Seeking perfection in Music
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Fine violinists never tire of repeating concertos week after week in different towns with different orchestras.

    Every so often I hear of people changing the Mass Parts because they are becoming boring.

    One thing about only singing really, really good music, be it chant or Durufle, is that every time that you sing it you are trying to reach a level of perfection. Once you have that as a goal, then the boredom factor disappears. I think that that may be the hallmark of a really fine choir, the understanding of the depth of the music and their role as imperfect humans trying to fulfill its needs.

    Poorly written music, even sung with great attention and achieving a level of perfection, still is poorly written music. I do not expect that anything that I have written of arranged to have any staying power, but then there's the music of Kevin Allen.

    Great stuff.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I don't know... I tend to think anything can get tiresome after enough repetitions. Phillip Glass, for example. It's just a fact that as musicians, we hear the music a LOT more often than the audience. I've gotten tired of the Durufle Requiem before, but after going over the Introit for 5 years... yeah, it gets old.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    I think I'm with Noel on this one. The only variation in the liturgy at my home parish is all the ordinaries change during Lent and Advent. For most of the year the ordinaries are the exact same, and I can't wait to sing them every Sunday. Of course, the liturgies are nearly two hours long, so that provides plenty of variety within the scope of a single liturgy... nevertheless, I agree with Noel that if the music is good enough, it won't get tiresome.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Noel and Jam are right! Did anyone ever get tired of Byrd's Ave Verum, or Gibbons' Hosanna..... perhaps the problem here, Gavin, is that Glass and Durufle are not 'good enough'. On the other hand, I think once every five years is often enough for Mozart's Ave Verum.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    I'm with Mr. Osborn, but then I've been singing the Mozart for about 50 years. IN my choir, we have in addition to Mozart, the chant, Elgar, Byrd and one by Robert Lau, but that's pretty dramatic and not suited to all situations. On the other hand, we sang the Durufle 'Ubi car... on Maundy Thursday, for the umpteenth time, and it was more beautiful than ever.
    Donna
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    I think we all have personal limits on how much of a piece of music we can handle before we see it as overkill. For some of us it's low, even in very high quality music, and for some of us it's high even on low-quality music. Humans are very fickle little creatures and none of us are quite the same. Yet another stumbling block thrown at us...
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    You can apply this to more things than just music.

    Think about a common complaint some Protestants have against Catholics (and Orthodox, and some other Protestants): that they repeat their memorized prayers too much, and must surely get tired of saying the same thing over and over to the point where they cease paying attention. This may be true in some cases, but can we really get tired of praying the Our Father, the Trisagion, the Hail Mary? We don't mind praying the same texts over and over again because they are exquisitely precise and pious. If we pay attention to what we are saying, we can mean the words anew even after a hundred iterations. I think with music it's the same thing: we have the capacity to get tired of it, and cease paying attention to (and thereby cease being edified by) it, but if we draw our attention to the proper place, and if the music is high enough quality, we can sing it afresh every time with the same unflagging zeal.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Mozart... (sigh)
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Oh Francis, Dare I mention that Mozart is NOT my favorite composer, esp of opera! LOLOL

    Donna
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    For example, I hope there soon is a ban on the Handel "Hallelujah" for Easter.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Donnaswan

    You dared! Thank you. He was destined to compose for the church, but got distracted (pirated into opera).

    Michael

    Kudos. I am running my own moratorium on anything from Handel's Messiah.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    My best friend once said "The only Mozart opera I like is The Rake's Progress."
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    That's the first opera I ever saw live! Loved it. I was, like 9. California kid loves Stravinksy, film at eleven.
    No wonder I loved Wozzeck at 18!
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    I have loved opera all my life, just not Mozart so much, except for 'Cosi'
    The first inkling I had was some awful movie with Mario Lanza and I rode home on my bike swearing I'd be an opera singer when I grew up and sing 'vesti le Giubba" LOL

    Donna
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Mario Lanza rocked! Even my parents, plebes of the first order, loved him! Then it was a short hop into the decadence of Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo) and Babaloo.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Here is a little ditty sung on the 3rd Sunday of Easter not a hundred miles from here- How many times would you like to sing this?--"You are my everything. You are the song I sing. I'll do anything for you. Teach me how to pray, to live a life of grace, I'll go anywhere with You. Jesus, be my everything."
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    It's good for personal devotion.
  • don roy
    Posts: 306
    I rewmember the aweful summer of my 18th birthday. I was in the cast of "Beyond the Sundown", an outdoor drama located in the circle of hell known as east texas. It was bad enough playing an elder blind native american with no lines in a really bad play, and having to do that everyday for a summer filled with surly suspicious natives, lovebugs, texas summer heat , living in a trailor park without a car and extream (and I do mean EXTREAM boredom) but what made it virtually unbearable was a summer of no music save for one recording of Bachs first brandenburg Concerto which i played nonstop for an entire summer.
    From that experience Ive learned several things.
    1. Outdoor dramas s**k!
    2. I have NO acting talent
    and
    3. Even the best piece of music will grow stale with repeated usage.
    To this day i cant really get into brandenburg #1`
    But it is totally beyond me how anyone could not like the damnation scene from Don Giovanni!
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    The Brandenburgs are Bach's Eine kleine nachtmusik. I would agree that they would become more than stale as a summer's only musik.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Dear Don Roy
    My memories of summer outdoor drama are so different! I sang for two summers in the chorus of 'The Lost Colony" the oldest outdoor drama in the US at Manteo, NC. in the Outer Banks.(Used to recruit from Westminster Choir College). I was married in a little Epis church in Nags Head the second summer- ST. Andrew's -by-the -Sea. All we had to do was two weeks of rehearsal, and show up for the show 6 nights a week- the rest of the time we could get knee-walkin' drunk or burnt to a crisp as long as we showed up to sing. What fond memories. I've never been back but we will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary next year.

    Donna
  • BachLover2BachLover2
    Posts: 330
    it seems to me that i heard a lecture by dr. mahrt a few years back where he was explaining: this is why the gregorian repertory has variety each different feast ....
Add a Comment