First, let me share a brief background on John Corigliano: Born in 1938 and based in NYC, he has won multiple awards, including 5 Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, and an Oscar. Most well-known for his film score for The Red Violin in 1997, many of his symphonic works and concerti have been performed across the world. They include the opera The Ghost of Versailles (1991), Symphony No. 1 (a response to the AIDS epidemic in 1988), and his Clarinet Concerto (1977), the first to enter that instrument’s standard repertoire by an American composer since Aaron Copland’s in 1949.   
 
I was first introduced to Corigliano’s “Fern Hill” as a college freshman. I had been an apprentice with Albany Pro Musica as a high school senior, then continued singing in the group as a full member. Our concert was at Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, and the piece was paired with the Duruflé Requiem. It was a stirring program.
 
Even at that age, I had been listening to enough classical music to hear the clear delineation from older traditions of an “American” sound, such as that of Copland (and, to a lesser extent, even the scores of Korngold and Rogers and Hammerstein). There is a kind of spatial element to the music, often attributed to the vastness of America itself, a “taking of one’s time,” like the unfolding of Copland’s Appalachian Spring or Quiet City. They are tuneful and they tell familiar narratives. They give us a feeling of relatability and comfort. Like the pastoralism of Vaughan Williams or Holst in England, this music harkens to the past, of days gone by, and of a yearning to return to them.
 
But does Fern Hill give us a different feeling?
 
By the end of the work, I am not sure Corigliano has asked us to return to an earlier time. Each verse starts in a similar fashion, with the melody in the soprano, and continuing until things fall apart. The narrators—the chorus—become emotional, melancholy, or, in the case of the final verse, bitter. I won’t give too much away, but clearly, there are a lot of complicated feelings in this work. I look forward to discussing them in the rest of our rehearsals.
 
Now for the rest of our Fall concert repertoire—
 
A bit about William Billings (1746-1800): Born in Boston, he is considered the first American choral composer, and was a leading member of the First New England School. He was involved in teaching at singing schools throughout his life and his music was considered very popular during his time. A it fell out of fashion completely after his death, there has been some effort to revive his music in concert repertoire, but for the most part, it resides in the canon of sacred harp and shape note singing, both of whose traditions come directly from this period.
 
Billings wrote a staggering amount of hymn tunes and anthems, compiled in six book-length collections. Our selection, “As the Hart Panteth,” is from his first, 1770’s The New-England Psalm-Singer, and is one of the larger anthems in his entire collection. It follows a solo-response form similar to the traditional method of reading Psalms as a congregation and draws clear lines from older choral motet styles of the early classical, baroque, and renaissance periods. In fact, part of the reason the choral responses in it sound so “old” is the same reason older hymns sound that way in general—they are following some of the oldest rules of choral voice-leading and harmonization in history. This is also the reason why hymns like “Praise to the Lord the Almighty” and “Come Thou Fount” are not that far away stylistically from any Bach chorale.
 
Contrast this with the hymns Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) set in his Southern Hymns anthem collection, and you get a sense of the difference in attitude and emotional charge of the music. Thomson’s arrangements of “When Gabriel’s Awful Trump Shall Sound” and “The Death of General Washington” show an emotional distress that their original harmonizations may not have had, but that their text certainly did. Like many of the folk-to-classical composers and arrangers of the 20th century (again, I am referring to Vaughan Williams, Holst, Grainger, Britten, and many others), Thomson sought to take these tunes and texts and generate a more vivid musical language with his arrangement than their turn-of-the-19th-century origins had the means to use. Ultimately, while Thomson's compositional style is still relatively traditional compared with others of the 20th century, it still makes for a dramatic setting to this dramatic text.
 
Lastly, we have the notion of the modern concert hymn anthem, in that of Mack Wilberg’s arrangements of “Down to the River” and “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Director and composer for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Wilberg takes these arrangements in a direction that is clear and striking—to elevate the hymn to a concert work for chorus and orchestra, befitting the size and scope of the ensemble he leads. And these two are some of the finest examples of that effort. They represent the current point on the timeline of American choral tradition and hymn and folk tune arrangement from Billings to modern day. Now our job as choristers is to carry that point forward, with our own voices and our own vision.
 
I hope you have been enjoying this music. 

