Well, I’m back!
Wednesday, after several meetings Mireille Rijavec took me to the airport for a 9:20 PM flight to London (Heathrow) and then on to Stockholm. I don’t know that I’d do a flight at that time again, if I can avoid it—I don’t sleep well on planes, so it essentially meant a night with very little sleep. The flight itself was fairly smooth, I didn’t have to change terminals at Heathrow (it’s still an ugly and confusing place, luckily not a long layover), and I got into Stockholm on time Thursday evening. After collecting luggage, it was around 6 PM when I got a taxi into town. The sun was about to set on a gorgeous day, a fair change from when I was in Stockholm last on Feb. 9 and it got dark just a bit earlier!
I got settled and to sleep around 10:30 PM and awoke promptly at 3:30 in the morning. Puttered around, did email and a little score study, then got another hour and a half of sleep before finally getting going. Friday was a day of errands: laundry (pretty much all my clothes were dirty after two weeks in Edmonton), shopping for food and a few other essentials, and walking a bit in the beautiful sunshine (temps around 5 Celsius or 42 Fahrenheit) to get acclimated to the new time zone—still feeling jet-lagged.
Saturday I awoke at 6:30 after getting to bed at 12:30, again puttered around for awhile, but this time went back to bed and crashed, not getting up (other than waking up several times and going right back to sleep) until 1 PM. I hope I’m caught up on sleep now!
Gary Graden had a concert at St. Jacobs at 3, so I made it there to hear part of the Rachmaninov Vigil, along with organ and piano improvisations by Mattias Wager. Gary opened with the first two movements from the side of the church, followed by an organ improvisation, during which the choir moved to the center. Each of the pieces following had either an organ or piano improvisation in between them (Mattias moved to the front of the church in the middle to do piano improvs, then back to the loft for the last two improvisations. Gary’d chosen to do movements 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 14. For both numbers 6 and 7 the choir moved into the aisles, surrounding the audience.
The choir sang very well, as I would have expected. It took me awhile to get into the improvisations—not that they weren’t good and interesting, it’s just that they pulled me away from the world of the Vigil (and of course, just having conducted the entire Vigil, it was very much in my mind). Around mid-way through my brain seemed to “accept” the idea and it was fine. Still, I’d probably rather hear just the Vigil!
I stopped by the reception briefly to greet a few friends in the choir, plus composer Bo Hansson. I didn’t stay long, as I’m still a bit tired and wanted to get a bit of dinner before going home. The day has turned a bit gray and there were even a few drops of rain on the walk home, but a pleasant temperature, even a little warmer.
I have music to prepare for my first rehearsals back with the Radio Choir on Tuesday, but will say more about that in a couple days.
Showing posts with label All-Night Vigil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label All-Night Vigil. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil
We just had our performance last night with Pro Coro Canada of the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil and it went very well, with an audience of just over 1000 enthusiastic people. It’s certainly one of my favorite works—one of those masterpieces one never gets tired of doing.
The choir was expanded from our usual 24 voices to 34, with additions from our pool of extras (including fellow blogger John Brough) and also Len Ratzlaff, Chair of the Music Department at the University of Alberta, a true choral leader in Canada, and excellent baritone (also recent guest conductor of Pro Coro), as well as Paul Grindlay.
Paul has worked with Pro Coro a number of times as a soloist and I knew he’d sung the Vigil before. His participation, which added greatly to the choir’s depth at the low end (important for this work!), came about in part from a programming decision.
The Vigil is a bit short for a concert (around an hour), so I’ve usually felt it needs something else on the program. Also, if one divides the program with an intermission, the Vespers portion of the Vigil (numbers 1-6) make a logical first half, but a bit short, with the Matins and latter portion of the Vigil (numbers 7-15) making the second half.
The question is, what else does one do before the Vigil? I’ve done a lovely piece by Peter Hallock, Phoenix (which one can find on Choral Arts’ CD recording of Hallock’s works, which I highly recommend for some beautiful pieces), but it isn’t a great programmatic pairing. I’ve also done Tavener’s Svyati for choir and solo cello, which works fantastically from a programmatic perspective, but fries the basses’ low notes with an incredibly long pedal low E.
