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vaneramosLast night the mass choir rehearsed for a performance this Saturday at Guelph's state-of-the-art River Run Centre. It caused me a conflict of feelings I hadn't expected.
It's an unique opportunity for the Waterloo-Wellington Rainbow Chorus to perform together with five other community choirs from the Guelph area. The semi-professional Guelph Chamber Choir has presented similar events before, but all of them have been Christmas concerts. This time conductor Gerry Neufeld chose a spring date instead, and Victorian Traditions as its theme. It will include a strawberry social.
Each of the five guest choirs has seven minutes to perform music selected from its own repertoire. Guelph Chamber Choir and Guelph Concert Band will take centre stage however. And the highlight is supposed to be six numbers we will all sing together as a mass choir. I like the idea in principle, but in practice it's bringing out everything I like least about choral music.
We had two rehearsals with all the choirs together. The first one was last Monday night. I opted out because I didn't want to sacrifice time with my out-of-town friend who was visiting. I wasn't concerned, considering more than 200 voices will be on stage. As long as I keep my mouth moving. And I won't be the only one. The choice of repertoire at these concerts always disgruntles a few members of the Rainbow Chorus.
I planned to go last night, but when I walked out my door at 7:02 to see the 7:05 bus careen past, I nearly gave up. I turned and put my key back in the lock. Then I noticed what a lovely evening it was.
"Don't be a wimp," I thought to myself. "It's a half-hour walk at most, and the practice starts at 7:30."
So I set out on foot, and it was a lovely walk indeed. I arrived at the recital hall just in time to hear the choirs starting the first hymn.
Almost at once, I wished I hadn't gone. I started to choke on the words. We had practised most of them at least once in our own choir, but for some reason they came out differently surrounded by church choirs bellowing staunchly.
The Rainbow Chorus avoids most religious repertoire for its own concerts. Not all gay and lesbian choirs are as nonreligious as ours, but in a community this size we must appeal to as wide an audience as possible. If we sang much religious stuff, half the members would quit, and I would be one of them.
I don't object to all religious music. Many of history's greatest composers were sponsored by the Church. The same applies more or less to all the arts. You can hardly learn to sing, paint or design architecture without an appreciation for those traditions. Two of the biggest influences on my own writing have been the evangelical Christian poet Luci Shaw and mystic theologian Annie Dillard, who is a practising Catholic.
For this concert I'm delighted to be singing, for the first time, a 19th Century choral masterpiece, Felix Mendelssohn's He watching over Israel from the oratorio Elijah. I can appreciate it as high art, and even draw comfort from the symbolic serenity of the words and lyrical beauty. Another one of the songs, Beati quorum via by Charles Stanford, was unfamiliar to me but is equally enjoyable to perform.
But I stumbled over the three Anglican hymns. One of the worst was O God, Beyond all Praising, with its pathetic sense of fealty. It idealizes the oppressive hierarchy that churches construct to the detriment of human freedom and understanding. To my greater dismay, it is set to a tune I love, the noble middle passage in Jupiter from Holst's The Planets. Until now I didn't know enough about its Anglican legacy for it to hold any negative associations. To me the music has always represented joy and passion. Now it has gathered some distasteful trappings.
What's the difference between these two beautiful pieces of music? Mendelssohn and Holst were both devout Christians. But in Elijah I hear music and Biblical text blending for the sake of art. In contrast the Anglican hymn's purpose is liturgical. Its words were designed to draw worshippers nearer in submission to religious authority. I find myself gasping for breath over phrases like this:
It's an unique opportunity for the Waterloo-Wellington Rainbow Chorus to perform together with five other community choirs from the Guelph area. The semi-professional Guelph Chamber Choir has presented similar events before, but all of them have been Christmas concerts. This time conductor Gerry Neufeld chose a spring date instead, and Victorian Traditions as its theme. It will include a strawberry social.
Each of the five guest choirs has seven minutes to perform music selected from its own repertoire. Guelph Chamber Choir and Guelph Concert Band will take centre stage however. And the highlight is supposed to be six numbers we will all sing together as a mass choir. I like the idea in principle, but in practice it's bringing out everything I like least about choral music.
We had two rehearsals with all the choirs together. The first one was last Monday night. I opted out because I didn't want to sacrifice time with my out-of-town friend who was visiting. I wasn't concerned, considering more than 200 voices will be on stage. As long as I keep my mouth moving. And I won't be the only one. The choice of repertoire at these concerts always disgruntles a few members of the Rainbow Chorus.
I planned to go last night, but when I walked out my door at 7:02 to see the 7:05 bus careen past, I nearly gave up. I turned and put my key back in the lock. Then I noticed what a lovely evening it was.
"Don't be a wimp," I thought to myself. "It's a half-hour walk at most, and the practice starts at 7:30."
