Peregrinus expectavi
Jul. 29th, 2005 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferSo this week's sing-along was a lot more of a slog than last week. Last week, the woman singing next to me had sung the whole piece before. This week, the woman singing next to me had sung the Rachmaninoff before, possibly before I was born, but had never sung the Prokofiev and had a great deal of trouble following the score, let alone singing it accurately. She was game, and sometimes she hit things dead on, but she sang with the same volume whether she was on or wandering in the wilderness. I was torn between wishing she'd stayed home and being glad that she'd felt able to come sing again. She clearly had had a fine voice and high standards of musicianship, some time ago. I'm much more humble about my own sight-reading ability this week than I was last week. The conductor did apologize to us all about the score for Alexander Nevsky. "I suppose it's possible to print a score in such a way as to make it more difficult to follow, but I can't think how." In addition to the staves appearing and disappearing ad lib., the words had been translated from Russian by someone whose English was notional at best, and then typeset by someone with no interest in what the words meant. The best typos were "worriers" for "warriors" and "moved" for "mowed."
I was utterly lost on the Rachmaninoff Vespers. I hadn't heard the piece before and didn't have any of the cues I had for the Prokofiev (I love Alexander Nevsky, overblown theatrics and all). Let me say again how humble I feel about my musicianship now. One good feature of that read-through was the contralto sitting behind me, beautifully and accurately singing the solos; a bad feature was the woman beside me, rustily and somewhat accurately singing the solos along with her. Those solos were clearly the part that she loved the most, the music she yearned for most deeply. Although I wish she could have satisfied her desire for music by singing along with a good recording at home, I know perfectly well that it's not the same, it's very deeply not the same, and I'm glad she was there. A ragged read-through isn't the same as a solid performance, either, but it's a lot closer to that transcendence that music delivers only when one is inside it, and I can't imagine ever wanting to give that up entirely. I'll want to sing with a chorus when I'm in my eighties as well, and I hope I can find one as good and as tolerant as the Seattle Symphony Chorale.
Next week: Mozart's Grand Mass in C. Can Kate sing it accurately? We'll find out.
I was utterly lost on the Rachmaninoff Vespers. I hadn't heard the piece before and didn't have any of the cues I had for the Prokofiev (I love Alexander Nevsky, overblown theatrics and all). Let me say again how humble I feel about my musicianship now. One good feature of that read-through was the contralto sitting behind me, beautifully and accurately singing the solos; a bad feature was the woman beside me, rustily and somewhat accurately singing the solos along with her. Those solos were clearly the part that she loved the most, the music she yearned for most deeply. Although I wish she could have satisfied her desire for music by singing along with a good recording at home, I know perfectly well that it's not the same, it's very deeply not the same, and I'm glad she was there. A ragged read-through isn't the same as a solid performance, either, but it's a lot closer to that transcendence that music delivers only when one is inside it, and I can't imagine ever wanting to give that up entirely. I'll want to sing with a chorus when I'm in my eighties as well, and I hope I can find one as good and as tolerant as the Seattle Symphony Chorale.
Next week: Mozart's Grand Mass in C. Can Kate sing it accurately? We'll find out.