Completed in 1897, the Stabat Mater was his final composition, and it shows a level of compositional complexity that is rarely seen in the bulk of his output, especially harmonically. This piece was published alongside three others as the Quattro Pezzi Sacri in 1898 but the four pieces are not connected in any other way. The other pieces are the Ave Maria for solo quartet or chorus a cappella, completed in 1889; the Laudi all Vergine Maria for four female voices a cappella, in 1888; and the Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra, in 1896. It is worth noting that besides Otello and Falstaff in 1887 and 1893, Verdi had not written any opera since Aida in 1871 and during his decades of retirement (the Requiem in 1874 notwithstanding), he did write some other sacred choral works and some chamber music, though nothing was on this scale. With the bulk of his operas coming in the mid-1840s through the 1860s, this was like another lifetime for Verdi, looking back at his own work, and his own life. Though we have no evidence for an external circumstance that led to the composition of this work, it is assumed the prolonged illness and death of his second wife Giuseppina may have played a role, if only on the basis of chronology.
 
Interestingly, we know Verdi took to studying Palestrina and Bach in his later years, in a sort of return to how his musical career in the church started. I think it is here we find why such dramatic and sudden contrasts exist in his Stabat Mater. Clearly the work of a composer of Italian opera, the extreme dynamic contrasts come from striving for a detailed interpretation of the text itself. Coupled with how much  chromaticism is used (in even the otherwise straightforward orchestral accompaniments, let alone the chorus), and the homophonic choral passages as on “Eja mater fons amoris” and “Juxta crucem tecum stare,” one could more easily make comparisons with Puccini and even Wagner, rather than Rossini, or any other Italian whose popularity had ultimately faded over the decades. However, anyone looking for longer “symphonic” developments, as might be expected with Brahms or Bruckner, will search this music in vain. And like Palestrina’s Stabat Mater, Verdi chooses to never repeat any text in his interpretation.
 
Before I go into any more about the Stabat Mater itself, let me take just a moment to give an overview of Verdi’s Requiem, which I believe impacts this work just as much as anything else. The Requiem was completed in 1874 but, unknown to many, the Libera Me movement was originally completed in 1869 (mostly the same as the finale of the Requiem) as a contribution to a joint project like none other: A Requiem for Rossini, in which each movement of the mass was contributed by a different Italian opera composer of that period. As it happens I wrote my Master’s thesis at Bard on this very subject, and let me tell you, it’s some wild stuff. If you think the Verdi Requiem was an excuse for a sacred opera, these disparate movements really take that to another level, and it goes to show what exactly Verdi thought when originally conceptualizing his Requiem, that there was some inherent Italian nationalism to the project. Now, it goes without saying that the Requiem itself is a top-tier masterwork. It and the Brahms Requiem are the two pillars on which the rest of late romantic sacred music is supported (I could make a case for the Bruckner Te Deum being a third pillar, but while thoroughly magnificent, its scope is just not comparable). The Requiem covers the full range of Italian tropes: solemn and emotive, rhythmic and intense, having bursts of dramatic dynamic ranges, and of course the minor 9th chords that I’ve pointed out in the Stabat Mater are also seen all over the Requiem. While there are no solo roles as in an opera, the solo quartet has its share of solo, duet, trio, and quartet moments, and the soprano is easily recognizable as the leading role. This also goes back to the Libera Me being written first, as it has an extensive soprano solo. The Libera Me also has the famous and thrilling Dies Irae that Verdi expanded into its own movement and used as a retuning theme in the Requiem, fully intact. Lastly, Verdi’s Requiem is much darker compared to the Brahms. A lot of Verdi’s music generally is; his first wife died at age 40 and both of their children died as infants. Like Mozart, Verdi’s sacred music reflects much more of his inner self than any of his operas even glimpse at. And that is where these two pillars reach their greatest heights: Verdi in hope in spite of darkness and disparity, and Brahms in hope through looking toward light and peace.
 
Now back to the Stabat Mater itself:
 
As stated, Verdi’s interpretation is rooted in a clear desire to convey the emotional weight and drama of the text, the story of Mary before Jesus on the Cross. It is telling a story, and as in the “Dies Irae” sequence in the Requiem, Verdi uses his full dynamic range and force to do so. If you haven’t read through the English translation, you should. There is a good one on our practice page . It is some of the saddest text in all of liturgy, and the weight and pain of this text is clearly translated in Verdi’s music. The music follows the journey of the text so closely, that the work as a whole is through-composed rather than having any recognizable classical form.
 
