Half a Hallelujah

Today, no thanks to any effort on my part, I was fortunate to get a pass to Davies Symphony Hall (thanks, Tom) to see the SF Symphony rehearsal of Handel's Messiah.  It has always been one of my favorite pieces of music, not just for the Hallelujah Chorus but for almost all of it.  There was a large crowd in attendance, all of whom (except for me) had donated money to the Symphony this year.  The rehearsal was a "thank you" gift for those donations. 

Never having attended a symphony rehearsal, I was delighted by the entire process.  First we heard a short talk about the oratoria which was funny and informative.  Then we had coffee and doughnuts, yumm. Finally the musicians and the chorus came in and rehearsal began.  Everyone was dressed in street clothes, quite a change from the standard black outfits you see when the symphony performs.  It was a real rehearsal, the last one they have before their first performance tonight.

In a rehearsal, of course, the conductor is trying to correct all the small flaws he has heard over the course of previous sessions with the musicians and the chorus.  Some parts were repeated several times until the conductor, Ragnar Bohlin, heard the music played the way he wanted.  The chorus was stopped a few times as well, and they repeated bits until it was perfect according to Bohlin.  The strange thing is that nothing is every played completely.  The work has many different sections and we, the audience, heard various parts of those sections but we never heard any section played completely.  This might have been disappointing (it is always lovely to hear the entire Hallelujah Chorus, for example) but how could anyone be disappointed getting to hear even part of the work.

I loved it.  They played for more than three hours and I could have stayed a lot longer.  For the benefit of the audience, they played about 2 minutes of the Hallelujah Chorus, just to placate us all, I presume. 

Being at Davies Symphony hall at 9:30 in the morning is an interesting scene.  Most of the people were considerably older than Tom and me, and we are definitely not young. While we were waiting for things to begin I commented "I wonder how many of these people are unemployed?"  Probably none or just a few who were there as guests, like myself. As we were eating our delicious free doughnuts, I heard the woman in back of us say to her companion "My largest expenses these days are what I spend on donations and travel."   Hmmm.  Donations and travel, larger than rent or mortgage or food or insurance.  Quite a statement in these dire economic times.

But Davies Hall was beautiful, dozens of tall Christmas trees, each decorated in a different manner by various organizations or schools.  The day was sunny and cool, the sky was blue, the music was outstanding and for a couple of hours, all was right with the world.

For a rather entertaining and definitely different version of the Hallelujah Chorus, check out this youtube video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU&feature=related

Be aware:  only nine shopping days til Christmas.  Still plenty of time to give a donation in someone's name or drop a toy off at local fire stations.