The Burbank Chorale

Singing the Fauré Requiem

2008-05-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

So our Spring Concert took place last weekend at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, a new venue for us, and an impressive one with its striking modern architecture and unusual stain-glassed windows. We started with our Morely and Arcadelt madrigals and sang them with a lot of spirit and rhythmic verve, or so it seemed to me. And the ladies and Colburn Children's Choir sang their Rachmaninoff piece, The Angel, well, angelically. The Song I Sing was a lively finish for the Chorale's first half; the audience certainly seemed to like the unusual mixture of pop, jazz, rap and Handel contained in the arrangement. Pop, jazz, rap and Handel--fun now and then, but for obvious health reasons I wouldn't take that mixture too often.

The Colburn choir followed with a beautiful set of folk and contemporary pieces, singing with precision and a truly lovely blend of treble voices, all showing Misha's loving hand as their director.

In the second half the Chorale turned to Fauré, with the orchestra in hand and with our own John Tveit at the church's towering new pipe organ. The Cantique is, of course, a lovely piece, a glorious little chestnut written by a teenage composer (and fantastically labelled "Op. 11" by a publisher who wanted Fauré to seem more experienced). If our French wasn't "native," our love of the music, I'm confident, more than made up for it. We all love singing the piece and I know that must have shown through.

Then came the Requiem. I first encountered the Fauré Requiem in high school when I had the experience of singing the Sanctus, the third section of the mass, with its flowing lines that lead up to those mighty "Hosannas." That led me to buy a recording, and I have listened to it from time to time with much pleasure over the years.

But occasional listening is really nothing compared to the experience of learning, singing and living with this masterpiece over several months. It's one of those special pieces, I think, in which the composer was simply inspired from start to finish--inspired to write beautiful and inventive harmonies, haunting and ravishing melodies, and to capture the text with absolute perfection. Consider the perfectly brooding "Requiem aeternam" that, at the very start, seems to bring us to death's doorstep, leading us right into a lovely but elegiac Kyrie. Then comes the whispering, almost ghost-like alto and tenor duet in the Offertory, with harmonies that sound distinctly modern yet timeless. Then the above-mentioned Sanctus momentarily raises the spirit and leads to the famous Pie Jesu that mixes loveliness and solemnity in appropriately equal proportions.

Next is my personal favorite, the Agnus Dei section; I wonder how many feel the same. It seems to be a whole mass in itself, with its beloved and beautiful obbligato intro, its melodic main theme (I'm happy that the tenors got it) and the ensuing chromaticism in which Fauré explores the depths of the text--all ending with that obbligato theme. Then, in the Libera Me, we seek liberation from death in a deep baritone, leading to Fauré's "touch" of a Dies Irae section with its driving beat and insistent plea. Finally, using a text from a liturgical prayer not found in the standard Requiem Mass, Fauré creates what seems to be the perfect "stairway to heaven." With its steady, flowing arpeggios, and its most gentle yet slightly mysterious melody, it seems to say, "if you've gotta go, this is your exit music, this is what angels actually sound like when they sing you to final sleep."

So that's a mouthful, and apologies for any excess. But to me there's nothing like this piece. It's a genre to itself. Innovative and accessible, gentle and powerful, I feel sure that it moved all of us one way or another. I personally thank our maestro (and my fellow choir members) for the unforgettable experience of communing with it over the course of four months! And a THANKS to all those who worked so hard to make the concert turn out well. On to Mozart and Handel for Christmas!

John Lakovits

2008-03-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

John Lakovits is one of our most avid choral singing enthusiasts, currently singing in two choirs, ours and one led by former Burbank Chorale Music Director, Frank Basile. I recall him making a very quick exit after our Dorothy Chandler performance, trying hard not to be late for his second gig of the evening. Interestingly, John manages to sing first tenor in our choir and bass in the other one. I guess it follows that he could easily sing baritone in a third! He tells us:

I was born in New York. My family and I moved to Colorado when I was 7. I grew up there, then moved to Southern California in 1980 with hopes of becoming a screenwriter. Since then I have worked in a variety of fields including journalism, human resources, office support, marketing, public relations, escrow, to name a few. I also have a background in improvisational comedy, which I still occasionally teach. My last nine years have been spent working as an escrow officer. As the mortgage/banking industry is in a bit of slump -- pardon my understatement -- I am now in the process of transitioning into another field.

