Evanston: Verdi with sirens
Evanston: Verdi with sirens
Last evening we attended a free outdoor performance of Verdi’s REQUIEM at Grant Park in downtown Chicago.
Her public spaces are among Chicago’s greatest attributes. Grant Park and adjacent Millennium Park are in the heart of the city, providing space to see the skyline which is often missing in other great cities where the buildings press in on one another and the viewer, leaving no room for perspective.
The pavilion at Grant Park was designed by Frank Gehry. Obviously. Mr. Gehry has found fame and fortune from one original idea, which he endlessly repeats. One original idea is one more than most people have.
There are some seats at Grant Park. We sat in them at an earlier concert when the program was an odd juxtaposition of Mexican and Spanish guitar pieces and Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. However last night we brought our own chairs and ate a picnic dinner with a bottle of wine on what is known as The Great Lawn.
It was a perfect summer night and a very pleasant place to be.
We watched the sunset sky, the other people in the crowd--I’m not sure what the man in the above photograph is doing with his head.
What is lost in all this is the music.
Sounds of the city--CTA trains; airplanes high overhead; ambulance sirens on nearby Michigan Avenue--penetrate and often dominate the venue.
I don’t recall ever previously hearing Verdi’s REQUIEM.
While there were times when the music captured my attention with beauty or volume, I didn’t come away with any real understanding of the entire work, which is considered one of the greatest choral compositions.
So today I did some research and downloaded John Eliot Gardiner’s version of Verdi’s REQUIEM. One link leading to another, along the way I also bought two other works of choral music previously unknown to me: Joseph Haydn’s, LORD NELSON MASS, and RENAISSANCE GIANTS from The Tallis Scholars.
It turns out the concert wasn’t quite free after all.
Saturday, August 20, 2011