Its large sections are musically self-contained:
 

• First is the Passion story “Quae maerebat” through “dolentem cum Filio.” Already the music has modulated many times from the opening in G minor to C, then F to B♭, with many minor chromatic embellishments along the way. In fact, if you are looking for “home keys” in Verdi, his cadential sequences are so long, and his phrases often use so many chromatic notes, that it’s easier to look at where the music lands rather than where it starts.
• The second is built entirely on the theme he gives on “tui nati” through “tecum plangere.” Much more stable in G, then F, though sometimes minor and sometimes major, as seen in the alto soli.
• In between these, at the halfway point of the work, is the marvelous a cappella moment on “Eja Mater, fons amoris,” where the text changes from the Passion story in the third person to a prayer from Mary in the first person. The modulation to B major from what is otherwise a home key of G major underlines this radical change.
• The contrasts are further heightened by the despairing interjections like “Vidit Jesum in tormentis” and “crucifixi fige plagas,” and the final supplication, the plea, which starts on “Christe, dum sit hinc exire,” and concludes the work:

           
Christ, when thou shalt call me hence, be thy mother my defense, be thy cross my victory.
When my body here decays, may my soul thy goodness praise, safe in paradise with thee.
 
For how hopeful these last stanzas are, Verdi does not end on the glorious paradise of G major, instead, the final bars return to the opening theme, now low and somber in the orchestra, but without a leading note; leaving us without confirmation, and instead with a longing for it.
 
All of this, in addition to the use of full orchestra, with all of the hard brass and lush string sonorities we get in his Requiem and his operas, make Verdi’s Stabat Mater a real gem of romantic sacred choral music. It exemplifies the height of the composer’s musical output, and at the end of his life, is a sincere and emotional statement from a composer whose life was as dramatic as his music.

     Few realize just how late in his life Johannes Brahms took to composing orchestral music compared to his chamber music, which, alongside his own piano virtuosity, had founded his career. His first symphony, while sketched in 1855, was not completed until 1874 and the Requiem was completed in 1868. By comparison, the previous generation of symphonists Mendelssohn and Schubert had completed several mature symphonies in their teens (Not to mention Mozart another generation prior). In short, Brahms lived in the shadow of Beethoven, and it is thought through studying Brahms’ own letters, that he venerated Beethoven’s music. This can also be seen in both the Requiem and the first symphony, as well as in many of his other works. Where the “New German” style was embracing programme music, with its champion in Richard Wagner, Brahms is considered the pinnacle of the traditional classical form, albeit with the expanded romantic tastes.
The Form
     Unlike Requiem masses that came before, this setting is not based on the liturgical mass text. This strategy naturally led Brahms to make many unique decisions about the overall form of the work. As previously discussed, the work is symmetrical in various ways. The first and last movements both use “selig,” and the musical motif based around that word. The second and sixth movements are both more expanded, dealing with death and the transition between life and death. The third and fifth movements, both starting with solo voice, deal with the perspective of an “other”; in the third movement it is someone reconciling with mortality (“Lord teach me to know my end,”) and in the fifth it is someone who shall comfort (“as one who his mother comforteth”). And at the center, the fourth movement focuses famously on “How lovely is thy dwelling place.” In addition to all of this, when looking at the harmonic relationships overall, they too form a sort of symmetrical progression starting and ending in F major:

I: F major
II: B♭ minor, ending B♭ major
III: D minor, ending D major
IV: E♭ major
V: G major
VI: C minor, ending C major
VII: F major

     And notice how each of the movements ending in fugues starts minor and ends major. Taking the various texts, you can see each stanza within each movement as its own musical section. The second movement outlines this well:

 ​ Section 1: Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Grass…
                           Langsam, slow
                           B♭ minor

        Section 2: So send nun geduldig, lieben Brüder…
                           Etwas bewegter, more moving
                           G♭ major

        Section 1: (Repeated)
                           Langsam, slow
                           B♭ minor

        (Transition): Aber des Herrn Wort …
                               Un poco sostenuto, sustained
                               B♭ major

        Section 3, fugue: Die Erlöseten des Herrn…
                                      Allegro non troppo, fast
                                      B♭ major

