Sunday, May 23, 2010

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Restful day today. Love those. I woke up around 9ish and went with some of the students, along with the program directors, to the sung Eucharist at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was supposed to start at 11:00AM, but started at 11:30 instead. We had planned on going to Sacrament meeting at 1:00PM at the singles' ward, but that didn't quite work out, since it ended at 1:25. So, I decided I could either go to Sunday School....orrrrrrrr.....go home and rest and catch up on blogging. I chose the latter. And did not regret it.

The Eucharist was interesting. It was a brand new mass by Francis Grier, so it was uber contemporary. I mostly enjoy contemporary music, but this mass went a little too far for my liking. Emily Workman said, “it was like he said, 'hey let's make something that could be pretty beautiful and make it the most digusting thing in the world.'” While I didn't totally agree with her, and actually thought there were moments that were pretty amazing, I did see her point. I was later talking with Jonathan Evans (who reminds me so much of Loren Thomas it's not even funny) about the piece and he described a discussion he had in one of his classes about the definition of “good music,” all musical elements put aside. They came to the conclusion that “good music” is music that fulfills the purpose of its creation (remiscent of some other text we know?). Anyway, he purpose of a mass is worship, from the points of view of the composer, the performers, and most importantly, the congregation members. This mass, I felt, went beyond the mark. Even we, as choral nerds, had a hard time connecting with the music of the mass. We couldn't even imagine what the other people, who were just wanting to attend some kind of Sunday service at St. Paul's were thinking. It was just so disjunct and dissonant, without much direction to the dissonance. I have nothing against dissonance, and even enjoy it quite a bit, but like I said, this dissonance wasn't really going anywhere. It was interesting that the choir would have a part where it seemed to be going a certain direction and then some combination of one to four of the soloists would come in and halt their chord progression. It was a tough mass to connect with. However, I did really like the Agnus Dei a lot. The rest of the mass was.....meh.

One absolute highlight to the mass was a big black guy about 3 rows ahead of us who was so into the mass that no one could stop or interrupt his thought pattern. It was especially evident in the congrationally sung hymns, when he would sing the entire last verse, full voice, operatically, in the treble octave, and would finish it by singing the last note fortississimo. I especially loved it when the piece would end on an 'a' and he would end on an 'f.' I swear, it was his favorite note. And I have never heard such oscillating, forced vibratto in my life. My favorite was the last hymn we sang, when it ended on the word “Lord.” I could see him preparing for that ending consonant from 10 miles away; first, he was actually on the 'a'; he had that vibratto going like a fat kid eating chocolate cake; his eyes were cutting diamonds in some far distant universe; jaw tense; lips forming some awesomely fantastic funnel shape; that guy was going for broke, man. It was fantastic. And then that 'd' consonant—whoah dang, child, WATCH OUT! I'm pretty sure the choir got the specks of spit coming from his mouth. That guy was not kidding about praising his Lord.

As Steve put it “you know, I wish people could tell as clearly that I was so devout and concetrated in my worship.” He said, “you know, during some Sacrament meetings, you've got your grocery list going through your mind: 'Oh crap, I forgot to buy mustard.' Well, that guy does NOT have mustard on his mind!” And it was true—no doubt about that; that guy was clearly in the moment and his mind was on the Lord, snagdabbit. Pretty dang good entertainment. Emily and I were dying nearly the entire service and were glad to have been there. Good, good stuff.

The rest of the day was chill. We came home and I blogged for Friday and Saturday and hung out with people the rest of the day. Super pleasant.