This year's oratorio
Apr. 12th, 2024 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeEven though I was sleepy all day (I assume from allergies, as I'd slept 8 hours last night), and even though my attempt to nap failed, I did go to the Musicking conference's final events - the pre-concert talk and the oratorio concert. This year's oratorio was another that may not have been performed since its premiere in 1705, although it's not certain. It was "Il Trionfo per l’Assunzione della Santissima Vergine," by Nicola Ceva, a composer from Naples who is so obscure that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
As a narrative psychologist, I found the idea of this oratorio fascinating, because unlike most of them, this one doesn't have a plot. Instead, it was supposed to be a spiritual exercise, intended to help its audience get into a spiritually motivated meditative state, focusing on how we could each try to be more like the Virgin Mary as she qualified for entry into Heaven. There are only four characters: Glory, Divine Love, Zeal, and Mary, and they each sing about how wonderful Mary is or (in Mary's case) how wonderful it is to go to Heaven. The four characters were performed by seven singers, and there were also three violinists, a violist, two cellists, a bassist, and a harpsicord player. The melodies were interesting enough, and we all had the full text (in Italian and a slightly awkward translation into English by the man who published the score), so we could mark the progress they were making through the piece.
I got to talk a bit with my friend GP, who is still feeling ill and was sitting at a distance from everyone both for the pre-concert talk and the concert itself. I also talked a bit with MG, who's in charge of the Oregon Bach Collegium but who lives in Washington and doesn't plan to keep driving here so often as she is 76 (and that's quite a commute she's been making for many years). And I spoke a bit with HR, who's in charge of the event, and SPM, who's the mom of one of the cellists, and whom I've known through the youth orchestras for a while now.
As a narrative psychologist, I found the idea of this oratorio fascinating, because unlike most of them, this one doesn't have a plot. Instead, it was supposed to be a spiritual exercise, intended to help its audience get into a spiritually motivated meditative state, focusing on how we could each try to be more like the Virgin Mary as she qualified for entry into Heaven. There are only four characters: Glory, Divine Love, Zeal, and Mary, and they each sing about how wonderful Mary is or (in Mary's case) how wonderful it is to go to Heaven. The four characters were performed by seven singers, and there were also three violinists, a violist, two cellists, a bassist, and a harpsicord player. The melodies were interesting enough, and we all had the full text (in Italian and a slightly awkward translation into English by the man who published the score), so we could mark the progress they were making through the piece.
I got to talk a bit with my friend GP, who is still feeling ill and was sitting at a distance from everyone both for the pre-concert talk and the concert itself. I also talked a bit with MG, who's in charge of the Oregon Bach Collegium but who lives in Washington and doesn't plan to keep driving here so often as she is 76 (and that's quite a commute she's been making for many years). And I spoke a bit with HR, who's in charge of the event, and SPM, who's the mom of one of the cellists, and whom I've known through the youth orchestras for a while now.
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Date: 2024-04-14 02:32 pm (UTC)I sure hope your friend gets better soon.
Allergies are so strange how they can make one feel fatigue. And yes it is a tough time of year. I love the eye candy of all our flowers right now but I quickly walk by them, hah.
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Date: 2024-04-14 08:19 pm (UTC)One thing about the oratorio that was interesting to me was that, so, Europe had been all Catholic for a long time, right? (Except for the Jews.) Then the Protestant churches began, and they were tempting people away from the Catholic Church because they were giving people spiritual things to do - they could read and discuss the Bible, etc. So the Catholic church needed to reinvent itself to seem more relevant to people, and "spiritual exercises" like this oratorio were part of that.
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Date: 2024-04-14 10:08 pm (UTC)Gene used to buy me flowers for every little holiday and I had to ask him to stop as I just sneeze my head off with some flowers. The Daffodils are almost done and I will wait until they are completely done to deadhead them. The tulips are fine and roses don't bother me either, but those darn Daffodils! LOL. The trees flowering are tough right now too, sigh.
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Date: 2024-04-15 08:23 am (UTC)A friend of mine who was Buddhist but raised Catholic said that in his experience, the American Buddhists who practice Tibetan Buddhism tended to have been raised Catholic, so they liked all the rituals and the prayer wheels and the incense and such, while the Americans who practiced Zen tended to have been raised Protestant, so they valued simpler practices. Have you noticed anything like that too?
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Date: 2024-04-15 05:12 pm (UTC)I was raised Protestant and I practice Zen, how interesting. And Zen has plenty of ritual as it is, so I can only imagine Tibetan, which I don't really know that much about. Even in Zen there are a lot of ex-Catholics but I was raised in Chula Vista near the border, almost all my friends were Catholic and the Zen Center I practice with is in the same area.
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Date: 2024-04-15 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-17 01:33 am (UTC)