Gentle Musical Readers,
Master Chorus Eastside will be participating in a performance of the Verdi Requiem at Benaroya Hall at 2:00 PM on April 22, 2012 along with the Everett Chorale, Sacred Music Chorale, and Sammamish Symphony Orchestra. Okay, that is the nuts and bolts. Now here is the juice.
Rene Van DeSompele, tenor with MCE, has been a champion of the Requiem from our first rehearsals. He provided each chorus member with a copy of informative LP liner notes and has also sent us links to famous performances on YouTube. I sensed that he has a deep connection to this work and that he wanted to share this connection with us.
I met with Rene at the Issaquah Library to question him discretely and indiscreetly about his passionate past with the Requiem. Our conversation took place in the library’s corner meeting room on a sunny spring day. In the background were Tiger Mountain, blue sky, and a busy, sunny intersection with merry cars silently gliding by--it was all light, color, and motion.
Rene’s first comments to the chorus about the Requiem had suggested to me that he identifies strongly with the apparent paradox that Verdi, as a non-practitioner of the prevailing religious faith of his time and place, had chosen to compose a requiem “to the memory of Alessandro Manzoni”. In our humble opinions, we agreed that the requiem was born of his love and reverence for Manzoni as a fellow Italian patriot during dangerous times, a fellow revolutionary, and above all, as a fellow artist.
Rene first experienced Verdi’s Requiem in 1985 when he rehearsed and performed the work as a member of the Seattle Symphony Chorale. I asked him to describe his experience during the first rehearsals. He stated that he was immediately “in awe” of the music. His thoughts were, “Bang!... My God, what is this? Where have I been all my life that I have not heard this before? I had no idea...” He told me, “I can’t find enough superlatives...”. He attempted to describe his feelings with the words “magnificent...”glorious”...overwhelming...”overpowering”...and to borrow a term from a fellow MCE tenor, “relentless”.
“In my humble opinion”, he said, “this is Verdi at his very best... It is beyond all his other music and operas... It represents his burning desire to give of his best...” Again, the paradox arose beside us that Verdi, an artist who had stripped himself of any conventional religious affiliation, created a work which, in our humble opinions, is an expression of his deepest spiritual feeling.
“There’s more to this than just the music. The point is what Verdi is trying to say--what he is trying to get across”. According to Rene, from the first quiet notes, Verdi is saying to us, “Listen to what I am telling you... Pay attention to what I am saying...Have I got your attention?...Now, listen to what I am saying...”.
Rene sees Verdi as “baring his soul” and trying to communicate his idea of “what God really is...” According to Rene, Verdi’s message transcends all opposing and unyielding differences in religious dogma. “He is saying that all those little differences are not important. What you are really talking about is...the point is....”.
So here is where I had to ask, “Yes, what is the point?” (and I was glad that I was not the one who had to think up an answer). So according to Rene, the message of the Requiem is a direct, personal appeal to the Supreme Power; a plea for salvation which is individual and, at the same time, universal.
Rene stated, “Verdi’s Requiem is in a class by itself. It is his masterpiece”. And now, please try to imagine the hand gestures that accompanied the following statement. “There is Verdi’s Requiem”...(both hands rising in an expansive, halo-like arc), “and there are all the rest...” (hands lowered and moving back and forth on a horizontal plane with gestures expressing littleness and lessness).
I do not think that Rene is a person who is given to exaggeration, much less hyperbole. After all, his forebears originated in a land where one of the popular maxims is, “Don’t exaggerate. Life is already crazy enough”. The real test of the accuracy of his assessment will be to hear for yourself. Join us at Benaroya Hall on April 22 at 2:00 PM!
Roberta DeBruler
MCE Musical Correspondent
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