So this time, knowing Paul’s ability as both soloist (for example, he sang the role of Jesus when Pro Coro did Ivan Moody’s Passion and Resurrection several years ago) and chorister, I approached Vladimir Morosan of Musica Russica to suggest Russian liturgical works for bass solo and choir which would be appropriate at this time of the church year, or to do with a performance of the Vigil. Vlad is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful in this repertoire, and sent me about 9 or 10 pieces, I selected 5 or 6 to send to Paul, and we ultimately settled on two by Chesnokov, including a magnificent intercession for bass deacon and choir, "Spasi Bozhe, liudi Tvoya" (O God, Save Thy People). I also chose Chesnokov’s well-known "Spasenie Sodelal" (Salvation is Created) to go in between the two other works (thanks to David Garber for the suggestion). This made a great grouping and gave the first half of the program (we went off stage after the Chesnokov to give a little break before beginning the Vigil) the kind of weight it needed to balance the second half.
As I mentioned, the performance went extremely well, certainly the best of the five or six times I’ve conducted the Vigil, and the choir kept intensity and endurance right through to the end (not easy, as you know if you’ve sung it).
Just a great experience.
After Easter spent in Edmonton, I have auditions on Monday evening for the chorus for Monteverdi’s Orfeo (a production I’ll conduct next fall here in Edmonton), board meeting on Tuesday, then back to Stockholm Wednesday evening. Kathryn (who just got here yesterday in time for the performance) goes home for another week of work, then joins me in Sweden on April 4. More from Sweden soon!
The choir was expanded from our usual 24 voices to 34, with additions from our pool of extras (including fellow blogger John Brough) and also Len Ratzlaff, Chair of the Music Department at the University of Alberta, a true choral leader in Canada, and excellent baritone (also recent guest conductor of Pro Coro), as well as Paul Grindlay.
Paul has worked with Pro Coro a number of times as a soloist and I knew he’d sung the Vigil before. His participation, which added greatly to the choir’s depth at the low end (important for this work!), came about in part from a programming decision.
The Vigil is a bit short for a concert (around an hour), so I’ve usually felt it needs something else on the program. Also, if one divides the program with an intermission, the Vespers portion of the Vigil (numbers 1-6) make a logical first half, but a bit short, with the Matins and latter portion of the Vigil (numbers 7-15) making the second half.
The question is, what else does one do before the Vigil? I’ve done a lovely piece by Peter Hallock, Phoenix (which one can find on Choral Arts’ CD recording of Hallock’s works, which I highly recommend for some beautiful pieces), but it isn’t a great programmatic pairing. I’ve also done Tavener’s Svyati for choir and solo cello, which works fantastically from a programmatic perspective, but fries the basses’ low notes with an incredibly long pedal low E.
So this time, knowing Paul’s ability as both soloist (for example, he sang the role of Jesus when Pro Coro did Ivan Moody’s Passion and Resurrection several years ago) and chorister, I approached Vladimir Morosan of Musica Russica to suggest Russian liturgical works for bass solo and choir which would be appropriate at this time of the church year, or to do with a performance of the Vigil. Vlad is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful in this repertoire, and sent me about 9 or 10 pieces, I selected 5 or 6 to send to Paul, and we ultimately settled on two by Chesnokov, including a magnificent intercession for bass deacon and choir, "Spasi Bozhe, liudi Tvoya" (O God, Save Thy People). I also chose Chesnokov’s well-known "Spasenie Sodelal" (Salvation is Created) to go in between the two other works (thanks to David Garber for the suggestion). This made a great grouping and gave the first half of the program (we went off stage after the Chesnokov to give a little break before beginning the Vigil) the kind of weight it needed to balance the second half.
As I mentioned, the performance went extremely well, certainly the best of the five or six times I’ve conducted the Vigil, and the choir kept intensity and endurance right through to the end (not easy, as you know if you’ve sung it).
Just a great experience.
