True beauty

Wow, wow, wow. Okay, so I didn't end up going to a party yesterday, but no big deal. I went to the Choir concert at St. Jacobi tonight, the one with the Brahms. It was wonderful! I meant to post some pictures of Göttingen, but I think I'll just gush about this instead.

I was a little worried that I would be late, since I decided at the last minute to walk instead of bike. It's raining, and I was a little dressed up, so I thought it would be easier. It's a little more than a 20 minute walk, and I left at about quarter to 7 for a 7pm concert... Luckily for once German punctuality wasn't the rule, and I got to my seat with a couple minutes to spare.

It opened with organ music, J.S. Bach's Fantasie und Fuge c-moll BWV 537. St. Jacobi is a beautiful church, and I couldn't help but reflect that it's the perfect setting for this kind of music... A great sound, naturally (especially in the middle of the hall where I sat) but it's more than just that. It's a sense of timelessness, and vastness, and grandeur that doesn't need to be overstated because it's just inherent somehow. A cathedral can have the same feeling on an even larger scale, but sometimes the ornateness of it all can be off-putting... and a humongous chamber has it's own particular acoustic issues (*cough cough St. Louis Cathedral Basilica hack wheeze six second delay front to back cough*) but a church like St. Jacobi is always a joy to make music in.

The second piece in the program was Arvo Pärt, Littlemore tractus. The choir at this point was up in the loft, which I thought was perfect. It gave the piece more of an ethereal, angelic quality, which was reflected in the text, by John Henry Newman.

May he support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in his mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

I especially loved the interlude leading into the last phrase.

After that it was another organ piece, Michael Radulescu's Organa aus "Ricercari." I found it very pretty, and for some reason it made me think of exploring a very dense forest... the lower register moved like careful footsteps, and in the upper register ther were lots of quick trilly phrases that seemed just a little bit exotic, like an unfamiliar species of bird.

Then came Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Motette: Herr nun lässest du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren. This time the choir was at the front of the church, and I was glad for the chance to see them in action. The program listed 9 sopranos, 8 altos, 5 tenors, and amazingly, 11 basses. They had scores, but it looked like they didn't need them most of the time. What also impressed me was the unity of sound. Cutoffs, consonants, and especially dynamics were consistently sharp, and the quality of phrasing brought back memories of eurhythmics lessons in Rosse hall...

Next was Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence by Francis Poulenc. The first two movements, Timor et tremor and Vinea mea electa, were good, but it was the third that really blew me away. The Tenebrae factae sunt had some glorious moments, powefully emphasized by the excellent attention to dynamics. It doesn't hurt, of course, that the text is phemomenal. The German translation in the program:

Finsternis brach ein, als die Juden Jesum kreuzigten. Und in der neunten Stunde rief Jesus mit lauter Stimme: Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen? Und neigte das Haupt und gab den Geist auf. Jesus rief mit lauter Stimme und sprach: Vater, in deine Hände empfehle ich meinen Geist.

That's right... the crucifixion. THE moment. The intensity of the music was perfect, and I was stunned. The fourth section, Tristis est anima mea, was also wonderful, comprising Jesus' fortelling of his death to the disciples... although I was still reeling from the third section at that point.

The choir got a bit of a break for the next piece, again for organ. It was Maurice Duruflé, Prelude aus der Suite op.5 and if the previous organ piece made me think of exploring, this one was more like climing a precipitous mountain. Near the end it was as if the climber had reached the peak and was surveying the little tiny world down below, and finally just the barest whiff of a hint of an idea about carefully heading down again.

The choir then sang Peter Cornelius' Requiem nach Hebbel: Seele, vergiß sie nicht. Soul, forget not Death... again, a powerful text.

But the end of the evening, and the piece that I had been waiting for, was of course the Brahms. Motete op. 74/1, Warum ist das Licht gegeben den Mühseligen. I think that it was possibly due to the position of this massive piece at the end of a strenuous program, but unfortunately it seemed rushed to me. Everything was at almost the same tempo, and it all struck me as too fast. Maybe Doc does have a flair for drawing out emotional passages... but the Siehe, wir preisen selig, die erduldet haben section just needs to be slower than the Die Geduld Hiob... To my mind it took quite a bit of the wind out of the und das Ende des Herrn habt ihr gesehen; denn der Herr ist barmherzig und ein Erbarmer. The end of that section was always the absolute peak of the song for me, the moment of rapturous grace, followed by the beautiful and peaceful text from Martin Luther. The transition itself is meaningful, taking that God-infused point and guiding us to holding on to God's love even outside of the moments of epiphany, bringing Him into our everyday, mundane lives. It exhorts the listener to trust in God even when our human foibles get in the way.

Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin,
in Gottes Willen,
Getrost ist mir mein Herz und Sinn,
sanft und stille.
Wie Gott mir verheißen hat:
der Tod ist mir Schlaf worden.

In the end the piece was still powerful to me and laden with meaning, but I'd love the chance to hear the choir perform it when they weren't already exhausted!

Sigh. It was a wonderful night, whatever silly complaints I may have. Hopefully I'll get around to posting my great Göttingen pictures before I leave for Berlin on Thursday! If not, happy Thanksgiving!