So I set out on foot, and it was a lovely walk indeed. I arrived at the recital hall just in time to hear the choirs starting the first hymn.
Almost at once, I wished I hadn't gone. I started to choke on the words. We had practised most of them at least once in our own choir, but for some reason they came out differently surrounded by church choirs bellowing staunchly.
The Rainbow Chorus avoids most religious repertoire for its own concerts. Not all gay and lesbian choirs are as nonreligious as ours, but in a community this size we must appeal to as wide an audience as possible. If we sang much religious stuff, half the members would quit, and I would be one of them.
I don't object to all religious music. Many of history's greatest composers were sponsored by the Church. The same applies more or less to all the arts. You can hardly learn to sing, paint or design architecture without an appreciation for those traditions. Two of the biggest influences on my own writing have been the evangelical Christian poet Luci Shaw and mystic theologian Annie Dillard, who is a practising Catholic.
For this concert I'm delighted to be singing, for the first time, a 19th Century choral masterpiece, Felix Mendelssohn's He watching over Israel from the oratorio Elijah. I can appreciate it as high art, and even draw comfort from the symbolic serenity of the words and lyrical beauty. Another one of the songs, Beati quorum via by Charles Stanford, was unfamiliar to me but is equally enjoyable to perform.
But I stumbled over the three Anglican hymns. One of the worst was O God, Beyond all Praising, with its pathetic sense of fealty. It idealizes the oppressive hierarchy that churches construct to the detriment of human freedom and understanding. To my greater dismay, it is set to a tune I love, the noble middle passage in Jupiter from Holst's The Planets. Until now I didn't know enough about its Anglican legacy for it to hold any negative associations. To me the music has always represented joy and passion. Now it has gathered some distasteful trappings.
What's the difference between these two beautiful pieces of music? Mendelssohn and Holst were both devout Christians. But in Elijah I hear music and Biblical text blending for the sake of art. In contrast the Anglican hymn's purpose is liturgical. Its words were designed to draw worshippers nearer in submission to religious authority. I find myself gasping for breath over phrases like this:
Then hear, O gracious Saviour, accept the love we bring,Leaving the rehearsal, I had thoughts of backing out of the performance. Others in the Rainbow Chorus feel the same, in fact some had already opted out. The problem is, by so doing we isolate ourselves and pass up an opportunity to bring our own sense of identity to the wider community. Walking away we forfeit power. Taking our place on stage, we assert ourselves. Some of us will not sing the parts we find offensive. The redeeming moment will come after the mass choir finishes singing another ponderous Anglican hymn, the Old One Hundredth. Then the Rainbow Chorus will take its place in front of the audience with our shimmering scarves and proceed with its part of the performance.
that we who know your favour may serve you as our King.
Give 'em the old razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle 'em.The irony is, we'll probably be the only choir that knows its music by memory. We'll go on to sing Hakuna matata and finally Hold on from the musical, The Secret Garden.
Give 'em an act with lots of flash in it and the reaction will be passionate.
Give 'em the old hocus-pocus, bead and feather 'em.
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?
What if your hinges all are rusting? What if in fact you're just disgusting.
Razzle dazzle 'em and they'll never catch wise.
Hold on, hold on, the night will soon be by,What the religious baggage has to do with a strawberry social, I don't know. I can only see its relevance to Victorian values. Nevertheless, I've survived enough collisions with oppressive ideas to quell my alarm. No need to back out now. On Saturday evening I'll be holding on.
hold on, until there's nothing left to try.
Child, hold on, there's angels on their way.
Hold on and hear them say: Child, oh child.
And it doesn't even matter if the danger and the doom
come from up above, or down below
or just comes flyin' at you from across the room.
When you see a man who's ragin' and he's jealous and he fears
that you've walked through walls he's hid behind for years.
What you do then is you tell yourself to wait it out, and say;
It's this day, not me, that's bound to go away.
Child hold on. It's this day, not you that's bound to go away.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 12:56 pm (UTC)Glad you're able to stick with it, though, because the other pieces sound like much fun.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:02 pm (UTC)If I didn't believe so much in the importance of community, and the effort to get along when things irk us...
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:04 pm (UTC)Those hymns are from a different era and are rarely sung even in Anglican churches except on Special occasions because of their "Victorian" view on religion.
Beati Quorum Via is a favorite of mine, glad you like it also.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:22 pm (UTC)The Razzle-Dazzle song I think I've only ever seen performed by Gonzo. :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 01:35 pm (UTC)I didn't know that about your sister. Is that part of the reason you don't have much contact with your family?
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 11:18 pm (UTC)Nah, simply not wanting to understand me is one of the more benign things my sister does. My family has much worse dysfunctions than that one. Not that it doesn't hurt, of course.