     This quick analysis begs the question: Does the musical form come as a result of each of the sections having its own source text, or vice versa? That much is harder to answer, but this approach does make further analysis of each movement very transparent. Each stanza is accompanied by a change in the music, through a combination of tempi, harmony, and orchestration—ultimately, an expression of a change in mood overall. This progressive harmony as it’s known, where movements start and end in different keys, and circle in thirds as often as fifths, is another staple of romantic trends. Changing from B♭ to G♭ or E♭ to G is much more dramatic tonally, than the classical or Baroque norm of B♭ to F or B♭ to E♭.
The work as a whole is also unified by a three-note theme (motif) in the melody that can be seen at the very first choral entrance: An ascending major third followed by a half step on “Selig sind.” This motif can be found in every movement, in some variation.

Orchestration and Choral Arranging
     Notably, violins are absent in the whole first movement, giving the orchestra as a whole a much darker tone with the violas and cellos doing the bulk of the string accompaniment. The winds and brass throughout the work provide a wide color pallet, with much more involved parts compared to any similar work from the classical period, a trademark of romantic orchestration. Many passages are carried fully by the winds, and likewise, the brass writing is very thoughtful. Often only using a single pair of horns, Brahms reserves the full quartet, including trumpets and low brass, for the largest moments.

The Fugues
     Brahms respected composers of his past a great deal—not only Beethoven, but Palestrina, Gabrieli, Schütz, Handel, and Bach were all inspirations for Brahms, particularly with regard to counterpoint. A chief example of this craftsmanship with form, expanded to romantic style and taste, are the three fugues found in the Requiem. While classical requiems and masses like those of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven had their share of counterpoint, Brahms’ fugues are all the more uplifting and triumphant given their text, as they come at the end of otherwise tremulous movements given their respective texts. This underpinning of emotional weight is something that can easily be seen as tracing back to Beethoven —the Ninth Symphony having a parallel movements when introducing the fugal sections on “Freude schöner Götterfunken.”

     I could spend an entire post on just these three fugues, but alas, I do want to give the Verdi its due as well, and so for now, I will just give you this quick overview, and a few things to look out for as we keep working with these. Note how each fugue has a much different character from the others. As I’ve said before, this is because of the clear homage Brahms gave in emulating the counterpoint of other composers.

 II: Die Erlöseten de Herrn werden wieder kommen, und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen; ewige Freude wird über ihrem Haupte           sein; Freude und Wonne werden sie ergreifen un Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg müssen.
 The Redeemed of the Lord will come again, and come to Zion with shouting and everlasting joy upon their heads, joy and                   gladness will seize them, and pain and sighing will go away.
       B♭ major. Beethoven-like. So much about this to me feels lifted out of the Beethoven Mass in C. There is a triumphant exuberance to this fugue carried by a lot of syncopation in the orchestra and chorus. Measures 269–290 is a great example of this, you can almost hear the choral entrances as church bells echoing throughout a sweeping landscape as they crash into each other towards their final resolution at 296. It is such a “showing off” technique to introduce a fugue subject like in this opening on pg. 20, then completely ratchet up the complexity by displacing some of the voices off by a single beat—as on page 23—and having it still work!

III: Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand und keine Qual rühret sie an.
The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment touches them.
     D major. Very Bach-like. The D pedal-point throughout the whole fugue along with the moving string lines echoes Bach. The way Brahms cycles through major and minor keys quickly is another trademark comparison. The churning of it all, and the final cadence extended over the last three measures with all of the passing notes in the basses and tenors, really reminds me of the Bach’s Passions or even his B Minor Mass.

VI: Herr, du bist würdig zu nehmen Preis und Ehre und Kraft, denn du hast alle Dinge geschaffen, und durch deinen Willen haben sie das Wesen und sind geschaffen.
Thou art worthy Lord to take glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and through your will they existed and were created.
     C major. (Somewhat) Handel-like. The first half of this text is very much like the opening of Worthy is the Lamb. A “long-note” choral line alongside the rather Baroque opening of an Alberti-style sting line, this reads as Handel to me. There is a clarity and transparency of each line that you don’t get in the third movement’s fugue, with all of its dense complexity, which is why I don’t simply call this another Bach fugue. Instead it is quite stately, which also makes me think of Haydn or Mendelssohn, which are also perfectly reasonable associations. And yet, Brahms cannot help himself in complicating the orchestration, just take a look at G on page 74, when the strings pick up these sweeping triplets underneath all of this otherwise “straight-forward duple” music. Lastly, a real hidden gem of this fugue is on page 78, starting in measure 271, where you can trace out a G major scale on every whole note, passed back and forth through the chorus, which hints at the sweeping scales that come on the next page.
As we continue to study this work, it is my hope that these details will help you not only appreciate the messages behind this beautiful music, but have a more thoughtful understanding of just why this music is considered such a masterwork of choral orchestral music. 

