The symphony season is just about over. Nevertheless several colleges and universities in the area were having concerts the past two weekends. If fact there were so many things going on yesterday that it would have been impossible to get to everything.
A week ago on Sunday, I went to a performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem (A german Requiem) at a small church-affiliated, liberal arts college. Ein deutsches Requiem is primarily a choral piece but it is not the standard Latin mass requiem almost every major composer has written. Instead Brahms derived its text from Martin Luther's German Protestant Bible. The college choir at this performance was large and excellent with good balance and clarity. The baritone soloist who had just performed as a symphony chorus soloist the week before was in fine voice. On the other hand, the soprano soloist, a recent graduate of this college, was a bit weak. In contrast to the choir, the orchestra, hired in for the concert, was too small especially in the bass and treble strings. Brahms likes to emphasize the bass in his compositions. Having heard this work many times before, I thoroughly enjoyed it inspite of the weak orchestra.
Yesterday I attended a performance of Carl Orff’s only claim to fame, Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuern). Carmina Burana refers to a collection of over a thousand poems and songs written in the early 13th century. The pieces are almost entirely in Latin with a few in a dialect of Middle High German, and some snatches of Old French. Most of the poems and songs appear to be the work of Goliards, clergy (mostly students) who lampooned and satirized the Church. Orff put twenty-four of these songs to music that is heavy on the percussion. The work features adult and children’s choruses, orchestra and three soloists. In last night’s presentation the children’s choir was magnificent; the adult (student) choir was a bit muddled in places; the orchestra, while it employed several hired musicians particularly in the percussion section, was not balanced with the chorus and several false entrances were heard coming from the horn section. Of the soloists the baritone was excellent. The soprano seemed to be not quite up to her own standards (I have heard both the baritone and soprano on previous occasions). The tenor, who sings one song in falsetto, was also excellent. Overall I enjoyed the performance in spite of the chorus being drowned out by an overenthusiastic horn section.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_deutsches_Requiem http://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Ein-deu...7959814&sr=1-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_burana http://www.amazon.com/Carl-Orff-Carm...&sr=1-3#disc_1
04-30-2007, 03:15 PM
Some Post Symphony Season Concerts 
