The concert we'd all been looking forward to since September finally arrived last weekend. We performed the Requiem in Woolsey Hall with a wonderful orchestra of professional musicians, and soloists from the Glee Club. Although we only had a few weeks to practice the chromatic runs in the fugues, debate the contributions of Levin and Sussmayr, agonize over the beauty of the dissonances in the Confutatis, and learn to "call upon deep wells of personal frustration" while singing the Dies Irae, we savored every minute we were able to sing this masterpiece in German Latin. Rachel Protacio '15 writes about her experience:
Mozart. So much tradition, so much excitement,
so much wishing we could sing it again.
For me, Glee Clubbers intrinsically represent a wide range of perspectives
when it comes to music, and yet Mozart’s Requiem almost immediately captivated
us all, bringing us on a gleefully shared journey of twists and turns, bashings
of Süssmayr, a myriad of firsts, and ultimately, a wonderfully-received
concert.
After
months of rehearsal, the long-anticipated Saturday arrived, and I am completely
sure that Mozart was running through the heads and voices of every one of
us. (“Confutatis” during
breakfast, the Introitus as we trekked to Woolsey for rehearsal, one or two
movements more before we made it on stage.) More importantly, our first non-stop run-through during
morning rehearsal was exhilarating.
In the empty Woolsey, you can hear the music reverberating after the end
of each phrase, and hearing the echoing grandness of all our voices singing the
Requiem
with the accompaniment of the orchestra portended an extraordinary concert.
So
began the firsts: all the newbie Gleeple performed for the first time on the
stage of Woolsey with an orchestra, a quintessential Glee Club experience; most
of us heard the amazing solo quartets of extremely talented members for the
first time and were blown away; Abigail our manager gave her first and last pep
talk and inspired us to sing knowing that we could make our one performance of
the Requiem
special and memorable; Jeff told us with fifteen minutes to go before the
concert that we would be filmed, which was quite the novelty for those (i.e.
all) of us who did not expect it.
I might also add that for me, who entered the Glee Club with perhaps
minimal knowledgeability about the Requiem, the experience in general was one of pure
excitement. Many times, I thought
about how rehearsal accompanying for part of the work affected my experience of
it. It afforded me the chance to
hear every voice part from my seat at the piano. Even more interesting was my hearing how the reduction was
actually divided up among the instruments in the orchestra. What great music! No wonder the Glee Club anticipated
this one concert all year!
Moreover, nicely tacked onto the beginning of our concert was Ave
verum corpus,
which is both musically relevant to the Requiem and, as the concert began,
was a gorgeous and tranquil way to lead the audience into the evening.
The
performance itself was so well attended, and our desire to share our music with
everyone surely drove the concert.
It could not have gone better, and the audience graciously showed that
they thought so, too. It was
absolutely a concert to remember.
At the end of the day, our experience with the Requiem was one of great enjoyment
and accomplishment, and it left each of us with great music that even now is
running through my head.