Requiem in the Minster

Last night was the York University Choir, along with the Northern Sinfonia,'s performance of Mozart's famed Requiem in d minor.... kerkel 626, you know the one. The one we sang is slightly different than the one everyone is used to hearing. This is because we performed the new 1992 completion by Duncan Druce. It's mostly the same as the Sussmayr completion, but with a slightly different 2nd half of the Lacrimosa and slightly-altered Amen, Agnus Dei and Osanna. I think Mr. Druce knows better than to mess with anything else. People would come after him with torches and pitchforks if he did.

(You know, it really kills me when people go on and on about Sussmayr and his lack of creativity and vision, and how they themselves, writing 200 years later, could do a better job of figuring out what Mozart was really trying to say. You can research all you want, but at the end of the day, regardless of his amateur status, Sussmayr was the only one to actually know the guy, work with the guy...probably snuck peeks at a lot of Mozart's shit that we'll never see, probably stole some of it too...so I think we have to give the guy some due credit. Write your completions how you want to, but let's get real here. Don't say you can somehow do a better and more accurate job than Mozart's own freaking student.)

Anyway, the concert itself was magnificent. The echo in the Minster is about 5-7 seconds....which is VERY amusing if there is a long, loud dominant and the tonic resolution at the end is an eighth note (I'm sorry, I'm in Briatin, I mean quaver. And yes, I have giggled at the word "crotchet".). What echoes is the dominant and not the finished cadence. Haha. A little frustrating to hear! Ha.

I'm pretty sure everyone who is reading this has access to my Facebook, so I would encourage you to go there and look at some of the pics if you want to see what the setup was like. Those risers were incredible. Very high and very scary--they wobbled! I didn't have to stand on them, however, because I was one of the last people to be herded onstage and they ran out of room...so myself and a few others were stuck on these supplementary platforms on stage right. I was actually in the very front row...how familiar. I was happy with that, because it afforded and excellent view of the orchestra and conductor. There is nothing worse for me during a concert than having to constantly sway back and forth to find a window so I can see the beat. You tall people wouldn't understand, would you?

Other observations I made about this concert--I liked the fact that the getting-off and getting-on didn't have to include a 20-minute torture chamber of arguments over lining up and "row leaders" and all of that shit that makes you feel like a kid in grade school again. We just walked on. Brill. And I doubt anyone in the audience cared. I would have appreciated a bit more discipling with how we held our music, though, as we walked on. It looks bad when some people are holding it at their sides, others are clutching it to their chests, etc.

And why don't Brits warm up properly?? We did a fair warmup but everything was in the same key. Just different vowels, the same tetrachord or arpeggio. It was DUMB!! If you're going to call it a warmup, let's warm up shall we? Not regress back to kindergarten and make sure we remember A, E, I, O, U. Ok don't get me wrong, practicing vowels is important, but I think more important, especially when dealing with sopranos and tenors of whom many are past their voal expiration date (seriously), is GETTING UP THERE. Ugh. Oh well.

But all in all, it was gorgeous. The soprano soloist in particular was amazing. Very light, peaceful and beautiful. I got goosebumps during the Confutatis, my favorite movement...as I have every time since I first heard it. And I had great fun with the 7th leaps in Domine Jesu, as ever. NE ABsorbeat EJUS tartaRUS NE caDANT IN obscuRUM...you know ;-).

And, perhaps best of all, Christine and DJ came to the concert!! I was very flattered, and happy that two more people in the world have now been exposed to the magic that is Mozart...and maybe are changed a little for it. One can only hope.

:-)