My husband is about as serious in interpreting his music as you are. He doesn't eat for hours, even before he goes to practise, sometimes postponing supper until ten at night. IOW, everything he can do to make sure the piece he performs is delivered exactly right, and to the best of his abilities. He does this for music he isn't even particularly fond of, let alone a piece he cherishes. He also doesn't complain much about the groups with whom he performs, but I can glean that he feels one is more a social club, and gets irritated that in another he feels the performers pay more attention to their gossip than the director.

I can feel your frustration over the monitor. Some directors do not "want" to hear how a piece is meant to be performed. They want to have it performed how they "hear" it. You tried. OTOH, should you really feel that strongly about maintaining the intent and originality of ethnic music, then maybe you should join that other choir. I think a few inspired performers can give groups like that some impetus to grow and perhaps you could be instrumental in that direction?

I have thought of you recently and hoped you were doing OK. We miss you here.

Be true to yourself, M.
It is wonderful to see you post again.
I haven't been to NYC in awhile and find myself longing to
hear your descriptions of the street scenes there.

Okay, you've everything you can, and more than most would. They just aren't going to march to the beat of your drummer. That's a bummer, but survivable.

Your WASP side is not being comforting; it's not ridiculous to care deeply about something. Go feed it chocolate.

Your Slavic side has forgotten that there can be more than one interpretation (otherwise, conductors wouldn't be needed).

Both sides need to accept that it's a rare amateur who will invest a great deal of time and effort into a performance -- and that group apparently has no one other than you with your viewpoint. The most desired world would have a group who takes the music with your appreciation, but obviously we don't live in that sort of world. Choose the group which most often presents music in the form you like. Endure the other presentations, knowing that *someone* is liking it, and your turn may be next.

M, you're a very sensitive soul, cognizant of all nuances, and a unique person who feels the vibrations of the earth. I'm in daze, that you the weaver of magical fabrics; you, the personifier of the all that is unseen; you, the goddess who turns the mundane into mystical, can't bring this to life for them. They're idiots. I'd give my eye-teeth to hear your interpretation. They, at your feet, able to learn what is not known to another soul, and they reject it. What are they thinking?!!!

M, it's really good to see you posting again even though it's because you're upset. My totally WASP self is asking why the chorus took on this challenging work if they didn't want to do it correctly? About all you can do is to know that you tried your best.

As one who often has tried to guide people in a performance of something beyond their abilities and frankly their desire to understand, I feel your frustrations. But...one of the things I have learned is that while the performance may not be done with full understanding by all those performing, they are better and understand more for having had you beat on their skulls a little.
As an example of what I am saying... a couple of years back I did the stage direction for Amahl and the Night Visitors...done by a bunch of church choir types, a very talented Momma and a couple of special little boys.
The musical director studied in Europe with Gian Carlo Menotto and with the Saltzburg Opera house etc etc...poor man! But he took it on!
While a long way from what Dr. P. wanted the production moved lots of people and moved those of us who learned something from it, and those that sang. However less than perfectly it was done, it was still better than not having done it al all.
It's hard when you see how it should be but just can't pull that out of those you are working with, isn't it?
Hang in there...better to have performed the Vespers with less than Slavic zeal than not to have even become acquainted with them at all.
Linda C

Thank you, everyone, for your words of support and experience. The Garden Party continues to amaze me. How could anyone expect there to be such an interesting depth of experience with music-making in a group so varied and large?

I'm feeling better today. Resolved to pursue the passion I feel for this music in my own understanding and performance of the piece.

The place we will be singing in is a church on the Upper West Side whose tilework was done by the same Italian artisans who created some of the city's most famous tiled spaces -- Grand Central Station and its Oyster Bar. The church's architecture is Romanesque, with one large dome spreading its curves across the entire space, and the clay tiles, in varying shades of brown and white, glazed and unglazed, are in patterns both simple and in their entirety complex, as though the artists knew to only hint at the multifariousness of the Creation. This church is wonderful to sing in: the vibrations of music are captured in the cupped hands of that wide clay dome, warmed and polished, and then showered gently back down upon the audience.

M just popping in to say I wish I could have been singing in your choir. When I used to sing with the U oMiami Civic Choir we sang in so many different languages and my favorites were the Russian and I guess Slavic. I don't remember singing the Vespers though. Our audiences would compliment us after the concerts on our pronunciation. Wish I could still sing but the voice box is gone for good I'm afraid. I love beautifully sung choral works and am now going to look up the Vespers and see if I can get them on the net.

Good luck and hope it works out ok.

Minnie, thank you for your story and your love of choral music. It may be difficult to find a place on the internet where you can hear the entire Vespers, but Amazon sells some recordings. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir recording is excellent, and if you don't know them yet do yourself a favor and buy a CD of anything they've recorded. The St. Petersburg Chamber Choir recording is good too. It's difficult to get a hold of, but if you can get a copy of the Russian State Choir of 1965 singing the Vespers under the baton of Alexander Sveshnikov, with soloists Konstantin Ognevoy and Klara Korkan, do. This is the most moving, beautiful recording of choral music I have ever heard, and I don't think you need to have any Slavic blood to feel that way about it.

As a person that the music gene skipped, I can guarantee that people like me will love it and have no idea that it is not what you know it can and should be.

I'm going to check out Amazon (DS has a credit there he just mentioned today lol) I did get just a taste of the Vespers from a couple of sights.
Maybe it's my half Greek Blood that comes out when I listen to this music!!

Hi everyone. The concert at the beginning of February went OK; the chorus managed to hang on by their fingertips and made it through the entire piece. But I have to say my heart fell to the floor at the rehearsal following the concert, when the conductor asked us all: Do you want to make the Vespers part of our repertoire, so we can continue to polish it and make it better over time? I was ready to raise my hand enthusiastically when several people around me hollered in disgusted tones: "Noooo!"

So I went off and joined the Ukrainian chorus, and although I haven't formally quit the original chorus, I'm attending a lot fewer rehearsals there. Perhaps it's divine retribution, but the original chorus got kicked out of its really nice rehearsal space in Riverside Church, and now the only digs they can afford are an old church in an iffy neighborhood. The building is under renovation, and their next door plot is being turned into a condo, so there's heavy machinery noise...and the old church smells a little like cat pee.

And perhaps I'm experiencing some kind of dictate from a will not my own: this is the Orthodox Lenten season, and although I hadn't intended to observe it, I sort of have been for the past week, since a stomach bug has left me unable to eat anything except toast with jelly, rice, gingerale, bananas, and chicken broth. I've lost seven pounds over the past three days. As I wait for this very slow Spring we're having in our region to take off, I think about how food must have become scarce in centuries past right about this time of year, when nothing is really growing yet except a few onion-type things, and the winter stores would have been dwindling or gone.

Dostoino yest (it is fitting, Old Church Slavonic) to have a lean season once in a while. All the richness is going into the Easter eggs (see gallery).

This will get you to the YOUTUBE collection.

There seems to be several available

Here is a link that might be useful: Rachmaninoff Vespers

I can imagine your feelings. To you this piece was more than just a song but a special connection to who you are. Making a joyful noise.............music........is an expression of the heart. I would rather sing with a tiny, passionate, unknown trio and bask in the glory of that expression than go through a soul-less technically perfect routine with a famous concert choir where everybody else is satisfied with the result than myself.

I think this a part of the maturity/aging process where we finally define what is important to our being and start basing our actions upon that. I know my perspectives are becoming increasingly clear and important.

Calliope, I like very much what you wrote. I agree with and admire your thoughts on maturity/aging. If all goes true to plan, we do understand as we get older what really matters.