Johannes Brahms set out to compose a work for the living who yet remain, rather than the dead who have passed. Rather than “Grant them eternal rest, O lord,” or in Latin “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,” the work opens with the above line from the Beatitudes. The message is clear right in the first line: to comfort. And the entire work is an emotional journey of catharsis rooted in this text. Brahms assembled the complete libretto himself, taking text from Luther’s Bible—although what’s referenced in the back of the Peters Edition choral scores, is a bit inaccurate and should be as follows:
 
I. Matthew 5:4, Psalm 126:5,6
II. 1 Peter 1:24, James 5:7, Isaiah 35:10
III. Psalm 39:4-7, Solomon 3:1
IV. Psalm 84:2-4
V. John 16:22, Ecclesiastes 51:27, Isaiah 66:13
VI. 1 Corinthians 15:51-55, Revelation 4:11
VII. Revelation 14:13
 
As you can see, the mass of sentences is very thoughtfully constructed, such that reading each movement as a single passage flows with the same narrative as many of the familiar psalms—even the largest intact psalm passage is that from Psalm 84 and it comes as the pivotal middle movement of the work.
 
A major consequence of this free selection of text is the variety of interpretations it stimulated. It was not immune to the 19th century temptation to find specific fanciful references in place of musical allusion. Brahms was, of course, in opposition to Wagner in the debate of music for music’s sake in contrast with music for narrative. Impressions of the opening with tranquil procession toward a solemn chapel, or figuratively, taking the pedal point of the fugue in the third movement as symbolizing the firmness of faith, etc. To bring up the title itself, and I know many of us already know this, but with the vernacular of German Brahms intended for the work to be more accessible, a German requiem. But perhaps more significant is the ‘a’ or ‘Ein’. Brahms here points out that this is not ‘the’ definitive German requiem, and seeks to offer just one among many possible approaches to understanding and grappling with the ultimate mystery of life and accepting the inescapable tragedy of our mortality. Brahms was not the first to compose a requiem in German, but those that came before were translations of the original mass text. In fact, some of these verses had been set in German (Schütz is probably the most notable here; his treatment of ‘Wie lieblich’ is just terrific), but Brahms was the first to place them together in a long form work. At every turn he places grief, faith, and joy beside each other, and while the work is notably lacking in theology, the profound literary care for the Christian scripture cannot go unnoticed—the spirit lies in the selection of the text, not just the treatment.
 
Without getting into compositional structure too much, the work in its completed form is seven movements, with the famous “How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place” anthem as its center (Brahms added in the fifth movement after the premiere), and within this compositional symmetry also lies symmetry in the subject of the text and tone: Where movement 1 says, “they shall be comforted,” 5 says, “as …a mother comforts.” Where 2/3 and 6/7 deal with the inevitability of change (life and death), 1 begins with “blessed are the living” and 7 says “blessed are the dead.” I bring this up briefly, because while the message is clear to us in its English translation, linguistically the German is ever clearer:
 
I. Selig sind die da Leid tragen…
VII. Selig sind die Toten…
 
And this brings me to my central point of this our first discussion of the Brahms: the German language itself, and as it concerns English speaking singers. As those who sang our terrific Messiah run this fall, I do not take diction lightly. Singing in English is very different from how we speak in English. Singing in a foreign language actually works in our favor as a large community choir: where we are not spending time unlearning bad habits we are spending more time learning the fundamental rules of the language, and when it comes to English versus basically all other Germanic languages, English is the far more complicated tongue. In vowels alone, there are far fewer vowel shapes in German, especially when it comes to diphthongs. And while the rules of consonants are a bit different, like when p, b, d, and g sounds are actually as printed, they are rules that are never broken. For example, take the famous “How Lovely” text, and for sopranos and tenors, take the vowels by themselves in English then in German (once we’ve learned it if you aren’t already familiar at all), and you will find the German vowels much more frequently tall and open and therefore easier to sing in the upper register and easier to sing in tune. Likewise, take the opening of the work, and in comparison, the ‘t’ sound ending of sind is more percussive then the ‘d’ of blessed, and although you would think that makes it less lyric, it actually makes the line much clearer, and by giving more duration to the vowel, beautifully lyric.
 
