Mozart Choral Festival - 2006
Hanover College Choir | 2006 Mozart Choral Festival
In Celebration of Mozart's 250th Birthday
June 26 - July 3, 2006
Members of the Hanover College Concert Choir will join singers from all across the United States in All-American Choir in Austria. Performances with European orchestra and soloists in Salzburg and Vienna.
AUSTRIA'S MOZART: THE GREATER SPIRIT
Erin Duggan, Hanover College Tour Choir'06 Member
Singers, dancers, and musical theater buffs respect and revere composer and writer Leonard Bernstein. He himself, however, looked to a historical figure for great music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. According to Bernstein, "Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's—the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering--a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages." This ageless, timeless spirit of music can be felt today, even though centuries have passed since Mozart walked the earth. It was upon attending the International Mozart Festival in Austria in July of 2006 that I myself felt this "greater spirit," the musical celebration of a musician so proficient and gifted that he remains one of the most famous composers of all time.
I have performed music in some capacity since I was able to speak. My parents recap humorous anecdotes about my antics as a toddler, perching atop playground equipment and belting out gospel tunes and quaint children's songs. As I grew up, I was educated in instruments and voice, from a recorder in the fourth grade to graduating to more difficult instruments such as clarinet and hand bells. In high school, I participated in the annual summer conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin, The Fellowship of American Baptist Musicians (FABM). It was at this conference that I truly learned to sing. I had participated in "Cherub," "Chapel," "Messenger," and "Chancel" ensembles at my church, as well as "Celebration Singers" in middle school; still, my voice remained an untapped resource, immature and yet to touch its potential. At FABM, clinicians from colleges and high schools taught the youth chorus. It was there I learned about the true importance of dynamics, tempo, and diction in the art of making music. Soon after attending the Green Lake conference each year, I attended the Epworth Forest Choir School in Nora, Indiana. It was here I learned about the versatility of music and how different genres and time periods expressed different emotions and feelings. While as a Christian it had always been my goal to "make a joyful noise to the Lord," as I was educated in music I realized that there are miles between "noise" and "music."
Singing with youth choirs was fun, but no experience that I had thus far encountered could have prepared me for the level of professionalism and musicality awaiting those embarking on the Hanover College Concert Choir Tour to Austria. For up to a year beforehand, the Concert Choir toiled over Mozart's Coronation Mass, the Kronungsmesse. We struggled over dynamics in 'Kyrie.' We practiced intensity without brightness with 'Gloria.' We agonized over consonance and crisp enunciation with rapid text delivery in 'Credo.' We marveled at the majesty and dignity of 'Sanctus.' We listened with pleasure at talented soloists executing beautiful bel canto in 'Benedictus.' We shivered with pride and satisfaction at a job well done when we sang 'Agnus Dei.' And this was all before we reached Austria itself.
Before the Music Celebrations International Choral Festival in July 2006, I had already been to Austria before. In 2001, I visited the country as part of a cultural heritage alliance tour of England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein. Because I had previously traveled to the country, I am ashamed to admit that I was ambivalent to the cultural experience that Austria could offer. I expected to practice copiously on our required musical selections, eat a few wurst, attend the obligatory icebreaker events, sing a few glorious concerts for the locals, smile for the camera, and go home. I was so wrong that now I can't believe how little credit I gave to my friends in the choir, Madame Batchvarova, and Mozart himself—boy was I wrong!
For starters, I neglected to take into account the effect that atmosphere can have on one's spirit. Being in Austria itself and taking time off from the music itself aided in our performances. In visiting the Mozarthaus and other sites from the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life, you can get a taste of the culture in which he lived—once you experience that culture, it is ever so much easier to communicate it to others who may have not. The sense of timelessness one feels in Europe is intensified when you realize that many of the historical sites and attractions were there before Mozart himself. For example, the fortress that overlooks the city of Salzburg and the Salzach River stood over the Salzburg of Mozart's time and continues to do so hundreds of years later.
The rehearsals and concert in Salzburg with Janos Czifra in the Domkapellmeister Salburger Dom tied the music and the history together. The Dom is a 17th century baroque cathedral. St. Virgil built the original in 774, but in 1598 a fire caused the need for reconstruction (Cathedral, The 2). Though later vandalism and fires required further work to be done on the cathedral, its beauty has only increased with time. When you realize that not only was Mozart baptized in the church, but played much of his music there, walking the very same aisles and stones that we walked, it brings a sense of awe and wonderment to the music that singing offsite could never do. Acoustically speaking, the high ceilings, stone, and rich woods lend themselves beautifully to aural aesthetics. It was the level of musicianship and enthusiasm with which the singers delivered the mass that provided the needed boost for a truly magnificent concert.
According to Dennis J. Sporre, classicism embodies "formal elegance and correctness, simplicity, dignity, restraint, order, and proportion" (95). This image of a formal elegance sounds pretentious, but it was in Janos Czifra's direction of Kronungsmesse that elegance came alive in an entirely unaffected manner; the result was a true manifestation of musical beauty. Though occasionally he looked for all the world like a mad scientist about to create a laboratory monster, his fingers instead spun breathtaking bel canto from soloists in the balcony, drew forth exquisite melody from strings, and directed dynamics from a choir of strangers from eleven different American states. It was during this Coronation Mass that I felt the true great spirit of Mozart…the genius of a man who penned only one draft of his masterpieces and who turned the musical world on its ear. It was during the dulcet notes of the Agnus Dei that I felt the words that Bernstein intimated: "serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into…the greater spirit…of compassion, of universal love—a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages."
