My second step toward my opera journey

Thomas Daly

Music 121

3/26/02

The Beethoven Festival

The major thing that I liked about the concert, was that it helped me get over two straight days and nights worth of stress.

When I sat down in my seat, I noticed the size of the orchestra compared to the last concert I went to (UNLV Wind Orchestra Concert III), this orchestra was smaller, and there were over thirty singers in the chorus. During the first piece called Mass in C Major, op. 86, (Beethoven) I started to feel the excessive stress start to depart from me. This was due to the beauty of the orchestra music and the way the choristers sang. After the first part of the Mass entitled the Gloria, I felt that my stress level was reduced by about seventy percent.

The second part of the mass the Credo reduced my stress level even more. When it was over, I was almost at zero stress. The third part of the mass the Sanctus, made me take a few deep breaths, then all that stress was finally out of me. This made me realize why it’s called entertainment.

Another thing that I liked about the concert was that it had a touch of poetry. It was read prior to the piece called, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Op. 112.(Beethoven) This is something that I had never seen before this concert. After the narrator read the story, the chorus repeated it in Italian.

The thing that I didn’t like about the concert was that at the end of the Gloria, there was an elderly lady in the audience shouting bravo as a form of applause, and the conductor tried to tell her to be quiet. This held up the concert for about five minutes.

As far as special aspects, I noticed that the timpani player put his hands over the drums at times after he struck them. I figured that the purpose of this was to limit the duration of the tones so it would not unnecessarily interfere with any of the other players or singers. There were two pieces that had no choristers. The first one was Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus Op. 43.(Beethoven) The chorus was present during the piece, but there was no singing whatsoever. Another special aspect of the concert was that the entire chorus left the stage for the piece called Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor Op.37. (Beethoven) During this entire piece, I figured I would look at this concert as being two concerts for the price of one. Part orchestra and chorus, and part orchestra alone.

After the concert I figured that if I ever wanted to find a cure to excessive stress, I would go to an orchestra and chorus concert whether my music instructor assigns it or not. In addition, if these same singers and players have a Christmas concert, I would not hesitate to see it.

Works Cited

A Beethoven Festival Concert, perf, Mass in C Major, Op 86. dir, Dr. Douglas R. Peterson, Artemus Ham concert Hall. Las Vegas NV. 24 Mar. 2002.

A Beethoven Festival Concert, perf, Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus Op. 43. dir, Dr. Douglas R. Peterson, Artemus Ham concert Hall. Las Vegas NV. 24 Mar. 2002.

A Beethoven Festival Concert, perf, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Op. 112. dir, Dr. Douglas R. Peterson, Artemus Ham concert Hall. Las Vegas NV. 24 Mar. 2002.

A Beethoven Festival Concert, perf, Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor Op. 37. dir, Dr. Douglas R. Peterson, Artemus Ham concert Hall. Las Vegas NV. 24 Mar. 2002.