Moron Talleywhacker
Dec. 20th, 2006 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarkagesI just caught the Renée Fleming/Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance on PBS. Renée is amazing; she can wring emotion and feeling and joy even out of the crappy arrangements by the MTC director. But those choir members look as though they're on something -- they're all dopey, glazed, robotic. They have all the expression of a wax Gouda. Something is very wrong.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had when I was on tour with the Yale Glee Club. We were performing at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig for an audience of students from the associated conservatory. Afterwards, I was chatting with one of the students, and he said, "Your performance was really enlightening. In Germany, choirs are very orderly and regimented -- but, you Americans, everyone does his own thing." Of course, this was a pointed remark, as one would expect from a German, but, when I watched the Glee Club from the audience one night, I could see the positive side of what he said. Every singer was moving his or her head in different ways, every singer was interpreting the music for him or herself, and yet there was the unity and integrity that our conductor imposed.
In that sense, the MTC is much more German -- but without the precision or musicality.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had when I was on tour with the Yale Glee Club. We were performing at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig for an audience of students from the associated conservatory. Afterwards, I was chatting with one of the students, and he said, "Your performance was really enlightening. In Germany, choirs are very orderly and regimented -- but, you Americans, everyone does his own thing." Of course, this was a pointed remark, as one would expect from a German, but, when I watched the Glee Club from the audience one night, I could see the positive side of what he said. Every singer was moving his or her head in different ways, every singer was interpreting the music for him or herself, and yet there was the unity and integrity that our conductor imposed.
In that sense, the MTC is much more German -- but without the precision or musicality.
