July 19, 2009
Today was the day of the Collegiate Chorale’s own concert; nonetheless we started out with a rehearsal for Don Giovanni. We had originally been scheduled for the whole three-hour rehearsal, but given that we sing for approximately 30 seconds (women) or a minute and a half (men) the Verbier folks agreed that was a bit much. So we showed up, sang our bits and left. It was lovely to see conductor Manfred Honeck again, and he recalled our concerts together two years ago very graciously. I think he was pleased with our performance today, but he must have a lot of other things on his mind at the moment: three of the principals for the opera—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio—have all cancelled and will have last minute replacements. He’s probably just glad he can be confident that the chorus will do fine without taking up any of his time.
We took advantage of the shortened Don Giovanni rehearsal to go up to the church and rehearse tonight’s program in situ. It’s a long, long, steep climb from La Comba, where the first rehearsal was, to the church, and it took all our lung power (although one of the side-by-side students demonstrated his superiority by running up the hill). It’s a good thing we did get some time in the church, because the space was something of a challenge. It was just barely possible to fit in a piano for Ken, chairs for all the singers, and a podium for Nancy and still leave a tiny spot for the soloists to stand, but it took ingenuity, and it’s a good thing we all like each other. And ultimately the front row had to sit when everyone was singing, or the second two rows couldn’t even see Nancy. On the other hand, it’s a wonderful space to sing in—very live.
The program was based on one that the pros performed last year in Israel. Bob had designed it to show off the versatility of the human voice and the spectrum of music for chorus. It was so spectacularly successful that those of us who heard it felt it should be performed again. So it was nice to see it in another incarnation. The first half was all European and classical. The pros did some motets as a chamber chorus, and there were some small ensembles and solos with chorus, including a segment from Elijah. For this part we wore our regular black concert garb. There were some lovely moments, and the performance was well received.
But it was the second half, which was American music of all sorts, that really took off. We changed into bright colors and cut loose, and the audience loved it. We started with two pieces by the 18th-century composer William Billings. For the second, “When Jesus Wept,” which was performed by the pros alone, the singers moved out to circle the entire church. The piece is a kind of canon, and you could hear it move from place to place around the church. The effect was magical. Several pros sang solo pieces, and we did some popular and theatre songs and a lot of spirituals, ending up with the finale to Candide. Many of the songs were Nancy’s own arrangements, and they were absolutely delightful. She’s so unassuming that I doubt some of us had realized until now how multi-talented she actually is. (You simply must hear her version of “Hit Me with a Hot Note.”)
All the pieces were well received, but I think the spirituals got the most response—European audiences seem to love spirituals. We sang some of Nancy’s own arrangements, and some of Bob’s old favorites. Both of our encores were spirituals, including one I particularly associate with Bob, “Every Time I Hear the Spirit.”
Everyone seemed really on tonight. I can’t single out any individual performance as particularly notable, because I would have to single out every one of them. It’s amazing what resources we have to draw on from within our ranks. Listening to the Collegiate Chorale pros singing one after the other, I was awfully proud. They could hold their own on any stage in the world, and indeed, tonight they did.
I believe we all know how much of this we owe Nancy Wertsch, who stepped in at a very difficult time and gave us exactly what we needed. It is due largely to her that tonight was such a triumph. The concert was a nice way of looking backward and forward at the same time: it was Bob’s concert, and it made us think of him. But it also showed what we can do moving into the future.
Janet Pascal
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Verbier -- July 18th
Last night we had our second rehearsal of the Faure, followed by the dress rehearsal this morning and the concert tonight. Sandrine Piau, the soprano, has joined us. Maestro Spinosi explained to us that she had been ill and was still not feeling well, but she would attempt to sing a little. And then she sang the Mozart “Libera Me” with exquisite control and the most amazing floated high notes. I wish she’d infect me with whatever she’s got. The chorus traditionally applauds the soloists the first time they sing with us, but this time she got a genuine, heartfelt ovation. Before we rehearsed the “Agnus Dei,” Spinosi added that there had been some kind of miscommunication, and Piau hadn’t even known she was supposed to sing the aria until she saw it listed on the internet. And it’s not even in her range (too low). But she’d give it a try anyway. I thought it sounded lovely, but she was clearly not pleased. She must be a perfectionist, but then she manages to come closer to perfection than most.
The Chorale and Spinosi remain happy in each other’s company. Sometimes he would ask us if a tempo or dynamic was OK with us (something we don’t usually get consulted on, but some of his tempos are so slow they’re excruciatingly difficult to sing) and we were always able to say yes, truthfully, and give him what he wanted. In his own way, Spinosi today said the same thing I wrote yesterday about the language barrier not really being a barrier. He couldn’t quite figure out how to explain a particular nuance to us, so he said, “I have not the word for it, but you know. You are a musician.” That’s something to treasure—Jean-Christophe Spinosi says that we are musicians.
I must mention one instance of Spinosian acting, since much of the Collegiate Chorale has been going around quoting it ever since and will probably be quoting it all next year. In the noble fortissimo unison of the Hosanna, Spinosi wanted us to give it all we’ve got—not just with loud rhetoric, but with real intensity. “Like this,” he said. “I give you all my ’eart. I give you all my ’eart.” And as he gestured, you could see that he really did. Actually, that’s not a bad description of the way he conducts in general, and what makes him so easy to work with. He gives to us the spirit and energy of what he wants, and we just give it back to him.
The rain continued all morning, except that just a level above us on the mountain it was snow. I went up to see—the meadows where just two days ago we were all getting sunburned were now completely covered. Fortunately the rain/snow stopped before our concert, since the chorus had to assemble outside. There is very little backstage in the Salle Medran tent.
This concert was officially dedicated to Robert Bass, and of course we all know he was to conduct it, so it felt deeply important that it should be something special. And it was. Sandrine Piau was still feeling unwell, so her “Agnes Dei” was cut, and in deference to her condition Spinosi sped up the tempo of her aria a tiny little bit. But you would never have known; she sounded in perfect control. The orchestra, which was composed of a combination of the Verbier young artists orchestra and the more experience Verbier chamber orchestra caught the spirit of the music magnificently. And the Chorale was definitely on. There were many wonderful moments, but particularly outstanding was the sopranos’ solo line at the opening of “In Paradisum.” This is a pure, ethereal, and quite high line. (“We are all little angels together, with tiny harps” Spinosi told us.) It’s extremely hard not to go flat or lose the blend—but they nailed it, and I can say that because I’m an alto. It was so lovely it brought tears to my eyes.
As a conductor, Spinosi is a lot of fun to watch. He’s very energetic; he practically dances. He was wearing a regular tie (not a bowtie) and it flapped around so much it whacked him in the face several times. And right towards the beginning of the Haffner symphony, he gestured so energetically that the baton flew right out of his hand. He seemed much happier without it, conducting with his very eloquent hands, and the momentary flick of humor was just enough to give the Haffner a particularly appealing release and energy. Conducting the Faure Requiem he was, of course, very serious and intense, but sometimes at a particularly important or problematic moment, he’d give us a surreptitious little grin or an encouraging thumbs up. At the end of the piece we received that finest of tributes, a moment of silence before the enthusiastic applause. Spinosi brought Nancy Wertsch on for a solo bow, and made her take it, despite her modesty.
Verbier is a very schizophrenic town today. Leaving the sublime atmosphere of our concert, we walked right into the raucous energy of the preparations for the Tour de France, which passes through tomorrow. The streets were jammed with revelers, and there is a loud eighties-music rock band stationed in the center of town. They’re scheduled to play until 2 or 3 in the morning, which should offer a bit of a challenge to the Chorale, which is presenting our own choral concert tomorrow night.
The Chorale and Spinosi remain happy in each other’s company. Sometimes he would ask us if a tempo or dynamic was OK with us (something we don’t usually get consulted on, but some of his tempos are so slow they’re excruciatingly difficult to sing) and we were always able to say yes, truthfully, and give him what he wanted. In his own way, Spinosi today said the same thing I wrote yesterday about the language barrier not really being a barrier. He couldn’t quite figure out how to explain a particular nuance to us, so he said, “I have not the word for it, but you know. You are a musician.” That’s something to treasure—Jean-Christophe Spinosi says that we are musicians.
I must mention one instance of Spinosian acting, since much of the Collegiate Chorale has been going around quoting it ever since and will probably be quoting it all next year. In the noble fortissimo unison of the Hosanna, Spinosi wanted us to give it all we’ve got—not just with loud rhetoric, but with real intensity. “Like this,” he said. “I give you all my ’eart. I give you all my ’eart.” And as he gestured, you could see that he really did. Actually, that’s not a bad description of the way he conducts in general, and what makes him so easy to work with. He gives to us the spirit and energy of what he wants, and we just give it back to him.
The rain continued all morning, except that just a level above us on the mountain it was snow. I went up to see—the meadows where just two days ago we were all getting sunburned were now completely covered. Fortunately the rain/snow stopped before our concert, since the chorus had to assemble outside. There is very little backstage in the Salle Medran tent.
This concert was officially dedicated to Robert Bass, and of course we all know he was to conduct it, so it felt deeply important that it should be something special. And it was. Sandrine Piau was still feeling unwell, so her “Agnes Dei” was cut, and in deference to her condition Spinosi sped up the tempo of her aria a tiny little bit. But you would never have known; she sounded in perfect control. The orchestra, which was composed of a combination of the Verbier young artists orchestra and the more experience Verbier chamber orchestra caught the spirit of the music magnificently. And the Chorale was definitely on. There were many wonderful moments, but particularly outstanding was the sopranos’ solo line at the opening of “In Paradisum.” This is a pure, ethereal, and quite high line. (“We are all little angels together, with tiny harps” Spinosi told us.) It’s extremely hard not to go flat or lose the blend—but they nailed it, and I can say that because I’m an alto. It was so lovely it brought tears to my eyes.
As a conductor, Spinosi is a lot of fun to watch. He’s very energetic; he practically dances. He was wearing a regular tie (not a bowtie) and it flapped around so much it whacked him in the face several times. And right towards the beginning of the Haffner symphony, he gestured so energetically that the baton flew right out of his hand. He seemed much happier without it, conducting with his very eloquent hands, and the momentary flick of humor was just enough to give the Haffner a particularly appealing release and energy. Conducting the Faure Requiem he was, of course, very serious and intense, but sometimes at a particularly important or problematic moment, he’d give us a surreptitious little grin or an encouraging thumbs up. At the end of the piece we received that finest of tributes, a moment of silence before the enthusiastic applause. Spinosi brought Nancy Wertsch on for a solo bow, and made her take it, despite her modesty.
Verbier is a very schizophrenic town today. Leaving the sublime atmosphere of our concert, we walked right into the raucous energy of the preparations for the Tour de France, which passes through tomorrow. The streets were jammed with revelers, and there is a loud eighties-music rock band stationed in the center of town. They’re scheduled to play until 2 or 3 in the morning, which should offer a bit of a challenge to the Chorale, which is presenting our own choral concert tomorrow night.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Verbier Update -- July 17th
July 17
The Verbier Festival gave us a full day to recover from jet lag this year, and then they moved our Thursday morning rehearsal. So we were free all day Thursday until 5:30, and then we had two rehearsals back-to-back from 5:30 until 10. And Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day, clear, sunny, and hot like we haven’t seen in Verbier in all the previous years we’ve been here. So of course everyone spent the day up in the mountains (it was so clear we could see the Matterhorn from the summit) and we all showed up at rehearsal tired and sunburnt. I was proud of us, though. We accomplished a lot at both rehearsals, and we kept our concentration intact to the end.
The first rehearsal was in the gym of the Verbier school, the Comba, which is familiar to us from many rehearsals. And it was for the chorale’s own concert, so Nancy Wertsch, our choral contractor/assistant conductor, was conducting, and Ken Bowen our own pianist was playing. So it was a nice easy way to ease in to Verbier, because it was all familiar, and just us.
Our second rehearsal was up at the big tent, the Salle Medran, for the Faure Requiem and two Mozart pieces with Jean-Christophe Spinosi, a young conductor and violinist from Corsica. I don’t think he was familiar to most of us—he hasn’t come to America that much. I knew of him only as the conductor of his own small chamber orchestra, the Ensemble Matheus. He turns out to be a splendid conductor of other ensembles as well. The chorale took to him right away, because he’s one of those people who just radiates joy when he conducts. He clearly loves what he does, and he loves the music. He made us feel that we were all just a bunch of friends having a lot of fun getting together to play. He even remarked at one point how lucky we were because we “get to play such beautiful music—Faure and Mozart.” (This was a particularly pleasing remark if you remember that Robert Bass had planned out this particular program before his death.)
Spinosi’s English is very fluid and sophisticated, but the language doesn’t come naturally to him—he switched into French a lot, and much of his English might as well have been French. I don’t think the chorale got all the specifics of what he was saying very exactly, but it really didn’t matter because he’s a tremendously expressive and dramatic conductor. His hands and face convey emotion and nuance beautifully, and we had no trouble understanding exactly what he wanted. He’s also an excellent mime: he acted out for us things like schlepping around a heavy sack (to show the tenors and basses what not to do), and twisting a knife in his heart (to bring out the increasingly intense chromaticism of a passage). Particularly fetching was his illustration of how, in “In Paradisum,” the ethereal last movement of the piece, we are all little angels, with tiny little harps, and he was just one more little angel (and so he wouldn’t be giving us a big distinct beat).
It was amusing to watch him with the baritone soloist, Boaz Daniel. Spinosi is so expressive and emotive, and Daniel is very straightforward and matter-of-fact. He would mime the particularly beseeching, suppliant attitude he wanted for a phrase, looking up imploringly to the heavens, and then Daniel would say, “Oh, you want it mezza voce.” Still they seemed to understand each other perfectly well.
The rehearsal went very easily and well. We all seemed to understand each other well, and Nancy confirmed for us that Spinosi was pleased with our work. It was a lot of fun, and now I’m really looking forward to this concert.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Alto and Music Librarian
The Verbier Festival gave us a full day to recover from jet lag this year, and then they moved our Thursday morning rehearsal. So we were free all day Thursday until 5:30, and then we had two rehearsals back-to-back from 5:30 until 10. And Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day, clear, sunny, and hot like we haven’t seen in Verbier in all the previous years we’ve been here. So of course everyone spent the day up in the mountains (it was so clear we could see the Matterhorn from the summit) and we all showed up at rehearsal tired and sunburnt. I was proud of us, though. We accomplished a lot at both rehearsals, and we kept our concentration intact to the end.
The first rehearsal was in the gym of the Verbier school, the Comba, which is familiar to us from many rehearsals. And it was for the chorale’s own concert, so Nancy Wertsch, our choral contractor/assistant conductor, was conducting, and Ken Bowen our own pianist was playing. So it was a nice easy way to ease in to Verbier, because it was all familiar, and just us.
Our second rehearsal was up at the big tent, the Salle Medran, for the Faure Requiem and two Mozart pieces with Jean-Christophe Spinosi, a young conductor and violinist from Corsica. I don’t think he was familiar to most of us—he hasn’t come to America that much. I knew of him only as the conductor of his own small chamber orchestra, the Ensemble Matheus. He turns out to be a splendid conductor of other ensembles as well. The chorale took to him right away, because he’s one of those people who just radiates joy when he conducts. He clearly loves what he does, and he loves the music. He made us feel that we were all just a bunch of friends having a lot of fun getting together to play. He even remarked at one point how lucky we were because we “get to play such beautiful music—Faure and Mozart.” (This was a particularly pleasing remark if you remember that Robert Bass had planned out this particular program before his death.)
Spinosi’s English is very fluid and sophisticated, but the language doesn’t come naturally to him—he switched into French a lot, and much of his English might as well have been French. I don’t think the chorale got all the specifics of what he was saying very exactly, but it really didn’t matter because he’s a tremendously expressive and dramatic conductor. His hands and face convey emotion and nuance beautifully, and we had no trouble understanding exactly what he wanted. He’s also an excellent mime: he acted out for us things like schlepping around a heavy sack (to show the tenors and basses what not to do), and twisting a knife in his heart (to bring out the increasingly intense chromaticism of a passage). Particularly fetching was his illustration of how, in “In Paradisum,” the ethereal last movement of the piece, we are all little angels, with tiny little harps, and he was just one more little angel (and so he wouldn’t be giving us a big distinct beat).
It was amusing to watch him with the baritone soloist, Boaz Daniel. Spinosi is so expressive and emotive, and Daniel is very straightforward and matter-of-fact. He would mime the particularly beseeching, suppliant attitude he wanted for a phrase, looking up imploringly to the heavens, and then Daniel would say, “Oh, you want it mezza voce.” Still they seemed to understand each other perfectly well.
The rehearsal went very easily and well. We all seemed to understand each other well, and Nancy confirmed for us that Spinosi was pleased with our work. It was a lot of fun, and now I’m really looking forward to this concert.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Alto and Music Librarian
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