On Thursday night, I accompanied my mother to the University Club to hear the San Francisco Girls' Chorus, since my progenitor was feeling indisposed and two tickets had already been purchased. The University Club is located near my original alma mater, Cathedral School for Boys, whose construction proceeds apace. This Club looks like a real Club, complete with cute hatcheck girls, although the secret door from the library to the former brothel has been closed forever. I'm glad to see that they finally labeled (for the sexes) the restrooms which they have disguised as, or converted from, mirrored coat closets, even if the handles are forbiddingly stiff. I have to confess that after I had stopped at the restroom on the 3rd floor, I got confused and initially entered the wrong holiday party (the Princeton one). I could have sworn I had heard or read the name of the person (L., One of the Levi-Strauss line?) behind me in the check-in line of the Princeton party.
Once I had ascended to the fourth floor, where the party I was supposed to be attending was, I found the bar and ordered a wine spritzer. I met a member of the Club, a white-haired gentleman named Murray. He regularly attends the Charles Fracchia lectures on the history of San Francisco, which I cannot attend (to my regret) because the Troop meets the same night. He, too, is an Eagle Scout (even many Scouts forget that Eagle is the only rank you retain as a adult).
The San Francisco Girls' Chorus event was a participatory event, a sing-along, but they must have been singing quietly or taken a break from singing, since I knew we had arrived in the middle of the event yet I did not hear them when I first arrived. There were some sing-along sheets, but the extras were placed, rather unwisely, directly in front of the chorus, where no latecomer (who would be most in need of a quick update) could possibly grab one. The chorus performed with quality, which is no less than I expect from San Francisco artistic institutions. Speculation on whether any of the chorus members were relatives of one of my Scouts (and if so, which ones) briefly distracted me. This is a small city, after all.
After the singing had ended and the singers had filed out one by one, I went out to the south-facing (downhill) balcony so I could take in the sights of the downtown. The balcony is sufficiently vertiginous from the slope of Nob Hill without alcoholic contributions.One of the towers, possibly one of the Embarcadero Center ones, was lit up in green, outshining the building outlined in yellow and the relatively tiny red pinprick of the Transamerica Pyramid, still visible from Presidio Heights in my childhood.
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Candlelight Concert for the Secours
On Monday, May 31st, I attended a Candlelight Concert celebrating the music ministry of Michael and Catherine Secour. Mrs. Secour was my instructor in the Children’s Choir when I was growing up in the (Episcopal, not Catholic) parish of St Mary the Virgin, and Mr. Secour was my instructor for the Youth Choir until my voice broke unseasonably early. The attendance for this musical festschrift was overwhelming, and underscored how much the ministry of the Secours had meant to so many people.
The program opened with an adaptation of Our Church’s One Foundation adapted for the 10th anniversary of the Secours’ ministry, thirteen years ago. I always experience mixed feelings about adaptations. The change of words to beloved hymns in order to reflect a secular occasion could be seen to violate propriety, yet such changes often indicate affection for the tune as well as the addressee. The tradition of applying new words to a well-known tune is an ancient tradition, whose use ranges from the cheekily disrespectful Carmina Burana (literally, “beer songs”) to the anti-Arian cathedral sit-in of St Ambrose. The third song was a similar adaptation of Psalm 95.
The song between these two was Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. It is a pleasant enough carol, but its rhythm seems a bit jerky and disjointed to me. This slight discomfort perhaps stems from my aural training in modern music, which favors a smoother melody, but it is also possible that this carol was composed with dancing in mind.
The fourth song was an anthem sung by the Children’s Choir. Whenever the Children’s Choir sings, the words are few and repeated many times. It would be an error to overwhelm the wee babes who compose the Children’s Choir with unnecessary complexities, but one of the advantages of this method (and here I speak as an alumnus) is the increase in memorization skills which a short melody with simple lyrics provide.
The fifth song was For the Beauty of the Earth, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. This is my favorite piece out of all that I have sung or heard at St Mary’s, and the one which traditionally Mr. Secour drafted the Thanksgiving returnees to sing - I do hope that whoever replaces him maintains that tradition! Much of what I feel in my heart about this song is ineffable - I genuinely mean this - and so this description is much shorter than one might expect for a song I hold in such affection.