Though I have no professional training I have sung in several choirs in my life, most recently—before Burbank—with a small group back in the early 90's called the Ad Hoc Chorale run by one Frank Basile whom I believe some of you are familiar with. I was drafted into Frank's choir by Anita Van Tellingen. In 2006, Anita suggested I feed my current spiritual and creative longing by checking out the Burbank Chorale, which she had been a part of. I immediately felt I was home my first night. Needing even more, last summer I joined Frank's choir, the Friends of Music, at St. Bedes in Mar Vista.

I appreciate the learning experience I have had with Burbank Chorale so far. For somebody who has no formal education in music it's a true joy to be able work with a musical director like Misha. His patience and sense of humor make each rehearsal something to look forward to. His style of directing is also an education in itself. I used to think a 5th was something you purchased form the liquor isle at the market. Misha has taught me otherwise. The fact that he not only directs us but adds to our musical knowledge is one of the things I like best about being a part of the Chorale.

Some of you met my dear friend and creative partner, Toni Attell, at Glen and Amy's soirée last summer. She and I created a live show that is based on the Golden Age of Radio, Television and Film. It's similar to Vaudeville with our own updated twist. Right now we are performing at retirement communities, but are working on selling a similar, more educational version, to the school system. Since a part of our show includes music, I have learned how to capture, edit and burn music, so we don't have to pay somebody else to do it for us.

A Few Words on Arcadelt

2008-03-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

Now that we've rounded out our Spring Concert madrigal selection with Il bianco e dolce cigno I thought a few words were in order about its composer, Jacques (a/k/a Jacob) Arcadelt. Though his name is not exactly a household word, he was a rather popular and influential composer in Renaissance Italy and France. Arcadelt was born around 1500 in Holland (though some sources describe him as French or Franco-Flemish). He worked for many years in Italy, where he served as choirmaster of the Papal boys' choir at St. Peters. He spent the later years of his life in France in service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise. Though he wrote sacred music, he is most significant as a writer of madrigals. He published numerous books of madrigals in both countries and both languages. His work was important and influential because he contributed to the growth of the madrigal in Italy and France as a "serious" alternative to sacred choral music. According to Goldberg Magazine (an early music publication):

"He was one of those distinguished musicians of the Netherlands, who by their efforts to advance their art in Italy, ...helped to lay the foundations of the great Italian [madrigal] school."

For 99 cents, Itunes has a nice recording of Il bianco e dolce cigno by the King's Singers. It's on a King's Singers album called The Madrigal History Tour (which also has a French chansons by Arcadelt).

Bach at Disney Hall

2008-03-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, Kyrian, Brad and I, and my wife, Karen, had the special pleasure of hearing the B Minor Mass at Disney Hall. The choir was a trimmed-down version of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (maybe 50 singers) and the orchestra was L.A.'s resident baroque ensemble, the Musica Angelica Baroque. Our group sat in the last row of the second to last balcony, affording us a fine panorama of Frank Gehry's masterpiece and a good spot from which to hear the refined, beautiful blend of the chamber orchestra and choir. Brad and I, who like to turn our stereos up loud, had the small complaint that the sound could have been louder, as it would have been if the the LAMC had been at full strength. But we agreed that with a larger choir, we could not have heard the counterpuntal voicing so perfectly. And indeed the smaller forces (still large by Bach's standards) enabled conductor Grant Gershon to achieve what the LA Times review praised as "clarity of line, texture and text," not to mention that special dance-like quality so essential to good baroque performance. All in all, the performance showed the strong influence of Gardiner and other leaders of the "period performance" movement. Brad noted, subtley, that the performance, though excellent and refined, may have lacked a touch of abandon, of "letting it rip" (my words).

But those are quibbles. After all, we weren't there to review a performance. We were there to revel in Bach's amazing music, and so we did. Kyrian and I found ourselves conducting from the balcony during the allegros and holding our breath during the piano sections. And we came away happier than ever that we could look forward to singing ourselves on Tuesday night!

