Concert: Mozart - Requiem and J.S. Bach - Easter Oratorio in Dillenburg

I flew back to Germany this past weekend to sing in one of my old haunts - Dillenburg. My relationship as a singer with this church is largely due to my experience in singing the music of Hildegard von Bingen. I was contacted by Joachim Dreher, the church musician of the Catholic Church - Herz-Jesu-Kirche, through a recommendation (thanks Edmund!). He wanted to perform a program of music by Hildegard with a newly formed women's Schola-choir and he wanted a soloist. This was in 1998, the 900th anniversary of Hildegard's birth. I spent much of that year on tour doing Hildegard's liturgical drama "Ordo Virtutum" with the ensemble for medieval music Sequentia, so I was primed. I let Joachim know that I also did other styles and he promptly hired me to do Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. That was the beginning of a long series of projects we did together, which broke down when I moved to London with Magnus. I guess back then we all considered London too far away to return to Dillenburg for concerts!

When Joachim decided to reprise the Hildegard concert in 2011, he got in touch to ask if I could do it too. That was the famous concert I appeared in Dillenburg to do a whole year early! See my blog entry "If I only had a brain!" for the full story. Anyway, that project opened up the lines of communication between Joachim and I again and after a 5 year hiatus I began performing in Dillenburg again. I jumped in for a soprano who'd canceled a few months before a performance of a Bach Mass pastiche and when I heard Joachim saying he was entertaining doing a big Mozart project I jumped to tell him that I adore singing Mozart and have been told I have the perfect voice and style for it.

In 2012, just after we discovered that we'd be moving to Paris before the end of the year, Joachim contacted me about singing in 2 concerts in 2013. It took me about 2 seconds to consider if I could afford to travel back to Dillenburg to sing Mozart's Requiem and Bach's Easter Oratorio. It's a valid question, since travel costs are not assumed by the church. Those would come out of my paycheck, I'm afraid. Traveling can be quite inexpensive within Europe if you book well in advance. No problem there.

Enough history! So I'm in Frankfurt spending the night there with my dear friend Pamela and her family and I discover early before leaving for Dillenburg that I've left my concert dress shoes in Paris. Ugh. A few phone calls later I realize I'm going to have to duck out after rehearsal to buy a pair, unless someone in Dillenburg can come up with a pair to borrow that fit!

Rehearsal was weird. I was weird. I guess I was too preoccupied with the shoe question to concentrate and I fail to sing the first 2 phrase bit that I sing in the Requiem correctly even once. Arrrgh! And I call myself a professional. Double Arrrrrrgh!

I rushed off to the only shoe store in central Dillenburg before they closed for the weekend at 1pm. I was there by 12:25 and by 12:35 I had a pair of not exactly inexpensive, new, super comfy black, leather wedge concert shoes. Great for winter/cold weather concerts, since my other shoes are more suited to summery weather. Yippee!

The afternoon rehearsal went much better, thank goodness! I enjoyed spending some time talking with Sybille Kampheus, the alto soloist in our downtime, which was considerable.

I spent the night with one of the women singing in the choir who sang with the Hildegard Schola throughout the years and who has always been very dear. She treated me like a queen and I enjoyed sleeping through the night with a certain small person joining me and proceeding to keep me awake.

After a brief "dress rehearsal" was the concert. True to the nature of the occasional concert-goer, the church was filled to the brim! Nice to sing for a large audience, but people! Be a little more adventurous! There's a lot of beautiful music to hear live!!!

This concert was stellar from top to bottom. The usual Bezirkskantorei (area church choir) was augmented by the school choir of one of the local high schools. The orchestra, "L'arpa festante", on period instruments was of the highest quality. Natural trumpets, trombones of various sizes, timpani and even bassett horns! It was a delight to sing with them and the other soloist (Sybille Kampheus, Hans-Jörg Mammel and Paul Theis) as well. Very high quality. Joachim had put a lot of research into which version of the Requiem he wanted to perform and came up with a hybrid mixture of mostly the Levin extrapolation with a bit of Süßmayr and Druce and his own arrangement of the Amen. It was bombastic!

The orchestra played a piece by contemporary composer Arvo Pärt - "Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten", which was quite lovely and atmospheric. And wonder of wonders, Hans-Jörg Mammel played contra-bass for it! I had no idea. He's very well known as a tenor soloist, but as a bassist? - Not so much.

