"Whoa - that's heavy..."

Thinking about the upcoming weekend, makes me think of Marty McFly in the movie, Back to the Future:
Marty: "Whoa - that's heavy."
1955's Doc Brown: "There's that word again...'heavy' - why is everything heavy in the future? Is there something wrong with the Earth's gravitational pull?"

Or is there just some really great translation of life's experiences into great music? Well, that's the case for this weekend.

On the docket for tonight, is "Grande Messe des morts," by Hector Berlioz. Loosely translated (a little rusty on my French...) it means: Grand Mass for the Dead. (Yeah for Latin to help decode...) "Mass" refers to Roman Catholic Mass - and this work is referred to as a requiem.

While having limited exposure to his works, I am a huge fan of Berlioz. In Wind Symphony (high school days), we performed a concert band arrangement of his work called "Damnation of Faust," a musical translation of Goethe's poem, Faust. It is considered a "dramatic legend" as opposed to an opera or symphony. Whatever that means... who cares - it's good music.

So, back to Grande Messe des morts. This piece is the real deal - scored for 4 sections of antiphonal brass, 12 french horns, over 100 strings, over 200 vocalists in the choir... we're talking "heavy" equipment. In the premier performance, there were over 400 vocalists. Wow. Within 6 months of each other, Berlioz had also composed an opera, Benvenuto Cellini, drastically different in style and taste. The gift that God has bestowed upon our history's composers over time just absolutely blows my mind.

The French Minister of Interior asked Berlioz to compose a piece in remembrance of the souls whom perished during the French Revolution (1830s). Interestingly, Berlioz had received partial commission for the work upfront in March of 1837 from the Minister of the Interior. Berlioz and the Minister had to fight against a more profound and well known French composer with political connections to earn the commission for the piece. There was so much tension created that the government eventually canceled the event. The left Berlioz in a world of financial trouble, as he had already used the partial payment given to pay musicians during the early stages of development and practice of the work. The capture of the city of Constantine in October of 1837 inspired the French Minister of War to hold a memorial service for the men who had fallen in that battle. So, the Minister of War pursued Berlioz again. The work was finally premiered on December 5th. Eventually, Berlioz received payment in full for his efforts from the government.

An interesting event took place during this performance, from Berlioz's memoirs:

There are, perhaps, one thousand bars in my Requiem. Precisely in that of which I have just been speaking, when the movement broadens out, and the bras burst in which their terribloe fanfare; in fact, just in the one bar where the conductor's direction is absoluttely indispensable, Habeneck puts down his baton, quietly takes out his snuff-box, and procees to take a pinch of snuff. I had never taken my eyes off him: instantly... springing forward before him, I stretched out myt arm and marked the four great beats of the new movement. The orchestras followed me... I conducted the piece to the end, and the effect which I had dreamed of was produced.

Then comes Saturday. We're catching the MSO's (Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) , accompanied by MSO Women's Choir) performance of Gustavus von Holst's orchestral work called, "The Planets." They're also featuring a couple works by Richard Strauss. Holst is (partially) a man after my own heart. Holst conducted the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra) in the works' first electrical recording in 1926. Holst was frustrated with the inadequacies of the recording and playback equipment to reproduce the dynamic range that he required. He ended up messing with the levels of the LSO and chorus enough so that something other than nothing could be heard upon playback. Nonetheless, it was a great discouragement for him.

While Holst himself was raised in England, his paternal family was from Latvia... escaping by pilgrimage through Sweden. "Gustav" was named after his grandfather Gustavus von Holst, a famous harpist and composer. His father Adolph von Holst was an organist, pianist, and choirmaster; his mother was an immensely talented (apparently) vocalist. That's quite the gene pool. And out comes Gustavus von Holst. Initially, a quite talented pianist, he developed some nerve damage in his hand making it quite difficult to play. He gave it up for the trombone. Gustavus began composing at age 12. Wow.

So, "The name doesn't match up to what's on my CD" you say? A noted patriot, Gustavus applied for military service in WWI. He was denied for service due to bad eyes, bad lungs and bad congestion. This brought upon his already prominent name - he was pursuaded to drop the "von" from his name, and shorten his first name to Gustav. The government believed that it aroused suspicion. So, there you have it.

History lesson over, and so is lunch break... I'm SOOOO excited for these performances this weekend :-)