After Easter spent in Edmonton, I have auditions on Monday evening for the chorus for Monteverdi’s Orfeo (a production I’ll conduct next fall here in Edmonton), board meeting on Tuesday, then back to Stockholm Wednesday evening. Kathryn (who just got here yesterday in time for the performance) goes home for another week of work, then joins me in Sweden on April 4. More from Sweden soon!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Exploring the “New”
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed as a conductor is exploring and learning about a new style, period, composer, or individual work—and trying to communicate the essential elements of that to my ensemble (and ultimately to the audience).
One can think of this in terms of “performance practice,” but I think too many see that in a narrow way, simply as a series of prescriptions for the way one does ornaments or whatever in “older” music. However, most period instrument players and stylistically aware singers I know who are heavily into “HIPP” (“historically informed performance practice) know it’s much more than that, and are among the best at attempting to get inside the mind and culture of the periods and composers with which they work. The details (of instrument, pitch, ornamentation, language, etc.) are just the means with which to better explore the expression and emotions in the music.
Music doesn’t have to be that “old” to need this understanding of context and style, and any time you explore a new (to you) musical “culture” (even a contemporary one) it requires a sense of what that culture truly is and how it expresses itself.
An example from my own work to illustrate:
In 1992 I decided to do Rachmaninov’s great All-Night Vigil (more often known as the Vespers) with the Seattle Symphony Chorale. We had an unusually long period in the Spring where the Symphony didn’t need us, so it was the perfect time to take on a big project of our own.
There are lots of questions when approaching such a work: language, style (phrasing, rubato, articulation, etc.), liturgical context, and many others. Of course I read biographies of Rachmaninov and began learning the music, but where else does one start?
I knew Vladimir Morosan’s dissertation, Choral Performance Practice in Pre-Revolutionary Russia, and this proved to be invaluable. It has lots of information about the liturgy, choirs (especially the Moscow Synodal Choir, which premiered the Vigil) and general performance practices (size of choirs, distribution of parts, how the choir was arranged, etc.), as well as information about the Vigil’s premiere and other performances with the Synodal Choir and its conductor at the time, Nikolai Danilin. This gave an extraordinary amount of information and context.
Vlad also owns Musica Russica and had published a new edition of the Vigil with his transliteration system (important when performing with a choir that won’t have the time to learn Cyrillic!). At that time, Vlad hadn’t yet published the Rachmaninov “monument” but was kind enough to send me copies of galleys to the notes on the Vigil, which had much more specific information about the liturgy, the chants (both ancient chants and Rachmaninov’s composed ones), etc. used throughout the Vigil.
Vlad also prepares pronunciation tapes/CDs for his works and this was very helpful for me to begin to get the sound of Church Slavonic into my ear and voice (he also allows copies to be made for your singers, which saves much coaching time in rehearsal). While getting ready to prepare a performance a few years later with my choir at PLU my wife said she heard me talking in my sleep and couldn’t figure out what I was saying—until she realized I was mumbling in Church Slavonic. A good sign that I was spending enough time with the language!
Another question has to do with the sound of Russian choirs, the general vocal sound, style and phrasing, and of getting closer to special issues of pronunciation and diction. For this, I listened to recordings of lots of Russian choirs, not just of the Vigil, but of other works, too. For example, one of the characteristics one hears in many Russian choirs is a “scooping” into the pitch at times, particularly when words begin with a “soft” or “palatalized” consonant. One of the advantages of listening to lots of Russian choirs is you can begin to sort out how wide a range there is—some choirs seem to scoop all the time and others not as much. It helps decide what is normal and expected for all native Russian choirs (and would sound “wrong” without it), and how much might be a matter of taste. Similarly, one can experience vowel colors and vocal styles and ideas of sound on different vocal parts (are sopranos typically more lyric or dramatic? What kind and how much vibrato is used?).
In Vlad’s dissertation he’d quoted a number of sources on the special “secco” style of performance of the rapidly “chanted” sections by the Synodal Choir, with very quick text delivery. Vlad mentioned a recording he had of the Synodal choir from the ‘20’s, I believe, and was kind enough to send me a copy. The quality of the recording was poor, but good enough to learn much more about the style of performance in these passages.
Finally, I was curious about Rachmaninov’s own “performance practice”—how did he shape phrases, what kind of rubato did he take, etc.? For this I listened to as many recordings of him playing his own piano works as I could. This is a case where we’re close enough in time to hear the way the composer himself shapes his music (not choral music, to be sure, but helpful nevertheless).
This kind of broad listening is important, since you absorb many things (without consciously realizing it) that can’t easily be talked about or articulated. As an example that was telling to me in another medium, in 1988 I was in Berlin and visited the Dahlem museum in West Berlin, but had only a couple hours. They had a nice Rembrandt collection so I decided to spend my time there, looking at about 10-12 Rembrandts during that time span. A month or so later I was in London and went to the National Gallery to see a special exhibit from the Hermitage. On the way to that exhibit, I saw a painting out of the corner of my eye and thought, “Rembrandt.” It was, in fact, a Rembrandt. I couldn’t have described to you the characteristics of Rembrandt’s painting or techniques. I’d never taken an art history class. It’s simply that my couple hours of staring at 10-12 Rembrandts gave me a sense (unconscious to me) of what a Rembrandt “is.” It was experiential rather than intellectual. In the same way, I’m sure listening to lots of Russian choirs and Rachamaninov’s recordings allowed me to absorb much about what a Russian choir does and what Rachmaninov’s style is—much more, in some ways than I could get through just analysis or reading about the style.
You can’t replicate the time you’ve spent in all of this research, listening and study with your choir, of course. I had to boil it down for them, so at the Chorale’s beginning of the year retreat I gave an introduction to the work, read some passages from Vlad’s dissertation about performance practice and responses to the Synodal Choir, and played recordings of several different Russian choirs doing selected movements of the Vigil. After this we worked on a few pieces and sections of the work. All of this was to get their minds and ears acclimated to some changes to the normal way they might sing and phrase. We also made copies of the pronunciation tapes for all of them and I encouraged them to buy and listen to some recordings of the Vigil by Russian choirs (I suggested several). Since we wouldn’t start rehearsing until later in the year, this meant that by the time we started working they would be a long ways ahead.
This kind of preparation for music in a different “world” than one normally works in is incredibly rewarding and fun.
Your thoughts?
One can think of this in terms of “performance practice,” but I think too many see that in a narrow way, simply as a series of prescriptions for the way one does ornaments or whatever in “older” music. However, most period instrument players and stylistically aware singers I know who are heavily into “HIPP” (“historically informed performance practice) know it’s much more than that, and are among the best at attempting to get inside the mind and culture of the periods and composers with which they work. The details (of instrument, pitch, ornamentation, language, etc.) are just the means with which to better explore the expression and emotions in the music.
Music doesn’t have to be that “old” to need this understanding of context and style, and any time you explore a new (to you) musical “culture” (even a contemporary one) it requires a sense of what that culture truly is and how it expresses itself.
An example from my own work to illustrate:
In 1992 I decided to do Rachmaninov’s great All-Night Vigil (more often known as the Vespers) with the Seattle Symphony Chorale. We had an unusually long period in the Spring where the Symphony didn’t need us, so it was the perfect time to take on a big project of our own.
There are lots of questions when approaching such a work: language, style (phrasing, rubato, articulation, etc.), liturgical context, and many others. Of course I read biographies of Rachmaninov and began learning the music, but where else does one start?
I knew Vladimir Morosan’s dissertation, Choral Performance Practice in Pre-Revolutionary Russia, and this proved to be invaluable. It has lots of information about the liturgy, choirs (especially the Moscow Synodal Choir, which premiered the Vigil) and general performance practices (size of choirs, distribution of parts, how the choir was arranged, etc.), as well as information about the Vigil’s premiere and other performances with the Synodal Choir and its conductor at the time, Nikolai Danilin. This gave an extraordinary amount of information and context.
