# Who has actually sung great choral works in performance?



## katdad

Whom among you has had the immense joy and pleasure of actually singing great choral works in performance?

I've been lucky to have a decent semi-pro baritone voice and I've sung opera and in choirs and choral groups. So I'm wondering about others here, and how they felt onstage.

Having sung in choirs and choral groups for, oh, 30 years or so, I've been blessed to have participated in all the great works, Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Handel's Messiah, plenty of Bach, Verdi, Gounod and others, also Carmina Burana (not a religious work, of course, but having much of that same numinous energy.)

Fugues seem to be the best. You get sucked up into the music and your entire body is rattling with the force and direction of the fugue, such works as Mozart's Requiem Kyrie, Handel's "For unto us a child is born", and others. And Carmina Burana left my tux soaked with sweat from the energy of that music.

The only singing experience I've had that was better was to sing in Marriage of Figaro as Antonio the drunken gardener, and in that stunning "Mozart Moment" finale, be one of the 11 characters (no chorus in that finale), singing Perdono, Perdono...

But anyway, tell a bit of your own experiences if you've sung some of the great choral works.


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## katdad

System won't let me edit for some reason so I'll add that my appearances in such choral works haven't been in local church choirs, but in large professional choral groups, like San Francisco symphony chorus, Houston choral society, etc, and performed in big concert halls and such.


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## Headphone Hermit

absolutely agree - Mozart's Requiem ...... a long time ago. 

I should have another go, I think, get off the sofa and join a choir again


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## Lunasong

I have quite a few rehearsal diaries posted in the Vocal Forum. Our chorus typically performs with the orchestra 2x a year and our newest thing is collaborating with the Opera and Ballet in performances. I've done the collaboration thing twice now with Wagner, Boito, and Bernstein works.

Choral works I've performed with the orchestra:
Symphony No 2 "Lobgesang" - Mendelssohn
Ein deutsches Requiem - Brahms
Stabat Mater - Rossini
Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" - Mahler 
"Prometheus" - Bolcom

Upcoming we have Symphony No. 9 Beethoven, Lélio, ou le Retour à la Vie - Berlioz, and War Requiem - Britten.

I've also performed Messiah (Handel) in community chorus with organ, but not orchestra. I also perform in an annual choral concert which is accompanied by a professional concert band.

My favorite was definitely Mahler with Mendelssohn second.


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## katdad

All good stuff, Luna. I didn't mention Beethoven's 9th but yes I've sung that as well.

What terrific fun! Hard work, yes, but the rewards are amazing.


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## SteveSherman

Singing is such pure pleasure that a good performance of even mediocre choral music can be gratifying. It also enhances one's appreciation of the really great and glorious. The ultimate experience is to be part of an excellent performance of a work of genius, but for an amateur like me that doesn't happen every day. Thinking back over 40 years of singing in choirs I remember particularly a Messiah or three, a Brahms Reqiuem, a Fauré Requiem, a Franck Seven Last Words, the odd Mass by Haydn or Mozart or Schubert--but also Sullivan's Festival Te Deum a few years back. I love singing the Byrd masses one-on-a-part, but I suppose that doesn't count as choral. I could go on but it still wouldn't add up to more than about one performance in ten, if even that.


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## hreichgott

Just church choirs here. Faure Requiem, plenty of Messiahs, and Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen with months of rehearsal. As a teenager I sat in with my mom's pro choir for one rehearsal of the entire Brahms Requiem -- their initial read-through -- and I was so out of my depth. I wished my voice had black and white keys on it so I could find all those notes.


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## billeames

I only sing in a church choir, one of a very few left in this area. I have sung most of Messiah, Ave Verum Corpus (Mozart), Heavens are Telling (Haydn), and some other single pieces. Gloria by Alan Bass. All of Gloria by Rutter. We have a very good director and the choir is fairly good. We tried Crucifixus but only in rehearsal (Mass in b Minor, Bach).


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## Orange Soda King

What a great thread! 

I've been fortunate in the past four years at my university to have sung Faure's Requiem, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Orff's Carmina Burana, Britten's War Requiem, Mozart's Coronation Mass, and coming up, Beethoven 9. Excited for more in the future!


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## Woodduck

Beginning in church choir before my voice changed from alto to tenor, continuing in high school, in college and beyond, I've sung, among other things:

Brahms: Requiem
Britten: Hymn to St. Cecilia
Handel: Messiah
Faure: Requiem
Durufle: Requiem
Orff: Carmina Burana
Haydn: The Seasons and The Creation
Bach: Motets and cantatas
Vaughan Williams: Hodie
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis

The most memorable of these experiences were the Vaughan Williams, when I had to step up and do the solos for a tenor who was ill, and the _Missa Solemnis_, which I performed with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., under the leadership of Antal Dorati. Getting to know this astounding piece from the inside greatly increased my appreciation of it - which is what always happens when we actually perform music after having only listened to it.


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## Cantabile

Most memorable: singing in the sop section in a huge, full force performance of the Berlioz Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall in the 1970's as a college music student. We used all the forces Berlioz had wanted...so many timpani that the whole stage shook, while the brass choirs stationed around the concert hall blew us away. It was magnificent, never-to-be forgotten, (and sipping champagne overlooking Lincoln Centre afterwards was a real treat for us, too!). Most recent: Elgar's Dream of Gerontius - had always wanted to sing in that (in the Sydney Opera House, with soloists from the Australian Opera) - such a moving work!


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## Cantabile

As a church chorister, it's Byrd, Palestrina, Victoria every week. All Renaissance, all the time!


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## PatF

I've sung in various choirs, the first when I was 16 - with a massed choir we sang the St. Matthew Passion, and I was hooked!
One that hasn't been mentioned is Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, perhaps not so well known outside the UK. The chorus "Praise to the Holiest" is very dramatic and moving.


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## PatF

katdad asked how it felt to be performing - like your individuality is submerged in the group identity.
Also, when we got to the above "Praise...." I welled up with tears and couldn't sing - not much use to them then. I'm an alto.


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## ICHTHUS

Brahm's Requiem (2x)
Gounod's St. Cecilia Mass
Mendelssohn's Elijah
Handle's Messiah


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