it goes with the harmony
We had our concert today of Mozart's Requiem- a 'What Makes it Great' presentation from Rob Kapilow as the first half, followed by the full Requiem as the second half. Kapilow is kind of awesome- I love his format, in which he uses the orchestra and chorus to point out individual lines and the way parts interweave or play off of each other in dialogue, talking about the magic of a phrase and then showing it to the audience. He definitely brought out some elements that I'd never noticed before, for all that I've sung the piece many times, particularly some orchestral lines that I'm always singing over, but also some wonderful referential bits and bobs- the Kyrie fugue, for instance, was inspired by a Handel 'Alleluia.' Handel's was in major, but Mozart put it into minor and added some more complexity in. It was both cool and GENUINELY TRICKY for us to show the audience, as we'd switch back and forth to show the major/minor contrast, but again, this was something I never knew about the piece and now it's added in a whole new layer of my understanding of the piece and I love it. :)
Eta: angevin2 inspired me to go a-googling, which led me here, where you can see the Handel anthem at the root of it.
One of my favorite things Kapilow did was to bow to the inevitable. It's very, VERY hard to hear the Requiem (or, really, half of Mozart's ouevre) without thinking of Amadeus, but especially when you get to the Confutatis. I mean, COME ON- this is thrilling stuff.
GOD IT IS MAYBE ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS EVER. I can still remember watching this for the first time- Sister and I were sitting on Grandma's bed, watching the movie on tv one afternoon and it BLEW MY MIND and this scene was one of the reasons why. ISo when we reached this point in the concert, K broke it down EXACTLY LIKE THIS- he even read from a transcript of the scene. <3 (YOU GO TOO FAST!)
The concert half went very well and we got a tremendous response from the audience, which is always gratifying. It's more than a little exhausting to do a concert like this, as Kapilow is trying to make Important Points so you have to throw huge amounts of energy into every line, because every line you sing is so exposed like this and so very important. I'm not sure I sang the full Requiem as well as I might have liked, but again, if the audience is happy and Norman shakes every chorister's hand afterward, well, who am I to complain?
Eta: angevin2 inspired me to go a-googling, which led me here, where you can see the Handel anthem at the root of it.
One of my favorite things Kapilow did was to bow to the inevitable. It's very, VERY hard to hear the Requiem (or, really, half of Mozart's ouevre) without thinking of Amadeus, but especially when you get to the Confutatis. I mean, COME ON- this is thrilling stuff.
Click to viewGOD IT IS MAYBE ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS EVER. I can still remember watching this for the first time- Sister and I were sitting on Grandma's bed, watching the movie on tv one afternoon and it BLEW MY MIND and this scene was one of the reasons why. ISo when we reached this point in the concert, K broke it down EXACTLY LIKE THIS- he even read from a transcript of the scene. <3 (YOU GO TOO FAST!)
The concert half went very well and we got a tremendous response from the audience, which is always gratifying. It's more than a little exhausting to do a concert like this, as Kapilow is trying to make Important Points so you have to throw huge amounts of energy into every line, because every line you sing is so exposed like this and so very important. I'm not sure I sang the full Requiem as well as I might have liked, but again, if the audience is happy and Norman shakes every chorister's hand afterward, well, who am I to complain?