Even though I do come from such a musical background, it is still very difficult to sum up the beauty and wonderful sounds I hear at choir concerts, especially when they are coming from a very musically talented group like the William Ferris Chorale. It has always been such a simpler task for me to write up my thoughts about a bold, marble sculpture or a gorgeous painting made from oil on canvas, or to spill my thoughts of why certain lighting was used on a set or what the deepest meaning and interpretations of a plot line in a play could be. But for some reason it has always been a feat for me to capture things like how warm, rich and round some note or vowel sounded or the way a certain run of staccato notes or lines of dissonance made me feel. To me, music is something that has to be there right in front of you (or behind you on a chapel organ balcony as the case may be) for you to truly feel it and to express your emotions on it. It is really hard to go back a day later – or even an hour really – and say something like, “Oh, I really liked the tone or vowel shape was on page 3, bar 57 in such a such a song.” Regardless, I will try my best here.
To begin, the atmosphere of the Madonna della Strada Chapel at Loyola University was just absolutely breath-taking. Now, to be honest, the chapel colors themselves were a bit off for me. The gold, sacred images along the sides of the chairs and behind the altar were stunning and beautifully done and the stained-glass was great to look at. As I sat there listening to the gorgeous music I wondered to myself what it all looked like during the day. Is it brighter? Shinier? Even more colorful? On the other hand, the white ceiling, walls and rest of the building were just a tad too much for me; I have never been a big fan of lots of white in any space, chapel or not. However, I do feel that the acoustics of the room more than made up for it. With the William Ferris Chorale being a much smaller ensemble that I am used to, it really surprised me as to how big they sounded with the amplification of the chapel’s acoustics.
In having been in choirs in the past, I know personally what a challenge it can be for the singers to maintain strong diction and to not get off beat-wise with one another – as well as with the organist and other string instruments – when you are in such an echoey space. Both the William Ferris Chorale and the all female high school Spirito! Bravura group did an amazing job with this difficult task. I applaud them greatly for their efforts.
It was wonderful to hear a Requiem again; I have not heard one in quite a while. Each of the movements within the piece complimented one another beautifully. It was interesting to hear the progression in mood change that was reflected by different volume increases and decreases as each part was performed. The baritone soloist for both the Offertory and Libera Me sections, Michael Brown, was just extraordinary. He had such beautiful tone and his subtle use of vibrato went along nicely with the smooth sounds of the stringed instruments. Along with this, to my great pleasure, the acoustics of the room really picked up his gorgeous voice and amplified it to the perfect volume as it floated atop the accompaniment.
The Agnus Dei section was by far my favorite movement of this requiem. It had a great use of crescendos and decrescendos at such pivotal points in the music that had their way of making my spine tingle and stomach float up into my chest as the happy butterflies within tried to escape. I also felt this part was just that much better than the rest because it was the William Ferris Chorale section sung just after the Spirito! Bravura girls sang the Pie Jesu section on their own. Now I do not mean to speak poorly of these high school girls, but compared to the William Ferris Chorale their voices were just not as mature. They seemed breathier, lighter and quieter than the full-diaphragm, round, solid and mature voiced of their elders. They had beautiful tone and diction for a great majority of their time on-stage, they just did not seem as confident and solid; their lack of enthusiasm in their facial expressions and posture definitely did not help their case either. Overall, though requiems are meant to be masses for the dead, these chorales made them seem very full of life and left me dying to hear more (haha).
The high school girls group, Spirito! Bravura, could definitely hold their own as they sang from behind us in the balcony William Ferris Chorale-less. They have a very strong alto section as a base to their sopranos’ floating melodies and their overall sound was very rich and nicely blended. I absolutely loved when the up-beat rhythms of “Ain’t no grave can hold my body down” came from behind. The instant their voices belted out that first perfectly staccatoed “Ain’t” the entire audience turned around in their seats to capture the soul that was bursting from above. I even clapped along a pit to help cheer them on. That piece was definitely a needed one to liven things up and really get everyone interested. What I enjoyed most about listening to this group though was that since they were not directly in front of us, I could look in front of me at the gorgeous murals of Jesus and the Virgin Mary and see the messages in the songs come to life; that was definitely an added bonus I was not expecting.
The part I most enjoyed about the entire concert was probably the section of poetry turned to song composed by Eric Whitacre that was performed by the William Ferris Chorale. The sustained, round, warm notes in “Lux Aurumque” made my heart jump, the interesting intertwining mix of fast and slow sections with crescendos in “With a Lily in Your Hand” and the great difference between happy, warm chords and dissonant chords and the hard-to-tell-if-it-would-ever-end ending in “Sleep” kept me on edge the entire time and were very fun to listen to. But my absolute favorite part was definitely the piece entitled “i thank you God for most this amazing day.” Never in my life have I heard such a cool way to adapt a poem into song. The words were not sentence-like, but the music just flowed so perfectly. It made me remember that sometimes the lyrics of certain songs are not supposed to be the most dominating, important part of the song. In some cases, the music that is going along with the words is really amplifying the overall message the piece is trying to convey. Each word flowed into the next with no real sense of punctuation, making it difficult to understand sentences, but the music and voices themselves (with the help of the amazing chapel acoustics) amplified certain words with crescendos to show that they were more important than others.
On the other hand, the piece that I did not like as much was “See, the conqu’ring hero comes.” It was a nice piece, it just did not make sense in the place it was sang on the line-up of the show. This piece, sang to the tune of the hymn called “Thine Be the Glory” just felt anti-climactic being placed after the gorgeous Whitacre composition. Regardless of placement, I still enjoyed it to the very end, happy to applaud as loudly and long as I did.
Overall, this was an absolutely wonderful performance. The order of songs fit together nicely for most of the show and all of the performers – vocalists, director and instrumental musicians included – put a lot of effort into making it a truly memorable night. Anything that allows me to smile back on the high school years of ore (?) is worth my time. I was very happy to use the rusty listening skills I had not brought out in a while and the William Ferris Chorale and Spirito! Bravura ensembles were definitely the groups to do it do. Bravissimo!
http://www.williamferrischorale.org/
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