The Concert

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So, yes, the concert.

It was great to sing at Carnegie Hall. We performed in the main hall, the Stern Auditorium, which looks much smaller from the stage than it does from the seats. There are more tiers of seats than in an ordinary auditorium or theater, though. I had to tilt my neck up at a 45-degree angle to see the nosebleeds. And the way the arrangement of the singers worked out, I got to stand front row center of the chorus. (With an orchestra and conductor in front of me, of course.)

The concert itself: in Matt’s words, it was like a high school concert transplanted to Carnegie Hall. Many cameras flashed as we walked onto the stage, likely coming from parents’ cameras. And, to my annoyance, much of the audience clapped between movements, which is improper classical etiquette. (The program even said, on the same page on which it listed the name of the piece, to please withhold applause until the end.)

The performance was rather sloppy; many mistakes were made out of carelessness. One alto fell off the risers, and one bass kept crouching almost into a sitting position; he’d probably been keeping his knees locked, which makes you light-headed.

Singing with high school and college choruses was a big flashback for me. One group of guys (whether they were from high school or college, I’m not sure) had this little meme they kept doing during our only rehearsal at Carnegie Hall, this annoying little vocalized glottal-stop thing, when we were supposed to be listening to the conductor. Boys will be boys…

As for the piece we sang, Beethoven’s Mass in C: to be honest, it was kind of boring, although my opinion is probably tainted by the overall experience. Had I been more familiar and comfortable with the piece, I might have liked it more (and the same might have been true had I been singing with my own chorus). But it just doesn’t compare with, say, the Mozart Requiem, which, despite being a serious piece, is tons of fun to sing. Sometimes Beethoven is a bit too heavy for my tastes. (And yet I’m listening to MIDI files of the piece now and enjoying it.)

Anyway, it’s over, and I’m glad I had the chance both to sing in Carnegie Hall and to learn a new piece of music. It was great sight-reading training, and now I can say that I sang in Carnegie Hall.

4 thoughts on “The Concert”

  1. Congratulations on your debut.

    There’s a whole subset of people who think that the rule forbidding applause between movements is too stuffy and should be relaxed (notably, Alex Ross, music critic of the New Yorker). The rule only emerged in the 19th century as a way to differentiate the experience of classical concert-going from listening to popular music. And orchestral attendance has been going down ever since. I mean, who wants to be part of a frigidly silent audience when you’re listening to some of the most powerfully emotive music ever written? I say let them clap if they want to.

    (I myself don’t clap. But I dance in my seat, a little.)

  2. For those of us less familiar with classical music, it’s also very hard to tell if the silence we’re hearing is the end of the movement or of the piece itself. It would be helpful if there were supertitles letting us know exactly where in the piece we currently are.

    I myself always take my cues from the audience around me since I can rarely make the determination myself.

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