No more please!

I experienced tonight the agony of my chosen trade. I sat through a concert which I should have been participating in but wasn�t because the musical director had made an executive decision that I was not good enough to star in this particular production, which included the performance of another of his musical extravaganza pieces, plus the world premiere of a piece which had originally been written for me.

The final concert in this �festival� of new music (and �new� is an arguable adjective at this point as well) happened at the cathedral, as have all the others (not the crypt thankfully, but the sanctuary is just as bad acoustically), the first half consisting of an organ solo work and three pieces with soprano, the aforementioned one which was intended for yours truly (afterwards I told the composer I was sorry I hadn�t been able to perform his piece, and he said he was too), one by the same Quebec composer I performed two weeks ago (Arsenault), and another by Arvo P�rt. The newest piece was actually all right, scored for soprano, flute, cello and piano, but it really needed the second movement that was supposed to follow it, except that the musical director had made yet another executive decision to cut it because it didn�t work in the church�s acoustics. Duh!

The soprano, someone I have known for years and always thought of as an avid amateur, was terrible. Well, that�s not fair. But she did make some rather awful sounds, including a pinched, nasal quality in her high end, and total breathiness in her low end, and she was amplified, which unfortunately emphasized the bad as well as the good. The main piece on the programme was a work for soprano, choir, mixed ensemble (Hubby played electric guitar, although he was barely audible) including organ, and was performed from the organ loft at the back, so there was absolutely nothing for the audience to watch. The choir was amplified, which meant that all their bad sounds were brought to our awareness as well as their good ones, including (or especially) the tenor who was really rather terrible tonight. The soprano soloist was barely audible in all that, and I had to ask myself if it was worse being in the audience or counting measures rest in the gallery above.

I had lots of opportunity to observe my surroundings while I sat there in aural agony, the golden mosaic stations of the cross on the walls, the creed (in French) marching around the church, the life-size carving of a loin-clothed Jesus hanging on a stylized cross over the altar, and it occured to me that Christianity is a religion that glorifies death and suffering. I am not and have never been a Christian, and I never really understood what all the appeal was to this faith. I am even more at a loss now. Why do billions of people subscribe to a tenet that puts more importance on death than life, on their heavenly reward than on enjoying the here and now? I think this is why I eschewed a belief in a higher power at some point in my teens. It ceased to make sense.

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