Channelling Rachmaninoff

. Big joy for me this fall. Finally my dream comes true of singing in a performance of Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil a big, musically perfect, joyous and ethereal work for 8-part a cappella choir.
I did not know that it existed until I happened to came across the Shaw Festival Singers recording in my University's library. I have no idea what caught my eye about it. Just good fortune, I guess.
. Musical works may have different meanings to different people, I know. This piece rang something in my soul the first time I heard it and so I instantly fell in love with it. It is not frequently performed. I promised myself that when an opportunity came to sing in a performance I would willingly rearrange my life, travel to anyplace within 100 miles for rehearsals, even take a leave of absence from my Chamber Choir if there were a scheduling conflict in order to do this. I had tried to interest each of the choral conductors at the University to take it on. None yet. So I have waited patiently for a chance.
. Every once in a while I search the web for any mention of All Night Vigil (also simply but imprecisely called Vespers) in connection with Maine. After no such known opportunities in the past 15 years within the mentioned radius, one suddenly appears just as I am readying to retire and thus would have scheduling flexibility unprecedented in my prior life! Hmmm... The wheels of Coincidence seem to synchronize in unexpected ways. I thank God and the Vice-Goddesses of Music: Polyhymnia and Euterpe. The Catholics have Saints Cecilia and Gregory (as in Gregorian chant) right on their heels as close seconds. I thank them too.
. The piece is about an hour long and is sung without intermission and without instruments. The language is Church Slavonic which closely resembles Russian. It is the liturgical language for some Eastern Orthodox Churches -- sort of a parallel with the historical place of Latin in Western churches. Another little irony is that I just came across this first-person account about what it was like to produce that seminal recording that I am still so emotional about, and in fact am listening to as I post this.

"I was one of the 59 hand-picked voices that formed the 1989 Robert Shaw Festival Singers. The emotional intensity of making this recording with Shaw was so overwhelming that I had to distance myself from this music for nearly a decade. Only within the last five years have I begun to listen to the recording again, stunned at its power, overwhelmed by the artistry Shaw brought to it, and convinced that the spirit of Sergei himself was present in that 12th-century cathedral in Gramat, France, on that hot, late July evening 15 years ago, when we recorded this masterpiece in a mere four hours. Something, some guiding presence (besides the all-too-intimidating Shaw himself) was in the room, and all of us felt it."

. How's that for verification of the power of the work? So you can understand why I'm excited about this chance and willing to travel 4 hours round trip every Tuesday evening for rehearsals. And yes, as Murphy's Law would have it one of the two performances will occur on December 13, the exact day of my Chamber Choir's Advent concert. My director knows how much it means to me, kindly allowed a leave of absence and wished me well. . One more thing... Yes, I am taking a risk. The whole thing could be a disappointment for any of a number of reasons. But if we allowed ourselves to give in to worries like that we would never do anything worthwhile: safe but forever unfulfilled.

"Running on empty"

. Fascinating phrase that..."running on empty." Albeit with a finite time left, it means that one is still running. The metaphor is often used to imply that one is fatigued in some way. Given the restorative powers naturally available to the human body, mind and soul, there is an implication that one can eventually do something about it, and that the fatigue is temporary.

. A long time ago I decided that the world consists entirely of two kinds of people: the doers and the watchers. There is a certain amount of risk involved in taking any action. The most timid elect to take no action, lest they fail, or get injured, etc. They prefer to watch others. When they witness another's failure do they say "I told you so?" The German expression schadenfreude has suddenly become popular for this. It means taking disagreeable pleasure in others' suffering. Nasty little snits aren't they!

. When one gets to a certain age the empty signal seems to come more often than formerly. But the restorative process is always there. Besides, who said there is only one gauge to look at? What if one is totally exhausted after doing a very good and noble thing that was personally and morally satisfying? What about the goodness gauge? The nobility gauge? The satisfaction gauge? Aha, let us not be sucked into the limitations of the narrow-minded. Life has breadth. Watch all the gauges!