Regressing to Band Geek

tonight my friend todd and i trotted on down to the university of houston to hear the cougar symphony and chorus perform one of my all time favorite compositions: carl orff's camina burana.

of course, much of this is based in the fact that i played the piece back in high school when i still tooted my bass clarinet and took great pride in the fact that by the time i finished the final movement, "o fortuna", my tongue was bleeding from the intensity of the symphony.

and tonight... as soon as the entire stage boomed with the opening notes of orff's masterpiece, i choked up as i was instantly transported back to my love of carmina burana.

the CD i've long listened to was damaged in one of my past moves so i have not visited the piece for quite some time and one forgets, with the years passing, that the composition is all about sex and booze.

no wonder i adore it.....

and carmina burana is inherently impressive...especially when performed with full symphony and chorus...but i give full kudos to the UH production. it was quite spectacular.

the musical aptitude of the orchestra and the beauty of the chorus is without question.

the soprano, ms. rust, was as stunning as she was talented... delivering on a full compliment of beautiful arias.

and tenor, mr. robinson, was delightfully effective as the roasting victim in "cignus ustus cantat" ("the roast swan").

of course, the performance did suffer from a limited number of usual pitfalls that accompany any amateur production....

the new love of my jewish life...the baritone, mr. goble, didn't quite have the maturity of voice to carry-out fully some of his solos. he broke at least one note and he was hard to hear over the full orchestra at times. but he has immense talent and once he has fully developed his instrument, he will be great (i have no doubt).

some crew-cutted, blond doughboy in the chorus could seem to focus on everything but the conductor and i caught him yawning no less than three times....

and there were some sour pitches by the brass section...but, really, barely noticeable.

otherwise.....

it was a delightful treat. especially to have the english translation across the top of the stage in order to follow along. it reminds the audience of how much fun orff is having with his symphony... the text is often so humorous with its melodramatic quest of love and lust and drink.

of course...it was a bit awkward reading the translation of the angelic boys from the fort bend boys choir as they sang:

Oh! Oh! Oh!
I am bursting out all over!
I am burning all over with first love!
New, new love is what I am dying of!

i mean...these boys have not yet had their testes distend from their inner corpus... but, hey, why not?

i really was very impressed. conductor franz anton krager (who is your classic cliché of a conductor) pulled together an amazing evening and one that i will carry with me.

this is the second time i've heard carmina burana with both orchestra and chorus (the first time being the houston symphony many moons ago), and i could easily hear it again tomorrow without hesitation.

a lovely evening. lovely, lovely....

my inner band geek is sated.

e.