The sixth song was Britten’s Festival Te Deum, with which I am not familiar. The performance was beautiful, but did not pull anything from the wellspring of my memory. UI should mention, however, that Margaret fille was the soloist.
The seventh song was ’Tis a Gift to be Simple, sung by the Children’s Choir. It was considerably more complex than most of the piece which they perform; the Shaker composers, however, were brilliant in their composition because they remembered the plebeian origin of singing and eschewed the complexity which so bewilders and intimidates many who wish to sing for joy rather than jingling coins. This song was a favorite when I attended “hymn-sing” at Cathedral School for Boys. “Hymn-sing” is a topic I may address in a later post.
The eighth song was Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Requiem, which the Youth and Adult Choirs sung; the soloists were Margaret fille and Laura Secour. I have a hard time associating the producer of Cats and the Phantom of the Opera with the composition of a religious work. The ninth song also came from Requiem, and what impressed me most about that performance is how a skilled composer can take lyrics of only a few lines and stretch them over a significant period without dulling their impact by repetition.
The tenth song was Duet from Bach’s Cantata 78, sung by the Youth Choir and the Altos of the Adult Choir, which I half-remembered singing, although it seems likely that I sang it in English - my memory could be faulty here. The performance in case, however, was in German. Memorization of foreign lyrics is significantly harder than memorization of foreign speech, so a successful performance in a foreign language gives me much pleasure.
The eleventh and twelfth songs, both of which the Adult Choir sang, were, respectively, Bairstow’s I sat down under his shadow and Brahms’ How lovely are thy dwellings from A German Requiem, although the language of the latter was English rather than German. Neither of these selections was well-known to me. The final song was a hymn, Ye Holy Angels Bright, (allegedly) sung by everyone, although the Secours had chosen it.
The reception was so crowded that one could barely move and the ambient heat of the room was noticeable if someone were observant. The most notable event for me, however, was the boy who came up to me and introduced himself to me as the boy who had visited the troop the previous week and been so taken with it that he now has plans for joining the troop and coming to summer camp - the world in which I grew up is small and extremely interconnected.
The program opened with an adaptation of Our Church’s One Foundation adapted for the 10th anniversary of the Secours’ ministry, thirteen years ago. I always experience mixed feelings about adaptations. The change of words to beloved hymns in order to reflect a secular occasion could be seen to violate propriety, yet such changes often indicate affection for the tune as well as the addressee. The tradition of applying new words to a well-known tune is an ancient tradition, whose use ranges from the cheekily disrespectful Carmina Burana (literally, “beer songs”) to the anti-Arian cathedral sit-in of St Ambrose. The third song was a similar adaptation of Psalm 95.
The song between these two was Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. It is a pleasant enough carol, but its rhythm seems a bit jerky and disjointed to me. This slight discomfort perhaps stems from my aural training in modern music, which favors a smoother melody, but it is also possible that this carol was composed with dancing in mind.
The fourth song was an anthem sung by the Children’s Choir. Whenever the Children’s Choir sings, the words are few and repeated many times. It would be an error to overwhelm the wee babes who compose the Children’s Choir with unnecessary complexities, but one of the advantages of this method (and here I speak as an alumnus) is the increase in memorization skills which a short melody with simple lyrics provide.
The fifth song was For the Beauty of the Earth, sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs. This is my favorite piece out of all that I have sung or heard at St Mary’s, and the one which traditionally Mr. Secour drafted the Thanksgiving returnees to sing - I do hope that whoever replaces him maintains that tradition! Much of what I feel in my heart about this song is ineffable - I genuinely mean this - and so this description is much shorter than one might expect for a song I hold in such affection.
The sixth song was Britten’s Festival Te Deum, with which I am not familiar. The performance was beautiful, but did not pull anything from the wellspring of my memory. UI should mention, however, that Margaret fille was the soloist.