John Tveit, accompanist extraordinaire

2008-02-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

Next up in this monthly column is our very own accompanist extraordinaire, John Tveit. We see him up there at the piano, working hard for us at every rehearsal, reading those tricky harmonies by Bernstein and Faure, serving as our temporary baroque orchestra, and then coming through for us at our concerts. I asked John to tell us how it all got started, and he sent in this delightful piece describing his early obsession with the piano:

“I come from a fairly unmusical family, although my father loved to sing and had a very good lyric tenor voice. My earliest exposure to music came through recordings of classics that we had at home, and through the music I heard in church on Sundays. I've never been much of a singer myself, but I have always been around choral music, and I've loved it since I was very young. At one point, one of my teachers noticed that I often drew pictures of pianos, and mentioned this to my parents, with the not-so-subtle suggestion that they provide me with one. They wouldn't. Nevertheless, it became obvious that I had become obsessed; I fantasized about pianos, I dreamt about pianos - the very sight of a piano was a thrill. I had to play; it was a compulsion stronger than any other I'd ever had. I took to going around the neighborhood, knocking on the doors of those that I knew who did have piano, asking to come in and play theirs. Often, these people weren't even known to me, but the urge to play overrode any shyness I might have had about inviting myself in. The fact that I didn't know HOW to play didn't matter; just having my hands on a keyboard was everything that I wanted. There was something magical about pressing a key and hearing the particular sound of a hammer striking a wire, and then ringing, bell-like on a particular pitch. Also, the fact that they could be combined; several notes could be played at once - that just opened up another whole dimension. Maybe it was magical because it seemed that there was a world of infinite possibility. Eventually, my parents heard about the visits to the piano-households. They were horrified: amused probably, but very embarrassed nonetheless. And so they relented and bought a piano for me and for my sister. Lessons soon followed, and continued on through my college years and beyond. To this day, they like to recount how I "shamed" them into making that purchase, and we all have a good laugh.

Eventually I wound up in Southern California and made my way to the Burbank Chorale; how that came to be is another story. I love playing for the group: I love the rehearsals, I love the music we do, the people in the group, working with Misha - all of it. I wouldn't have stayed so long otherwise.”

John’s a bit cryptic about just how he made his way to the Chorale. I guess we’ll have to read about that on TMZ!

By Jeremy Williams and John Tveit

Well, is there?

2008-02-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks of singing the Faure Requiem, I'm moved to pose this question: is there really anything more beautiful than that opening "obligato" in the Agnus Dei? I overheard a number of choristers swooning over it. I keep listening to it on a recording. I just wish it were longer! It's right up there with that other masterpiece of the genre, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." The latter is certainly one of the greatest "tunes" of all time--and many don't know that it was "background music." Well, sort of. The American Heritage Dictionary says that the word "obligato" is "used of an accompaniment that is an integral part of a piece." That clearly applies to Faure's gem.

From Bologna to Bach to Burbank, with Love!

2008-01-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

Coro Euridice, Bologna Italy

Thanks Jeremy, for touching upon the Bach Cantatas -- or Lieders, as I got to know them when I first started singing them, many moons ago.
I was still a teenager, in my hometown of Bologna, Italy, when I knocked on the door of the Coro Euridice's headquarters. I was invited to sit and listen to the rehearsal. After a nicely arranged version of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, I remember the surge of emotion and the inner voice screaming: "I want to be part of this!", as the Coro Euridice shifted into a series of beautiful Bach Lieders. Christ lag in Todes Banden was one of them, and there were many more. Bach was my first introduction to choral music, and also a chance to shatter my preconceived notion that German was a "hard sounding" language. Far from it! I discovered melodious sweetness through Bach and was inspired to start learning it. I should mention that the Coro Euridice was established in 1880 and is still currently directed by the great Pier Paolo Scattolin. Maybe one day the choirs will sing together!

Silvia Pompei

Suzuki - a Must for Bach Choral Lovers

2008-01-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

I wanted to turn on fellow choir members to the wonderful world of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. Perhaps many of you have heard these performers; for some years they've been putting out excellent recordings of the complete Bach Cantatas. But in case you haven't....

For decades, the “period” performance movement has been dominated by English conductors and ensembles, such as John Eliot Gardiner who has also released an exceptional set of the cantatas. But Suzuki has moved into the very top ranks as a choral conductor, and also as an organist and harpsichordist. I am second to none in my admiration for Gardiner, and have many of his recordings. (John Tveit is also a Gardiner lover.) But Suzuki is great alternative. Gardiner may be unsurpassed in rhythm and panache, but Suzuki’s cantata and other choral performances of Bach have been rightly praised for their exceptional lyrical beauty and spirituality.

