, it's not like that at all.

No need to respond to this. You have other rather more important irons in the fire and I hate the thought of being in a tug-of-war. Cheers.

[Beth]

Oh, on the contrary, Roderick, what could be more fun that talking about choral music eon a Monday morning, instead of getting straight to work? So please indulge me...You are right that I tend toward understatement. However, I'm very fortunate to be singing at this level, and you've gauged it right. Our director tries to maintain a standard that would rival any of the finest choirs in other cathedrals. I think there are a number of factors that set the best choirs apart -- one is broad repertoire; another is consistency, another is the ability to sight-read and put together a high-quality (not only accurate, but musical) performance very quickly,regardless of the period or style of music; another is the quality of the voices and abilities of the soloists and well as the ensemble. Beyond that, the qualities become more difficult to pin down, as in all musical performance, don't you think? Does the group blend? Is it balanced? How subtle is the interpretation? How much leeway does the conductor have to shape the performance in real time; is there constant communication between conductor and singers? And especially, is the ensemble merely professional, or does a range of emotion come across to the listener? At our best we manage all of this, but not always, of course - few groups do.

I'm sorry you missed yesterday, because it was a good performance! But Evensong is broadcast every week, so you can hear it some other time. I'll let you know when we're doing something noteworthy. What I loved about yesterday were two things -- first, that we did the Stravinsky Mass in the context of a service, with each movement where it would normally be said or sung. This music is seldom performed, but it must be very rare indeed for it to be done that way, and I found it moving, thinking of Stravinsky himself. We sang with a wind ensemble of players from McGill University, and they played beautifully, especially the oboist - his part is extremely high and difficult. The second thing was that somewhere between last week and this, the performances of all the pieces came together musically; even the most atonal or rhythmically difficult started to make real sense. I could feel it; I think we all could. Then the performance becomes not only OK, but truly satisfying; you're all then trying to take it to a new level.

One of the great challenges of our particular space is that we sing in different parts of the cathedral, depending on the situation: sometimes in the choir stalls, facing one another; sometimes in the chancel but in a semi-circle above the altar steps; sometime in the baptistry; sometimes in the organ loft if we're doing accompanied works; for concerts we stand on the altar steps in the crossing. Each of these spaces has advantages and disadvantages, especially in our ability to hear one another. Yesterday we were in the baptistry with the winds, and in the chancel for Evensong, and we can hear very well in both -- which contributes to good performances. For the concert we'll be on the steps, which isn't as good. I'll be interested how it works.

I look forward to reading your book when it's finished! And I've never heard of the Glagolitic Mass and am going to look it up now...meanwhile, I can't even begin to tell you how much I admire your fluency in French!!