Oboy oboy oboy Saturday night at my Calvin Theater with the Wiener Sängerknaben -- the Vienna Choir Boys -- that was nifty, a real treat, and a perfect musical complement to Christmas!
There were 24 of the little male angels, and they don't wear baggy gangsta rap trousers or (as far as I could tell) carry concealed weapons, even though one of them is from Ohio. (What an ambitious Stage Mother, to schlep her talented little darling all the way from Cincinatti to Vienna!) This is a road company called the Haydnchor, conducted by just the most charming Turkish-born guy named Kerem (generous, the adjective that goes with Ramadan in the season's greeting) Sezen. The angels were costumed in white sailor blouses; publicity photos usually show them as little dark blue sailors. When they bowed, from the balcony, we looked down on 24 bare neck napes. (No funny youth haircuts allowed, none too short, none too long, no little Goths, no little hippies, no little skinheads.)
Two of the angels had persistent coughs. Hygiene and health for a winter caravan of little boys who have to sing pretty each night must be a nightmare.
After the second number, the Gregorian Chant, the packed, mesmerized house was dead silent. Maestro Sezen smiled at the audience and said: "Thank you for your total attention and reverence, but we are not in church -- please give the boys your appreciation," and the theater burst into a huge round of applause.
Fourteen is the hormonal cutoff age for a boy soprano (the voice range of a bar mitzvah singer frequently snaps from soprano to bass during the ceremony, a humiliating performing catastrophe), and this troupe ranged from 10 to 14.
For a couple of numbers, a large-ish boy would retrieve his English horn and imitate an Alpenhorn or accompany polkas. The audience was invited to yodel during one number. Maestro explained that yodelling is specifically composed in a very restrictive and popular vocal range, so all ordinary people (and cowboys) can yodel along. Another boy soloed on the piano, another tiny boy conducted one number while Maestro Sezen mimed that he was going offstage to take a short nap. During another number, a brief theatrical fistfight broke out between two boys in the back row. All of these touches were authentically funny and charming, none was annoying or cloying or kitschy or even distracting. The show recognized that its artists are little boys, not midget robots or aliens, and the audience took great pleasure in being able to recognize not just gorgeous, talented music, but little boys as we all know and remember li ttle boys.
From the program: "In 1498, more than half a millennium ago, Emperor Maximilian I of Austria moved his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna. He gave specific instructions that there were to be six boys among his musicians. For want of a foundation charter, historians have settled on 1498 as the official foundation date of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and -- in consequence -- the Vienna Choir Boys." Many of Europe's greatest musicians conducted and composed for the boys' choir, and some had begun their musical careers in the choir themselves. Mozart and Solieri worked with the choir; Franz Joseph and Michael Haydn sang in the choir.
Maximilan's core command continues: The boys sing the Mass every Sunday at the Vienna Imperial Chapel.
Here's the program. Down below, also, venue dates for the rest of the year. If the little angels are coming to your neighborhood, do yourself and your family a favor and hear them! Enjoy a beautiful, tasteful musical Christmas! There still exists in this naughty, collapsed, frightening world beautiful music from talented and only slightly misbehaving Youth! Eminem was nowhere to be seen!
Vienna Choir Boys / Wiener Sangerknaben
"O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana Carl Orff (1895 - 1982)
Ave Maria Gregorian Chant
O Salutaris hostia Giovanni Nascus (c. 1510 - 1561)
Jubilate Deo, SWV 276 Heinrich Schutz (1585 - 1672)
Laudate pueri, Op. 38, No. 2
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)
Ecco quel fiero istante, K. 436 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Zigeunerleben, Op. 29, No. 3 Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Folk Songs from Austria
Vom Zillertal aussa
Und wans amal schen aper wird
I Bought Me a Cat Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990)
Hymn to Freedom Oscar Peterson (b. 1925)
Annen-Polka, Op. 117 Johann Strauss Jr. (1825 - 1899)
Gold und Silber &n
bsp; Franz Lehar (1870 - 1948)
Vergnugungszug, Op. 281 Johann Strauss Jr.
Intermission
Holiday carols:
Engel auf den Feldern singen Trad./Arr. Anton Neyder
Maria durch ein Dornwald ging Trad./Arr. Uwe Theimer
Es ist ein Ros entrsprungen Michael Praetorius (1571 - 1621)
Heissa Buama Cesar Bresgen (1913 - 1988)
Oh du frohliche &n
bsp; TRAD./Arr. Gerald Wirth
Es wird scho gleich dumpa TRAD.
Stacherl, sollst g'schwind aufstehn' TRAD.
Il est ne le divin enfant TRAD./ARR. Gerald Wirth
The First Noel
; TRAD./ARR. Gerald Wirth
Candlelight Carol John Rutter (b. 1945)
White Christmas Irving Berlin (1888 - 1989)
Adeste Fideles Trad./Arr. Geral
d Wirth
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12-12-2004 3 pm Baltimore, Maryland Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (410) 783 8126
14-12-2004 8 pm Stamford, Connecticut Palace Theater (203) 358 2305 x335
15-12-2004 7.30 pm Lebanon, New Hampshire Lebanon Opera House (603) 448 0400
16-12-2004 8 pm Woonsocket, Rhode Island Stadium Theater PAC (401) 374 5516
17-12-2004 8 pm Mashpee, Massachussetts Mashpee High School Auditorium (508) 477 2580
18-12-2004 8 pm West Point, New York Eisenhower Hall Theater
United States Military Academy (914) 938 2782
19-12-2004 2 pm New York, New York Carnegie Hall (212) 556 6867