March 26 & April 2nd: Schumann ~ May 21st: Beethoven |
 Cultivating Westchester since 1951  |
||
|
Our 2006 Program Will Feature Beethoven & Schumann
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We will be performing
Ludwig Van Beethoven's sublime Missa Solemnis
on May 21, 2006 at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in NYC.
The performance begins at 4pm. Don't miss it!
You can get maps to these venues by clicking here.
Since our last few
shows were sold out, we advise you to buy your tickets in advance - you'll save $5 per ticket if you do. Why
not right now? Click here for our secure
online order form.
Robert Shaw's Perspectives on the Missa Solemnis
The great American choral conductor Robert Shaw characterized the challenges faced by singers performing the Missa Solemnis in a letter dated December 5, 1963, published in The Robert Shaw Reader, edited by Robert Blocker (Yale University Press 2004), pp. 153-154:
"I wonder if there is anything in the choral-symphonic literature which can prepare the singer for the ordeal of the Missa Solemnis. . . . The Missa is symphonic in scope and detail. Instrumentalists are not only more familiar with its style and technical demands; their instruments render them more capable of coping with them.
"For the singer, however, the work is a frightening and frustrating experience. He is asked to perform feats absolutely unequalled in vocal literature - still unique after almost a century and a half. . . . . Beethoven exhausted, exploited and ennobled the voice . . He gave it things to say which never had been imagined. In this sense, the Missa Solemnis is a terrifylingly avant-garde piece of music.
"Finally, of course, what all this agony stems from and comes to is the explosion which [Beethoven] has proposed to the aesthetic, emotional and religious nature. None of the religious - or anti-religious - traditions of Western civilization can prepare us for this.
"We may not be able to verbalize this experience ("music exists to convey that which cannot be otherwise conveyed"). But those of us who have bet our voices against his notes, who have suffered through the long hours of rehearsal and performance, may have a closer sense of what Beethoven suffered in the writing."
   |
 |
