In the second half of the Gloria movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Mass in C Major,” there’s a massive build and rising unison sung among the choir on the words, “quoniam tu solus sanctus,” or, “for thou alone are holy.”
As soon as the cadence comes to a rest, the bass players fly out of the gate with a vaulting arpeggio, backed up only by the cello section playing the same, to introduce a new theme.
“Cum sancto spiritu in gloria dei patris,” goes the line, “With holy spirit in the glory of God the father,” before landing on “amen” and snaking away as the other sections enter and the fugue begins.Â
That melody surged back to life in my neocortex earlier this year, when I found out that the Allan Hancock College Singers and the SLO Chamber Orchestra were reuniting to once again perform Beethoven’s masterpiece of sacred choral and orchestral music on Nov. 2 and 4. I remember the last time the two ensembles performed the piece. It was 2011, when I was a Hancock student and member of the choir myself along with my wife and a friend.
When the College Singers’ Director Dr. Ann Lucas put out the call to alumni who were a part of the last production to join the show, we all jumped at the opportunity. We hadn’t sung with the choir in years but were happy to attend after-hours rehearsals and work on the lines.
The piece really is a marvel, and doesn’t get performed all the time, Lucas explained with her rapid-fire Texas accent.
“Well, it’s middle-period Beethoven, and it’s in a timeline along with the fourth and fifth piano concertos and the fifth symphony, and those are the really well-known masterworks to people that know Beethoven’s music,” she said, “and the mass not so much, because Beethoven as a writer for human voices, that’s not his strong suit. This guy’s an instrumental composer most of all and so his vocal writing is difficult, it’s dense, it’s very complicated compositionally.
“So, it’s not done a lot because it’s hard,” she added.
But that’s just Beethoven.Â
Lucas said the famous composer “wasn’t very forgiving” to the orchestra or choir when composing the piece. He also wasn’t too kind to the ensembles in person when rehearsals for the piece began in his lifetime, she said, often shouting at and berating them. It was abuse all for the higher standard Beethoven envisioned for his music
For all of its complicated moments, much of the “Mass in C major” flows quite intuitively. The piece has some of Beethoven’s best lyrical moments, Lucas said. Her current crop of students “has absolutely swallowed it with a spoon,” she explained, and are working out nuances and the finer points of the Latin pronunciation. Just digging back into the piece and firing up all those neurons is a refreshing experience, and one that many alumni and Lucas herself have enjoyed.
“It’s kind of a speciality piece with difficult writing, so to delve into it and to study it deeply like the choir and the orchestra do when they get ready to do a performance, it’s then you really discover how rich the piece is,” she said. “The more you sing it, the more you understand, and the more you love it. I saw that happen in 2011. It elevated the choir in every mental and physical way possible, and so who wouldn’t want to do that again? I know I did.”Â
Keith Waibel, the San Luis Chamber Orchestra’s music director and conductor, originally reached out to Lucas to see if she wanted to relive the glory of Beethoven’s mass. It was a high point for him and his ensemble too, Lucas said, and the orchestra has expanded and now includes more players. The choir has seen the same as well, with a full class plus the returning alumni to join the throng.
Singing with an orchestra is an experience unto itself, one that doesn’t come along so often for music students. It totally elevates the performer, and the choir as a whole.
“The focus it commands is absolute,” Lucas said. “There is not a person up there who hasn’t blocked out every single thing in their life but this piece, and that’s another thing that makes the performance thrilling.”
If the past collaboration was any indication, the two upcoming performances are sure to be rapturous. Beethoven has a knack for sweeping you along through his emotional landscape, lifting you up, tossing you down. His exploration of the sacred is another force multiplier in the beauty that’s attained throughout the piece.
Lucas remembered an anecdote from 2011, when she arrived to the first performances a bit late for the rehearsal beforehand. She walked into the church hall while the two ensembles were warming up, she said, and the magic of it all coming together hit her.
“The choir was already on stage and singing with the orchestra, and I don’t know what it was they were singing, but when I heard the choir sing, I had to sit down because it sounded so good in a way that I had not perceive it was going to be,” she said. “I remember Alfonso thought I had a heart attack, I was so flabbergasted.”Â
Managing Editor Joe Payne’s heart swells for Beethoven’s music too. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 25 – Nov 1, 2018.