Many may not realize, but Brahms composed this before any of his symphonies, actively putting off symphonic compositions due to the mythical ‘shadow of Beethoven,’ and yet this requiem is deeply, romantically, symphonic. While Brahms is very much not an opera composer, the text of this work drives a profoundly moving dramatic narrative. I ask that you take your time with this work, whether you know the German or not. The diction will come, as it did with Messiah, but I hope that you will come to this music with as much enthusiasm as you can. This really is some of the most beautiful choral music ever written, and performing it provides a chance to continue to grow as dramatic artists. 

leather drum heads, etc. I lead with this because in Handel’s time this music was quieter. Boy sopranos are coveted across music history and even today for their tone, but they have to work hard to produce something close to a forte sound. Why? They only have head voice, falsetto, to work with. I am saving my broader discussion of Messiah for the program notes, so here is a little more background concerning its performance history: 

Fast forward just a few decades to the height of Georgian England, 1787, where 800 performers gathered at Westminster Abbey to perform the work, and in Austria in 1788–1789 Mozart would re-orchestrate the work with full winds and brass, adding flutes, clarinets, horns, and trombones, though with a choir of only 12. Mozart himself did not like the changes after the fact—and one Mozart scholar even went so far as to describe them as “stucco ornaments on a marble temple.” The 19th century saw even larger performances of the work, festivals of 2,000 singers with orchestras in the hundreds. While many argue Handel would have himself augmented the orchestra given such large choirs, contemporary critics like Bernard Shaw would have sharp words against it: “Why, instead of wasting huge sums on the multitudinous dullness of a Handel Festival does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance in St. James Hall with a chorus of 20 capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die.” A damning statement against what would only continue as Britain’s 19th and 20th century tradition of the amateur choral society.
 
Backlash would continue through the 20th century, as modern choirs like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Royal Choral Society, and others would perform the work with large orchestra and chorus. Even church choirs would fall under attack in the cross fire, as proponents of the “tradition” of larger forces would protest the performances by “trumpery little church choirs of 20 voices of so” as the Australian The Register put it. Harpsichords had gone extinct and the efforts of modern reproductions had not get begun. likewise, the intimate spaces of their performances had gone the way of “drawing rooms compared to Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace.” Approaching modern day things continued to be polarizing … I won’t mention sing-alongs. Today, performances striving for authenticity are now usual, but it is generally agreed that there can never be a definitive version of Messiah; the same way there is for even something like the Mozart Requiem, because the surviving manuscripts contain radically different settings of many numbers, and even more importantly when it comes to Baroque music, vocal and instrumental ornamentation of the written notes is a matter of personal judgment, even for the most historically informed professionals. The Handel scholar Winton Dean has written: “There is still plenty for scholars to fight over, and more than ever for conductors to decide for themselves. Indeed if they are not prepared to grapple with the problems presented by the score they ought not to conduct it. This applies not only to the choice of versions, but to every aspect of Baroque practice, and of course there are often no final answers.”
 
I have given all of this background to say this: Octavos is a very capable choir, and with this year’s performance I am aiming for something I think many of you have already found to be more elevated than the work’s history with amateur choirs. For me, it comes down to the ability to teach the music, and the willingness to learn it. This is a two-way street, even for something as well known as Messiah, and as we have been learning together, there is plenty of the work that is not so well known, but is just as dramatic and fun to sing. At the end of the day, Handel, like many of his time, is an opera composer. This means regardless of the stage or the size of the ensemble, the drama has to be present. It takes a great deal of focus from everyone in the choir. If anything, I’ve found that the larger the choir, the more diction and vowels have to be given their due—not only for the sake of musical clarity, but of emotional clarity. I think putting this together with orchestra and soloists will be the final mark towards that goal. The scenes these choruses are part of have a whole new drama when you consider the text in the arias: Before “Hallelujah” comes “Thou Shalt Break Them with a Rod of Iron.”
 
​—Andrew
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