As a prime example, Suzuki has just released a truly beautiful recording of Bach’s B minor mass. It’s available on Amazon, of course, here, but his recordings are imports on the BIS label, and thus rather expensive. But if you join eMusic.com you can download them quite cheaply. A monthly subscription of $14.99 will get you a whole bunch of them (and then you can cancel if you like!)

For Bach lovers, getting to know Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan is a must!

Fauré Requiem is a Celebration of Life

2008-01-24T10:00:00.001-08:00

The centerpiece for our Spring Concert is the Messe de Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. Written between 1887 and 1890, the Requiem reflects the composer's personal feelings and attitudes about death. Fauré said in 1902: "That's how I see death: as a joyful deliverance, an aspiration towards a happiness beyond the grave, rather than as a painful experience."

When one hears the Requiem, one can almost visualize Fauré's belief in this comforting, peaceful view of death. The final movement, In Paradisum, has an unearthly, ethereal quality, evoking choirs of angels leading the deceased to eternal rest in Paradise. "God's holy angels lead you to paradise; may saints in their glory receive you at your journey's end. May you, forever more, rest in peace."

Kyrian Corona

Madrigals by Morley

2008-01-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

With the addition of another Thomas Morley madrigal to our Spring concert repertoire, we’re now singing three of his greatest hits. Not only are they great fun to sing, they’re by an interesting guy from an interesting time. Morely (1557?—1602) was one of the premier composers of Elizabethan madrigals and, of course, Shakespeare’s nearly exact contemporary. Given their shared milieu in music and theater, it is very likely that he and the Bard knew each other. Did they work together? Morley set “It was a Lover and his Lass” from As You Like It, apparently a rare surviving example of a contemporary setting of a Shakespeare lyric. So it’s at least possible that his music was used by Shakespeare himself.

Misha mentioned that we shouldn’t sing the madrigals as if they were motets. Indeed the madrigal arose in Italy—along with opera—specifically as an alternative to church music. In Morley’s day, William Byrd was the leading English composer of Masses. So the key is not making a Morley sound like a Byrd.

Itunes has Rutter performances of all three of our madrigals—“April is My Mistress’ Face,” “Now is the Month of Maying” and “My Bonnie Lass She Smileth”—available for download at 99 cents each. In the Itunes search box, try “Olde English Madrigals” and the Rutter album of that name should appear.

Introducing "Cyber Bass", a great resource

2008-01-20T14:15:00.000-08:00

It's almost Tuesday again! I missed my first rehearsal, but thanks to a wonderful online resource "Cyber Bass", I can download my alto part (and any other parts) of the Fauré Requiem. Thank you to Laurel Fest for finding this great website and thank you, Cyber Bass! You will be getting a lot of hits from our members, as we prepare for our May 2008 Spring concert.
Get a taste of what it means to be part of our wonderful Chorale...check Kyrian Corona's photo album, documenting last year's Burbank Chorale's trip to New York, where we performed John Rutter's Gloria, conducted by the composer himself, at Carnegie Hall. See you all Tuesday!
Silvia

2008 Season Off to a Great Start

2008-01-16T20:17:00.000-08:00

Last night we had our first rehearsal of 2008. It was wonderful to experience the enthusiasm of our returning members. We also offered a warm welcome to our new singers; I believe they will find the Burbank Chorale to be a source of musical inspiration and camaraderie. Misha has selected some gorgeous material for our Spring Concert. The Fauré Requiem is one of my favorites - it has an ethereal quality tempered by the noblesse...leave it to the French to meld the meditative with marche! We are also performing a sprightly selection of Elizabethan madrigals - a felicitous ode to Spring.

Reheasals Begin

2008-01-09T13:16:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday January 15, 2008, the Burbank Chorale officially begins its Spring season. We are assembling for our first rehearsal at St. Jude's Episcopal Church in Burbank, a lovely space that we have been enjoying for several years. We welcome all new and returning singers, and are eagerly anticipating a vibrant and rewarding year.

Kyrian Corona

President

Welcome to our blog

2008-01-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

2008 promises to be our best year ever! We are gearing up for our Spring Concert season with a challenging and engaging repertoire. Stay tuned for more news. In the meantime visit our website http://www.burbankchorale.org