Submitted by Doug Cooley (not verified) on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 13:13.
I'm delighted you enjoyed the performance. I was one of a handful of choirsters who had sung under Shaw when it was last performed in Portland, and am a huge fan of the Missa. In fact, it was the work that allowed me to see what music could be and let to me earning an advanced degree in music, so I have a rather large soft spot for it.
A few comments on your comments:
1) Zeller is dead on - Beethoven was a string player and a keyboardist, like JS Bach before him. Both wrote instrumentally conceived works that occasionally involved text (Bach a *bit* more so ;-), but neither were singers. That's why Bach cantatas are so difficult much of the time, they jump all over the place with intervals larger than a third. Plus he didn't expect anyone to have to, you know, breathe. Of course, with the Missa I'm tempted to think that Beethoven wasn't writing the work for performance - it wasn't like he was going to hear it done, it was always going to be in his head.
2) Thomas is all about the experience of music. For him, that includes a very physical interpretation - touch, scent, sight, movement, all are as important as the actual music. You see this with popular music performers on a regular basis, and it's not all posing and preening. I've played rock music for decades, and the experience for me is almost religious in that it takes me directions that I have no intention of going with respect to my physical movement. There is no question that Thomas is an incredibly sincere musician who simply isn't concerned with formality other than what it adds to the music itself.
3) Advertising. I hate it, you hate it, everyone hates it. The simple fact of the matter is that in a world where it's more important to bomb a country for personal gain, the arts get short shrift financially, and money makes the world go round. In the case of this concert, we had some sponsors who gave more than they usually do, and I suppose we erred on the side of thanking them for their contributions. The amount of money involved in putting on a concert of this magnitude is very high, ticket sales cover a very small part of the costs (especially with an orchestra of union folks), and it's possible (I do not have any special knowledge of our fundraising efforts other than my own donation) that it was necessary for the audience to have to listen to a couple of minutes of paid advertising to make the concert possible. I agree that placing it in the middle of the concert would be a bit galling, but then I'm enough of a purist that I'd really have preferred to have had the entire work presented whole without an intermission. Although I did appreciate the break to rest the voice between the two toughest movements of the work, and I'm sure everyone in those pews felt the same way about different body parts.
4) Standing ovations. I totally agree with you, but you can't fight City Hall. In an age where everyone can blog, however, perhaps a review like yours is the best standing ovation we can get.
Quibbles aside, thank you for the review and for your attendance. It was a great honor to perform this work with Roger Doyle, and an honor to perform for two well-attended houses. I've sung with multiple choirs in the area, and cultivating an audience is a difficult and expensive proposition. We didn't perform the Missa to drive up attendance, we did it because it's a wonderful piece of music that isn't performed often enough. If more people who came want to come to *any* choral music concert in town as a result, I'm a happy guy.
I'm delighted you enjoyed
I'm delighted you enjoyed the performance. I was one of a handful of choirsters who had sung under Shaw when it was last performed in Portland, and am a huge fan of the Missa. In fact, it was the work that allowed me to see what music could be and let to me earning an advanced degree in music, so I have a rather large soft spot for it.
A few comments on your comments:
1) Zeller is dead on - Beethoven was a string player and a keyboardist, like JS Bach before him. Both wrote instrumentally conceived works that occasionally involved text (Bach a *bit* more so ;-), but neither were singers. That's why Bach cantatas are so difficult much of the time, they jump all over the place with intervals larger than a third. Plus he didn't expect anyone to have to, you know, breathe. Of course, with the Missa I'm tempted to think that Beethoven wasn't writing the work for performance - it wasn't like he was going to hear it done, it was always going to be in his head.
2) Thomas is all about the experience of music. For him, that includes a very physical interpretation - touch, scent, sight, movement, all are as important as the actual music. You see this with popular music performers on a regular basis, and it's not all posing and preening. I've played rock music for decades, and the experience for me is almost religious in that it takes me directions that I have no intention of going with respect to my physical movement. There is no question that Thomas is an incredibly sincere musician who simply isn't concerned with formality other than what it adds to the music itself.
3) Advertising. I hate it, you hate it, everyone hates it. The simple fact of the matter is that in a world where it's more important to bomb a country for personal gain, the arts get short shrift financially, and money makes the world go round. In the case of this concert, we had some sponsors who gave more than they usually do, and I suppose we erred on the side of thanking them for their contributions. The amount of money involved in putting on a concert of this magnitude is very high, ticket sales cover a very small part of the costs (especially with an orchestra of union folks), and it's possible (I do not have any special knowledge of our fundraising efforts other than my own donation) that it was necessary for the audience to have to listen to a couple of minutes of paid advertising to make the concert possible. I agree that placing it in the middle of the concert would be a bit galling, but then I'm enough of a purist that I'd really have preferred to have had the entire work presented whole without an intermission. Although I did appreciate the break to rest the voice between the two toughest movements of the work, and I'm sure everyone in those pews felt the same way about different body parts.
4) Standing ovations. I totally agree with you, but you can't fight City Hall. In an age where everyone can blog, however, perhaps a review like yours is the best standing ovation we can get.
Quibbles aside, thank you for the review and for your attendance. It was a great honor to perform this work with Roger Doyle, and an honor to perform for two well-attended houses. I've sung with multiple choirs in the area, and cultivating an audience is a difficult and expensive proposition. We didn't perform the Missa to drive up attendance, we did it because it's a wonderful piece of music that isn't performed often enough. If more people who came want to come to *any* choral music concert in town as a result, I'm a happy guy.
Doug Cooley, tenor