Today is our final dress rehearsal and performance of the Brahms Requiem, which is unique because it doesn't use the traditional Latin texts (Dies Irae, Lux Aeterna, etc.). Brahms uses unique texts from around the Bible, more rare because it is not for the dead but for the consolation of the living. The text is about comforting the mourner rather than about the passage of the dead. We have an awesome soprano who sings the solo in the 5th movement- written after the death of his mother. The soloist repeats "I will see you again."
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| Warming up before rehearsal |
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| Paul in front of Beall Hall, Music Building |
To greet us yesterday in our 3 hour rehearsal, Mr. Rilling greeted us in Spanish and told us that we would begin with the 4th movement. Our visiting choir from Caracas, Venezuela had to help us find the correct page. We chuckled because we understood what it must have been like to sit through a rehearsal in a language where you can only pick up the Italian terms. Rilling can run rehearsal in several languages, and included bilingually throughout the rehearsal.
Rilling uses the timpani as a distinct and individual instrument, not something that stays in the background as a beat keeper. He uses it to its limits in the second movement, "all flesh is as grass."
After rehearsal we walked through the Saturday farmers market. Jewelry, ceramics, woods, local artists, and produce. We saw some hilarious croquet sets guaranteed to bring out the "inner Neanderthal." The mallets were very rustic pieces of mossy, crooked, and knobby logs.
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Before each movement today Mr. Rilling went through the significance of each movement. Did you know...
1. Rilling disagrees with the musicologists who call Brahms a man without the church. The harp closes the 1st and 7th movements in a upward swell, signifying the resurrection.
2. The baritone soloist in the 3rd movement represents a minister, and the choir the congregation.
3. Death seems to shadow each movement threateningly except for the 4th- "How lovely is Thy dwelling place" (Psalm 84)
4. The text of the 6th movement (Hebrews 13, 14) is the same as the final movement of Handel's Messiah
5. Monteverdi's Orfeo uses three trombones as the gate keepers of the otherworld. Brahms uses the same instrumentation as the text speaks of the "place we cannot know about."
My score is now full of little hearts.
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Update: Emerald City
Yesterday Paul and I went running to the Eugene Rose Garden and along the Willamette River, lined by some of the biggest trees I've ever seen! They look like white pine needles until you get close enough to see they are more cedarlike.
The allergies are exactly as they promise- terrible. I raided the Safeway store the other day to purchase Allegra (better than Zyrtec I think), Visine-A, and nose spray. Used all together I feel relief, but when the meds run out I am itching and sneezing furiously.
Eugene is loud- college town, lots of traffic, almost constant train noise from the tracks not far from here, and the construction from downstairs- jackhammering, pounding, saws, and trucks moving all over. It begins around 6 am, when the light also pours in. It's pretty hard to oversleep here. I feel like I am in "The Girl from 14G" when I was awakened by vocalizing at 7:00 am the other morning. Hopefully a running routine will settle in- right now there is an uncomfortable rhythm of constant eating; our days are wake up, eat, sing, eat, sing, eat, sing, drink and eat, sleep, repeat. We get free board at the cafeteria and many of us groan when we realize that "it's time to eat again..."
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| Paul's pouf |
The concert this afternoon was absolutely mind-blowing. Movement 2 in particular- "all flesh is as grass" was overwhelming with the sheer sound and emotion. Mr. Rilling is wonderful during performance, and cares for each entrance and each section.
Some photos of the Patron Dinner tonight:
