An Evening of Mozart

Despite being brain-dead all day at work, and despite it being a day before my own concert, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go hear a live performance of one of my favorite works, so I went with 2 friends to go listen to a performance of the Mozart Requiem put on by the Stanford Symphonic Chorus last night.

It was held at Stanford University's Memorial Church, a wonerful venue with great acoustics and somewhat garish gold frescoes whose beauty grows on you the more you go there.

For the mere price of a movie, I got to hear a fabulous live performance of one of the great choral masterpieces! What a bargain. (My two friends who are grad students got to hear it for $5 a piece.)

Although I've listened to the Requiem many times before, this was my first time hearing it live if you don't count summer sing-alongs. I must say that although I have a very good version of it at home (John Elliot Gardiner w/ the Monteverdi Choir), nothing beats hearing it live in such a beautiful space.

The choir was absolutely massive. There must've been about 300 people in the choir.

Stanford is on a quarter system, so the choir has only started rehearsing this piece in early April for a total of 7 or 8 rehearsals. Despite this very short season, I thought they put on a fantastic performance.

The hushed sections were very hushed; the cutoffs on pesky consonants like "s" were very together (which for a choir that huge is quite a challenge!); the delivery was wonderfully expressive and moving.

The orchestra was also wonderful. As a singer (and as a former orchestra member), one of the annoyances I have experienced with orchestras is that they tend to be too loud loud loud and overpower the singers, but the balance was great last night.

One thing I like doing when I go to concerts is watching conductors--how they interact with the musicians, their movements, how they engage with the score, etc. The conductor, Steve Sano, looked so graceful and poised. He almost looked as though he was dancing like a swan, but without being distracting the way many conductors are. His baton drew graceful arcs in the air, all the while keeping a meticulous beat.

Ok, now that I gushed on and on how wonderful the performance was, the negatives:
-As someone who now sings in a choir that uses no music, I missed the interaction with the singers a bit and noticed that many of them were looking down in their music a lot, but their sound was majestic, robust, lyrical, subtle and everything in between.

-The only thing I didn't like about the performance was the soloists. I should preface this by saying that I almost always don't like soprano soloists because their vibrato is too shrilly. This was also the case last night. But I also did not like the male soloists much either. I did not like their individual voices, nor did I like the way they sounded together. When all four of them sang together, they did not blend well at all.

Finally, some observations:
-I did not know that this piece has no french horns in it. I was a bit surprised by the lack of french horns.
-I also did not know that the soloists join in and sing the very last movement.

All in all, a very inspiring and moving performance. Despite being exhausted that day, I was very glad I went.

And now, I must go and prepare for my own concert!!