Sublime...

I've just got back from Choir practice and I'm floating on air...

We are currently rehearsing Shumann's Requiem Op 148, along with two Mendelssohn pieces, Song of the Lark and Hear My Prayer. The song is a perky little piece sung almost in rounds, and makes you happy just bopping along to it. The prayer is something most of the older generation in the choir recognise as a tune that their primary school teachers tortured them with - anyone know 'Oh for the wings of a dove'? - that's the prayer.

The Requiem though... I should really call this post sublime mess as that's what it sounds like most of the time. I bought a recording of it by the Berliner Philharmoniker, with Bernhard Klee and the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra so that I'd have something to practice to, and it really is sublime. The comparison with our choir is rather invidious to be sure, but every so often, as with the last piece we sang tonight - the Requiem from the Requiem - we manage to achieve something really magical.

I remember when I was in the TTG youth orchestra, playing along and getting so lost in the experience, I was no longer an individual, but an extension of this greater being that was the music itself. It's really hard to explain, but getting to that place in a creative endeavor where you are no longer one, but many - the whole being greater than the sum of its parts - is truly euphoric. And at the concert last year (which I promise to tell you about shortly dear friends!), and this evening, I touched again that place where person-hood disappears and only music remains. It was wonderful.

Peace to all & to all a good night!