Rachmaninoff in Sydney

I recently got a wonderful email from my student Annalise Shero, who is spending what we here in Texas call “summer” in Sydney, Australia. (Which sounds pretty great.) With her permission, I’m sharing her message below.

Last semester in Christian Renaissance of the Twentieth Century, you told us about Rachmaninoff’s Vespers and played a portion of them in class for us. Since you introduced me to this piece, I would like to tell you a story about it.

This evening, I attended a live performance of the Vespers in the Sydney Town Hall, which had a unique staging. The choir was placed centrally in the cavernous hall, and the audience could sit right around them. Those seats were very expensive, however, and I am currently a Budget Patron of the Arts, and so my seat was not close to the choir at all. In fact, I was barely inside the door, tucked in an alcove.

My seat provided a very interesting visual and auditory subtext to my experience of the evening, especially considering the history of the piece. When the performance began, the lights in my little alcove dimmed completely. I sat in the dark, observing the lights over the choir and most of the audience, yet not included in it. Likewise, the acoustics of the hall and my alcove created auditory distance. I could hear the distance between me and the choir.

I suffered no true loss in quality, the choir was brilliant and beautiful, yet I felt the metaphoric poverty of my seat through the presence and distance of this glory. I felt like Zacchaeus, immensely glad to have as much proximity as I did, and I felt like I was with Simone Weil, reveling in the beauty while among the outsiders.

The choir filed out the side doors, and the small ensemble played a contemplative interlude. Was it over? Perhaps the ending was different than I remembered, ending with gentleness instead of glory. But then! But then!! The doors immediately behind me opened letting in great golden light, and there in the entryway the choir sang the final movement of the Vespers. I was immersed in sound and light. I sobbed.

When the choir concluded, not a soul moved, nor breathed. (I was desperately trying to weep as quietly as possible). We spent several seconds suspended in silence, the sound of the liturgy still sinking into our bones. Then it was as if the applause would never end, and at this point I laughed until I couldn’t breathe all over again.