Bach's Easter Oratorio was no slouch either. After a brief discussion I was allowed to sing the early version text of my aria, since nothing, absolutely zero else was different. I don't know what got into Bach to change the text in such a way in a later version as to make it nearly impossible to sing the B section with out suffocating. The earlier version text has difficult vowels, but at least there is more space to breathe than between two 16th notes!

It was great fun all in all and I think the school choir enjoyed themselves as well. Especially when they could relax and do the last choral piece of the Easter Oratorio as an encore. It brought tears to my eyes. Really.

I'm looking forward to the next concert in Dillenburg - in September with a program of Mozart's Credomesse (a repeat for me) and CPE Bach's Magnificat (a first for me).

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Concerts - report

When it rains, it pours! At least, that's what they say, and I have to admit it often seems true! This year when Easter rolled around I didn't have a whole lot planned for the next few months. But that changed drastically.

In the throes of one of the most horrible colds I've had in a while, my dear colleague Joachim Dreher in Dillenburg called and asked if I could jump in and sing in a concert in May. He'd had a soprano soloist all lined up (most likely a year in advance as is his wont), but she had called and said she was no longer able to do the gig. He remembered my offer in October that if he should ever find himself needing a soloist at short notice that he should turn to me. Not having a whole lot lined up for 2012 and being a quick study means that I could be what saves a concert if someone gets sick. Well, at least I had a few weeks notice for this concert. But more on that later.

But first the performance at the Herrenhäuser Chortage 2012 in Hannover by Raggio-di-Sol. That's the small vocal ensemble (10 singers), that I sing with. As per usual, we sang a few pieces during this choir festival. A whole weekend featuring  choirs from Hannover. We performed on Saturday afternoon. We did "Pastime with Good Company" by Henry VIII, "Pedro y bien te quiero" (anon.) "When David Heard" by Thomas Weelkes, "Luci seren e chiare" by Claudio Monteverdi and "Magnificat anima mea", by Alfredo Ihl (our director). We did adequately. I say adequately because Alfredo made everyone nervous about the Weelkes by harping on one small section way past the point of no return. A pity, because it would've been just fine. As it was, there was no complete breakdown, but at least one person lost their way. Oh well. The rest of the pieces went quite well! That took place at the end of April.

This past weekend, May 12-13, took me back to my old haunt Dillenburg again. This time to sing Bach cantatas. Joachim had stitched together a wonderful pastiche of pieces of various cantatas and organ pieces to create a program he called "Bach and in Honor of Bach" ("Bach und Bach zu Ehren"). The church choir, a small baroque orchestra (with a few members I know from previous performances), a bass soloist and me performed from 9 different cantatas and an organ soloist performed works by Liszt, Rinck and Karg-Elert on themes from Bach pieces. It was a wonderful program and the orchestra and choir were in fine form. I'm quite satisfied with my performance, although it wasn't perfect, when is it ever? And I don't think there was anything that anyone but a professional musician might have noticed. Maybe not even then...

17 May 2012 I flit off to Hong Kong! My dear friend Albert is (finally) getting married! I know Albert from choir at the Episcopal Church of Christ the King in Frankfurt. After he left Frankfurt he spent several years in the US and then returned to his home town Hong Kong where he met Natalie. I am so pleased for him (and her!). And he asked me to sing at his wedding, offering to pay for my flight! How could I say no?!? The wedding date being 20 May 2012 meant that it fit just perfectly between the concert in Dillenburg and Magnus' grandmother's 90th birthday celebration in Bussolengo on 27 May 2012! I'm flying to HK by myself. The boys will be alone for 5 days! Unfortunately, because travel time is so long to HK I'll only be there from midday Friday to midday Monday. But I'm sure it will be an amazing experience. One set of friends from Frankfurt (Jen and Patrick) will also be there participating, so I'll be able to hang out with them. Unfortunately, the one other person I know in HK (Solveig, from Voices Found) will be in Paris that weekend! Figures!

I will be singing The Lord's Prayer by Mallotte and Bist Du Bei Mir by Anna Magdalena Bach during the ceremony. At the reception Albert has hired a jazz band and requested I sing a few numbers. I've chosen At Last and Summertime and he requested Skylark. Oh, this will be so fun!

So that's what's been going on and what's in the works. 


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