November Concert

For the next two nights, I will be rehearsing with my choir for our annual Evening Prayer Service and Concert. For some reason, our choir director is extremely partial to doing a concert in November combined with an evening prayer service, which is devoted to remembering those who have died during the past year.

Yes, it's a bit of a downer. We tend to sing music that verges on the dark side. Requiems and the like. One number we did last year had verses that talked of blood on the moon. Or some such. The verses on that one would give a small child nightmares. Hell, they almost gave me nightmares.

Occasionally I long for the opportunity to sing at a Christmas concert. Or a spring concert. After Easter, not during Lent. Yes, we switched one year and had a concert during Lent. Again with the somber music.

But we do get to sing some beautiful music. This year, our choir is singing four of the movements from Gabriel Faure's Requiem. I love this music. It captures the beauty and majesty of the Catholic requiem service. Though from my reading of the notes in my score, I believe that this particular Requiem was not considered completely kosher, so to speak, by the Catholic church. Seems Faure wrote it the way he thought it should be done and that didn't necessarily conform to the requirements of the liturgy.

No matter. It's beautiful. And hopefully, we'll do it justice. If you are already tired of the Christmas carols playing over the speakers in all the stores, come over to St. Thomas More Catholic Church on Friday night and enjoy some music better suited to the fall season.