Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The anti-modern sensibility of Haydn's Stabat Mater

The Masterworks Chorale performed Franz Joseph Haydn's Stabat Mater on Sunday, May 17, at Sanders Theater.

Stabat Mater means "sorrowful mother" in Latin, referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I was struck by the insistent and sometimes graphic desire to share Christ's and Mary's suffering:

"Fix the stripes of the Crucified deeply into my Heart."

"Make me a sharer in His Passion and ever mindful of his wounds."

"Let me be wounded by His wounds."

In these lines, Christ and his mother are not abstractions, distant figures of another era. Each singer longs to know them, as if they could be touched and felt.

Whether we're religious, irreligious, agnostic, or whatever, few people actually think and feel this way today. We don't think of Christ in such intimate terms, perhaps because we're afraid of being ridiculed -- it's just not the way a modern educated man thinks.

The experience of the concert reminded me of my conversations with my father, when I was a boy, and we worked together in the back of our candy shop. I went there after my high school classes were finished for the day. We worked alone for hours each night. Often we came around to talking about Christ, the apostles, Mary, Judas -- all of them as if they were people we might know, perhaps from our family, as if Doubting Thomas could appear in the doorway and could tell us, wasn't it perfectly normal to doubt that Jesus had returned? Or for Pontius Pilate to say to us that the crucifixion wasn't really his fault, that he had a state to govern for Rome. We discussed their motives. Did Christ have girlfriends? How could it be that Mary was a virgin? Did we really believe that? We had lots of time, of course, making candy, and talking.

It was brave of Masterworks to perform Stabat Mater.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

The Brookline Chorus's Elijah

I sing as a bass in the Brookline Chorus. We performed Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah, at Sanders Theater in Harvard Square, Saturday, May 9. This was the first time I have ever sung in Sanders. It was the first time the Chorus had ever sung in such a large, prestigious hall.

All week, through the dress rehearsals with the 40+ piece orchestra, I felt the tension and excitement building among the other members of the Chorus. I saw the tension in our conductor Lisa Graham's face -- normally so young-looking, at moments in the week before the concert her features were taut, almost grim in her concentration.

We had a crowd of about 800 people, maybe more. As we stood in the wings, waiting to make our entrance, we strained to see the crowd through the doorway. Was it sold out? No, not quite. But it was more than enough.

The orchestral overture ended with a rising set chords that climaxed with the chorus's "Help, Lord!" -- and we were off. The people of Israel were suffering through three years of drought, brought on by their sins, and were pleading for help from God. What a blast of sound. And it sounded right. Despite our singing at top volume, it sounded right.

I could tell the audience was deeply involved throughout. During quiet passages, I heard an odd rustling sound -- hundreds of pages in the program book being turned at the same time, as people followed along with the libretto. It was troubling to think of that distracting interruption, yet oddly gratifying -- I edited and formatted the program book. How often do you get a demonstration of people using something you've helped create?

David Kravitz was our baritone soloist. What a huge voice, yet he stresses the syllables and consonants in such a way that he doesn't overpower the words. You understand what he's saying, and you understand the emotion. And Ethan Bremner, the tenor who sang Ahab and Obadiah, sang so easily, and yet I'm sure everybody in the place heard every syllable.

At the end, the audience stood and clapped and cheered for a long time. Lisa and the soloists (Jenni Samuelson and Krista River were the soprano soloists) came out twice. Lisa beamed, pointed and waved at the Chorus, at the orchestra, at the cellist, at the concertmaster, giving everyone their due.

David Kravitz came out center stage alone, and modestly tapped his chest, that gesture that says, "I'm overwhelmed. I'm so grateful." Everybody in the Chorus felt the same.


Two weeks ago: singing Carmina Burana with the Wellesely and Brandeis Choruses

Lisa had asked for bass and tenor volunteers to help fill out a Carmina Burana concert with the Wellesley and Brandeis choruses. I was pressed for time, but I love Carmina so much that I volunteered. There were a handful of us older men, surrounded by students. The concerts (there were two of them, one at Brandeis and one at Wellesley) were wonderful, and the students were wonderful singers. I was so glad to see younger people interested in Carmina Burana.

I especially loved hearing the soprano soloist, Andrea Matthews. I've heard many good sopranos now in the last few years, but her singing is different. She doesn't just sound great, she expresses the sentiment, the subject of what she's singing. I was moved by her singing. She's not a young woman herself, but when she sang, "Sweet boy, I give myself to you," she sounded so young.


Noel Perrin's book of essays, Third Person Rural

I read these essays about country life in Vermont a few weeks ago. He's not as engaging or dramatic as E.B. White describing life on a Maine farm, but Perrin is very good at describing the reality of farm life (or being a part-time farmer, which is how he described himself -- he also taught English Literature at Dartmouth). There's no sentimentality in his work, and his prose at times seemed a little too matter-of-fact and dry.