The seventh song was ’Tis a Gift to be Simple, sung by the Children’s Choir. It was considerably more complex than most of the piece which they perform; the Shaker composers, however, were brilliant in their composition because they remembered the plebeian origin of singing and eschewed the complexity which so bewilders and intimidates many who wish to sing for joy rather than jingling coins. This song was a favorite when I attended “hymn-sing” at Cathedral School for Boys. “Hymn-sing” is a topic I may address in a later post.
The eighth song was Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Requiem, which the Youth and Adult Choirs sung; the soloists were Margaret fille and Laura Secour. I have a hard time associating the producer of Cats and the Phantom of the Opera with the composition of a religious work. The ninth song also came from Requiem, and what impressed me most about that performance is how a skilled composer can take lyrics of only a few lines and stretch them over a significant period without dulling their impact by repetition.
The tenth song was Duet from Bach’s Cantata 78, sung by the Youth Choir and the Altos of the Adult Choir, which I half-remembered singing, although it seems likely that I sang it in English - my memory could be faulty here. The performance in case, however, was in German. Memorization of foreign lyrics is significantly harder than memorization of foreign speech, so a successful performance in a foreign language gives me much pleasure.
The eleventh and twelfth songs, both of which the Adult Choir sang, were, respectively, Bairstow’s I sat down under his shadow and Brahms’ How lovely are thy dwellings from A German Requiem, although the language of the latter was English rather than German. Neither of these selections was well-known to me. The final song was a hymn, Ye Holy Angels Bright, (allegedly) sung by everyone, although the Secours had chosen it.
The reception was so crowded that one could barely move and the ambient heat of the room was noticeable if someone were observant. The most notable event for me, however, was the boy who came up to me and introduced himself to me as the boy who had visited the troop the previous week and been so taken with it that he now has plans for joining the troop and coming to summer camp - the world in which I grew up is small and extremely interconnected.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Gospel Chorus: Not My Father's Hymnody
Monday, October 20:
In gospel chorus, the instructor (the choirmaster in that church for me will always be Michael Secour) informed us that each of us would have the opportunity to compose a verse of the one of the songs and that each of us would sing that verse in performance while the others provided the chorus. This announcement filled me with trepidation. Although I have trod the stage before (once in a dress), being a bass (moved to tenor due to paucity) has not prepared me for front-and-center cantation. I remained skeptical and anxious throughout the practice until I received the sheet music for the piece. I must admit, the worry of composing took some of my mind away from learning the song. The analytic part of my mind has a tendency to overwhelm the part following my line. Then I discovered the part which I had been analyzing in order to have a template for the portion I was going to have to make up was not the verse: it was the chorus! The words to the verse were “ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah”. After a brief demonstration of how the melody went (at least I didn’t have to try matching a tenor line on my own!), we received fifteen minutes to work on our verse. The lines in mine were shorter and (perhaps) less intellectual than those of some others, but I prefer shorter lines in song composition (I have composed lyrics before, for both poems and songs, just not under such a deadline) and longer lines in prayer composition. I’m still finessing the lyrics, but I do feel less apprehensive about a step-up role.
In gospel chorus, the instructor (the choirmaster in that church for me will always be Michael Secour) informed us that each of us would have the opportunity to compose a verse of the one of the songs and that each of us would sing that verse in performance while the others provided the chorus. This announcement filled me with trepidation. Although I have trod the stage before (once in a dress), being a bass (moved to tenor due to paucity) has not prepared me for front-and-center cantation. I remained skeptical and anxious throughout the practice until I received the sheet music for the piece. I must admit, the worry of composing took some of my mind away from learning the song. The analytic part of my mind has a tendency to overwhelm the part following my line. Then I discovered the part which I had been analyzing in order to have a template for the portion I was going to have to make up was not the verse: it was the chorus! The words to the verse were “ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah”. After a brief demonstration of how the melody went (at least I didn’t have to try matching a tenor line on my own!), we received fifteen minutes to work on our verse. The lines in mine were shorter and (perhaps) less intellectual than those of some others, but I prefer shorter lines in song composition (I have composed lyrics before, for both poems and songs, just not under such a deadline) and longer lines in prayer composition. I’m still finessing the lyrics, but I do feel less apprehensive about a step-up role.
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