Vlad also owns Musica Russica and had published a new edition of the Vigil with his transliteration system (important when performing with a choir that won’t have the time to learn Cyrillic!). At that time, Vlad hadn’t yet published the Rachmaninov “monument” but was kind enough to send me copies of galleys to the notes on the Vigil, which had much more specific information about the liturgy, the chants (both ancient chants and Rachmaninov’s composed ones), etc. used throughout the Vigil.
Vlad also prepares pronunciation tapes/CDs for his works and this was very helpful for me to begin to get the sound of Church Slavonic into my ear and voice (he also allows copies to be made for your singers, which saves much coaching time in rehearsal). While getting ready to prepare a performance a few years later with my choir at PLU my wife said she heard me talking in my sleep and couldn’t figure out what I was saying—until she realized I was mumbling in Church Slavonic. A good sign that I was spending enough time with the language!
Another question has to do with the sound of Russian choirs, the general vocal sound, style and phrasing, and of getting closer to special issues of pronunciation and diction. For this, I listened to recordings of lots of Russian choirs, not just of the Vigil, but of other works, too. For example, one of the characteristics one hears in many Russian choirs is a “scooping” into the pitch at times, particularly when words begin with a “soft” or “palatalized” consonant. One of the advantages of listening to lots of Russian choirs is you can begin to sort out how wide a range there is—some choirs seem to scoop all the time and others not as much. It helps decide what is normal and expected for all native Russian choirs (and would sound “wrong” without it), and how much might be a matter of taste. Similarly, one can experience vowel colors and vocal styles and ideas of sound on different vocal parts (are sopranos typically more lyric or dramatic? What kind and how much vibrato is used?).
In Vlad’s dissertation he’d quoted a number of sources on the special “secco” style of performance of the rapidly “chanted” sections by the Synodal Choir, with very quick text delivery. Vlad mentioned a recording he had of the Synodal choir from the ‘20’s, I believe, and was kind enough to send me a copy. The quality of the recording was poor, but good enough to learn much more about the style of performance in these passages.
Finally, I was curious about Rachmaninov’s own “performance practice”—how did he shape phrases, what kind of rubato did he take, etc.? For this I listened to as many recordings of him playing his own piano works as I could. This is a case where we’re close enough in time to hear the way the composer himself shapes his music (not choral music, to be sure, but helpful nevertheless).
This kind of broad listening is important, since you absorb many things (without consciously realizing it) that can’t easily be talked about or articulated. As an example that was telling to me in another medium, in 1988 I was in Berlin and visited the Dahlem museum in West Berlin, but had only a couple hours. They had a nice Rembrandt collection so I decided to spend my time there, looking at about 10-12 Rembrandts during that time span. A month or so later I was in London and went to the National Gallery to see a special exhibit from the Hermitage. On the way to that exhibit, I saw a painting out of the corner of my eye and thought, “Rembrandt.” It was, in fact, a Rembrandt. I couldn’t have described to you the characteristics of Rembrandt’s painting or techniques. I’d never taken an art history class. It’s simply that my couple hours of staring at 10-12 Rembrandts gave me a sense (unconscious to me) of what a Rembrandt “is.” It was experiential rather than intellectual. In the same way, I’m sure listening to lots of Russian choirs and Rachamaninov’s recordings allowed me to absorb much about what a Russian choir does and what Rachmaninov’s style is—much more, in some ways than I could get through just analysis or reading about the style.
You can’t replicate the time you’ve spent in all of this research, listening and study with your choir, of course. I had to boil it down for them, so at the Chorale’s beginning of the year retreat I gave an introduction to the work, read some passages from Vlad’s dissertation about performance practice and responses to the Synodal Choir, and played recordings of several different Russian choirs doing selected movements of the Vigil. After this we worked on a few pieces and sections of the work. All of this was to get their minds and ears acclimated to some changes to the normal way they might sing and phrase. We also made copies of the pronunciation tapes for all of them and I encouraged them to buy and listen to some recordings of the Vigil by Russian choirs (I suggested several). Since we wouldn’t start rehearsing until later in the year, this meant that by the time we started working they would be a long ways ahead.
This kind of preparation for music in a different “world” than one normally works in is incredibly rewarding and fun.
Your thoughts?
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