Looking at the Creation by the light of day

My instant reaction to last night's concert at Stephansdom was recording on the BVC blog last night-  I was hoping for a more sober reflection by light of day.  It seems that it takes longer than that for the glow to wear off-  I slept soundly and woke still filled with the glow of having been part of a beautiful thing, so you all will have to bear with me.   For the record, last night's performance was one for the ages.  We rocked.  But I digress...4th of July in Vienna began with no bang- I woke up at dawn, read for a bit, blogged some and ate a leisurely pace.  Read the Declaration aloud to no one in particular, and prepared for a late departure into town.  Everyone was clearly on edge about the impending 

performance; it's an interesting time to be a tourist.  I wandered southwest, and found myself in Judenplatz, the center of the former ghetto.  Vienna purged its Jews in 1421, razing the temple and purifying the city.  After 

the Holocaust, they built their memorial their to remind themselves that they had done this before.  They have excavated the ruins of the former temple, and you can visit them underneath the ground.  I did.  This was coupled with a "50 years of Israel" photo exhibit, that was nicely done- not glossing over the bad stuff, but being somewhat optimistic about the future of Israel.  Then I wandered down to the canal, looked in some stores and found my way to the lunch with the group at the Augustine Keller-  nice decor, fair food.  More wandering after lunch, a latte on 

Stephansplatz and then into the Cathedral.

The Stephansdom is big,  and they had us singing in the SE (I  think) 

corner of the nave, up close and personal with the altar.  We barely fit into the space, and, once the chorus was in position, the orchestra would block our exit.  After much fidgeting, were were allowed to make musical sounds at 3:30 PM.  To our surprise, the acoustic was not overly reverberant.  Sound transmitted throughout the cathedral so that you would be heard, but did not come back to you easily.  In fact, initially, we had some trouble hearing each other, soloist to orchestra and so forth.  The cure was the stick- as long as we had our eyes on the stick, we were fine.  After our alloted hour, we packed up and headed to the hotel to change, and then back on the bus without much time for dinner, which was OK- I was too full of excitement to eat.  We waited in a church house across the plaza for the concert to begin, filed in, and it began.

Creation begins in Chaos- every instrument plays a long, loud C, from which the Chaos then emanates.  It is always dramatic;  sometimes it is magic.  I don't know what was different this time, but this time it transcended drama- it was magic.  The 6 minutes of classical Chaos that followed has to be one of the great moments in human music.  Then, the baritone intones the words "Im Anfang", and it begins, following a text so old that it was first spoken in languages that we have probably forgotten.  Then the chorus enters, in the character of God, softly chanting "Und Gott Sprach, es werde Licht", writing Maxwell's equation on the face of the Deep.  The "LICHT" that comes out is a fortissimo chord, orchestra and chorus, a triumph of order over Chaos, for a little while.  In this venue, in this space, magic happened.

It was wonderful.

There were other wonderful things as well-  we made plants to cloth the Earth, we praised Gott with great praise, and Adam and Eve brought love into the world (interesting that Man was valued not for intellect, but for his/her capacity for love).  In the end, though, it all came from that opening C.  What an extraordinary privilege to be able to sing this piece in this time at this place.

When the concert ended, Dr. Page shouted his approval to us over the applause.  We knew that we had pleased the only audience that mattered.  At the reception, the Cathedral presented him with the banner that had hung outside on the Cathedral wall.  Nice.

Then, back to the hotel, when we were all too wired to go to sleep.  Pity, since we had to be up and checking out the next day, moving into the next phase of the tour.  Even looking back from 48 hours, though, the glow is still there.  This was a very special day.